French Maréchal class Vaisseau Cuirassé de Fusion (Starship Destroyer)

French Maréchal class Vaisseau Cuirassé de Fusion (Starship Destroyer)

Design Date: 2275

First Example Laid Down: 2276

First Example Completed: 2278

Fleets in Service: France

Number in Service: 6, in French service (Maréchals Suchet, Ney, Foch, Marsin, Bouvier and Joffre)

History

In the 2250’s the three main ESA nations agreed on a standardised destroyer, that is a starship whose sole purpose was to meet other starships in battle and destroy them. In another time such vessels would have been called battleships. The resulting vessel was obsolescent before the program was completed. The French had launched the first fusion powered frigate (Frégate de Fusion), which was a huge leap forward in performance, but no other nation had advanced fusion to this point. Even in France the production of shipboard fusion reactors was slow, and initially the entirety of production was dedicated to the Battle type frigate, of which 15 were eventually built (5 each of the Ypres, Austerlitz and Tonnant classes). During the same period the French built a class of VC’s (destroyers) paralleling each class. The initial nuclear powered Paladin class VCN’s have all left French service. The follow-up Hero class increased the size of the nuclear reactor to 75 MW, with a plan to replace the nuclear reactor with a 150 MW fusion reactor at the first refit with greater availability of fusers expected. Ultimately this did not happen, as the move towards Grande Frégates absorbed the expected surplus fusers. The final iteration of this type was the Maréchal class, which was essentially a slightly improved Hero, but with the fuser installed.

The use of fusion power greatly improved the ships capabilities. The staff requirement was for warp 3.0 light, and greater than 2.8 loaded. This was achieved using only 50% of the fusers 150 MW output, leaving 75 MW available for tactical systems. This allowed the Maréchal to mount a very heavy battery for the time. A total of 36 laser arrays were installed, with 18 armoured emitters, each fed by two arrays and onboard targeting. There was considerable discussion about whether each emitter required its own target computer, as the cost of 18 TC’s was 21% of the base ship cost without ordnance. There were two schools of thought:

1.       The vessel will only need a single TC, and maybe a spare, when fighting in Combat rapproché (CQB) against enemy vessels. This is because it will be directing the whole of its fire as a single battery against an enemy ship.

2.       The vessel will need to maximise the number of effective channels of fire if faced with missile or fighter swarms, to maximise area and point defence, and protect the vessel and the battlegroup. Given the difficulty in targeting small missiles, individual TC’s can in some circumstances triple the effectiveness of the “flak barrier”.

Ultimately the latter school of thought, which had won the debate with the Heroes (which had rather fewer guns, all single mounts, awaiting the never coming upgrades), and continued to dominate French thinking.

The gun armament decided, there was a question of whether submunitions should be carried. Submunitions are very close range weapons, and are not useful if the carrying vessel is in a battlegroup formation. They require starships to break formation and make broken formation close attack runs against the enemy, and the relatively conservative French tacticians did not believe this was effective at the time; submunitions charges were regarded as a peculiarly British tactic. Given proven effectiveness of British submunitions armed vessels, especially their new “fighter” concept, such weapons would later by incorporated into the French tactical mix. However, they were not included in the Hero-Maréchal.

The available power allowed for the highest rated screens then available to be installed, and two separate active arrays to target vessels at long range. The ordnance package was standardised with the Suffren etc., being 18 Ritage missiles, either the particle beam armed long range type, or the close range nuclear type (with a 10x2 warhead replacing the PBWS, capacitors and passive array). The missile launchers were built to handle the older CESAM Silke as well, which was still in French inventories and were used well into the Central Asian War. 

For small craft, a small hangar capable of handling a pair of Voir class utility/spotters was incorporated. These warp capable spaceplanes are fast (warp > 4.5 even when loaded), and the three man crew can operate both a passive search array and a reasonable active targeting array, expanding the range of the ships sensor bubble. They also function as the ships main boats, and each is capable of landing a 10 man platoon of power-armour infantry onto a planets surface.

The main hull itself is composite, and is fully armoured (armour = 10) against standard starship weapons, and capable of giving reasonable protection against heavier guns, especially due to the screens. One of the main reasons for such armour levels is to force any opponent to concentrate energy into a smaller number of heavier guns, which will decrease the probability of a disabling hit.

One of the oddities of the Hero-Maréchal is the accommodations. These are mounted on a ring, and the designers intended that the accommodation ring should be ejected before battle, and recovered afterwards. Combat experience proved this never happened – no starship crew wished to be tied to protecting their own accommodations. It was a feature dropped in future vessels. The accommodations themselves are an unarmoured ring, 25 m in inner diameter, 5 m high and 7 m long.

All six Maréchals were involved in the Central Asian War (mainly in the Blockade of Earth and many of the orbital bombardments of Manchu troops) and performed well. With no enemy battlefleet to fight they were not really tested. When the German Revolution spilt over into a war, the Maréchals were dispersed in response to the German Empires successful strategy of terror attacks. Even in 2301 they were pulled anti-nuclear overwatch orbits over French colonies as a holdover from the trauma of 2293. Three of these vessels fought with Rochemont, and the other three with Graham.

Breakdown of costs

Systems	MLv	Cost %
offensive	73.092	31%
defensive	86.27684	37%
propulsion	64.36667	27%
other	10.56667	5%
Ship total	234.3022

Performance

Warp efficiency: 3.04 (unloaded)

Power Plant: 150 MW fusion

Fuel: nil (may carry bladders for small craft)

Range: 7.7 light years

Endurance: six months life support

Mass: 11,034 tons unloaded

Cargo Capacity: 840 cubic meters

Crew: 96 (26 Bridge, 27 TAC, 8 Small Craft, 22 Engineering, 10 troops, and 3 medical); Passengers: upto 4

Comfort: 0;

Emergency Power: 1 week

Total Life Support: 100 men for 180 days

Cost: MLv234.3 (excluding launched weapons etc.)

Ship Status Sheet

Move: 6

Screens: 4

Radiated Signature: 4(7)

Radial Reflected: 7

Lateral Reflected: 9

Target Computers: +2 (18 sets, each FC system has a TC);

Radial Profile: 0

Lateral Profile: +1

Armour: 10

Hull hits: 660/179 (by SC)

Power Plant Hits: 100/20

Active: 2x13, each with a redundant antenna

Passive: 2x10, each with a redundant antenna

Weapons

18 x1dbl lasers in jack turrets (1x 123, 1x 345, 1x 567, 1x 178, 7x 234, 7x 678)

Ordnance Load

3 launchers capable of handling Ritage-1/D or Silke, each with a 6 round magazine

Other Sensors and Electronics:

Navigation Radar

DSS

Gravitational

Hangar:

Carries 2x Voir class scouts (based on Voir drone, but put a hull around it. Far more sensible)

Crew Hits:

Bridge: Captain, Navigator, Helm, 3 Engineer, 3 Communications, 4 Computer

TAC: 18 Fire Control, 3 Remote Pilot, 2 Flight Control, 2 Active Operator, 2 Passive Operator

Damage Control: 11+10+13 = 33 (11 teams) (spare engineers plus troops and spare bridge pax – only 4 teams get +4 for engineering hits)