Formations and Ships of the PACT Arm

Famous Formations

European Union

74th Marine Regiment, "the Rose Knights"

Originally composed of deserters from the army and fleet of Heaven's Shore when the government was seized by the pro-ZOCU transgene minority Hogan's Company joined other anti-government forces in opposition to the "tyranny of the minority". Its second commander, after the much loved Captain Hogan was gunned down during an attempt to secure support from local settlements, proved to be the most farsighted of the anti-government forces in the region when the first ZOCU mobile suits appeared on the side of the "damned dictatorship". Leading a recce team, or suicide squad as they were called by the General Alberville, Captain Emile Baxton acquired combat data on ZOCU Peltast's operating against the rebels over a period of several weeks before discovering one of the staging bases for the Heaven Shore's Mobile Suit Volunteer Battallion.

In a daring raid Captain Baxton and twenty members of his command raided a relatively lightly defended base while its maneuver forces were deployed. The raid achieved outstanding success in terms of intelligence; several operating and technical manuals as well as close-up digital recordings of one or two damaged Peltast's were acquired before Baxton and his surviving men extracted. Notably amoung the survivors was Henrich von Palzer, the future first commander of the Rose Knights. This notable incident shored up morale for the anti-government forces and raised Baxton's prestige to the point of being promoted to take command of a region when the struggle was forced to become primarily a guerrilla war against the government and its off-world allies. The recovered intelligence was passed on to the military intelligence branch of the EU, but was ignored by the old guard until the Deep Space Fleet's losses attested to the importance of mobile suits in warfare.

During the ZOCU war the European Union endeavored to supply the guerrilla's with arms and supplies to undermine the war effort on Heaven's Shore. During one of the early supply drops Colonel Baxton leading a contingent of the Company in securing the supply transfer was surprised by a rapid attacked by a elite company. While managing to initially hold off the assault at the transfer zone, which was only part of a larger operation which devastated the guerrilla movement in the region for months, they were cut off from escape. Leading a rear-guard the survivors (sans a good percentage of the rifles and medical kits intended for the rebels) under Henrich von Palzer escaped onboard the dropships and were extracted from the system.

Deemed impractical to bring the few troops that managed to get off-world Henrich von Palzer and his motley band were hailed as heroes in the embattled Core for their daring raids and achievements in mobile suit development; the fact that the technical information they acquired years before had been ignored to the point where it did little good was something the media controllers had buried under the rug. With a reputation of being elite with the bonus of being fiercely anti-ZOCU von Palzer was asked to head a unit of expatriates, loyalists and volunteers.

Von Palzer agreed. The Rose Knights were formed from volunteers originating from ZOCU colonies or colonies occupied by ZOCU troops with focus on specialized tactics. During the war the unit gained considerable fame or infamy dependent on which side you fought for as loyalists or traitors while achieving generally remarkable results when deployed. By 2186 the Knights became regiment sized with the formation of two battallions and participated in a false-flag operation that netted the freedom for a hundred future recruits liberated from a prison on Heaven's Shore. Operation Jailbust however proved to be the first and only time the unit would operate on Heaven's Shore as von Palzer was ordered to bring his unit into strategic reserve in light of Operation Beanstalk in 2187.

After von Palzer's untimely death at the end of 2187 on New Mercia the veteran 1st BN CO Adrain Felix was promoted as the regiment's Second Commander. 2188 was spent with the regiment serving in suppressing the anti-government insurgency on one of Outremonde-III's moons and then in various skirmishes and operations within Union territory. While in transport where Colonel Felix and first company where killed when their transport was sunk by raiders in the early part of the year. Tessa Striech, CO of second battallion, was promoted as the regiment's Third Commander and restored morale after the loss of its second CO in less than four months.

Initially held in reserve for an invasion of Haraway when the war ended without a ground invasion the regiment was close to being disbanded due to the issue that while it was an elite unit it had been formed largely, in the minds of certain of the high command, as a propaganda unit. Admiral Anton Zweiker's argument for keeping a unit with high esprit de corps and proven proficiency combined with the inherent value of a formation with a string of successes was key in the debate that followed in choosing to set the unit on a permanent footing.

In its existence the regiment has had a mixed group of soldiers. Originally made up of a handful of veterans from Heaven's Shore, a few Harawayian "Reds" whose defection were made more significant in the official broadcasts then any popular movement on Haraway itself, loyalist and defected transgenes from various worlds of various reliability, troops from New Mercia that escaped the atrocities on that planet, and then in good numbers volunteers of significant caliber from regular EU units.

War Time Commanders

Henrich von Palzer, First Commander (WIA June 2187)

Adrain Laap Felix, interim Commander

Henrich von Palzer, First Commander (Returned September 2187; KIA December 2187)

Adrain Laap Felix, Second Commander (KIA April 2188)

Tessa Striech, Third Commander (April 2188-End of War)