During his Martial Reform, Royal Hunt Master Tyfen modernized the Silurite army by strengthening military efficiency and command structure, and introducing new firearm weaponry^[1].

Reforms

Officer Hierarchy

The Federal Army's command structure was clearly defined, and steps towards properly unifying it and separating it from the noble hierarchy had already been taken in the past. However, there were still big problems; the headquarters of larger formations rather resembled parliaments for representatives of the involved houses, than an actual military command. Tyfen now made sure that officers would only be appointed by the army, and that houses would have no influence on the process; an internal institution regulated promotions, and it had to sanction every promotion for it to be valid. Though houses would continue trying to push their own members for promotion, the army managed to remain to a large part unbiased from noble meddling and to keep the promotion process - at least within the lower ranks - relatively pure.

The rank of General was historically a contentious point; technically, the army had full authority to promote and demote generals internally, but the ruling council had historically reserved itself the right to appoint generals. In his reform, Tyfen once more clearly stated that only the Royal Hunt Master had the authority to name generals, and only corps commanders or above had the authority to form operational corps and name elevate generals, but he could not antagonize the council and thus did not replace any of the council-appointed generals, and continued to allow the council to give "recommendations" as to promotions.

Military Autonomy

Much like the officer ranks, Tyfen also wanted to make the army's operations free of civilian meddling. Regiments were closely tied to the region from which they were drawn, usually consisted of only one or a few houses' citizens, and houses and cities thus had a huge influence on their units' operations. Houses could decide when their units would remain stationed in the area, or when and where they would be deployed to. Especially movements at the hierarchic level of divisions and above were very difficult, because the requirements of many different factions had to be met before the army could even move its own assets.

Instead, Tyfen gradually separated regiments from local influences. In a first step, influence through personal connections was reduced by emitting strict rules as to officer authority and exchanges with civilians, and by rotating officers between units. Regimental bases were also isolated more from the surrounding area, by drawing clear borders for military areas and emitting rules for soldiers' freedom of movement. In a second step, new regiments were formed, where recruits were drawn from all over the kingdom, mixed among each other, and trained in large, isolated federal bases. Some regiments with a rich history but far too much local involvement were instead shifted to different bases, but continued to draw from a single local population.

After three and a half decades, 70% of regiments were professional: they were clearly separated from local influences, mostly drawn from all over the federation, and garrisoned in federal bases.

Continued House Influence

Rotational Recommendations. Despite Tyfen's strong insistence on military autonomy, he could not strip houses from all their influence in the military without causing outrage. He made several concessions, including leaving some regiments in noble hands and letting the ruling council appoint generals. As a further concession to smaller houses that suddenly lost all their influence, the Federal Army now allowed houses with regiments attributed to them to submit "rotation plans", where houses could essentially request when and where their regiments would be deployed. This created some competition among officers to command in a reasonable fashion, replacing the limitation on power that noble influence had been before. Additionally, in exchange for the rotation plans, Tyfen could demand additional services from the houses - including especially that the houses equip and supply their own regiments, or help pay for the equipment.^[2]

Regimental Colors. Historically, houses supplying their own regiments had had a measure of control over what the regiments' banners and uniforms looked like; in the new system, Tyfen allowed houses to freely design the uniforms of new regiments. This was a very cheap concession, which nevertheless greatly satisfied houses because they could make some of the new units - over which they had little to no practical control - "their own". As part of the novelty that the entire reform represented, houses often modeled their uniforms and battle standards off of Holderhold and Cuprien styles.^[2]

New Weaponry and Tactics

The Federal Army's equipment and tactics were horrendously outdated. Regular troops made use of light armor, swords, and bows. Enemy troops - especially enemy Holderhold - had huge infantry corps armed with rifles. machine guns^[1], and cannons, which were far more deadly.

The army's war-magic was still at a good level, so besides some new training courses in combating the advantages of firearms^[1], the magical parts were not strongly affected by the reform.

Naturally, the largest technological innovation were guns. It was impossible to acquire sufficient firearms to reequip the entire Federal Army at once, and the soldiers couldn't all be trained to use guns simultaneously anyway. Given that Silur's isolationist policy made the use of foreign instructors difficult and the Silurites had no experience with guns at all, the army would have to learn how to use firearms on its own. As a start, several thousand old Cuprien muskets were purchased^[2], and a new professional unit was formed to try them out. Once the fundamentals of musket use were hashed out - the elves used them mostly as a heavy-hitting complement to or replacement for bows in skirmisher infantry, rather than as a source of massive firepower in line infantry like the humans did - they were increasingly distributed to other regiments.

More modern firearms, especially rifles and automatic guns, were also gradually introduced. These weapons however were almost only introduced to frontline units who actually saw combat. The lighter modern weapons were far more effective for skirmisher infantry than the cumbersome muskets were, and thus made for elite light infantry units.

The ruling council did not want to purchase any firearms abroad; it reticently allowed Tyfen's purchase of Cuprien muskets, but afterwards wanted all muskets to be produced on Silur. First Silurite musket plants started operating in 110 OW; they produced very reliable weapons which were much more reliable than the old human variants, and relatively quickly replaced all imported versions. More advanced firearms however could not be produced by the Silurite industry; its metalworking sector especially was still many years behind its neighbors. Accordingly, Tyfen regularly imported shipments of Cuprien weapons to equip his frontline units.

New Units

In order to properly implement Tyfen's reforms in weapons and tactics, he decided to introduce new regimental and brigade designations, and over time restructure the federal army.

The Musketeer Regiment was created in 93 OW, to distinguish it from standard light infantry. Its soldiers - musketeers - used muskets and operated as a mobile skirmisher force, working in squads (often in difficult terrain such as woodlands) and utilizing beasts such as hawks and war-wolves; they operated very similarly to the standard Infantry. In 99, the Ranger Regiment was created, as a stronger backup in case the Royal Rangers failed to contain a threat. It used exclusively firearms and was trained in skirmishing in small platoon-sized units. It used lighter gear, better firearms, and focused on ranger skills such as survival, navigation, fighting in small groups, and using animals.

In 125 OW, muskets had become the norm, and several regiments were using even more advanced firearms. The outdated Infantry Regiment - used mostly as a reserve unit - was renamed Ancestral Regiment, while Musket Infantry became either Infantry or Line Infantry, and no longer used exclusively muskets. Line Infantry was an outdated concept the day it was introduced, because it focused on maximizing the offensive power of firearms by utilizing large units and firing in volleys - a method of musket-vs-musket fighting applicable to training or the Orc Wars, but not to the modern world. As a result, real line infantry tactics were only used by reserve regiments or in parades, whereas Line Infantry in action fought in smaller units, using mobility to take advantage of cover.

Because of the large overlap between Infantry and Line Infantry on the modern battlefield, and because of the massive misnomer of "Line Infantry", instead the concept of line infantry was removed from Federal Army doctrine in 131, and Line Infantry brigades were renamed to regular Infantry. Line Infantry continued to exist, however, in the form of four reserve regiments, primarily because house nobility protested renaming them to Ancestral Regiments.

Federal Army Navy

All neighboring militaries had a navy, and Holderhold used its naval forces masterfully in conjunction with its land forces during the Clipper campaigns. Accordingly, Tyfen wanted the Federal Army to also have access to ships, in the dream of eventually creating a land assault force out of the rangers. Currently, troops had to rely on ships of the Royal Wind Ministry or private houses for transportation - this was an inefficient, slow, and expensive method, and made use of ships for anything other than transportation impossible (with the rare exception of house warships, which however didn't have to obey army orders).

There was far too much resistance for Tyfen to create a naval branch of the Royal Hunt Ministry; coupled with all his other extreme reforms, this was simply unacceptable. As a compromise, Tyfen built a small naval branch of the Federal Army, in the form of the Federal Army Sea Command and its two "flotillas", treated as regiments. Some old Cuprien warships were bought and refurbished, while Silurite arsenals were commissioned to build elven warships - though these were out of wood. Initially, Tyfen was only allowed to have up to 50 ships, all of which whose primary purpose had to be as warships, rather than transport or land assault. However, Tyfen forced the limits already in 99 OW, when he purchased a huge battlecruiser from Cuprien.

Over time, the Federal Army's navy would slowly grow, and would even come to include some land assault ships for the rangers.

Historical Context

The Holderhold Empire invaded a sizeable part of the Clipper Islands, so that it now shared a land border with Silur. A proxy war began, during which Silurite troops saw their first active combat since the Orc Wars. There was the additional risk that tensions with Holderhold might increase, because of the Clipper conflict and tensions near the Solsunni islands.

Silur's Federal Army's performance was terrible. It suffered from many different inefficiencies, including especially a weak chain of command, a lack of coordination, civilian meddling, and extremely outdated weapons and tactics.