Doctrina Maritima — The Coast

The Classis Maritima is doctrinally different from the older Branches in one binding way: it does not yet know everything its own doctrine will eventually become. The doctrine is open to revision in a way the Vigil-era doctrines are not.

• The Praefectus Maris who errs is not always doctrinally failed. Where a fleet Praefectus is held to centuries of doctrine, the Praefectus Maris operates in a doctrine still being written. A commander who makes a tactical error and loses a hull to it may have learned the doctrine by the loss; the after-action enters the canon. This is not licence to be careless; it is doctrinal recognition that the wet-navy is being made in every engagement it fights.
• The doctrine admits learning losses. A doctrine that punished every error would have collapsed the youngest service in its first generation. The Holy Office distinguishes learning from failure: the commander who loses a hull to an unknown doctrinal challenge is learned-from; the commander who loses a hull to a known doctrinal failure is reviewed under the standard binding.
• The doctrine is expected to evolve. This Article codifies the wet-water doctrine in its first generation; future revisions will record the learning. It is the only Branch whose doctrine is written forward-looking by design.

This does not weaken the universal constraints. Civilian protection, the count, the defensive frame, the casus belli — these bind the wet-navy as absolutely as any other service. The wet-navy's youth is a doctrinal licence to learn tactical doctrine, not to relax the war doctrine.

The submersible

The submersible is the only Republic combat hull whose primary doctrine is to not be seen. This binds the Branch three ways:

• It does not initiate engagement against sovereign humanity. The doctrine forbids the submarine ambush of a sovereign vessel; the submarine's use is against doctrinal Threats below the surface. The submarine engagement is the most asymmetric form of wet-water combat, and the Republic doctrinally limits it.
• Its loss is a doctrinal Crisis. A submersible lost at depth is lost with all hands; there is no recovery; the Reckoning includes the entire complement. Deployments are weighted accordingly — committed sparingly, with clear doctrinal purpose.
• Its restraint binds even the telling. The commander who would commit a submersible routinely has departed from the doctrine.

The amphibious operation

• The landing is doctrinally combined arms. The assault hull does not fight alone; it operates under wet-navy fire cover, under air cover, and is followed inland by the ground doctrine. A landing without combined arms is doctrinally underweight.
• The landing is a doctrinal Crisis, not a montage. The ramp drops, the surf is knee-deep, the Miles steps into fire. This is the bloodiest form of war the Republic prosecutes; the doctrine treats it with maximum gravity.
• The civilian protection doctrine binds the landing. Most landings are on populated coasts. The landing's first obligation, after seizing the beach, is to not extend the engagement into the population.
• The amphibious doctrine ends at the shore-line; the ground doctrine begins inland. The wet-navy delivers; the Legio holds. A doctrine that fused these into one command would have collapsed the layered defence.

The fixed coastal strongpoint is anchored to a headland, a strait's mouth, a harbour entrance. The doctrine binds:

• It is the strongpoint doctrine applied to the water. Where the Legio anchors a Centuria on a walking war-frame, the wet-navy anchors a strait on a fixed emplacement. The doctrine is the same — the strongpoint that does not move as the foundation the engagement is built on.
• Its location is doctrinal. It is placed at a chokepoint — a strait the enemy must transit, a harbour mouth the Republic must hold. The placement is a strategic decision, not a tactical one, and it is not moved once placed.
• It holds when the line gives. Its doctrinal role is to be the redoubt the line falls back to. When an Agrupamentum must give ground on the open sea, it falls back to the anchor's covering fire and re-forms there. It is the wet-water's redoubt.

The wet-water domain is the only one where the environment is itself a combatant. The doctrine acknowledges this in binding form:

• Drowning is a doctrinal Reckoning category. Crew lost in the water — to cold, to sea, to the absence of rescue — are counted under the same liturgy as combat dead. The Republic does not distinguish in its count between the Citizen lost to enemy fire and the Citizen lost to the cold water after the hull sank; both are named, both are numbered.
• The Reckoning includes the recovered. The wet-water Reckoning has a category the other Branches do not: recovered from the water alive. The boats away for survivors are doctrinal; the count of recovered hands against the count of hulls lost is the wet-water's distinctive entry.
• Weather is doctrinal. The doctrine demands that the commander weigh weather, swell and visibility in tactical decisions. A commander who ignores the sea's own claim on the hull has misunderstood the doctrine. The sea is doctrinally accepted as a force the Republic cannot defeat, only navigate.

No Imperial Armada at sea

The Imperial Armada does not build for the sea. The doctrine of the Classis Maritima has no Imperial parallel — the wet-navy fights with the regular roster, top to bottom, and the Emperor's reserved force does not extend to the water. A wet-water commander cannot plan an engagement around Imperial support, request it, or hold the line in expectation of its arrival. The wet-navy's reserve is its own.

• No wet-water engagement without a shore to defend. The doctrine forbids the engagement that exists for its own sake.
• No submarine ambush of sovereign vessels.
• No casual submersible deployment.
• No amphibious landing as montage — the landing is a Crisis treated with gravity.
• No carrier in the gun-line.
• No fusion of wet-navy and ground command — the hand-off at the shore-line is doctrinal.
• The Reckoning includes the drowned and the recovered.
• No expectation of Imperial Armada support.

Pro Humanitate. Semper Vigilo.