Post by MikDaTv on Sept 9, 2011 14:45:12 GMT -5
Sledge Class Battlecruiser
The Sledge Class Battlecruiser is a new design platform conceived by General Synthetics. Instead of trying to develop, demonstrate and sell various military grade products separately, GS Marketing division decided it would be better to include as many of their developed research products and advanced civilian technology into a single platform. That platform is a military grade Battlecruiser.
The sledge combines heavy firepower with the advanced computer systems General Synthetics is known for. The Sledge Project itself was a huge opportunity for GS to develop, fine tune and demonstrate the technology they have developed over the past 5 years. The Sledge is at home among both military fleets or with slight modifications, as an armored civilian security ship. In fact GS is gearing it’s campaign in order to sell it to individual planetary governments as an all in one planetary defense ship.
It is being marketed to the Republic Navy as a Battlecruiser though and it does have a lot of Battlecruiser traits. It carries the huge armament of the other large Destroyers and Battleships but it’s armor is extremely thin in some areas in order to keep it’s mass down for speed. It has four main weapons and a host of secondary weapons, most of which fire along the ships forward arc.
Length: 726 Meters
Beam: 545 Meters
Height: 90 Meters
Powerplant: 1 Hypermatter Reactor with reserve battery backups for essential systems.
Engines: 4 large scale GS-750 TTE’s
Maneuvering: Production model capitol scale ethereal rudder system with precision ion engine clusters.
Hull: One inch 9093-T7511 Grade Durasteel
Armor: Durasteel plating ranging from 4-8 inches
Shields: One CEC Capitol Class Shield Generator.
Power and Engines
The Sledge uses one Hypermatter reactor to power all of its electrical systems. Batteries are the ships backup and they can provide power for the ship to run thrusters, life support, communications and artificial gravity. Running all these systems at full power drains the batteries in 48 hours.
Sledges main engines are her 4 Large Scale GS-750 Turbojet Turbine Engines. These four massive engines provide the primary means of forward thrust for the Sledge. Because the Sledge’s base design has armor over only very critical system, it’s not as heavy as it looks. The engines can accelerate the ship very quickly when compared to ships of similar size.
To maneuver the ship uses a patented General Synthetic ethereal rudder system that they’ve installed in most of their repulsorlift vehicles. This is simply scaled way up and reinforced to deal with the stresses put on it by a massive ship like the Sledge. Without needing thrusters and using only it’s forward momentum, it can changed direction albeit much slower than when the maneuvering thrusters are used.
For precision maneuvers, like rolling the ship or turning the ship when not under main engine power, it uses clusters of ion engines located all around the ship. 50 clusters in all, located at strategic points to provide the ship with the maximum amount of maneuverability. Using both the thrusters and etheric rudder the ship can perform some impressive maneuvers for a ship of her size.
Perhaps her most valuable and expensive feature is the repulsorlift array the Sledge has. Her ventral side is dotted with repulsorlift engines providing lift for the vessel while within a gravity well. The number of repulsorlifts allows the ship to slowly enter a planets atmosphere and drop low to the ground for picking up personnel or equipment. It cannot land however, and can only stay hovering on repulsorlift power for 12 hours before needing to kick on the main engines and head back up into orbit.
Compliment
The Sledge is a Battlecruiser in spirit, not a carrier so carrying fighters was never a major part of her design. However, the capabilities of fighters was not overlooked. The ship has two small hanger bays located within the hammerhead section of the ship on either side. The port side hangar bay is for a full squadron of fighters while the starboard side is made as a multi-purpose docking facility that can accomodate up to 3 large shuttles or vessels of similar size.
Troop compliment is another matter however. The Sledge has passenger space for 4,000 non crew personnel. For the military this means several companies worth of troopers can hitch a ride on one of these and be deployed to the surface quickly thanks to the Sledge’s ability to enter a planet’s atmosphere and hover. That also means the ship could have a large security force for repelling its borders or conducting other ship to ship actions.
Weapons
The Sledge was designed around the idea of creating a kill zone in front of the ship where anything that is fired upon gets pulverized by overwhelming firepower. The vast majority of its armament is along its along the front of its large hammerhead section. Its main battery is an array of 30 heavy double turbolasers. 20 are on turreted mounts, 10 along the top of the hammerhead and 10 along the bottom. The final 10 are on gimbaled mounts across the front of the hammerhead.
Its secondary weapons consist of 20 light turbolaser turrets mounted centerline along the spine of the ship. 10 dorsal and 10 ventral. these are only single tubolasers and placed to engage flanking targets.
Tertiary weapons include a series of 20 double laser cannons mounted all about the ship. 4 heavy proton torpedo launchers with 10 torpedoes each, all forward facing. 5 cuncussion missile pods, one of which is forward facing on the hammerhead. The other 4 missile pods are on turreted mounts out on the nacelles.
Rounding out its armament are point defense turrets. 10 auto-blasters with an automated radar targeting system designed to try and pick off incoming ordinance and fighters that stray to close.
Armor and Shields
Because the Sledge is a battlecruiser type design, based around quick but heavy firepower, it does not have much in the way of armor. What armor plating it does have comes in a variety of thicknesses. This armor plating is mostly focused around her bow since that is the face it will be presenting the enemy the most with. Critical systems are armored like the hypermeter reactor and the battery bays to ensure the ship always has power. Other areas have next to nothing, with only the hull protecting those inside from outside attack. Along the spine of the ship it can sometimes look almost skeletal. Her weapon layout was designed to smash any target before a long term slugging match.
Her shielding is her primary means of passive defense. The ship boasts a CEC shield generator, purchased by General Synthetics and hooked up to an advanced computer programmed to optimize shield efficiency during combat. The computer takes sensor data from the ships sensor arrays and shifts power to the arc of the shields that is receiving the most incoming fire. The system is automatic and precise, shifting the shields power levels to both conserve energy and provide the maximum amount of protection for areas that are under heavy attack. The computer reacts to incoming attacks in less than a fourth of a second and can shift shielding dynamically as the combat situation changes.
Sensors
The Sledge has two main sensor arrays. A radio telescope array which acts as her long range sensor system, detecting all radiation around the ship. This is her primary method of scanning systems for other ships as well as monitoring electromagnetic events and "space weather"
Her other main sensor is her RADAR/LIDAR arrays. The ship has three arrays. One ventral, one dorsal and one near the bow. These arrays can provide a radar image of a target as well as current distance, speed, and heading.
Bridge
The bridge of the Sledge makes heavy use of holographic displays and advanced computer systems. Every console from the helm to communications gives it's user all the pertinent information on large holographic visual displays that can be customized to the users liking.
The center of the bridge is dominated by a huge holographic display system that can project 3D maps and layouts as well as real time representation of what is going on around the ship at all times. A useful tool for command and control operations. The Captain can oversee bridge operations from this table and has a view of the displays on every console on the bridge.
Computers and Data Systems
The Sledge does not use a standard computer core like most other starships. Instead of one centralized computer core that all the other computers on the ship connect with, the Sledge uses a distributive computing system where the ships primary computer is actually stored on all the ships computers collectively, right down to the datapads. Everything on the Sledge's network is part of it's main computer system.
This distributive system makes installing an AI both highly effective because the AI has access to almost every system on the ship, and dangerous, because the AI has access to every system on the ship