So 20 years have gone by. Two decades of toil and work that has gone into building the Chapter back up to strength ready for the realities that is 40k. We have gone from the 500 Space Marines to 700 Space Marines. We have been able to add two more companies. To arm these new companies we have had to dig into the reserve Space armours and vehicles. Much work has been put into researching the space marine armour and now we are able to build them ourself. Its the other type of armours and vehicles like Thunderhawk that need to be worked out. We have to be able to build these ourself for as renegade chapter getting additional support will be hard to find. Out of the 400 recruits 25 managed to become space marines. we had manged to have a 6% success rate. This was further improved with the new younger recruits that were screened and trained at an earlier age. The results varied with success ranging between 10-15%. Although we had success we had to make sure this worked long term and it was not a outlier. As more time passed we would have more data for the cogitator SM to work through and more sure we could be of our work.
I had asked to delay discussion about us taking active part in fighting the Xenos and Demon in the Vidar Sector for twenty years. Now it has been twenty years and I am unable to delay or hold them back no longer. This operation will be called Whetstone and I will be leading the first rotation. We have decided that we will commit Two company of Space marines in 5 year rotation. They will be supported by 1 strike cruiser and 5 Frigates. Each Frigate will have 2 Guard unit and the Strike Cruiser will have 3 guard unit. That will be 39,000 Guards to back up the 200 space marines. During the last 13 years we have built up the Guard to be an elite fighting force. I would match them to any elite Guards men of the IOM.
During these years we have been marking out the hot spots in this sector. We have a good idea of where to hit with our limited strength. I have asked and the Chapter has agreed that for the next 20 years we will be focusing on over whelming strength. During this period the 2 space companies will fight together with support from the guard unit. Each life of the space marines are precious and I do not wish to see them lost.
There are three different systems we are going to hit. The first system is an Orc infestation that has occurred in the nearby planet. It would take us 2-3 weeks to get there. As the waagh is just starting off we plan to smash it within the first year. The Second target was a bit harder as it was a bit further away 5-6 weeks of travel time and it seems to be Daemon cult infestation. My plan is to arrive far away from this system and then launch probes. Depending on the corruption level I might fight or move onto the third target. I have allocated 2-3 years for this battle. The third target is a mystery as to if it exists. It is suppose to be a world that has been raided by the dark eldar multiplies times. I have timed it so that our arrival near the system should coincide with the dark eldar raid. Depending on how long we spend on the previous stage we could have 1-3 years for this battle.
When carrying out the Whetstone operation we will commandeer any Space worthy Vehicle we find. We have managed to expand our fleet by adding 3 more frigates. 2 were from a derelict that we were able to get back into service and the last one was from a pirate ship that tried to take over the trade fleet (1 strike cruiser and 3 frigates). Currently they are still being repaired with it being fully repaired within the next 3-5 years.
With the ship commitment towards the trade fleet and the Whetstone Operation, it means that there is only 1 battle Barge, 1 Strike Cruiser and 5 Frigates left in the Bermuda systems.
Update
Fleet
Currently in total we have
1 battle Barge: Fully Operational
3 Strike Cruisers: Fully Operational
10 Frigates: 7 Fully Operational, 3 undergoing repairs.
Asteroid Forts: 2 Fully Operational
Kill Satellites: Over 1000 of these have been deployed from 1st generation to 3rd generation. Expected to only be able to fire of one shots, they are treated as disposable Drones.
Space Mines: Hundred of thousands are deployed around a few concentrated areas. Direct lanes from the nearest stars and the rouge trade hub. Although technically they could come through any where around the solar system having the obvious path way mined means we can concentrate on other areas.
Detection Probes: We have truly managed to cover the whole sphere of Bermuda systems. If something detectable comes by this system we will know about it.
Space metallurgy plants: So far 10 of these have been built with 3 over the third planet and one over the second planet.
Space Station: There is a budding Space station over the Third planet.
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Space Marines
Now we are able to create the better variant of the Mark VII Aquila Power Armour, they are called Mark 7B Armour. Some of the updates that has been carried out are:
Ceramite: This has been updated a few times and now it is 80% better than the original ceramite. All new Mark 7B have been updated while the 90 % of the older models have been updated already.
Electrically-motivated fibre bundles: We had hit the law of diminishing returns and currently these are "only" 70% better than the original. This means that my space marines are able to thrash most other space marines when fighting with just armour.
Auto-sense: There has been major update regarding the Auto sense as they have to be able to work under the ECM jamming of the new improved weapon systems. Major update has also taken place regarding communication with Drones. Now each Space Marine is assigned at least 5 drones that they are expected to use during any fights. There has been incremental update regarding the auto target which will be tested with the Operation Whetstone. The new sensors have boosted the detection rate also, it will be handy to test it against the cloaking technology of the Eldar and Tau.
Adamantium and Plasteel: Not major update on these materials. The only update is that we have figured out how to make it 27% cheaper for Plasteel and 15% cheaper for Adamantium. We are atleast able to make enough for our use.
Medicae System: There has been improvement to this also, mostly with better scanner and diagnostic devices. The actual medicine are the same as before but now we are able to create these ourself. The next plan is to look into making better versions of this.
Jump Pack: Now all of the Mark 7B armour can be fitted with jump pack if needed.
Energy Shield: There hasn't been much progress regarding energy shield. We are probably looking at another 30-50 years of research needed unless we get other samples.
Arc-reactor power core: We have been able to finally create a stable version that has been tested and is ready for deployment. Currently 30% of the Mark 7B armour have been upgraded with the new power core. We are expecting to be at 100% within the next 5 years.
Guard Unit (Army)
The Guard unit has been expanded from the original 21,000 to now at 39,000. We have had most of the original Guard units retire with them being replaced by new units. This has bought up some concerns regarding how they would react to actual war. To allay this fear there has been a steady increase in war games and they have performed well so far.
Exo-suits: As these suits are meant to be mass produced they have limited/castrated version of the Mark 7B. They are also now Chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and vacuum defence rated for at least 48 hours. They also had a Medicae System, Electrically-motivated fibre bundles and Auto-sense with adamantium, Plasteel and ceramite armour. It was a balance between having something that is cheap enough to produce in the hundred thousands while still providing a decent amount of protection.
Vehicles: Now they have been given access to various type of vehicles they can roughly be split into troop carries and assault.
Troop Carrier: The troop carriers are meant to move them from point A to B. Have medium armour and mostly really on speed/Intelligence to stay safe. There is one land version and flight version (in atmosphere and space). Due to resource/ knowledge constraint they are built in similar fashion to the Armoured Personnel Carriers from 2023. The shape might be similar but the armour was adamantium with the latest comms system, main gun being 120 millimetre smoothbore cannon front facing, 2 Heavy bolters that can swivel around on top, 3 drones and ECM/Smoke screens. The Flight was based on thunder hawks with less armour more speed and less armaments to increase internal space. They can carry around 70-80 fully loaded out troops at a time.
Assault vehicles: The assault vehicles are for killing the enemy, there are tanks, planes, artillery etc. There was only one type of tank and plane. Although there was only one type the load out were different for example one type was flame thrower as the main weapon while another type would have a cannon. Same with the planes as they were all based on stormhawk interceptor. Sacrifices were made reagrding armour/weapons to make it cheap enough to create them in numbers. Although it was worse than stormhawk interceptor but it was indeed better than an IOM equivalent. While the artillery had two variant types Missiles or shells. The Missiles vehicle concept was based around Katyusha rocket launcher. They were very lightly armoured as they were not meant to get any way close to the front. All the missiles they carried were smart missiles that could hit the assigned target with in .5 meter. There range was 100km, and each vehicle carried 50 missiles. The Shells were different type like long guns, howitzer etc but they all had the same vehicle frame just the weapon platform was changed. The range was any where from 10 km to 50 km.
Drones
The drone weapon platform has seen massive updates. We did not decide to separate this weapon into Space marine/ Guard unit. Both would be given the same type just the individual quantity would differ and the priority order would differ. A lot of thought was given to making this a disposable fire support platform. That meant trying to make it as cheap as possible while it still being just effective enough. With the current system Space marines could handle 5 drones with out affecting their fighting capacity while Guards men could only handle one. Priority orders meant that Space Marines would be able to order Guards men drone if needed and the space marine has priority in replacement.
Similar to the previous updates the Drone had Close support (Type C) and Distant support (Type D). The The Type C could have a few variant like bolter/flamethrower/suicide drone. The distant support drones were equipped with missiles load out or Grenade. The missile/Grenade could have different payload like shells, flame gels, EMP etc.
Before I depart I have made sure to stock up with spare armours/weapons and food/water in my storage space. I thought I would be more nervous (as much as gamer mind would let me) but the last twenty years have truly made me a space marine Chapter Master. I have confidence in my self and my chapter brothers that we would win the coming planned battles. Saying that I still prayed to the Big E for his blessing in the up coming fight.