Discovery Gaming Community

The Oder Gunboat has remained in continuous service since the beginning of the GMG war - a relatively sophisticated gun platform with extreme tactical flexibility and considerable range. Manufactured in independent, separated hull modules that are pieced together on-site, the Oder is extremely easy to prize apart for in-depth internal service and overhaul. Created out of the necessity to have something smaller than a cruiser to hold down areas of space within errant gas clouds above Frankfurt, the Oder imposes arial control, usually in the format of a support package for fighter operations - however, it is equally capable of handling itself when arrayed against larger combatants.

Its capacity for long range engagement far removed from any friendly ports of call was frequently exploited during the Nomad War by infected primary fleet and naval intelligence officers, appearing as far out from the Rhein as the outer Tau systems. The BDM still employ the Oder in this capacity today, as a sophisticated long range intelligence resource, marked only by a serial number. Due to the Oder’s pervasiveness within the service, it will likely be many years before the vessel is replaced, in part duet the heavy economic windfall that DHC receives from the craft’s continued production, resupply and repair.

Yet the Oder is not without its detractors. It is, after all, an ancient space frame, with its flaws well-publicised from two failed trans-sirian wars. In addition, the steady leach of the Oder during the post 80 years war Era to the Unioners has created considerable concern over the design’s possible use behind the scenes. Whilst unlawful Oders are a rarity, there remains the concern over the innumerable variations of the design thrown into the possession of the Wilde and other infected agencies.

For the Unioners, the Oder is a vessel whose use has been clarified only recently. Too slow to be used in slash-and-grab piracy operations and too high profile to be used in acts of inter-house terror, cells have employed their limited number of Oders primarily against themselves - using them as means to arbitrate conflicts of interest from one detachment of Unioners to the next. This status quo has found itself inviolate following the initiation of war for the second time between the Unioners and the Red Hessians, with the Unioners cautiously deploying their Oders into Frankfurt’s Sudnebel - attempting to guard the approaches to Neu Berlin.

The same expectations have been placed upon the backs of the Union’s handful of Donau Mk-1A heavy cruisers - the martial artillery to pad out the vast number of Hel auxiliaries the Union makes regular employment of. Both sets of vessels have been deployed cautiously to the Prussia (Sigma 21) and Luneburg (Sigma 15) systems, in something of a shakedown cruise for the impending war. With the Kaiserflotte steadily reassembled, it seems likely that the Unions will attempt to pool their disparate muscle together to mount effective opposition to any further Hessian encroachment towards Rheinland’s homeland systems. These ancient enforcers, cobbled together with nothing more than jurisprudence and the intensity of a fraternity that has been waiting for centuries to flex its muscles unrestrained, represents the ultimate hierarchical statement of the Union's commitment to the old ways - be they ideological, social, or technological.

Whilst the nature of how the Unions maintain the vessels remain fairly consistent - frequent sojourns up to Westphalia to pluck out the lion's share of internally produced prefabricates, how the Union obtained each vessel remains staunchly individual - some are antiquated Eighty Years War era veterans who were saved from the scrapping fields by Alster Union breakers crews who refused to commit still serviceable vessels to destruction in-line with the Republican treaty conditions. Others were incomplete hulls that were simply lifted out of their mooring cradles during the height of the strikes, abandoned to drift amidst the Alster and Tanusfelds for centuries until they could be reclaimed. More still are cobble-togethers of parts accumulated from all over the Sirius sector following the detritus of the Nomad war, when Rheinland military remains became so common as to be sold as trinkets - only the rare few are internally manufactured.

Each vessel is in some way Byzantine when compared to its modern, military counterparts, and elements of imperial styling still line the vessels' halls. Enduring frequent munitions shortages and frequently inconsistent shipboard command-and-control, the majority of the more workable cruisers and gunboats have made their way into the hands of the western and northern cells, where they are expected to place pressure upon the Bundschuh and Synth Foods respectively. Still conscious of the debt owed by the Reichsarbeitergesellshaft to its Arbeitergewerkschaft ancestor, the otherwise self-intrested Union frequently collaborates with its LWB cousins to pick the choicest of targets from the Libertonian divide, cleaving through the (infrequent) slew of bounty hunters and Libertonian special police detachments to enforce the Hansa's claim over the mostly lawfully ignored Wesphalia system.

It remains to be seen if these antiquated enforcers will provide the Union with the means of reversing the hitherto untamed rise of the Red Tide.