The Kormoran Project was a United States black-project to create warships disguised as supertankers and freighters.
History[]
Early History[]
The Kormoran Project began during the late 20th century, conceived by the United States, being based on a similar tactic used by the Nazis during World War II. Overseen by a number of U.S. military officials, including General Weitzman, the U.S. military contracted the Kopassus Shipping Group to build a number of frigates disguised as ordinary-looking super-tankers, in order to allow the U.S. to move ICBMs around discreetly and launch them from close proximity to foreign nations, so that they would be hit rapidly and without knowing where they were being attacked from.
Additionally, it was decided that the Kormoran ships would work best when used in conjunction with another black-project, Chameleon; missiles made to appear exactly like those belonging to foreign nations. Due to this partnership, it was decided that some of the Kormoran ships would be stored at Axon Corp's ship-building and missile attachment plants in both Norfolk, Virginia, and Guam.
When Majestic-12 began plans to start a new Cold War in order to increase their fortunes, the Kopassus Shipping Group's CEO, Corneius Kopassus, revealed the existence of Kormoran, and thus they planned to use some Kormoran ships and Chameleon missiles to destroy a number of western cities in America and Europe and stage it as a terrorist attack to prolong the war on terror.
Seeking aide in defending the Kormoran ships in case they came under attack before the Chameleon missiles could be launched, Axon Corp CEO Jonathan Killian made a deal with five African nations, who agreed to deploy troops onto each ship in order to defend them.
Eight days before the intended launch of the attack, Majestic-12 staged a raid attack on the Norfolk plant, and had the Kormoran vessels Talbot, Ambrose and Jewel stolen, loaded with Chameleon missiles, and sent to the English Channel, the New York City bay, and San Francisco bay, respectively.
However, when Killian had his Guam facility hit with a sham raid as well, he instead had the Kormoran ships Whale and Hopewell armed with different Chameleon missiles from what M-12 wanted, as the chaos-loving Killian had his own plans to incite global anarchy instead of a Cold War.
Scarecrow[]
After capturing Weitzman, a pair of MI6 agents attempted to interrogate him, admitting that they knew about Kormoran.
The Mossad agent Benjamin Rosenthal was killed before he could share what he knew of M-12's plan with Schofield's allies, but luckily Book II was able to collect several of his notes. With them, Book II and Scott Moseley discovered the plans for the Kormoran vessels, and used the provided coordinates to locate where the ships were.
Since Schofield was the among the only ones left who could disarm the CincLock-VII systems, he had some of his allies infiltrate the Jewel in San Francisco and the Ambrose in New York so that they could provide a satellite uplink for him to disarm them, while he infiltrated the Talbot in the English Channel.
Andrew Trent and David Fairfax's group came under fire from the Eritrean troops guarding the Jewel, while Book II's Marines encountered similar resistance on the Ambrose. Luckily both groups were able to push through and reach the missiles in their silos, awaiting Schofield's connection.
Schofield's initial entry onto the Talbot was easy since the Israeli Sayaret Tzanhim accompanying Simon Zemir had already taken out most of the Nigerian soldiers onboard. However, the Skorpions and IG-88 both arrived and disrupted the attempts to disarm the missile onboard, and Schofield ended up ordering Rufus to ram an ordinary super-tanker into the Talbot to turn the tide of the battle. As the Talbot began to sink to the bottom of the Channel, Schofield took cover in a small submersible set to be crushed by the disguised frigate before Knight managed to rescue him.
After Schofield discovered Killian's other Kormoran ships and Chameleon missiles, he had Moseley arrange nearby attack-subs to sink the Whale and Hopewell, preventing the missiles from being able to launch.
In the aftermath of the incident, the Kormoran Project was presumably shut down.
People Involved[]
- General Ronson Weitzman (Project overseer)
- Kopassus Shipping Group
Goal[]
The idea behind Kormoran was to disguise missile-launching warships as supertankers, to maintain an element of secrecy and surprise. It was expected to work particularly well when used in conjunction with the Chameleon Project.
While the U.S. seemed to have no immediate plans to use the Kormoran Project, Majestic-12 almost successfully commandeered the project as part of their intent to create a new Cold War.
Kormoran Ships[]
- MV Ambrose
- Storage - Axon Corp, Norfolk Plant
- M-12 Launch Location - New York
- MV Hopewell
- Storage - Axon Corp, Guam Plant
- M-12 Launch Location - Taiwan Strait
- MV Jewel
- Storage - Axon Corp, Norfolk Plant
- M-12 Launch Location - San Francisco
- MV Talbot
- Storage - Axon Corp, Norfolk Plant
- M-12 Launch Location - English Channel
- MV Whale
- Storage - Axon Corp, Guam Plant
- M-12 Launch Location - Arabian Sea
Trivia[]
- As noted by Charles Beaton within the novel, the Kormoran project is named after the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, which was originally the merchant vessel Steiermark until it was acquired by the navy following the outbreak of war for conversion into a raider.
- In an ironic twist, all of the Kormoran ships taken by M-12 and Killian are named after some of the ships from the Winthrop fleet that brought people to New England in the 17th century.