"David Drake - The Hammers Slammers Handbook" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

.Friesland had originally been a speculative colony set up by Dutch entrepreneurs. When its GNP
matched that ofHolland , it declaredUDI 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.

Frieslandwas 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 whenMelpomone rebelled.

Melpomoneproduced a cash crop, thebluebright plants whose biochemistry was the source of a popular
stim -drug.Bluebright farmers got wheat-prices for a crop that made the owners ofFriesland 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 GuardsOf 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 offoederati
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.
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Fig. 4 Uniform Insignia and name tape
from a Slammers combat uniform
(JohnTreadaway )



It was always understood that the Auxiliary Regiment would be disbanded when the rebellion was over
and its troopers grantedFriesland citizenship as a reward. However Secretary to the Council of State
Tromp, who ranFriesland , 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 fullarmoured regiment of
Guards onMelpomone to control theStarport and disarm the mercenaries.

The Slammers launched a lethal set piece attack on theStarport , 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. PresidentSmol of the Council had been little more than Secretary Tromp's puppet
and after the Secretary's unfortunate death atMelpomone various factionsmanoeuvred for control. Van
Vorn finally assumed the Presidency arousing simmering hostility from a faction led byCounsellor
Theismann .

Thiessmaneventually rebelled when VanVorn declared himself President-ForтАУLife and theCounsellor
hired the Slammer's to make him Dictator. VanVorn poisonedhimself after the Slammer's broke the Iron