Robinson Chevaliers

Robinson Chevaliers
Formed	2540
Nickname	Soldiers of chivalry and honor
Affiliation	Federated Suns
Parent Command	AFFS

The Robinson Chevaliers were the primary military formation of the Draconis March after the Davion Civil War, formed from the reorganized Vale Rangers brigade after the disestablishment of the Federated Suns Terran March. The Chevaliers were evidently destroyed during the Succession Wars.

History

Formation

The Robinson Chevaliers brigade formed in or around 2540 from the surviving elements of the former Vale Rangers. As the Vale Rangers, the brigade had been the lead combat formation of the Terran March Principality of the Federated Suns; with the death of Prince Charles Leighton and his immediate family in a Terran Hegemony raid in 2515 the Vale Rangers went on to serve ably and well under General - later Field Marshal - Nikolai Rostov in the 2515-2520 campaign against the invading Terran Hegemony forces, a campaign which was nothing less than brilliant and cemented the loyalty of the Vale Rangers and other Terran March forces to Rostov. The Vale Rangers were soon in action against the armed forces of the Draconis Combine in the 2523 border incursions.

The Vale Rangers would continue to serve under Nikolai Rostov until his death during the Davion Civil War, and then served under his son, Dmitri Rostov; under the superb military leadership of the father and son the Vale Rangers weathered the civil war in better shape than any other March formation in the Federated Suns. That soon changed, however.

In 2540 Dmitri Rostov began an insurrection against First Prince Alexander Davion. Dmitri was violently opposed to the reforms Alexander intended to make, particularly the disestablishment of the Terran March and the consequent erosion of Dmitri's own power base. Dmitri's confidence in taking such a bold course was partly due to the good condition of the Vale Rangers, but his actions proved disastrous - he began by ordering Terran March troops to capture Cynthia Davion, Alexander's wife, only for the operation to be bungled and cause Cynthia's death from a stray shot. Grief-stricken and furious, Alexander launched an offensive against Dmitri, whose power base swiftly crumbled; to many in the Federated Suns, Alexander represented order, stability and continuity after two decades of civil war.

Many amongst the Vale Rangers were horrified at Dmitri's actions, to the point that several regiments turned against him, declaring for Alexander's cause and fighting under his banner - even fighting against their own sister regiments on more than one occasion. Dmitri's death on Robinson ended the Davion Civil War for good; in the aftermath of the battle, Alexander declared that the survivors of the Vale Rangers as "soldiers of chivalry and honor". Drawing upon Alexander's words, the Vale Rangers brigade was renamed and made a new brigade - the Robinson Chevaliers - and became one of the formations responsible for defending the newly expanded Draconis March.

Star League Era

The Robinson Chevaliers continued to serve the Federated Suns after the Davion Civil War, now as a part of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. Each of the regiments took its unit name from a chivalric order from the preindustrial history of Terra, and the brigade observed the tradition of not reforming destroyed commands but instead starting an all-new regiment that would adopt the patron order of their fallen brethren. Some units were destroyed more than once with their colors being reborn each time, and by the time the Star League Council enacted the Council Edict of 2650 limiting the size of the military of each Great House twenty-four regiments had served on the rolls of the brigade.

With the repeal of the 2650 Edict in 2572 the Chevaliers underwent a dramatic increase in size along with the other formations of the AFFS. The First Robinson Chevaliers had been the longest-serving regiment in the brigade until the few survivors of the unit opted to disband the command after the damage taken during the War of Davion Succession; ten years later in 2739 First Prince John Davion had ordered the creation of a new regiment, the Thirty-first Robinson Chevaliers, which had taken up the colors and order of the First. With the repeal of the Edict more regiments were formed swiftly; between 2755 and 2765 the brigade had expanded by nine complete regiments following the establishment of the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second, Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh.

First Succession War

The Combine invasion of the Federated Suns launched in 2787 had a devastating effect on the Robinson Chevaliers. The invasion was so swift and targeted communications and JumpShips so effectively that many border systems didn't have a chance to transmit warnings or alerts, leading to widespread confusion on the part of the AFFS. A second wave followed three days after the first, led personally by Coordinator Minoru Kurita and his son, Warlord Jinjiro Kurita, striking through the Clovis Combat Region and Dahar Combat Region in two thrusts, and proved devastatingly effective. The death of Field Marshal Grover Simons on Clovis caused the AFFS defensive line to collapse, and the DCMS adopted a strategy of leapfrogging worlds, smashing some AFFS units while leaving others isolated and cut-off, to be subsequently destroyed later.

Many of the units destroyed in this fashion were regiments from the Robinson Chevaliers, although some commands isolated during the first two years of the invasion managed to hold out for years afterwards, in one form or another. These survivors were a mix of the original parent regiment of Chevaliers and surviving elements of their support commands and survived through a combination of good luck, resourcefulness and sheer resilience, causing havoc for DCMS garrisons for years and raiding for supplies; notable examples of this included the Gorgons battalion of the Fourth on Franklin, the Chargers battalion of the Tenth on New Rhodes III and the Doughboys battalion of the Thirteenth on Dobson. Despite valiant actions such as these, by the end of the First Succession War in 2821 only nine of the twenty-four Chevaliers regiments in service in 2786 still existed as operational commands: the Fifth, Eighth, Fourteenth, Seventeenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth. All bar one of the surviving regiments had been reduced to less than half strength by the end of the war, with the Thirty-fifth only able to muster a fifth of its original strength. In total, from a prewar strength of twenty-four full-strength regiments, the nine surviving regiments had a total combat weight of less than three and a half prewar regiments.

Officers

Rank	Name	Command
Commanding Officers of the Robinson Chevaliers

Tactics

Different per Unit.

Composition History

2765 - 24 commands

2786 - 24 commands

2821 - 9 commands (15 commands destroyed during First Succession War)

2830 - 9 commands

2864 - 3 commands (6 commands destroyed during Second Succession War)

Units of the Robinson Chevaliers

• First Robinson Chevaliers
• Second Robinson Chevaliers
• Third Robinson Chevaliers
• Fourth Robinson Chevaliers
• Fifth Robinson Chevaliers
• Sixth Robinson Chevaliers
• Seventh Robinson Chevaliers
• Eighth Robinson Chevaliers
• Ninth Robinson Chevaliers
• Tenth Robinson Chevaliers
• Eleventh Robinson Chevaliers
• Thirteenth Robinson Chevaliers
• Fourteenth Robinson Chevaliers
• Fifteenth Robinson Chevaliers
• Seventeenth Robinson Chevaliers
• Twenty-first Robinson Chevaliers
• Twenty-second Robinson Chevaliers
• Twenty-third Robinson Chevaliers
• Twenty-fifth Robinson Chevaliers
• Twenty-sixth Robinson Chevaliers
• Twenty-seventh Robinson Chevaliers
• Twenty-eighth Robinson Chevaliers
• Thirty-first Robinson Chevaliers
• Thirty-second Robinson Chevaliers
• Thirty-fourth Robinson Chevaliers
• Thirty-fifth Robinson Chevaliers
• Thirty-sixth Robinson Chevaliers
• Thirty-seventh Robinson Chevaliers

Notes

• The First Chevaliers was destroyed in 2729; re-formed in 2739 as the Thirty-first Robinson Chevaliers
• The Second Chevaliers was destroyed and re-formed as the Sixth Robinson Chevaliers
• The Sixth Chevaliers was destroyed and re-formed as the Eleventh Robinson Chevaliers
• The Eleventh Chevaliers was destroyed and re-formed as the Twenty-second Robinson Chevaliers

The following commands were formed between 2755 and 2765

• Twenty-fifth Chevaliers
• Twenty-sixth Chevaliers
• Twenty-seventh Chevaliers
• Twenty-eighth Chevaliers
• Thirty-second Chevaliers
• Thirty-fourth Chevaliers
• Thirty-fifth Chevaliers
• Thirty-sixth Chevaliers
• Thirty-seventh Chevaliers

Colors and Unit Insignia

The color scheme used by the Robinson Chevaliers was gold on black.

Bibliography

• Field Report 2765: AFFS
• First Succession War
• Handbook: House Davion
• House Davion (The Federated Suns)