Armed Antarctic Alliance/Republic of Antarctica

Armed Antarctic Alliance
Full name	Armed Antarctic Alliance (became the Republic of Antarctica in 2022 upon being officially recognized as a nation)
Location	Antarctic Continent
Capital	Australis
Head of State	President Victor Galland (original)
Government	Military Oligarchy
Type	Military Alliance (pre-Antarctic War), Centralist Oligarchy
Currency	Austral
[Source]

"We came to this desolate continent to escape the grip of the societies that shunned us for daring to stand up and defend people who were unable or unwilling to do so themselves!  We are a nation of soldiers, and as soldiers, we will die to defend our home if we have to!"

-Victor Galland, Founder of the Armed Antarctic Alliance to an Osean General during Osea's attempt to negotiate a peaceful solution to the crisis that became the Antarctic War.

The Armed Antarctic Alliance, later the Republic of Antarctica, was initially a "Super PMC" made up of a massive number of mercenaries, many of whom were disgruntled veterans that left their homelands upon finding themselves as social outcasts at the end of major conflicts such as the Belkan War and Usean Rebellion.    In 2020, they siezed control of the Antarctic Continent, violating a IUN treaty regarding neutrality of the continent; attempts to negotiate failed, leading to the outbreak of the Antarctic War.  In spite of overwhelming odds and suffering heavy losses (including their own President being killed before the war ended), the mercs pulled through, and beat back any attempt to force them out, and in 2022, they reogranized into an official nation.

History

(WIP)

Geography

Antarctica as a whole is considered a cold, desolate wasteland, and for half of the year, it doesn't get any sunlight whatsoever.  Notable features include mountain ranges, including one of the tallest mountains in the world, Vinson Massif, and enormous glaciers, many of which form large "Ice Shelfs" such as the Ross and Ronne Ice Shelves.

Economy

The economic system  of the AAA is an interesting fusion of several different concepts; for one, they aren't entirely dependent on imported goods for survival as they grow their own food in underground complexes, as well as fishing in the seas; the latter source of food has been a cause of tension in the past as commercial fishing from elsewhere was soon denied access to the surrounding seas on threat of being sunk by the Navy (to fish in the AAA's territorial waters, one must first obtain a permit from the AAA).  They also possess limited industrial capacity (due to having to build everything underground), and so often need to import manufactured goods.  Their primary exports are fish, electronic parts, weapons and security services (they still function much like a PMC and will fight if paid enough).

As for privatization, the economy is capitalist for most industries, with some exceptions such as public transportation (which is paid for by the state), weapons production, maintenance of the undergorund facilities and other aspects of the economy vital to living.

Military

In a way, the entire nation is a military, and indeed when it was founded, that was exactly the case.  That being said, the PMC it was originally made use of whatever it could get its hands on at a low price, in order to equip its armed forces.  Most of its equipment comes from the Union of Yuktobanian Republics; all equipment has been optimized as much as possible for the elements.

Army

The Army as a whole is actually rather small, as there's almost never a need to fight on land.  Instead of being trained to fight in Antarctic conditions, although they are trained to this capacity just in case, the emphasis is on amphibious operations in close cooperation with the Navy.

Small Arms

• HK USP Pistol
• HK MP5 Submachine Gun
• AK-74 Assault Rifle
• AAA-1 Assault Rifle (a custom-made rifle based off of the AK-74 optimized for the Antarctic; used specifically by Spec Ops)
• VSS Vintorez Designated Marksman Rifle (Spec-Ops only)
• SVD Sniper Rifle
• M200 Intervention Anti-Materiel Rifle
• M1014 Combat Shotgun
• Jackhammer Machine Shotgun (Spec-Ops only)
• RPK Light Machine Gun
• PKM General Purpose Machine Gun
• M67 Grenade
• GP-25 Grenade Launcher
• M79 Grenade Launcher
• RPG-7D3
• FIM-92 Stinger

Armored Vehicles

• HMMVE-A (modified HMMVE with treads instead of wheels)
• BMP-1
• BMP-2
• M551 Sheridan Light Tank
• T-72AR Main Battle Tank (specialized variant of the T-72 built by AAA)
• G13A (G13 chassis modified with M81E1 152 mm gun/launcher)
• ARAL 1 (modified Astros II MLRS equipped with treads instead of wheels)
• TTT 1 (custom-built transport truck)
• Gepard AA Artillery
• PLZ-45 SPG

Army Aviation

• S-64 Skycrane Heavy Lift Helicopter
• CH-47 Chinook Transport Helicopter
• Mi-17 Hip Transport Helicopter
• Mi-35 Hind Multipurpose Helicopter
• Ka-55 Hokum Attack Helicopter
• MV-22B Osprey Tiltrotor Transport

Navy

To put it bluntly, the Navy is AAA's "big stick" and is by far the most powerful branch of the AAA's military forces combined.  While surface ships are rare among them (consisting almost solely of Icebreaker Cargo Vessels), their real strength lies in their enormous submarine fleet.  Instead of a Marine Corps, the AAA followed Yuktobania's example and established a Naval Infantry Corps.

Ships

• Skyfire-class Destroyer (domestically-built design made specifically for AA and ASW operations)
• Guardian-class Frigate (domestic project)
• Bloodhound-class Minesweeper (domestic project)
• Kirov-Class Cruiser
• Admiral Kuznetsov-class Aircraft-Carrying Cruiser
• Hellfire-Class Carrier Submarine (domestically-built submersible aicraft carrier based on the Yuktobanian Scinfaxi-class, only 1 produced)
• Kilo-Class Diesel-Electric Attack Submarine
• Juliet-Class Diesel-Electric Guided Missile Submarine
• Victor III-class Nuclear Attack Submarine
• Delta IV-class Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarine
• Typhoon-class Nulear Ballistic Missile Submarine (1 kept as-is, the other converted to a resupply vessel for the rest of the fleet)

Naval Aviation

• CH-53 Sea Stallion Transport Helicopter
• Ka-25 Hormone ASW Helicopter
• MV-22B Osprey Tiltrotor Transport
• Bartini Beriev VVA-14 Ground Effect Vehicle

Air Force

Armed Antarctic Alliance Air Force Roundel

As opposed to other Air Forces, the AAA's Air Force functions as both a land-based and naval Air Force at the same time, and as such have an emphasis on multirole capability.  As such they possess little in terms of dedicated air superiority capability, and instead rely on highly-trained pilots and modifications to multirole aircraft to fulfill this role.

That being said, the AAA-AF actually operates a wider variety of aircraft than most, due to its nature of being made up of multiple PMCs, each providing their own equipment.  The aircraft listed below are merely the aircraft that they standardized on, but there are still many "non-standard" aircraft in their arsenals, just not quite in large enough numbers to merit note (sans the X-02 Wyvern, which while in limited numbers was only purchased after the formation of the Armed Antarctic Alliance).

Fighters

• MiG-21-93 Fishbed
• F/A-18E Super Hornet
• F-21R Kfir (modified from F-21A Kfirs formerly used by Osea as aggressor aircraft)
• MiG-29K Fulcrum
• Yak-141 Freestyle
• Su-33MKW Flanker D
• Rafale M
• Chengdu J-10 Vigorous Dragon
• Chengdu J-20
• F/A-19C Tomcat II
• YF-23A Black Widow II
• X-02 Wyvern (only given to the very best of their pilots)

Attackers

A AAA-AF A-7D+ Corsair Strikefighter firing an Exocet AM39 Anti-Ship Missile.

• A-7D+ Corsair Strikefighter
• A-4M Skyhawk II
• AV-8B Harrier II
• RA-5D Enforcer
• Su-24P Fencer
• Su-25KM Frogfoot
• Su-34 Fullback

Bombers

• M-4 Bison
• Tu-95 Bear
• Tu-22M Backfire

Reconnaissance

• RA-5D Enforcer
• M-4 Bison
• Tu-95 Bear
• U-2 Dragonlady

ECM/AWACS

• EA-18G Growler
• E-2C Hawkeye
• A-50 Mainstay

Tankers

• Il-76 Candid (modified)
• Tu-95 Bear (modified)

Transports

• An-12 Cub
• Il-76 Candid
• An-225 Cossack

Trainers

• Su-26 (modified two-seat version)
• Su-28
• T-38 Talon
• An-12 Cub

Other Defenses

Part of the way the AAA was able to hold firm in the Antarctic War was the fact that virtually all of its facilities were built underground in reinforced bunkers, and connected via an underground rail system.  However, this alone wouldn't have been enough against bunker-busting bombs, and so AAA built the Skynet Air Defense System (no relation to the Skynet of a certain movie franchise), arguably the deadliest Air Defense system in the world, which prevented any attacks on the continent itself and thus keeping most attacks at bay, although it was still quite possible to compromise it using stealth aircraft.

Being comprised of mercenaries, many of whom were disgruntled combat veterans, some of the best of the AAA's forces came from nations that had been on the losing side of major conflicts over the last few decades, a notable case being the Paladin Squadron.

Arguably, the Ace Card, no pun intended, of the AAA-AF is its large number of veteran pilots from various nations.  Among these were aces from the various Belkan nationalist movements, Free Erusia and Laesathan holdouts leftover from the recent Laesath-Aurelia War.  Having found themselves on the losing end of their fights, it was rather easy for them to be recruited by the AAA.  Indeed, until most of their Navy was operational, these skilled pilots formed the backbone of AAA's defenses.