His Majesty's Armed Forces (Ringerike)

'The Ringerike Armed Forces' officially His Majesty's Armed Forces (Ringerike), (Norsk: Hans Majestets Væpnede Styrker): are the military services responsible for the defence of the Kingdom of Ringerike. They also conduct operations to promote Ringerike's wider interests abroad, support international peacekeeping efforts and provide humanitarian aid when authorised to do so.

Established in their current form shortly after the signing of the constitution in 1676, the Armed Forces have been active in their role of providing the Kingdom's security, and contributing to the security of the surrounding region.

Today, the Ringerike Armed Forces consist of: the Royal Navy (Kongelig Marine); the Ringerike Army (Ringerike Hær), the Kingdom's principal land warfare branch; the Royal Air Force (Luftforsvaret), consisting of a diverse operational fleet consisting of both fixed-wing and rotary aircraft. The Ringerike Armed Forces include standing forces, Regular Reserve, Volunteer Reserves and Sponsored Reserves.

Its Commander-in-chief is the monarch, currently King Haakon VI, to whom members of the forces swear allegiance. Long-standing constitutional convention, however, has vested de facto executive authority, by the exercise of Royal Prerogative, in the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister (acting with the Cabinet) makes the key decisions on the use of the armed forces.The King however, remains the supreme authority of the military.

Royal Navy (Kongelig Marine)
See More: Royal Ringerike Navy (Kongelig Marine) The Royal Navy of Ringerike is primarily tasked with global force projection, the security of the Kingdom's territorial waters, as well as Counter-mine operations and Counter Piracy in areas of national interest, outside of traditional military tasks, the Navy carries out routine ice-breaking in the Northern seas to support the free passage of commercial and government shipping. It is supported in these roles by it's own Marine Corps, consisting of two marine regimental combat groups, a Jeger battalion and the Marinespesialkommando (MSK), a tier 1 Special Forces unit with expertise in marine direct action and underwater demolitions, as well as a variety of other tasks.

Ringerike Army (Ringerike Hær)
See More: Ringerike Army (Ringerike Hær) Consisting of the full-time Army, the part time volunteer reserve and the home guard the army is responsible for ground based warfare, and also maintaining a limited organic aviation capability. The majority of infantry regiments contains multiple regular and reserve battalions. Modern infantry have diverse capabilities and this is reflected in the varied roles assigned to them. There are six operational roles that infantry battalions can fulfil: Parachute infantry, air assault, armored infantry, mechanized infantry, mountain infantry and light role infantry. Some units also perform specialist secondary tasks, such as ceremonial or rescue duties. Regiments and battalions e.g.: the Life Guards Regiment, exist within every corps of the Army, functioning as administrative or tactical formations.

Royal Air Force (Luftforsvaret)
See More: Royal Ringerike Air Force (Luftforsvaret) The Royal Air Force operates multi-role and single-role fighters, reconnaissance and patrol aircraft, tankers, transports, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, and various types of training aircraft. Ground units are also maintained in the form of the Air Force Rifle Regiment. The Regiment essentially functions as the ground defense force of the Air Force, optimized for the specialist role of fighting on and around forward airfields, which are densely packed with operationally vital aircraft, equipment, infrastructure and personnel.

Ringerike Special Forces (Forsvarets Spesialstyrker)
See More: Ringerike Special Forces

The Ringerike Special Forces (Norsk: Forsvarets Spesialstyrker) is a directorate composed of the Army Special Forces (Norsk: Hærens Spesialkommando) (HSK), the Navy Special Forces (Norsk: Marinespesialkommando) (MSK), and 3 Special Aviation Regiment, it also has the ability to assume command of elements of Jeger trained units to provide supporting functions to Special Operations. The Ringerike Special Forces are expected to be immediately deployable on a wide variety of domestic and extraterritorial operations in support of Ringerike Government policy.

Joint Support Service (Felles støttetjeneste)
See More: Joint Support Service (Felles støttetjeneste)

The Ringerike Armed Forces, as part of reforms in enacted beginning in 2002 formed a new branch, the Joint Support Service, which was formed by merging large components of the Combat Service Support elements of the other services, such as medical, logistics and police regiments, as well as clerical staff, Bands and several elements of supporting civilian agencies. The aim of this move was to streamline administrative structures and cut costs, functionally it is made up of members of the other branches as well as directly recruited individuals, also incorporating a large number of reservists. Units within the service are subordinated to maneuver commands on a formal and ad hoc basis, depending on the current need.

Prince Erling Island Defence Force
See More: Prince Erling Island Defence Force (Prins Erlingsøya Forsvarsstyrke)

The Prince Erling Island Defence Force is responsible for the security of the Ringerike dependency of Prince Erling Island, it is a largely reservist force augmented by a rotational force of Ringeriker troops. The force has land sea and air components and beyond individual volunteers is not subject to deployments outside of its home area of operations.

Ranks And Insignia
Rank is worn on the front of the working uniform by both Officers and enlisted, enlisted rank insignia is shared across all branches.

Commissioned Officers
Commissioned Officers of the different service branches retain separate but equivalent rank structures unlike the enlisted.

Equipment
For Currently Used Equipment See: Equipment of His Majesty's Armed Forces (Ringerike) For Formerly Used Equipment See: Retired Equipment of His Majesty's Armed Forces (Ringerike)

The Ringerike armed forces source equipment from a series of domestic and foreign manufacturers, government policy is that wherever possible equipment should be manufactured domestically, however a significant portion of the foreign equipment that is operated by the Ringerike Armed Forces is sourced from Chezzetcook.

Weapons Of Mass Destruction
See More: Ringerike And Weapons Of Mass Destruction

The Kingdom of Ringerike possesses, or has possessed, a variety of weapons of mass destruction, including Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons with conditional no first use policy, with the official government position being that WMDs will only be deployed first on a defensive basis when the territory of Ringerike itself is under threat.

Uniform
The Ringerike Military uniform has multiple categories, ranging from ceremonial uniforms to combat dress to evening wear. No. 8 Dress, the day-to-day uniform, is known as "Klessystem 2014" consisting of a windproof smock, a lightweight jacket and trousers with ancillary items such as thermals and waterproofs. The military has introduced tactical recognition flashes (TRFs); worn on the right arm of a combat uniform and essentially the stable belt pattern laid onto a small rectangular patch, denoting the wearer's regiment, corps or service branch. For enlisted ranks, ceremonial dress is not commonly issued outside the Army regiments attached to the royal household for public duties, this step was taken as a cost cutting measure in 2006 as the expense was deemed unnecessary.

The primary distinguishing feature of the service branches outside of insignia worn on the clothing is the headdress, which for most cases is a beret, services, corps and regiments are distinguished by the color of, and the insignia worn on, the beret see table below for examples:

Beret Colours
The colours are as follows:

Other Adornments
Some Regiments and Corps wear a coloured backing behind the capbadge. These include:


 * Life Guards Regiment, Royal Dragoon Guards and Earl's Companies- Blue Red Blue patch and red
 * Army Medical Corps - Dull Cherry Oval Patch
 * Army Air Corps - Black Patch
 * Royal Marines - Black patch
 * Grenadier Reiments - Blue Yellow Blue Patch and white
 * HSK - Black Maroon Black Patch and and black
 * MSK - Black Blue Black Patch and and black
 * 101(Independent) Reconnaissance Company - Black Patch

The correct way of wearing Ringerike issue berets is taught at training depots in the weeks prior to passing out and is to shape the head dress back and to the right for the material and to have the leather band level around the head with the cap badge two fingers above the left eye. Before this point recruits to regular units will wear a K.2014 pattern and aspirants to specialist units, and those undergoing certain specialist courses wear a.

Stable Belts
Another major distinguishing feature is the various Regimental/Corps/Branch stable belts, worn with working dress when in barracks, stable belts may also serve to distinguish certain battalions of a given regiment. Stable belts are worn with the leather buckle centered on the left side, an example of the belt layout is shown below followed by the patterns in use within the Ringerike Military:

Qualification Patches
Service Personnel can earn a series of wearable qualification patches throughout their career, and most are tied to the completion of a specialization course for example the jump wings awarded to paratroopers, or the shoulder title patches awarded to Jeger troops, which are informally known as "Mudguards". An inexhaustive list of such courses can be found below.


 * All-Arms Jeger Cadre
 * Basic Parachute Course
 * Specialist Parachute Course
 * Special Forces Selection Cadre
 * Joint Terminal Attack Controllers Course
 * EOD&Search Course
 * Sniper School
 * Long Range Patrol Cadre
 * Engineer Divers Course
 * Assault Pioneers Course
 * All-Arms Physical Training Instructor Course