On Land: Salkasan maintains no standing army. Each clan able to afford to does maintain a core force of loyal housecarls who are the elite of Salksans fighting forces. These are supplemented by levies drawn as required. All adults within Salkasan are required to have some knowledge of fighting with spear, javelin or shortbow. The "army" of Salkasan is primarily an infantry force. Some housecarls do ride horse to battle but dismount before fighting, using the horses to get to the battlefields faster.
Infantry Organisation:
There is no fixed organisation to the infantry. It depends on who and what has turned up. Housecarls tend to form the heavy shock and defensive elements of the force with the levies providing the skirmishing and missile groups. Commanders array there forces based on this and which clans can be placed alongside which as not all get along!
Infantry Types: The infantry of Salkasan consists of light archers and skirmishers from the levies and the heavy infantry housecarls.
The light infantry archers and skirmishers consists of unarmoured troops typically armed with a shortbow and a quiver containing twenty arrows in the case of archers or light spears and javelins for others. For close in protection they carry a mix of daggers and shortswords.
The heavy infantry housecarls generally wears armour consisting of a reinforced leather coat similar in style to that in use by Acsynae and the Morchainti empire, with iron or bronze arm and leg greaves and a reinforced leather helm. They also carry a large shield for additional protection, this is dropped or driven into the ground to form shield walls. Weaponry is typically a large two handed axe with the ubiquotous shortsword as close in weapon.
Chariotry: Salkasan does not operate the chariot as a weapon of war, though chariots are found in Salkasan they are chiefly used as a status transport.
Artillery: The clans of Salkasan when possible will hire mercenaries to provide artillery and other seige expertise.
At Sea: The coastal clans of Salkasan maintains a small force of vessels to guard the coasts, provide customs patrols etc.Naval Organisation: Because of the widely varying contributions provided by the ports the naval organisation is more adhoc than the army. Each port has an "admiral" in command of the contingent of the navy based there. Above this is the lord high admiral who commands the fleet.
Currently two port towns contribute to the navy. The
two ports are;
Tashra and Helsorra
The Ships: Only two types of vessel are currently operated by Salkasan these are as follows;
Dispatch Boats - These are about 60 feet long and are similar to the ancient Greek Pentakonter, they are fast and used for reconnaisance and the carrying of messages and intelligence. Currently Salkasan operates 5 reserve quality and 7 average quality dispatch boats.
Biremes -This type of ship makes up the "heavy" fighting portion of Salkasans total fleet. The vessels are about 70 to 80 feet long and have two banks of oars. The rowers are exposed and may wear light armour for protection. Currently Salkasan operates 5 reserve quality and 11 average quality Biremes.
