Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

The Battlecruiser, what is it? These ships are in fact capital ships, whose archetype can be traced back to the wet water navies of Earth. The modern version bridges the gap between cruisers, and battleships. These ships favor strong firepower, and powerful engines, but suffer from limited protection. This lends them to certain roles which they excel at. Battlecruisers are great at hit-and-run tactics, are superb cruiser hunters, and can pack a punch in a flanking maneuver. They are not without their drawbacks however, they are expensive, and thanks to that limited protection don’t fare well against other capital ships like battleships. In fact the smaller Heavy Cruiser, which is also a capital ship tends to fare better in that match up.

Those drawbacks played into a lack of battlecruisers among Earth’s military forces as the ship archetype didn’t fit the doctrine or goals of Earth’s military forces. With the colonies things are a little different, and a few of the colonies actually experimented with utilizing the Battlecruiser archetype, at least for awhile. By the Earth-Cathamari war no battlecruisers remained in service to any of the colonial navies, nor were any in service in Earth’s navy. Before we get into why, perhaps its best to look at a few such ships. For a better picture, we will even look at a couple of alien examples, namely those of the Cathamari.

First up a battlecruiser from Titan Colony. Titan colony was the crown jewel of the outer colonies, and grew very wealthy from trade both with the other outer colonies, and Earth. It’s trade routes were particularly vital to that wealth. Most important of all was that trade route with Earth, as that route brought in the bulk of the food that fed the colony. Naturally due to the value of food in the outer colonies piracy was not uncommon. In addition Titan Colony had several colonies under it, that it was responsible for defending. These concerns, led to Titan’s admiralty wanting a fast capital ship able to quickly respond to potential threats. A ship of the battlecruiser archetype seemed most appropriate.

The result of those demands was the Leviathan Class Battlecruiser. It measured 3400 meters in length, with one hundred and twelve decks. For protection, she was outfitted with one and a half meters of armor in the generation one overlord configuration, titan alloy. She is notable for being one of the first ship classes to be constructed out of the famous titan alloy. The ship also featured reinforced bulkheads, emergency bulkheads, and some internal plating with only critical areas benefiting from increased internal protection.

Primary propulsion was achieved by Twelve Dual Core Laser Pulse Wave Engines., and supplemented by thirty-six secondary manoeuvering engines. This drive configuration made the Leviathan incredibly agile for her era and allowed her to remain competitive as late as the Third Colonial war in terms of speed, and maneuverability. Especially after being refitted with more modern Particle Pulse Wave engines. The Leviathan holds the distinction of being the most agile battlecruiser ever built, able to outrun most cruisers, and even a few destroyers.

As for Armament, the Leviathan was designed late into the second colonial war and as such her weapons reflect that. She doesn’t possess the torpedo heavy armaments of more modern ships nor is she armed with the mixed kinetic and laser armaments made popular in the first colonial war. Most powers of the Era favored the laser, and Titan colony was no different, but instead of the (HEL) High Energy Linked Laser scheme that was popular with the inner colonies, Titan instead employed HEP Lasers. HEP refers to a laser type that utilizes a high energy plasma medium to generate the laser stream. This format has a few advantages over HEL Lasers, but HEPs are known to be a little temperamental and suffer from overheating issues. It is worth noting that they do enjoy a much more rapid firerate, thanks to a faster charge cycle. There is not much difference in energy delivered per bolt, in fact it's slightly lower.

The Leviathan’s main battery is made up of Three hundred and Twenty Eight super heavy HEP laser cannons. These are high yield anti-ship weapons, and mounted accordingly in protected quad turrets along the hull. The specific cannon used was the TSR-137 HEP Laser Cannon, which supported an impressive fire rate of seven thousand five hundred bolts per minute. These laser bolts were also fairly powerful bolts able to shred most cruisers, and even some capital ships in seconds. Unfortunately, the weapon was also temperamental and known to overheat during sustained barrages. Refitted versions of the ship often replaced these cannons with the Martian made, MSHSL-457B HEL Laser Cannon, which while slower (2670 bolts per minute) delivered much more powerful bolts, and did not suffer from an overheating problem. The other option used on some refits was the MRH-22 Heavy Particle Cannon.

Her secondary battery was composed of duel TSR-59 HEP Laser cannons. These were medium dual purpose guns well suited for engaging both small ships and capital ships. They had an extremely impressive sustained fire rate but like all lasers of the HEP type they suffered overheating issues. Limiting their ability for sustained fire. Like the main guns, later refits replaced the guns with Martian made HEL type lasers or particle cannons.

Initially the Leviathan was not outfitted with a dedicated defensive battery, but she was later outfitted with several dedicated point defense missile and laser batteries at the cost of several secondary gun mounts. As the dual purpose guns proved insufficient protection against light craft and missiles. Speaking of missiles, the Leviathan was equipped with fusion torpedoes. Specifically early fusion torpedoes that lacked the sophisticated armor and shield penetration devices mounted on more modern ships. As they were not needed. Ships of the day didn’t have the kind of defenses to make them needed.

The Leviathan carried six dedicated torpedo bays, each capable of supporting five hundred warheads. These bays were later expanded to carry additional warheads for use against small ships like fighters. The ship didn’t carry the RF launchers found on more modern ships either. Regardless her 160 ventral and dorsal launchers gave the ship a decent barrage of heavy weapons.

Like many capital ships, the Leviathan also featured hangers. Given her main role, she was typically outfitted with 120 strike craft and four corvettes that could be comfortably stowed in her hanger bays. These ships were often used for recon roles in addition to combat.

Moving on to protection. The Leviathan class Battlecruiser is one of the first classes of starship to feature powered armor of the Generation One Concept. Many ships of the age had already started using Polarized Plating to protect from laser batteries. While effective its limitations left much to be desired. As the Leviathan was being developed, scientists on Mars started experimenting with structural fields. Research that made its way to Titan, and while Mars colony was making its own version of Gen One plating, Titan colony developed their version first. Not only that, but thanks to their now famous alloy the Titan version was superior. A rarity.

This meant that what armor the Leviathan did have proved to be remarkably resilient. Gen one armor used a combination of structural fields and hull polarization to harden the plating against hostile attack. Allowing a ship more protection for less weight. Something quite valuable for a battlecruiser. As such the designers felt they could get away with only a meter and a half of armor at the thickest. Most ships of her size would have had about five meters of plating. With many cruisers having around three on average. This left her with much less armor than was typically expected of a capital ship. This low armor allowed for much greater agility and speed than her size would suggest.

The Leviathan class of battlecruisers proved to be fairly good at its job. An agile cruiser hunter and intercepter. Few vessels could outrun the ship and most ships that could prove a threat were unable to keep up. Unfortunately the first production run did prove to be more vulnerable to torpedoes and fighters than expected. Later refits corrected this and helped her fulfill her duties.

Like many battlecruisers she proved to be a poor match against battleships and other heavy capital ships. Lacking the heavy defenses needed to take a hit, she would not last long in a match against them. Her speed however allowed her to more freely withdraw from battle when outmatched. The Leviathan’s worst enemy however wasn’t a battleship, but a ship put forth by Mar colony.

The Ares class Battlecruiser was part stealth vessel part capital ship. She was much smaller than the Leviathan with a total length of 2400 meters and only sixty-nine decks. The first ship of the class was launched just one year after the first of the Leviathan class. As such her armaments and systems are much comparable. She was constructed of a more traditional alloy and featured many of the same defensive technologies the Leviathan did. Generation One powered armor, reinforced internal bulkheads, internal plating, and emergency bulkheads. Mostly concentrated around critical sections with a maximum thickness of 3.1 meters.

Her most important feature however was the adaptive stealth coating applied to her hull plating. Combined with an array of sensor jammers and disruptors. The ship actually featured a rather significant electronic warfare suite. One focused on masking her profile. The result was the Ares could virtually disappear at will. Not unlike a science fiction cloaking device. Albeit it very much remains visible to optical detection. To combat that, the ship was painted black and silver in a scheme that you may find familiar. As the Enterprise features the same paint job. The purpose of this paint is to naturally reduce the likelihood of the ship being spotted and works well to hide her against the backdrop of space.

Primary propulsion was achieved by Eight dual core Laser Pulse Wave Engines with 24 supplemental maneuvering drives. Being pulse wave drives, the engine cores were heavily shielded and located deep within the vessel. Each drive featured wake dampeners to reduce their emissions profile. These dampers were early examples of the kind that are now standard on all ships of Earth make. Activating the dampers reduced overall thrust, but greatly reduced the ship’s footprint on scanners able to detect the spatial wake created by a pulse wave drive. Strangely it was also found to have better fuel economy while in stealth mode.

Her main battery was composed of 128 MSHSL-457 HEL Laser Cannons. These superheavy lasers packed quite the punch and featured a fire rate of 2400 bolts per minute. With the firepower these weapons gave her, she proved to be a very capable predator. Outside of heavy capital ship armor nothing of the age could withstand a barrage from these guns. The MSHSL-457 and its successors were the deadliest laser weapons of the day.

In addition to this deadly main battery, she carried fore and aft torpedoes. Along with 120 medium laser cannons mounted in duel turrets and another six hundred light laser cannons in quad turret mounts. A modest hanger gave her space for sixty strike craft and two corvettes.

The Ares class was one of the most successful battlecruisers of her day. While she didn’t stand much of a chance against a battleship, she proved herself elsewhere. In fact the Ares was most effective at hunting down other battlecruisers and destroying them. While also proving capable in the traditional roles assigned to battlecruisers. Her stealth also made her effective at commerce raiding. As such it wasn’t uncommon for one or two of these to be attacking trade routes or sneaking behind enemy lines to destroy key targets.

Next up, lets take a look at a Cathamari design. This is one we have seen a few times already, the Ravager class Battlecruiser. The Ravager like many Cathamari ships features a heavy emphasis on firepower. As a result she has an extremely heavy main battery. A battery composed of 1440 Heavy Concussion Plasma cannons mounted in quad turrets on a starframe a mere 1240 meters long. Along with this heavy battery of cannons, the ship features eighty heavy plasma torpedo launchers.

This mix of heavy weapons gives her an extremely potent anti-ship battery, but leaves little room for lighter weapons. The ship only has a handful of light plasma guns for defense against small ships. A mere twenty Light Concussion cannons in dual turrets represent the entirety of her secondary battery. This means she has very little protection against small vessels like enemy starfighters. As a result, she relies on an allied fighter escort for protection, like most other Cathamari ships. Unfortunately the ship’s hanger is also tiny so she only has a mere four fighters of her own.

As for her protection? The Ravager has a mere two meters of duranium plating protecting her most critical areas and virtually nothing elsewhere. Her main protection is offered by a class II Sega based energy shield. These shields aren’t particularly strong compared to other shield types we have encountered, but they do provide a fair degree of protection. These shields render the ship virtually immune to kinetic weapons and are quite resilient against heavy energy and torpedo bombardments. Unfortunately for the Cathamari these shields are easy to bypass with shield-penetrating torpedoes and they can be overloaded by Electro cannons as well. Furthermore, the shields have hard limits to how much energy they can take at once and more modern weapons can quickly breach them.

Aside from her armor, the ship does feature reinforced bulkheads and internal shielding. Not that this means much once the armor and shields fail. The Ravager like most battlecruisers is fairly fragile. Its also one of the smallest battlecruisers in the galaxy, at least so far as we have seen.

The ship is fairly quick, however. Propulsion is achieved through a linked hyper plasma manifold. This allows the ship to produce greater thrust and agility with fewer thrusters. The hyper plasma drive utilizes superheated plasma to accelerate the ship. Compared to pulse wave engines this leaves much to be desired, but compared to traditional engines these engines are a league above.

So how well has the Ravager performed? Well... poorly. During the war the Cathamari lost these by the hundreds and they fared even worse on their own. In packs they did however proved effective at taking down cruisers, but in equal numbers? They always failed.

In summary, we have noted that battlecruisers can be effective. With the Cathamari design being a clear failure. So why have battlecruisers disappeared within Earth’s fleets? The answer lies less in effectiveness and more in doctrine. Battlecruisers are expensive capital ships but they die quickly under fire. Nor can they match a battleship in combat. Rather than spend money on a battlecruiser, it made more sense to focus on better protected battleships or heavy cruisers. Now you may be asking about the Ares. What about cruisers like her? Well she was rather expensive and more recently her role has been overtaken by a new class of stealth frigate, designated the Bird of Prey. If the name sounds familiar it should. Like it’s sci-fi namesake. These are small frigates, with large spinal mounted guns. These guns are often of battleship caliber, but slower to fire.

Birds of Prey have completely replaced the Battlecruiser in a number of roles due to them being cheaper and easier to maintain. A pack of them costs less than one battlecruiser and can be very deadly. If used effectively that is.