HS Handbook: Hammer's Slammers

The Hammer's Slammers Handbook by John Lambshead & John Treadaway

Hammer's Slammers

If wars were won by feasting, or, victory by song,
or safety found in sleeping sound, how England would be strong!
But honour and dominion are not maintained so.
They're only got by sword and shot, and this the Dutchmen know!
– Kipling

Background

The armoured regiment usually known by its nickname of The Slammers started as the Friesland Auxiliary Regiment, raised to fight on Melpomone, an agricultural colony under the control of Friesland. Friesland had originally been a speculative colony set up by Dutch entrepreneurs. When its GNP matched that of Holland, it declared UDI and bought out the shares of the original cartel at 2 cents on the Euro. Like most colonies, Friesland was heavily class-stratified with the ruling families of the Great Houses drawn from the ranks of those that had owned key resources in the original colony.

Friesland was stable and prosperous, so it could afford the finest military equipment from the arms industry on Earth. However, its military suffered from the twin disadvantages of a severe lack of combat experience and the fact that entry to the military academy and promotion in the officer corps depended to a great degree on family connections. These problems proved critical when Melpomone rebelled.

Melpomone produced a cash crop, the bluebright plants whose biochemistry was the source of a popular stim-drug. Bluebright farmers got wheat-prices for a crop that made the owners of Friesland shipping and chemical companies very rich. Twelve regiments of regulars failed to put down the inevitable rebellion.

Colonel Hammer was Executive Officer of the prestigious Guards Of The Republic, one of the handful of men who had achieved rank in the regiment on professional merit rather than aristocratic lineage. To his contemporaries' horror, he volunteered to leave the Guard to outfit and command a regiment of foederati recruited from soldiers with combat experience from all over human space. The Slammers did what the regulars could not do, crushed the rebellion and incidentally earned themselves a reputation for ruthless efficiency in the process.

Fig. 4 Uniform Insignia and name tape
from a Slammers combat uniform
(John Treadaway)

It was always understood that the Auxiliary Regiment would be disbanded when the rebellion was over and its troopers granted Friesland citizenship as a reward. However Secretary to the Council of State Tromp, who ran Friesland, regarded promises made to foreign mercenaries as worthless and resolved to execute the Slammers now their usefulness had ended. To this end, he landed a full armoured regiment of Guards on Melpomone to control the Starport and disarm the mercenaries.

The Slammers launched a lethal set piece attack on the Starport, annihilating the Guards in 13 terror-filled minutes of firepower. The next day the Slammers lifted in rented freighters and began their career as a high-end mercenary unit. They were perhaps the first but they were not to be the last.

A well-deserved reputation for pitiless competence followed Colonel Hammer's Slammers over nearly three decades of near continuous warfare. Friesland itself was not immune to the political instability that dogged human space. President Smol of the Council had been little more than Secretary Tromp's puppet and after the Secretary's unfortunate death at Melpomone various factions manoeuvred for control. Van Vorn finally assumed the Presidency arousing simmering hostility from a faction led by Counsellor Theismann.

Thiessman eventually rebelled when Van Vorn declared himself President-For–Life and the Counsellor hired the Slammer's to make him Dictator. Van Vorn poisoned himself after the Slammer's broke the Iron Guard at New Wageningen. Unfortunately, Thiessman walked into a stray round leaving Hammer to assume the Presidency. He legitimised his position by marrying Lady Anneke Tromp, daughter of the late Secretary Tromp, and the Slammers were out of the mercenary business. The regiment was now officially the 1st Brigade of the Friesland Defence Force.

Hammer's Slammers Order of Battle

Regimental Personalities

Colonel Hammer
Alois Hammer was born into a moderately prosperous professional family on the Dutch-culture independent colony of Friesland. His father was an insurance loss adjuster and his mother a nurse. He spent considerable time with his maternal grandfather who had been an NCO with a Flemish mechanised regiment on Old Earth and had fought in the Surawak Emergency. Hammer was a bright but not exceptional student. His grandfather had fought alongside a cousin of one of the Great Houses of Friesland and called in an old favour to get Hammer admitted to the Friesland Military Academy.

Hammer was single minded in his pursuit of a commission, it is true to say that he was respected rather than liked at the Academy. Alois Hammer turned out to be one of those few individuals who show military genius. He distinguished himself as a junior officer at the Sheroba debacle and the invasion of Lyon, Although his professional ruthlessness appalled his fellow officers, who considered themselves gentlemen, it soon came to the notice of his political masters who used him for special tasks.

As a reward for services to the Friesland Council, Hammer was promoted to Executive Officer of the Guards of the Republic, the first 'commoner' to achieve such a distinction. The appointment was not a success. The amateur gentlemen of the officer's mess deeply resented the admittance of an 'oik' with no social graces who was utterly uninterested in horse racing and had unsettling, unorthodox views on soldiering.

At the time Friesland was attempting unsuccessfully to enforce its political control over Melpomone with its valuable bluebright extract. Despite overwhelming military superiority on paper, the line regiments of Friesland showed a depressing inability to cope with the unorthodox guerrilla tactics of the rebels.

Hammer volunteered to be colonel of the Auxiliary Armoured Regiment of mercenaries recruited to do what Friesland soldiers shied away from. The Auxiliary Regiment was highly successful in crushing the rebellion and coalesced into an elite unit. Their methods were effective but brutal involving hostage taking and the gassing of rebel villagers.

The battle for the Melpomone Starport demonstrated that Hammer was a master of set piece armoured engagements and this tactical talent was demonstrated repeatedly over the next three decades. However, Melpomone Starport also showed that Hammer had two further skills, for military strategy and political infighting. Individuals who have all three skills are extremely rare and they tend to leave their mark on history; these are the Caesars.

Danny Pritchard
Pritchard was born on Dunstan, an agricultural planet that grew wheat to feed the industrial planets of Hagener, Weststar, Mirage and Jackson's Glade. The industrial worlds set up a cartel to keep wheat prices low. Pritchard's life changed when warfare erupted between the Scots and Hindi settlers on Weststar. The Hindi agent for the cartel on Dunstan recruited a battalion of Dunstan farm boys and shipped them in a grain freighter's hold to Weststar. Danny flipped a coin with his brother Jig and lost; he shipped out that day.

Jig never inherited the farm, five years later his tractor overturned crushing the cab. Danny was lucky; the Slammers landed on Weststar the same day as the freighter and needed replacements after the heavy attrition on Lost Dreams. They bought the Dunstan recruits as a job lot. Seven years and seven contracts later Danny Pritchard was Sergeant-Commander of a tank platoon in the attack on Foster's regiment at Starhome. The tanker showed promise as a leader and was given a commission after a two-year crash course in the Grüningen Academy on Friesland.

Pritchard was promoted to Captain for his skilful fighting retreat in the face of superior forces on the Messenine Plain at Hellenika. On Kobold, Captain Pritchard was the officer that Hammer trusted to carry out a complex political deception on Barthe's Company before crushing the regiment in a tank assault. Kobold was a defining moment in Danny Pritchard's career as it was here he began to have severe doubts about his career choice, appalled by the casual way soldier's civilian's lives were expended in the pursuit of political objectives.

After Kobold, Pritchard was promoted to major and appointed S-3, the Slammer's Operations Officer. He fulfilled this role for five years right up to the incorporation of the Slammers in the Friesland Defence Force. He then resigned his commission and married Margritte DiManzo who had been his commo tech when he was a company commander in tanks. Pritchard served Friesland and President Hammer as Minister of Reconciliation and then Interior Minister. On Colonel Hammer's death of old age Pritchard succeeded him as President.

Joachim Steuben
Major Steuben came from the highly civilised ancient colony of Newland. Steuben was a classic sociopath. It was not that he was wicked or mentally ill but simply that he lacked any ability to empathise with anyone else and there was a hole in his thinking where most people have a conscience. In the wrong circumstances, logic could cause him to commit acts that most people would find evil. Steuben also happened to be a natural gunfighter. He was a slender attractive man, always immaculately dressed in hand-tailored clothes, who made no secret of his homosexuality. This appearance sometimes led stupid people to try to bully him. After one duel to many, where he killed the son of the city governor, Steuben found it expedient to leave Newland. He drifted across the galaxy, living on inherited wealth until he was recruited into the Auxiliary Regiment of Friesland.

After several attempts by the rebels on his life plus some unsavoury non-combat incidents with some of his troopers, Colonel Hammer decided he needed a disciplined security detachment of military police. In the urbane, educated, utterly ruthless Steuben, the Colonel found just the man to lead them. The security detachment grew to four combat car platoons, known officially as A Company, and to the rest of the Slammers as 'The White Mice'.

Steuben was completely loyal to Hammer, as only a lonely man can be to his first love, and would carry out almost any act to protect his Colonel's interests. It is believed to be Steuben who assassinated Secretary Tromp and Councillor Theisman. Loyalty turned to jealousy as Hammer came to need and rely on many other people when Colonel Hammer of the Slammers became President Hammer of the Friesland Republic.

Joachim Steuben started to become a dangerous embarrassment when he threatened to kill Danny Pritchard and became sexually jealous of Hammer's wife. He was reported killed by a pistol blast in the back; no one was arrested for the crime.

Campaigns

In two decades the Slammers carried out almost 50 operational combat contracts. There is not space to list them all here so only a few of the most significant are discussed.

Melpomone Starport
The Melpomone Starport was held by a Friesan Armoured Guard Regiment who were supposed to disarm the Slammers and execute them. The Slammers put in a set piece attack on the Starport, shelling the port with firecracker round. As the Guards used calliopes to shoot down the shells, Slammer tanks in the hills above the port smashed the AA guns with long-range tank shots. More long-range shots incinerated the Guard's artillery vehicles while firecrackers scythed down unprotected Guard troopers. Guard tanks tried to reply, shooting long range at vehicles hull down in the hills but Slammer tanks that had worked their way in to the Starport perimeter smashed the Guard tanks and combat cars at close range.

Starhome
The planet Thrush is home to a whole series of religious memorials created by a long disappeared alien federation. Two religious factions struggled for control. One group hired Colonel Foster's Infantry to hold Starhome, one of the larger alien artefact temples against the other group who hired the Slammers. The armoured regiment took Starhome from Foster's Regiment and the rebels, unfortunately smashing most of it in the process. The famous quote from an unknown Slammer is that "We had to destroy Starhome to save it".

Curwin
On Curwin the Slammers put down a rebellion of local farmers for the shipping companies. This was a nasty grinding guerrilla war that ended when the shippers' money ran out and the Slammers shipped out.

Liberty
The single inhabited continent of liberty was divided into two states, Placida and Armstrong, concentrated on the east and west coasts with volcanic ash and lava flows in between. Both states were prosperous on rare metal mining and could afford to invest considerable monies in destruction. A series of vicious mechanised battles were fought across the wastes until an armistice was agreed. Some Slammer tank companies took 60% losses in single engagements.

Plattner's World
The various city-states on Plattner's World grew rich exporting a natural anti-ageing drug. The people of the outer states, The United Cities gathered the tree moss from which the drug was extracted and it was shipped out by Solace in the central upland, the only place where a Starport could be built. The planet Nonesuch encouraged Solace to put the port fees up while paying for the United Cities to hire the Slammers when civil war broke out. Despite hiring a number of regiments, the United Cities lacked the strategic facilities to organise the various regiments that they had hired and were losing to the better co-ordinated Solace forces when the Slammers carried out one of the most incredible blitzkriegs in armoured history. They abandoned the defence, formed a series of all arms battle-groups and struck cross country at the heart of Solace, the starport which supplied all the Solace regiments. Capturing the port ended the war at a stroke. This campaign is obligatory study-material at every military academy in the galaxy.

Kerwi
On Kerwi the Slammers fought for the Kingdom of Marshall against the electromagnetic tanks of the Lightning Division hired by the Kingdom of Ganz. Expensive high-tech armoured vehicles hunted each other through valleys and mountain passes dominated by medieval castles.

Pohweil
A shipping cartel made a grab for the government of Pohweil, which was controlled by the farmers' cartel. The shippers hired mercenaries to besiege and capture the capital. They would have done it too, if the farmers hadn't hired the Slammers to blast a corridor through to the capital. The opposing mercenaries tried to ambush the Slammer convoys without much success, after that it was all over bar the mopping up.

Sulewesi
Sulewesi was colonised by two waves of Malay settlers. The first owned everything, the second wanted a cut, so flames lanced the desert. The rebels hired the high-tech veteran `Brasilians so the government hired the Slammers, with a number of cheap regiments to fill the gaps on both sides. The sand-swept deserts of Sulewesi were the perfect theatre for armoured warfare and the Slammers and Brasilians duelled, slashing the lesser regiments to shreds.

Kobold
Kobold was a joint colony of Francophone Aurore and Flemish Friesland. The French dominated the colony, oppressing the Flemish settlers and inciting a rebellion. The settlers hired the Slammers and the French hired three well equipped Francophone regiments, the Alaudae, the Phenix Moirots and the Compagnie de Barthe. Aurore and Friesland came to a compromise and rehired the four regiments to keep order. Unfortunately, Col Barthe and the Aurore Government planned a double cross, smuggling powerguns to the French settlers. Eventually, Barthe pushed his luck and the Slammers pounced. Powerguns flamed the Kobold forests until the Compagnie de Barthe was crushed.

Prosperity
Prosperity Conservatives, equipped and operating from Terran Enclaves based around two starports in the north of the continent, ran a successful insurgency against the corrupt Nationalist Government who theoretically controlled the rest of the continent. The government hired the Slammers to break the rebellion.

The Slammers rapidly ascertained that Conservative operations depended on a constant supply of reinforcements and weapons down from the Terran Enclaves. The regiment interdicted the neutral zone, The Strip, shutting off the arterial supply to the insurgents in the south. Nationalist forces, beefed up by security detachments of Major Steuben's White Mice, began to get on top of the Conservative Action Movement (CAM) so the Conservatives gambled all on a single push, the Autumn Offensive.

Nationalist defectors slaughtered their officers and loyalist colleagues, and seized barracks with their all-important armouries. Thousands of weapons and ammunition were passed out to Conservative sympathisers. In some cases where even their officer corps had been subverted, entire battalions went over to the Conservative side. Large, well-armed formations of Conservative Regulars burst out of the Terran Enclaves and attacked the Nationalist units lining The Strip.

On The Strip, Slammer artillery hogs obliterated concentrated Nationalist formations and the survivors were mopped up by Slammer mechanised armoured detachments. In the south, the Conservatives achieved considerable success. All over the nationalist cities, military formations disintegrated without a fight, were overrun, or sat tight in fortified positions and screamed for someone else to come and rescue them. CAM units threatened to capture the provincial capital of Kohang on the southern coast precipitating the collapse of the Nationalist Government.

Twenty-seven Conservative units of company or battalion strength besieged the Government Compound in Kohang. On paper, the Provincial Governor had at his disposal 3,000 armed police and 6,000 soldiers organised into ten battalions of light infantry, although many had deserted or were ignoring orders. The 12th and 23rd Infantry Divisions under General Halas from Camp Fortune near Kohang were ordered to break the siege but seemed unable to organise themselves to advance. The 4th Armoured Brigade, based at Camp Victory to the south west of Kohang, did manage to mount an attack but soon bogged down in a series of ambushes.

By chance, the Slammers had a maintenance facility at the Nationalist military base Camp Progress in the central highlands to the south. The Slammer component at the base was commanded by Captain June 'Junebug' Ransom who was ordered to put a scratch column together from whatever armour and personnel she had available and break the siege of Kohang.

Camp Progress came under attack from a Conservative line battalion at the start of the Autumn Offensive. The Slammer detachment, consisting of a reduced company of six combat cars and a single troop of three tanks, put in an immediate counter attack destroying the attackers; Conservative losses were in excess of 60%.

Captain Ransom was given immediate orders to form a scratch-built jock column from the troops and equipment she had immediately available and relieve Kohung with her five remaining combat cars and three tanks. The column was ambushed right outside the camp in a troop recreation town called Happy Days. All the Slammer vehicles successfully traversed the town, annihilating a Conservative company en passant.

Ransom crossed the Padma at Adako Beach, a hamlet of twenty or thirty buildings built on the confluence of the Adako Creek and the Padma destroying a company of Conservative mobile infantry before they could debuss from their trucks. Her column then crossed the bridge at la Reole after breaking through the besieging Conservative lines. One tank was lost to friendly fire and another fell through the damaged bridge into the river.

The panicking Conservatives instructed the 1st of the 4th Nationalist Armoured Brigade, who had rebelled, to intercept Ransom's remaining vehicles at Kawana. The 1st had around 20 light tanks with 10 howitzer tanks in support. Ransom with one heavy blower tank and five combat cars annihilated the traitor company in a pincer attack, losing her life in the process. The column relieved Kohang and the heart had been ripped out of the rebellion.

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