Phantine Air Corps



"Strong men have conquered the land, bold men have conquered the void, between land and void lies the sky, and only the bravest men ever conquer that."

- Dedication to the Hessenville Aviator Scholam on Phantine

The Phantine Air Corps is an unusual regimental-sized force of Imperial fighter-bombers and bombers raised from the world of Phantine that provides dedicated air support for the ground forces of the Astra Militarum. It is a unique formation within the ranks of the Imperial Guard, perhaps even an aberration, for the Phantine Air Corps fights solely in the air and has no presence on the ground. As its name indicates, the Phantine Air Corps is comprised of dedicated fighter pilots and bomber crews, a branch of the Imperial military traditionally found only in service with the Imperial Navy. Save for the liberation of their own home, the Industrial World of Phantine, the Phantine Air Corps has never fought as a whole unit. Much like their counterparts in the Imperial Navy, the wings of the Phantine Air Corps are deployed individually as the need arises. Though small in numbers, the valiant men and women of the Phantine Air Corps now provide tactical air support to the Imperial troops engaged against the Blood Pact in the ongoing Sabbat Worlds Crusade.

Regimental History
The Phantine Air Corps is a recent addition to the forces of the Astra Miltarum. In fact, before the second phase of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade and Warmaster Macaroth's daring offensive in the Khan Group, the Phantine Air Corps had been confined to the skies of its homeworld of Phantine. Phantine itself also came under attack by the troops of the Blood Pact, when that Chaotic foe conducted a wide-scale counterattack on the Crusade's flanks, but was saved by the hasty redeployment of Imperial troops under command of Lord General Barthol Van Voytz. With the increasing resistance faced by the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, the Phantine Air Corps was only recently called to fight off-world, their baptism by fire coming in the Enothian War.

The history of the Phantine Air Corps is closely linked to that of their highly unusual homworld, Phantine. Its soil is tremendously rich in valuable chemical substances, in particular Promethium, which even today constitutes Phantine's main export. However, the continuous exploitation and refinement of Phantine's mineral resources has polluted its lower atmosphere to the point that life on the surface became untenable. Whereas most human civilisations faced with the same dilemma chose to live underground or in sealed hive cities, on Phantine the choice was made to continue to exploit Phantine's natural wealth and instead relocate Phantine's population above the cloudline. The world's people were moved into newly erected sky-cities which where constructed on the world's highest mountain ranges or on top of its now-uninhabited hive complexes. Phantine's lower troposphere is now composed of a sea of highly corrosive gases and acids locally known as "the Scald," for those unfortunate enough to be exposed to it would be eaten alive in mere solar minutes. This has let to a complete reorganisation of Phantine's formerly land-based Planetary Defence Forces, which by necessity took to the skies.

Because of the Scald, Phantine is difficult to assail. Every major sky-city has its own complement of aircraft and Planetary Defence Forces stationed there, but as many of the world's domed cities lie beyond the range of a single aircraft, the Phantine Air Corps also maintains great aerostats to carry troops, provisions and supplies from one city to an other. These aerostats are truly gigantic, more akin to flying military bases than mere transport ships. Each aerostat is held aloft by gigantic gas-filled cylinders and is propelled by a series of powerful engines located in great nacels kept away from the main body of the aircraft. These engines use great fans rather than turboreactors or Plasma Drives to limit the spontaneous combustion of the aerostat's gas reserves or a catastrophic chain-reaction with the strange and often highly volatile gases of the Scald. The great aerostats are poorly armed and rely heavily on their complements of bombers and fighters for their own protection or to mount an offensive. Each aerostat carries several squadrons -- or "wings" as they are called by the Phantine.

Tactical analyses of the Phantine Liberation campaign suggests that it was this advantage in mobility that permitted the Imperial counterattack on Phantine to be so effective, as the Blood Pact had not succeeded in taking control of one of these aerostats. One aerostat is big enough to transport three regiments of the Imperial Guard, their equipment and supplies, their transport vessels and its own wings of aircraft. The Phantine Air Corps is known to field several of these leviathans. During the assault on Ouranberg, no less then six of these "zeppelins" took to the skies: the Aeolus, Boreas, Nimbus,Skyro, Trenchant and the Zephyr. Of these, only the Skyro was lost during the operation, its captain choosing to close with Ouranberg and let its troops rappel directly onto its objective rather than letting its transports brave the storm of anti-air fire coming from the sky-city. However, the volume of fire coming from Ouranberg proved too much, even for the Skyro, which perished in a flaming inferno once its mission was accomplished. Unfortunately, the size of the zeppelins means that they cannot be transported offworld and must remain on Phantine.

The Phantine Air Corps carried the brunt of the Imperial military effort to liberate their homeworld, although their casualties were few compared to the thousands of Guardsmen that died during the fighting on the "ground" at Cirenholm or at Ouranberg. Yet the Air Corps was tasked with countless different missions: combat air patrols to guarantee the security of their zeppelins, bombing raids, interception missions and even aerial reconnaissance. The Air Corps participated in countless minor skirmishes or dogfights and was part of every major offensive. It was this tenacity and the telling results of these operations that would see the Phantine Air Corps eventually promoted to frontline duties.

Notable Campaigns

 * The Phantine Liberation (771.M41) - Left vulnerable by the push into the Cabal System, the Imperial Sabbat Worlds Crusade was flanked by the Chaos-tainted armies of the Blood Pact. A second frontline opened, and war raged on a score of worlds, including Phantine. Lacking air superiority, the Blood Pact was unable to wholly conquer Phantine before the Imperium sent in reinforcements and began its liberation. The liberation of its homeworld became the Phantine Air Corps' baptism by fire. It participated on many levels in the conflict: its fighter pilots duelled enemy aircraft for air-supremacy, its bomber-crews conducted daring raids on occupied sky-cities, and its transport pilots braved Phantine's own guns, now manned by Blood Pact soldiers, to safely deliver their human cargo to the battlefield. Alongside their comrades in the Phantine Skyborne, the Air Corps supplied Imperial forces with crucial tactical air support. Their exemplary conduct in this war would lead the Phantine Air Corps to be noticed by Warmaster Macaroth himself, who increasingly deployed the Air Corps to other warzones of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade after their showing on Phantine. The innate talent and excellent training of the Air Corps' pilots meant that several amongst their number attained the status of ace before the end of the war on Phantine.
 * The Enothian War (772-774.M41) - The Enothian War holds a special place in the annals of the Phantine Air Corps, as it was one of the unit's first great victories as well as the first time an officer from Phantine was put in command of an entire Imperial warzone. Much like Phantine itself, the Civilised World of Enothis had come under attack by the Forces of Chaos. Led by one of their most notorious generals, Magister Anakwanar Sek, the Chaos Cultists gained control of the southern Trinity hive-cities and pushed to the north, where they were met by the Enothian Planetary Defence Forces. Bolstered by elements of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, the Imperium pushed back, but after more than 200 solar days of fighting, the Imperial forces suffered a grievious defeat at the gates of the Trinity Hives. Unknown to the Imperium, the Archenemy had received powerful reinforcements, including several regiments of Blood Pact troopers and Sek's own cadres of elite fighter pilots. While the assembled might of several armoured and mechanised regiments of the Imperial Guard and a sizeable portion of Enothis' own Planetary Defence Forces fought a desperate retreat through the Interior Desert -- harrassed constantly by enemy ground and air forces -- the war shifted from the land to the sky. By direct order of Warmaster Macaroth, Grand Admiral Ornoff of the Phantine Air Corps was put in charge of the Enothis warzone. Several wings of the Phantine Air Corps were immediately deployed to Enothis by mid-773.M41 on the war's 250th day. In a great redeployment, the Imperial Navy and the Phantine Air Corps replaced the outgunned and outclassed air forces of the Enothian Commonwealth which were being slowly whittled down by the enemy Hell Blade and Hell Talon fighters and fighter-bombers. In a protracted and bitter delaying action against the forces of the Archenemy, the Imperial aircraft covered the retreat of the Imperial ground forces to the planetary capital city of Enothopolis. Having constructed mobile, ground-based Landcarriers for its aircraft, the Archenemy's counteroffensive almost caught up with the Imperial retreat before the troops were successfully evacuated amphibiously from the southern shores of the Sea of Ezra and the Zophonian Sea. After the retreat, the Imperium's air assets relocated to a series of well-defended air bases located on several islands of those seas. In what was later called the Battle of the Zophonian Sea, the Archenemy launched all of its remaining aircraft against the hopelessly outnumbered Imperial formations. Yet, through remarkable determination and bloody sacrifice, the Imperial line held. By the 270th day of the conflict, the enemy's will had been broken thanks to the heroic efforts of all the Imperial squadrons, especially the Phantine XX. With new reinforcements allotted to Enothis by the Crusade High Command, the Archenemy's offensive on Enothis was successfully repelled and finally defeated at the Second Battle of the Trinity Hives. Unfortunately, despite the final Imperial victory, Magister Sek managed to evade capture and flee the planet.

Regimental Organisation
Given the Phantine Air Corps' unique nature, the order of battle common to most regiments of the Astra Militarum do not apply to the Phantine Air Corps. Instead, the Air Corps closely follows the organisation of the Imperial Navy, the military branch of the Imperium of Man with the most experience in regards to aircraft and their deployment. The Phantine Air Corps is a mixed regiment where female pilots and even officers are commonplace and benefit from the same level of respect as their male colleagues, something which is relatively rare in the conservative and often hide-bound hierarchy of the Imperial Navy.

The main tactical unit within the Phantine Air Corps is the "wing," roughly equivalent to the Imperial Navy squadron. Each wing benefits from its own support detachment of ground-crew and technicians, which make the Phantine Air Corps a highly flexible formation, a flexibility it often desperately needs in battle. Depending on its specialisation, (Bombardment, Reconnaissance, or Interception) a wing is comprised of 8 to 12 aircraft in addition to the squadron leader's own craft. Each wing is led by a commissioned officer who usually carries the rank of Wing Commander, often shortened simply to "Commander" as a matter of expediency. It is customary for the Wing Commander to select a second-in-command, known as an Executive Officer within the Phantine Air Corps, from the pilots serving under him or her. Each wing can be further broken down into lesser formations known as "flights" for missions that do not necessitate the full strength of the entire wing, such as routine patrols. When in combat, a Commander's will is law over his wing, while strategic deployment of the entire Air Corps is determined by the officers who comprise the Phantine High Command. The Phantine High Command is autonomous from both the hierarchy of the Imperial Navy, which has no authority over an Imperial Guard unit, and from that of the larger Astra Militaris, which lacks the experience and tactical knowledge to deploy aircraft wisely. This unusual command autonomy has led to considerable tensions within both the Navy and the Guard, and as a result the personnel of the Phantine Air Corps often keep to themselves. On their homeworld, the Phantine High Command will determine each wing's duty posting, be it on one of the great zeppelins like the Nimbus, as a ground-based squadron deployed to one of the sky-cities or offworld in some distant warzone of the galaxy.

Regimental Colours
In their standard configuration, the aircraft of the Phantine Air Corps are uniformly grey. Upon deployment to a combat zone, each wing will choose a complementary colour featured on the aircraft's fins and tail. For instance, during the Enothian War, the Phantine XIX "Orbis" Squadron chose a deep blue as its secondary colour. However, following Imperial Navy regulations, Phantine wings often abandon their original colour scheme for standard or improvised camouflage. It is common practice for a crew or pilot of a Phantine aircraft to baptise it with an emotionally-resonant name and decorate its nose with emblems, figures or pieces of art, meticulously applied either by the pilots themselves or their fitters and technicians. During combat operations, an aircraft's given name often replaces the standard radio call-sign of the unit, a practice particularly present in bomber wings.

Phantine crews and pilots wear the same taupe flightsuits, a colour chosen deliberately to mimic that of the Phantine Skyborne, the regiment of Drop Troopers also raised from Phantine. Pilots and crew also carry thick, fur-trimmed brown leather flight jackets that they heavily personnalise. The last part of their kit, the flight-helmet, is often painted in the secondary colour of their squadron to allow for quick identification.

Aircraft

 * Lightning Strike Fighter -
 * Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter -
 * Shrike Dive-Bomber -
 * Marauder Bomber - The Marauder Bomber is the workhorse of the Imperial Navy : it is void-capable, heavily armed for its size and able to carry a sizeable payload of bombs. As the standard strategic bomber in the Imperium, the Marauder Bomber is also a comon sight within the Phantine Air Corps, where it has increasingly replaced the heavier Magog. In comparison to the Magog, a Marauder Bomber is faster, its four turbojets allowing it to reach a top speed of 1’800 km/h. Used in large formations, the Marauder Bomber is capable of levellng cities or destroy entire armies.
 * Magog Bomber -
 * Behemoth Heavy Bomber -

Notable Phantine Air Corps Units

 * Phantine XIX Orbis Flight -
 * Phantine XX Umbra Flight -
 * Phantine XXI Halo Flight -

Notable Phantine Air Corps Personnel

 * Grand-Admiral Orloff
 * Commander William Hayes
 * Commander Bree Jagdea
 * Commander Oskar Viltry
 * Major August Kaminsky
 * Executive Officer Milan Blansher
 * Executive Officer Wassimir Kyrklan
 * Flight Lieutenant Larice Asche
 * Pilot Officer Erwell Costary
 * Pilot Officer Febos Nicarde
 * Pilot Officer Vander Marquall

Trivia
The general look of the Phantine Air Corps is highly reminiscent of the uniform and habits of World War II pilots within the United States Army Air Force after 1942. The beige flightsuits of the Phantine Air Corps are similar to those worn by fighter and bomber squadron crews in tropical latitudes, such as the 15th Air Force in the North African and Italian theatres and the 5th Air Force in the Southwest Pacific.