The Federal Army, commonly known as Federal Silurite Army or rarely as Royal Silurite Army, was the primary armed forces of the Silur Kingdom.

Structure

The Federal Army stood under the augury of the Royal Hunt Ministry, and was commanded by federal officers. In contrast to other executive institutions, like the Royal Rangers and Royal Guards, the Federal Army stood directly under the command of the Royal Hunt Master. The day-to-day operaiton of the military was handled by the ministry's Department of the Army, though in wartime command was transferred directly to military officers.

Rank Structure

The army was commanded by the Royal Hunt Headquarters, which coordinated the actions of several Lord Commanders, the highest rank (known as Generals starting in 300 b. OW). Lord Commanders controlled corps, which roughly formed Silur's largest coherent unit; corps operated as individual armies, and there was very little overlap in corps resources or responsibilities. When corps had to be split up for specific combat operations, they became operational corps, each commanded by an Elevate General pulled from the Commander ranks.

The next level down were divisions, large armed groups capable of operating autonomously. They were constituted out of 3-6 regiments or brigades, each of which was commanded by a Major. Regiments were a single-type unit that trained as one, but in wartime typically needed to be complemented with forces from other units to form a brigade, a unit which was capable of operating as a single force. Regiments were further split into maniples (or companies, in post-Orc Wars contexts) under Colonels, all the way down to squads under lieutenants.

In general, despite the extensive centralized command hierarchy, the elven military did not operate in larger formations. In fact, the largest unit to even sporadically be formed was the regiment; both in training and in operation, elven formations kept to smaller units and preferred light, mobile tactics rather than large groups packing a punch.

The Silurite army, like most elven forces, was exceptionally heavy in officers, because of multiple reasons: the great age of elves meant there were many educated and experienced individuals available to take up commissions; the preference for smaller, more autonomous units dictated the need for officers; and elven lives were highly valued, meaning preserving lives - by using small, mobile units, with capable commanders who knew how to limit risks - was important.

Levy and Recruitment System

Despite the Federal Army's founder's militarist stance, the army was not very large, and was especially restricted in the amount of professional soldiers it could have. Instead, the army had authority to freely levy forces from cities and houses within reasonable boundaries. Levies could be raised for a duration up to 50 years, and the maximal number of regiments the army could have at any one time was set by the ruling council.

Being levy-based, the Federal Army relied heavily on a local regiment structure. Given cities, major houses, and groups of smaller houses all had to raise a certain number of troops, which were then kept as coherent regiments. This simplified the bureaucracy and made logistics and training more easy, because regiments spent most of their time garrisoned near their homes. Though officially, the army had complete control over its personnel, in practice considerable authority was left to source houses as to how and where their regiments would be used.

The authority army officers had was unparalleled in the entire kingdom. Any major or higher could walk into a city or matron's palace and requisition whatever resources his unit needed; any commander could issue levy quotas to a house or city. Officers also had the right to give orders to all federal officials of equal or lower rank - and army ranks were generally higher regarded than civilian ranks - and citizens were obliged to cooperate with the military, to a reasonable extent.

Administrative History

Even though the Silur Kingdom was sometimes compared even to the Eternal Empire for its bureaucratic permanence, the Federal Army did see several significant reforms throughout its four millennia of existence.

• Regimental Localization, 3'801 b. OW. Soon after Royal Hunt Mistress Ithronel stepped down, her successor reformed the military. Ithronel had intended levies to be mixed into regiments all across Silur and be trained in large federal bases. In order to better integrate the military system into Silurite society and make it less of an economic burden, regiments were instead kept local and trained near their homes. This made regiments much more involved in local politics and likely to compete among each other, though it did encourage houses and cities to make more resources available to their local units.
• Support Reform, 600 b. OW. The army did not have a logistics department; all its supplies were handled by the Royal Wind Ministry, and Wind officials had to be integrated into units as quartermasters to manage supplies. But this was not very efficient overall, and there were considerable shortcomings in the only operational force - the Royal Rangers - where supplies would arrive with considerable delay, or not at all. Despite fierce resistance from the Wind Ministry and arguments that the Hunt Ministry would be too autonomous and powerful, a support branch of the Federal Army was created. Though it did not handle procurement, it had authority over all infrastructure, transport vehicles, and supplies belonging to the Hunt Ministry, and there was a provision for the support branch to support the Wind Ministry in case of wartime or emergency.
• Modernization Reform, 243 b. OW. For the first time, a host of ogres had entered the Silurite mainland, and Royal Rangers with local support had not been enough to fend them off. The Federal Army had to be deployed, and its shortcomings were immediately obvious. The Royal Hunt Master decide to modernize the force, because its feudal, disorganized state as a political tool rather than an armed force was unacceptable. Most significantly, officer ranks were formally separated from nobility; the rank of Lord Commander, previously a prestigious noble rank for any house to have, was replaced with the purely military rank of General. Additionally, the Hunt Master now had the theoretical authority to appoint Generals himself, though out of courtesy he continued to allow the ruling council to appoint these officers. Finally, restrictions were imposed on houses sharing resources with regiments, to more clearly separate federal forces.
• Tyfen's Martial Reform, 92 OW. After Holderhold invaded a large part of the Clipper Islands and now bordered Silurite territories, Royal Hunt Master Tyfen realized that the Federal Army - with uncoordinated regiments doing whatever they and their houses pleased, following approximate orders of operation rather than strict military orders - had to be reformed and modernized. House control was banned and the military hierarchy properly enforced, though houses could still make requests when and where their troops should be used. Modern equipment - such as firearms - was also introduced, notably in the first federal division, White Oak.