Varangian Company

The Varangian Company is an Initiative started by the Nordic Council meant to be a force to represent them abroad aiding the UN in making offensive advances on the BETA feeling that humanity has gotten ahold of playing defense that now is the time to start making moves and trying once more to begin the liberation of Earth. The Company’s directive is to win the war against the BETA by any means that does not include laying waste to two continents. The Company was formed so that the Nordic Council could choose their own command structure to represent them rather than simply signing over troops to UN Command. The Company is headed by a command unit lead by Captain Avery Nelson, the command unit is a front line unit of skilled pilots chosen for both raw skill and the ability to make quick decisions when the need arises. The Company does not consist solely of pilots however it has its own logistics divisions, armored corps, and artillery corps. While the command unit has always been multi-national in nature originally the Company consisted primarily of Scandinavian citizens and refugees in the region they later decided to open to all volunteers and worked out several programs to allow volunteers from other armies join their ranks, those with military experience go through a different training program than those with little to no experience.

The Varangian Program
The training program varies depending on the many statuses of recruits or volunteers from other militaries as well as the desired position be it pilot or tank operator. Here I will give a general over view of the various training programs and they work both for raw recruits and more experienced transfers from other armies. (please note members of the command team are not usually required to graduate the program but often come as direct transfers from other nations)

Pilots Training For Recruits and Former Jet Pilots
The Varangian Program does not borrow the method of choosing pilots that many other Nations have used which is to take a single aptitude test to see how you handle G forces for the first time and still believe that Jet Pilots have great potential as TSF pilots if special attention is paid during training and they are still taught as new recruits based on the idea that while they may be used to G forces it is still a whole new beast to pilot and they need to learn everything from the ground up. As for new recruits with weak stomachs they continue to test them until they either grow adjusted or it is decided they simply cannot manage to get over the sickness that comes with the shaking, rumbling and G force. Physical training as well as in depth educational training about TSFs and their inner workings are the basics of the program although conventional military basic training is still administered with the exception of former military airplane pilots. Once pilots have begun to show cohesion and understanding of controls from simulator runs they are given 2nd Gen Vigens for training in mock battles and exercises. Deployment comes when all pilots in a squad show they have good grasps of TSF combat and tactics. For Non-Swedish speaking members they are put in groups that speak the same language and given training in their native language while also being taught Swedish.

Pilots Training For Volunteers From Other Militaries
This training focuses on honing the pilots pre-existing skills and ensuring they have been keeping themselves in proper physical condition. Also this training focuses on leadership with the intention of breeding them as officers for flights and squads of the more raw recruits, pilots with field experience and who show aptitude for leadership are put in a program that focuses on teaching them larger scaled tactics and breeds them to command larger groups of TSFs.

Artillery, Logistics, And Armored Programs
These programs are meant to create efficient operators of artillery and tanks and train the logistics teams to move around all the weight that the company carries. Artillery and Armor are big staple points of the current war and the company trains them in abundance these three make up the most numerous of the Varangian Company at the current time. The early training tests for everybody’s aptitude in leadership, operating, and technical knowledge of the machines and how they work and need to be maintained. Once deciphering where everyone should be the exercises and drills begin, once graduated they are sent to the front to reinforce the Company.

The Old Guard
The Varangian Company takes its name from the Varangian Guard, a group of mercenaries consisting of Scandinavians and Slavic mercenaries who eventually became bodyguards to the Emperor. The Guard was renowned for many things drinking, carousing, but most importantly prowess in battle, when it came time to fight you could find the Varangians where the fighting was thickest and that is exactly the spirit that the Company wishes to embody, perhaps with slightly less drinking.

Fighting Strength
The Company’s fighting strength at the time of their Eastern European operations was roughly 100 TSFs (command unit included) 1200 tanks and 800 artillery guns equally split between cannons and rocket systems, at the current time in the Far East a few weeks before Christmas the Company’s forces consist of approximately 67 TSFs, 910 tanks, and their artillery corps is the only one that has increased in size now fielding about 860 guns.

Founding
The Company was officially founded by King Karl Adolph of Sweden and his longtime friend and ally General Torsten. Torsten along with a young Avery Nelson began to draw up the plans for the Company from the ground up, once everything was in place Avery was with the first batch of raw recruits to take the training so that he could evaluate its worth from the inside out. Once he completed the program two other graduates were chosen to form the basis of the command team. While Torsten remains the official head of the Company all decision making powers are given to Avery in the field and usually Captain Nelson simply sends his reports directly to the Nordic Council.

Operations in the European Theatre
Before being sent to the Far East the Council decided the best way to test the training programs effectiveness was to give the Company something of a trial by fire, first they sent them to the defensive lines that were just on the western half of Berlin in which they participated in operations of sweeping and clearing the ruined city looking for things such as medicine and intelligence documents of any kind. After taking place in a few operations of that nature they were moved down the defensive lines further south where it was decided the true trial would take place, the assault and infiltration of the Budapest Hive. The time spent down on the southern front was rife with tensions, having had an important member of the Command Unit as well as an important intelligence officer kidnapped the Company and their Nordic Council supporters launched an assault against the kidnappers who turned out to be cells comprised of KGB and Former Stasi operatives holed up in underground bunkers across the front. With the help of provisionary 2nd Lt Alexis Alscher who talked the enemy into surrender simply by reiterating and reinforcing promises made by the King of Sweden to restore fallen nations.

As the Budapest assault drew near a curious engagement took place in which BETA seemed to have simply appeared behind the line and were causing havoc, Captain Avery along with a patrol including Alexis Alscher responded to the threat, but it was deduced that the threat had human help and upon returning to the southern front hub the base was ordered into a lockdown. In defiance of this lockdown Alexis Alscher went to go investigate the matter herself, seeing her unceremonious exit Torsten used the opportunity to create a perfect opportunity for enemy forces in their ranks to make their move causing a large blackout, while Alexis investigated the situation further a small firefight broke out at the base in which agents later on discovered to be Allegiance fighters.

Once the traitorous elements within the Nordic Council and the European Union forces had been dealt with it was time to assault the hive, using a combat doctrine that Alexis Alscher had come up with they were able to push inside the hive and eventually make it to the generator and prime it to explode. The mission was ultimately a success but at great cost, the Company’s forces were almost wiped out along with a huge bulk of the allied forces that had went into the hive with them, but despite the odds the mission ended in success and the Company alongside the European Union showed the world, the hives can be taken through combat doctrine and force of arms, nuclear bombs and G bombs were not a requirement to go on the offensive against the enemy any longer.

East German Restoration
After the lines were pushed forward the Nordic Council held an official hearing to hear Alexis Alscher’s plan for East-Germany’s restoration with the considerable help of Scandinavia’s current economic and industrial stability, satisfied with the plan she presented they gave her the go ahead to enact her plan and allowed her to re-establish the country with her as the de-facto head of state. While the idea may have been unpopular with more Western Leaning politicians in the council the King of Sweden and other important key members of the Council favored the idea so many of them sat quiet on their objections.

Far East Operations
After taking some down time to recover their depleted forces the Company kicked up its recruiting and training efforts and opened its recruitment lists to all who would join no matter where you were from or what you were doing before, after a few months it came time to move to the Far East to lend aid to the UN forces as promised by the Nordic Council after showing your teams effectiveness in the field. It was decided Japan would be the first destination of their deployment. Accompanied by the East-German expeditionary force now headed by Alexis Alscher diplomatic and military agreements were signed with the Imperial Diet of Japan, the Company and their allies settled on the shores of central Niigata where already they have met a BETA incursion head on and helped the Japanese Government put down a military coup staged by members of the Kyoto elite Defense Garrison comprised of Japanese Nationalists as well as participated in an improved OS for TSFs exposition held by the UN that ended with a rather suspicious BETA attack that came seemingly from nowhere. Now the Company and their allies stand ready to launch another united assault against a BETA hive, daring to test fate once again as they set out to do what not to long ago was considered an utterly impossible task