French Gloire class Lance-Missiles Frégate de Fusion (Missile Cruiser)

French Gloire class Lance-Missiles Frégate de Fusion (Missile Cruiser)

Design Date: 2283

First Example Laid Down: 2282 (as a liner, conversion started in 2283)

First Example Completed: 2284

Fleets in Service: France

Number in Service: 2, in French service (Gloire and Invincible). As of summer 2301 only Gloire is in fleet service. Invincible is being rebuilt into a fighter carrier

History

With the outbreak of the Central Asian War, France looked immediately to expanding her space forces. One asset used was the use of merchant vessels, and French registered liners, like the “Tall Ships” were brought into service. However, at the time there were three of these vessels under construction. The most complete had much of the hull constructed and so was converted into a fighter carrier (Couronne), it not being worth deconstruction. The remaining two were less complete, and hence construction as a cruiser was possible. They were renamed Gloire and Invincible. In both cases the engineering section was essentially complete, and the ships completed with the fusion reactor and stutterwarp intended for the liner. The hull was unarmoured, and so two options were considered:

1.      Add armour to the skin, and complete the whole vessel as a conventional fusion frigate

2.     Leave the hull in its civilian specification and accept that the vessel should avoid close combat with heavily armoured ships. A heavy defensive armament would be provided, and offensive armament would be a large complement of missiles.

This second concept, a fast and unarmoured missile carrier, would be influential beyond France. However, for the French the Gloire and Invincible were budget vessels, utilising available materials to quickly expand the number of fast hulls capable of running down raiders.

The weapons systems were patterned on existing frégates but there was a production shortfall in the number of advanced targeting computers. A less effective commercial model was substituted. The heavy missile armament of 8 launchers was provided, each with a 3 round magazine capable of handling the Ritage missile. Unlike some other ships of the period, whose launchers were oversized to allow the use of the old stocks of Silke missiles, the launchers used were small and could only accommodate the Ritage. Hence in the 2290’s they could not accommodate the latest enhancements and were stuck with the baseline Ritage-1 (as it had become). A fairly standard complement of small craft was provided, with a single hangar carrying 2 Voir class utility/scout vehicles.

During the Central Asian War, and the German Revolutionary War these proved to be relatively effective at their designated anti-raider tasks. However their lack of armour or screens, combined with their inability to utilise more powerful missiles, lead to a reconsideration. These vessels could not stand up to a destroyer in a straight fight, and three options were considered for them:

1.   Demilitarisation and conversion to a long range explorer

2.   Rebuilding as a more typical frégate

3.   Rebuilding as a fighter carrier, an improved version of Couronne unrestricted by wartime build pressure.

It was decided to adopt option (3) and when the vessels came to their first reactor rebuild in the 2300’s to do a radical reconstruction of both into fighter carriers. This schedule was accelerated with the Kafer invasion of Aurore, and especially the loss of USS Sanchez in 2299. The Sanchez was patterned after the Gloire, albeit improved as a purpose built ship for that doctrine. It was decided to rebuild both ASAP. In late 2299 the Invincible was taken into dockyard hands for a two year rebuild. She was completed on schedule and took part in the Battle of Beowulf in 2302. The Gloire was in reserve in summer 2301, winding down for her planned decommissioning for the rebuild in December. It had been mooted placing her in service for the pursuit of the “Lone Wolf” earlier, but the amount of work needed to make her competitive against a Kafer Alpha was considered too great. With news of a more concerted invasion though she was temporarily recommissioned, but was used to replace ships on Earth defense duty. With the Invincible undocked as a fighter carrier, Gloire was docked and decommissioned for the rebuild, ending France’s experiment with “fast missile carriers”.

Cost Breakdown

Systems	MLv	Ship %
Offensive	57.483	31%
Defensive	3.42	2%
Propulsion	112.2	60%
Other	12.47	7%
Total	185.573

NB: Propulsion numbers assume no double counting of power used for tactical systems, hence this is really an undercount.

Performance

Warp efficiency: 4.40 (unloaded, all power to engines), 3.85 (unloaded, weapons etc. powered  up)

Power Plant: 180 MW fusion

Fuel: nil (may carry bladders for small craft)

Range: 7.7 light years

Endurance: six months life support

Mass: 8,713 tons unloaded

Cargo Capacity: 2,200 cubic meters

Crew: 119 (28 Bridge, 41 TAC, 8 Small Craft, 28 Engineering, 10 troops, and 4 medical); Passengers: upto 1

Comfort: 0;

Emergency Power: 1 week

Total Life Support: 120 men for 180 days

Cost: MLv185.6 (excluding launched weapons etc.)

Ship Status Sheet

Move: 9(8)

Screens: nil

Radiated Signature: 4(7)

Radial Reflected: 6

Lateral Reflected: 9

Target Computers: +1 (27 sets, each FC system has a TC);

Radial Profile: -1

Lateral Profile: +1

Armour: nil

Hull hits: 21/6 (by SC)

Power Plant Hits: 120/24

Active: 2x13, each with a redundant antenna

Passive: 2x10, each with a redundant antenna

Weapons

27 x1dbl lasers in masked turrets with UTES (2x 1238, 1x 1278, 1x 4567, 1x 3456, 11x 1234, 11x 1678)

Ordnance Load

8 launchers capable of handling Ritage-1, each with a 8 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, 4 Communications, 4 Computer

TAC: 27 Fire Control, 8 Remote Pilot, 2 Flight Control, 2 Active Operator, 2 Passive Operator

Damage Control: 14+10+14 = 38 (13 teams) (spare engineers plus troops and spare bridge pax – only 5 teams get +4 for engineering hits)

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)

Corrected Colonial Population Tables

Table 1: Heavy Effort

Table 2: Medium Effort

Table 3: Light Effort

Star Cruiser Sensors

What the different sensor types do.

The gravitational sensor was a major issue in 2300ad. The question was is the grav scanner an "all seeing eye" (ASE)? If it was then stealth is pointless. The way the grav scanner is used in "Three Blind Mice" does not require an ASE. The grav scanner can detect the gravity waves coming from an operational stutterwarp, but there is no directional component and indeed no range component. It is just a meter. There may be a couple of hacks to get extra information. Firstly your own baffles block detection, and so you can get some directional sense by turning until a signal disappears. Secondly, if you had multiple scanners very far apart and a lot of time you can triangulate. Neither is tactically that useful.

We should note that an operating stutterwarp emits many orders of magnitude more gravity waves than a planet. Earth radiates 200 watts of G-waves, and Jupiter around a hundred times that.

DSS is just the "civvie spec" passive sensor.

Passive sensors are spherical scanners that pick up the emissions of enemy craft. They make "black globes" on maps. Detection ranges with the most advanced sensors against a typical large warship is 40 light seconds (20 hexes). Beyond this the sensors can't see the contact and they don't appear on the board. The information that passives will reveal is simply the board position, the current radiated signature and any movement. All these are naturally disclosed in the sensor process.

Active sensors are highly directional, and can interrogate black globes and place the counter on the table. Unlike passives, actives give range information and can be used for weapons fire. The only additional information the active array gives is the effective reflected signature and enough range information to make a target lock. It will give no more identity information, and so a model is really inappropriate. The resolution is such than even when "revealed" and placed on a table there is likely to be no identification data beyond an estimate of size and pseudovelocity. At actually work out what a ship or object is the scanning ship needs to get to "melee" range, as we will discuss below.

On that note, when you irradiate a target and it has it's own passive sensors (ESM), then the irradiated passive will give directional but not range information. It will turn a vessel truly "hidden" into a black globe.

To get identity information requires literally doing a "VID" (visual identification) which requires entering "melee" range.

How Sensors Should Work in Star Cruiser

Essentially for SC to really work there should be a degree of hidden movement. Hidden movement is when an object on the board isn't even a black globe. Given the SC rules, almost every object within the passive range of any enemy ship is a black globe, and those a bit further out (passive+ radiated signature) are also. This means that at long range (or with weak sensors) it should be possible to spot an enemy ship as a black globe and launch missiles in advance. For the actual attack the shooter will have to light up an active sensor and illuminate the target, which will reveal the shooter as a black globe, or a drone which is revealed.

Tactically this actually fixes the game back to how it was envisioned in the notes. Stealthiness matters to an extent, and surprise long range missile strikes become possible. Having a sensor drone with a powerful active array makes sense as they the attacker doesn't reveal their position for free when attacking. Of course said illuminating sensor could be on a fighter, frigate etc.

This adds an additional wrinkle. An active sensor is committed against "one target". What if said target is a swarm of missiles? Do we only illuminate one missile out of multiple missiles stacked in a hex? The answer is yes. To get any usable return the emitted radar beam needs to be incredibly tight. One hex in SC is 4,000 times the 150 km that a modern fighter aircraft might be able to lock onto a target. The return at one hex is 10^-14 that of said fighter for the same beam width and power. The same factors that prevent scanning with a radar also prevent locking a radar onto more than a very narrow target. Said radar likely is more like a MASER than what we think of as a radar in operation given the need for insanely tight angular divergence to get any return at a distance of many light seconds.

What of turret weapon fire, and TTA's and UTES? Well, the TTA and UTES is a very weak radar, as it consumes less than 10 kW (i.e. it consumes no power in the design as consumption below 10 kW is housekeeping) vs the 1-8 MW for a long range targeting radar. Their range is at best a few percent of a hex. That means a turrets integral UTES/TTA can't even target an enemy in the same hex. What it can do is target an object approaching to within a few ten thousands of km. That is approaching to particle beam range and entering nuclear explosive range (bomb pumped "lasers" have realistic ranges measured in 10's of km, not ls). Thus we need to disambiguate two ranges.

Within the same hex is "range = 0", which essentially means within about a light second of the target. A starship in orbit of Earth's moon and another orbiting Earth as technically within the range =0 range (although you might set up Earth in the centre of a hex, in which case the Moon is just into the next hex...) but the passive sensors certainly could not resolve any shape details, and the little TTA radars could not get an effective return to target it. By the same token, a bomb-pumped laser or a particle beam's attack would have been spread to nothing and be ineffective at such a range. Only the focused high frequency X-Ray lasers of turrets with 3+ m focal arrays will be effective, and only dedicated and fairly powerful radars could target it.

However, if you move said ship to Earth orbit and both ships are now separated by only a few hundred km then then can resolve details of each other, and target each other effectively using UTES. Bomb-pumped lasers and particles beams will be effective.

Thus there should be two situations; range = 0 and range = close. The latter is the starship equivalent of crossing bayonets.

TTA/UTES is effective only at "close range". This allows the guns to target incoming missiles in their terminal phase, and any starships closing to use particle beams or submunitions. It removes the sensor situation here. This is also the range where finer detail than a blob can be seen, sense full disclosure of the vessel type etc. should be made.

Sensors and Scenario Staring Range

Two ships, or groups of ships, will not see each other simultaneously. The one that see the other group first has the sensor advantage. Since only passive sensors can scan, it is the best passive sensor value and the highest effective radiated signature that matters.

The board is set up with the ships being a distance apart equal to the initial detection range of the disadvantaged side. If the advantaged side has a significant advantage then they can have deployed missiles etc. already. The advantaged side only reveals the objects in passive sensor range (such as the launched missiles) and any objects who've lit up an active targeting radar against a vessel with passive sensors.

This presents a problem, as the objects out of passive range are completely invisible until they close to passive range or light up a targeting radar. It requires a GM to utilise true "hidden movement".

Imagine a convoy of French frigates under attack by a Kennedy. All they'd see was an active sensor lighting them up (i.e. the drone) and some waves of incoming missiles. However, all the Kennedy would see at long range is a bunch of passive contacts all with similar signatures; the attacking missiles are essentially being targeted randomly because the Kennedy can't tell escorts and merchants apart.

Welcome in information-centric warfare....

The Richelieu/ Tallyrand Type Battleship

The Richelieu/ Tallyrand in GDW books is problematic. It looks a lot like there was some bad editing after the design was written. The obvious example is the ships armour value, which appears to be 10 or 20 rather than 0. This is an attempt to square the intent with NAM rules as I interpret them.

BTW: The Richelieu drawing was originally (in 1st edition) the SSV-21  - see 1st edition GM manual p. 31. That's why the darned thing has no weapons mounts in the pictures.

1. Conceptualization

This Richelieu is a battleship. The idea of the 3,200 crew and a whole brigade of infantry carried is written off as a bad edit. My theory is the Richelieu had a crew (inc. troops) of 320, and some editor added a zero. The Richelieu is built around a large hangar bay capable of accommodating 12x 280m3 vessels at three times volume, and the flight control systems for such. This gives the Richelieu six fighters, with the possibility of twelve. In the SC scenarios the Sainte Jeanne d'Arc carried 8 Martels to Tithonus.

In terms of weapons systems the write-up of the Richelieu implies that in her current configuration she has 46 turrets, each with a double mount and UTES. We'll go with 51 to use all power.

For launched weapons she has 8 remote pilots. The number of missiles is an interesting question. Unlike a cruiser or destroyer the Richelieu has a far better way to deliver a nuclear warhead in the shape of her fighters. The numbers of missiles carried is very disparate, but the truth is that a missile is a very poor weapons system against a well defended target. A salvo is missiles may be devastating against a lone cruiser, but a battlegroup will lay down such heavy defensive fire that few if any survive to attack.

Previously, whilst examining the French building program, I concluded that rather than "as well as" cruisers etc., what the Richelieu is is the next development in heavy warship. I wrote that the Ypres was the great leap forward of fusion powered warships. This made all previous warships obsolescent. Eventually as fusion drives became more available the idea of making a much larger vessel with either two fusion plants or one really big one becomes a good one. Hence you get the "big ship" or rather "la grande frégate". Once you've made that plunge, the next one seems like a good one, go to 3x reactors (or two larger ones). This is basically what the Richelieu is. She's the prototype warship with an insane amount of power output, which happens to coincide with the introduction if ultra-lightweight armour etc.

On the foreign responses - IMC I have pre-revolution Germany ordering 2 large 450 MW battleships, but only building one before the revolution, with the engineering for the second one (each a 150 MW fusor) instead parceled out to a pocket battleship to make the Bismarck. The British basically follow the French suit, and have built their first round of 2-3 BB and are in the middle of their second round. America in 3W basically opted for the German route, but this made many players unhappy. I think opting for building a large 450 MW BB might be reasonable, but the other two follow-ups mentioned may be further behind.

2. Power Plant

The oddity of the listed 415 MW plant is that it doesn't exist. The listed PP hits can be used to determine the vessel had a 16,500 ton plant, which equates to a single 500 MW plant. If multiple plants were installed then the extra mass would work and 2x 225 MW would be perfect. However, I opt for a simple 3x 150 MW fusion to save money and give more redundancy at the cost of extra mass.

3 and 4. Fuel and Thrusters

The Richelieu is a nuke ship and needs no fuel. She will never land and so has no thrusters. Fuel for the small craft is carried as cargo rather than in a central tank.

5. Drive

A 300 MW New Military Drive is installed.

In house rules I have the OC tech drive as having a single engine core, the OM/NC as having two and the NM as having three. Each core is a separate item for damage purposes. If you don't have similar rules you might consider having an extra drive. A drive hit is absolutely crippling, and the ability to bring a backup online would be really useful in combat. Even an "eggbeater" type get you home affair might be useful. Even a Ritage missile drive would move the Richelieu at warp 0.25, providing her the possibility of reaching home.

6. Crew and Workstations

I assume the 3,200 crew is a typo for 320.

The Richelieu sheet is spread over two sheets, and I'll rate her as having a backup bridge, and take the crew from the sheets thus:

2x Command, 2x Navigation, 2x Helm, 2x Communications, 9x Engineer and 7x Computer (multi-role)

The Tactical Action Centre is configured for the installed tactical systems. I followed the sheets and gave her 2 full active and passive sensors, both with redundant systems. The power available was all utilised to ultimately give 51 gunners rather than 46.

51x Fire Control, 2x Active Operators, 2x Passive Operators, 8x Remote Pilots and 12x Flight Controllers

The Engineering section calculates at 64 engineers (2x 32 man shifts), which is well short of the implied 192 from the sheet. The hangar staff is 12 maintenance crew for the carried fighters and their 12 crewmen. The Science section remains at 20, the stewards at a mere 5 (very busy people!) and 10 medical staff aboard.

There are now a mere 50 Marines aboard, i.e. 5 sections (platoons) including a command/ sustainment section. They are essentially a half-batallion under a commandant with 2 peletons (companies, the original meaning of a platoon was a tactical body of ca. 100 men) each under a capitaine each of 2 sections (platoons) of 10 walkers under a subaltern. They all have combat walkers.

There are 12 spare slots. I will provide a workstation to each and assume flag staff.

7. Accommodations

I will accommodate 320 people.

The text in NAM is pretty clear that the formula for the mass of a unit of accommodation is 10+(vol/10) tons. The example moved the 10+ from a "unit" to the whole of the accommodations. Backengineering has shown both formulae being inconsistently applied. Even I applied the second version. Here I will apply the proper version, and note mass changes.

As an aside, doing it "properly" adds 990 tons to a Kennedy. Of course, realistically at war loads the Kennedy is ca. 10,000 metric tons and closer to warp 4.0 anyway. There was an argument made in the 1990's that the Kennedy could run away from enemy missiles, but this effectively assumed infinite missile spam.

I will provide retractable spin modules (2%) and oxygen for 320 men for 180 days. More can go in the cargo for longer missions. As a note, "life support" in NAM is just bottled oxygen at the rate a human consumes it (ca. 1 kg per day).

8. Sensors

I'll provide the full range of survey and navigation sensors - navigation radar (i.e. civilian spec active), DSS (i.e. civilian spec passive), gravitational, and advanced life and cartographic sensors.

For tactical sensors I provide a pair of each the best humanity has, with a redundant array.

Two side-notes. Firstly DSS really is just a downrated tactical passive, and has no place on a warship. Secondly, in my house rules a lot of thought was spent on how sensors should actually work. Sadly they really need a GM because it needs truly hidden movement. The passive sensor is basically a sky scanning telescope array, and it makes "black globes". The immediate issue is that having a real detection of an object requires hidden movement. When you've two "hidden" objects moving to contact range neither sides player will know to ping the other to place a black globe - hence the need for a GM.

Conversely the active sensor simply can't scan. What it can do is track and determine range (which the passive can't really do). What an active sensor does is interrogate a black globe and place the model/ counter on the board. Once there it can be fired upon by ships. Each active can only interrogate once per turn. To make things easier on the players I allowed the active to interrogate an area but that's not important.

9. Weapons

9.1. Guns

Simply dividing spare power by 2 I get 51 double mounts powered. The ships form really doesn't allow for many to face fore or aft and so the jack mounts are basically broadside. She's like an old line-of-battle ship.

GDW 2k3 (and Mongoose) don't really allow for much larger arrays. However, I experimented with increasing weapons size.  With such house rules the Richelieu would be a superdreadnought type with 15 m diameter x6 mounts, each replacing 3 conventional double mounts with a single large double mount (since I won't power both sides in a long range laser duel). I will not discuss this further as the system really needs phased movement to have a tactical benefit of increased range, and then how quickly you allow ships to turn makes a huge difference.

That aside, the question is x1 or x2? Now, the core SC rules have no difference in penetration, and a house rule was quickly suggested that maybe x2 weapons get +1 penetration, x3 get +2 etc.. This is nonsense. Twice as much energy equate to twice the penetration - a x2 should simply roll 2d10 for penetration.

If you play with that variant having heavier guns becomes far more advantageous, because x2 or x3 (PBWS or laser) is essentially untroubled by the hull of a Bismarck or Suffren. Whilst said ships have reasonable protection against x1's they are almost naked against x3's.

However, here I stick with 51 x1+1dbl jack turrets with UTES.

As a further aside, in the core rulebook a targeting computer was an add-on per mount. SC was ambiguous, but the Kennedy example simply had one TC. Here I have installed a TC per mount (or rather per targeting array, which is the same as the number of mounts with UTES). Under such a system you'd either put 10 TC's on the Kennedy, or rule that the TC can only deal with one target and the player must nominate.

9.2. Missiles

The Richelieu has 8 remote pilots and is listed as carrying 16 missiles.

Now, in the original starship combat rules before Star Cruiser each communicator could control 2 missiles. In SC this was reduced to one. Yes, the original "Fast Missile Carrier" explicitly fired salvos of 10.

However, I've designed her missiles around 16 "universal" cells. These are R-2 width and R-1 length and can fit either a single Ritage-2 or 4 Ritage-1's (including a nuclear variant, probably with a 5x2). They have a volume/mass of 40 tons/ m3.

As a sneaky git, I'd probably never detonate the Ritage-2 in a fight. I'd keep them in close company with the battleship (so no range penalties if you use house rules like me) and then the enemy I am bringing into turret range is faced with the choice - do at the battleship or the missiles. The majority of the time the enemy will opt for the missiles and the threat is likely so great that I could get several turns blasting away with turret weapons before they're all gone. The Star Cruiser equivalent of having cavalry force infantry into squares and then blowing them away with horse artillery.

10. Screens

Screens-6

11. Hangar

I'll construct the ship around a tight hangar (3 volumes) for 12x 280m3 (20 dTon) small craft and two doors.. This means:

First launch - requires 5 turns and launches 2 vessels
Second launch - still requires 3 turns and launches 2
Third launch - requires 3 turns
Fourth launch - requires 2 turns
Fifth launch - requires 2 turns
Sixth launch - requires 1 turn

Or 16 turns to scramble 12 fighters.

The assumption is a 6 m diameter fighter/lander for a door (lift) size of 144 m2.

12. Hull Masking

The radiated signature is 7, which implies basic hull masking. This I have included.

Why not go to advanced? With the hull I've used there simply isn't enough area.

13. Hull

I took a ruler to the picture and scaled roughly. The hull I'm using is:

Rear section = 2x 30 m diameter cylinders and 5x 24 m diameter cylinders
Central spine connecting rear and fore over which spin habs fold = 5x 12 m diameter cylinders (unarmoured)
Forward = 5x 12 m diameter cylinders
The spin habitats = 4 modules each 40 m long, 15 m wide and 5 m tall


This gives me 60,025 m3 volume, which is more than enough.

Here I will provide endcaps for the cylinders (i.e. 2x 30 m diameter caps). I will build the outer hull of the spin sections as armoured, but the inner surfaces and the cylinder they fold over as unarmoured.

The material value, including endcaps, is 241 for the armoured parts and 63 for the unarmoued.

Now, the effectiveness of advanced composite in SC is a typo. The boxed set calculated to an armour multiplier of x2, not x1. I will provide armour 10 at this value, which is armour 20 and the erroneous value.

The hull is by far the most expensive component.

14. Streamlining and Thruster Fuel

Nil.

15. Cargo Space

SC lists 21,728.3 m3 = ca. 21,950 m3 with bracing. The early versions I made had exactly this, but with multiple reactors this is reduced to ca. 18,000 m3 available.

16. Pylons

Nil.

Evaluation

1. Mass

The sum of components is 39,509.6 tons.

If built as per the Kennedy example the mass would drop to ca. 32,000 tons.

2. Drive Efficiency

Her speed, running light, given the above mass and a 300 MW NM drive is 3.44, and with a reasonable load an small craft remains above 3.25. Hence her tactical speed is 7.

3. Fire Statistics and 11. Firing Aspects of Weapons Mounts

She has 51 double mounts. Each is a x1+1dbl in a jack mount connected to its own target computer and equipped with UTES.

The arcs are set up thus:

One mount is placed in the nose as a chaser with the arcs forward (128)
Eight mounts are placed at the corners of the rear section. They are set up to fire rearwards (back four) or superfire over the accommodations section (front four). They thus resolve as 2x 123, 2x 345, x 567 and 2x 178.
The remaining 42 mounts are 21 per side. I'll place 7 along each side of the forward section and 2 banks of 7 each side of the rear section. Thus the arcs are 21x 234 and 21x 678.

This arrangement has 5 mounts able to engage forward, 4 aft and 25 along each broadside. It fits the basic hull form.

When fighting a heavily armoured target I will direct all the battery power to one side using the overpowering lasers rule. This will allow doing double damage (and penetration if you use such rules) and the cost of a 10% chance of a mount burning out (needing a DC roll to restore to action) and a 10% chance of a burnt out laser exploding (destroyed).

4. Comfort

0 for all quarters.

5. Cost

The total cost is MLv963.99 (964). This is in line with the suggestion she's a billion livre ship. Without one TC per mount, other interpretations of hulls etc. she'd be close to the cost in SotFA.

6. Reflected Signature and 10. Target Profile

The radial profile is that of a 30 m diameter circle, 707 m2 and so the effective reflection points is 141. Visible from the front are the sensors (44 RCS points assuming you pay for the redundant array) and 5 mounts (70 RCS) assuming that only mounts that can bear reflect. This gives her 255 RCS points from the front and a frontal signature of 6. The target profile is 0.

The lateral profile is 3,900 m2 which equals 780 RCS pts. The sensors all bear (44) as do 25 mounts (350) for a total of 1,174 RCS points, which is a signature of 10. The 3,900 m2 area equates to a target profile of +3.

7. Radiated Signature

With basic masking it is 7(8). Of course once screens are engaged the signature is 13.

8. Hull Hits

The volume of hull material is 4,883 m3. If the x2 multiplier is used the hull has 2,442 hits. A minor breach is suffered after 611 hits and a major after 1,121.

That's why we often adopted variant hulls.

9. Power Plant Hits

Each plant masses (with extras) 6,000 tons and so has 120 hits. Each takes 24 hits to knock out.

12. Armour Value

Assuming a x2 multiplier the armour is 10. If the misprinted x1 is retained it's 20 (and double hull hits).

Statistics

Design Date: 2285

First Example Laid Down: 2285

First Example Completed: 2293

Fleets in Service: France

Number in Service: 8 Commissioned before end of 2301, two out of Commission by battle damage (Richelieu, Tallyrand, Sainte Jeanne d'Arc, Charlemagne, DeGaulle, Clemenceau, Metternich and Napoleon). Two approaching completion in 2302 (Mitterrand, and Trochu), One laid down late 2301 (Pompidou) and two on order for laying down 2302 (d'Estaing and Chirac)

Streamlining: None

Performance

Warp efficiency: Approximately 3.44 light, ca. 3.30 with normal loads

Power Plant: 3x 150 MW Fusion

Fuel: nil (carried as cargo)

Range: 7.7 light years

Mass: 39,510 tons unloaded

Cargo Capacity: 1,800 cubic meters

Crew: 308 (48 bridge, 75 TAC, 64 engineering, 36 small craft, 50 security/troops, 5 stewards, 20 science, 20 medical); Passengers: 12

Comfort: 0;

Emergency Power: ?

Total Life Support: 320 for 180 days

Cost: MLv964 without ordnance (including multiple TC and paying for streamlining and workstations etc.)

Ship Status Sheet

Move: 7

Screens: 6

Radiated Signature: 7(8)

Radial Reflected: 6

Lateral Reflected: 10

Target Computers: +2 (all weapons);

Radial Profile: 0

Lateral Profile: +3

Armour:10 (or 20 if wrong value of armour multplier used)

Hull hits: 2,442/1,221/611

Power Plant Hits: 3x 120/24

Active: Two arrays, both 16 and backup

Passive: Two arrays, both 12 and backup

Other: Hangar space for 12 fighters (or landers)

Weapons

51 x1+1dbl lasers in jack turrets with UTES (1x 128, 2x 123, 25x 234, 2x 345, 2x 567, 25x 678)

Ordnance Load

16 Cells, each capable of taking 1x Ritage-2 or quadpacking 4x Ritage-1 (either PB or 5x2 det-warhead variant)

Other Sensors and Electronics:

Navigation Radar
DSS
Gravitational
Advanced Gravitational

Advanced Life

Crew Hits:
Bridge: 2x Captain, 2x Navigator, 2x Helm, 9x Engineering, 2x Communications, 7x Computer
TAC: 51x Fire Control, 8 Remote Pilot, 2x Active Operator, 2x Passive Operator, 12x Flight

 

Damage Control: 32 off shift engineers, plus 24 off-shift bridge and 5 stewards = 61

Cost Analysis

 

Now that's a battleship.

The major costs, even with paying for individual TC's etc., is the hull. The cost break down is:

 

Propulsion: MLv213.7 = 22%

Energy weapons and associated systems (inc. power): MLv238.91 = 25%

Hull and armour: MLv488.3 = 51%

Controls, sensors etc.: MLv23.05 = 2%