Lyran Commonwealth, Turn 2
First Lord Jaqueline Angler had had, she was certain, less enjoyable mornings. Maybe sometime in her middy year, involving tequila. But she could not remember those mornings clearly. This one was going to be painfully clear for a long time.
"Could you give me the Hegemony numbers again?"
Earmon Dalinger took an unnecessary look down at his notes. “4 Battlecruisers, 10 Cruisers, 12 Missile Frigates, 12 Destroyers, 16 Corvettes, and 8 Scouts, Mam…”
“Thank you, Earmon. That’s what I thought you said. And the other two?”
“Six Battlecruisers for the Free Worlds League. Probably better than the Hegemony Version, though I won’t tell them that if you don’t. I wouldn’t go near one of them without three of our Frigates under my command. Lots of heavy cannon, good cruising range, serious fighter complement. Ive forwarded the details to your noteputer. Looks like they are expanding their heavy yards – expect that number to climb as soon as the secondary yards come online. Also a few commerce raiders, but nothing that has any business sharing space with a real warship”
“The Sna… the Combine is being a bit less ambitious. Kutai is a bit on the agile side, but shes only notionally armed. 8 Naval Lasers and 4 Heavy Capital Missiles on the broadside, and her armor is mainly made of hopes and prayers. Fubuki is another story… Destroyer class, 12 Class 20 NACs on the broadside – a good choice, I think. I want some of those guns… backed up by some more light naval lasers. She would probably take a Heimdaller, though she wouldn’t like it. Still, all told, with only 4 Kutai and 2 Fubuki, we could probably match them in a stand up fight.”
Angler shook her head. “The Combine isn’t the problem. They are busy subjugating Rasalhauge. I doubt they will stop there, but I think it’ll be something for my sucessor to worry about. I’m not going to lose sleep over the Hegemony any more than a dinosaur loses sleep over asteroids. Cant change it. Why worry.”
“The pressing naval problem is the League. They know they can’t match the Hegemony any more than we can – than all of us can, together. Their other neighbor is in a warring states period.. hnh... and if they wanted to bite off pieces of Sian or Sarna, they don’t need six Battlecruisers to do that – they need troop transports. Jumpships. Dropships. Are they building those?”
“No Mam.” Baron Dalinger watched his old friend with some concern. She wasn’t a young woman when they first starting working together ten years ago, and the office was aging her fast. She looked.. tired. Still, part of his job was to be her sounding board – she was always at her best talking aloud, talking through, a problem in front of an audience – an audience she could trust to speak up if necessary, but which would mostly let her vocalize the problem.
“No, they are not. So those BCs have to be pointed north. DAMN the Office of Naval Intelligence for not telling us what they were doing. We’re a full yard cycle behind and there is no catch-up… not unless the Archons suddenly decide that they want to start paying for parity. Who was it that said there’s nothing more expensive than a second-best navy? Nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”
“And so?”
“We go with proposal 3. One is off the table… I wanted Kvasir’s as much as the next woman, but she cant overmatch Heracles 1:1, and were going to have to. We cant afford the time to build up the yards for 4, so the Buri design proposal will have to wait.”
“What about the Kvasir V?” Dalinger had long been a leading advocate of naval aerospace power, and Angler had wanted to be convinced, but…
“I know the simulations look good. But those poor brave stupid Rashalhauge patriots couldn’t kill ONE Kutai with TWO HUNDRED fighters, whatever the simulations say. And Kutai is as you said protected by wishes and optimism. Heracles actually has armor.”
“But the -drives-, Mam…”
“Again, I know. But ‘Speed, firepower, armor, pick two’. And if our girls and boys are fighting, their fighting over either our own civilians, or over some enemy real estate that Command says is worth dying for. Give me half again our budget and a few decades to catch up, and we can have nice things. But we don’t have the budget. Or the decades. Or, apparently, nice things. So we build hammers.”
“And the other proposals?”
“Were going to need the recharge stations. Strategic speed matters more than tactical speed anyway, and if we are outnumbered, we need an edge in strategic agility. Start production.”
“What about Project Nauglamir?”
“Not yet. If we build Nauglamir the era of squadrons and sparring is over. Its all going to be entire navies and death rides and all or nothing. I don’t want to go there unless we're forced to.”
“Very good, Mam.”
Lyran Commonwealth, Turn Beginning 2360
Starting Funds: 0
Starting Shipyards: Alarion: 3/3 New Kyoto: 3/1 Tamar 1 Gibbs 1
Starting Warships: Heimdaller FF x6 30.438B
Starting Jumpships: 30 15B
Starting Dropships: 0
Starting Small Craft 240 (4 Regiments) 2.4B
Starting Fighters: 4,800 (80 Regiments) 24B
Assets: 71.838
Expenditure Cost (Billions)
Maintenance 7.183 (100%)
Prototype CA Tyr 7.405
Prototype Station Ribe .175
ProductionTyr x 6 44.3
Production Station Ribe x60 10.5
Jumpship Production: 0
Dropship Production: 0
Small Craft: 0
Fighters: 0
Research: 0
Total: 69.562
Remainder: 10.437
Lyran Commonwealth, Turn Ending 2370
Ending Funds: (with 1B from Marian Hegemony) 11.437
Ending Shipyards: Alarion: 3/3 New Kyoto: 3/1 Tamar 1 Gibbs 1
Ending Warships: Heimdaller FFx6 30.438
Tyr CAx 6 44.3
Ending Stations: Ribe Recharge Station x60 10.5
Ending Jumpships: 30 15
Ending Dropships: 0
Ending Small Craft: 240 2.4
Ending Fighters: 4800 24
Asset Value 126.638
Tyr (Heavy Cruiser)
“A good gun causes victory, armor only postpones defeat”
-Vice Admiral Stephan Osipovic Makarov (Terran, 1849-1904)
By as early as 2360, the Lyran Admiralty realized it had a problem. While its general-purpose frigates were able to fill almost any role that could be required of them, one of the roles they were not well suited for was ‘heavy ship of the wall’. And the Lyran’s neighbors were mass producing heavy warships.
Long term plans were set aside in the name of immediate answers to a large, and growing, gap in heavy ships of the wall. A long series of designs was proposed, and discarded. Giant warships were proposed, a million tons or more. But the yards to build them did not exist and would not exist for the foreseeable future – the Lyran Navy was charged with defending the Commonwealth with the budget it had, not given the budget it needed to defend the commonwealth. Carriers were suggested and serious considered, but the inability of 200 Rasalhague fighters to finish off a single, ill-armed and armored light cruiser did not instill First Lord Angler with confidence. Speed and extreme range firepower was considered – excellent for attritional battle, but useless if a larger navy came to a Lyran world willing to fight.
This final point carried the day. Drives only increase tactical mobility. Operational mobility, throughout a system, is limited by the human body – no warship can burn at more than 1G for long without crippling its crew. Strategic mobility is limited by the KF-Drive, by onboard supplies, and by the presence or absence of quick charging facilities. Supplies can be laid on, and quick-charging stations can be built.
This left tactical mobility. It had been assumed that 2.5G’s emergency thrust was the minimum required for ‘comfortable’ tactical mobility for modern warships. But was it? Navies do not drive into black space looking for one another to fight for the honor of claiming that black space. Navies fight over objectives. Jumppoints. Planets. Shipyards. An attacker need only make their way to the target, and the defender should already be there. These are the product of operational and strategic mobility. Tactical mobility was useful only for controlling the range of the engagement, and allow a weaker force to defer engagement. And tactical mobility was exceptionally expensive. Every half-G of standard thrust consumed about 6% of the raw mass of a vessel. But after installing a KF Drive and sufficient bunkerage to be useful for more than hanging over a friendly jumppoint or on top of a vulnerable fleet train, that 6% of mass grew to represent a huge proportion of what was left for weapons.
And the purpose of a warship is to deliver fire, and to protect that fire long enough to accomplish its goal.
Unburdened from the need for advantageous tactical mobility, and backed up by recharge-resupply stations and significant onboard stowage, the Tyr focuses on that firepower. Mobility is poor by modern warship standards – capable of no more than 1.5Gs of sustained thrust. Resilience is no better than average for a ship of her mass. All of this is in service of weapons bays that stagger anything in production when she left the slipways. 80 point-defense machine gun mounts are scattered across the nose and side aspects of the ship. Anti-fighter work is performed by 80 Barracuda missile tubes – chosen for the role for their ability to accurately destroy enemy fighters from the edge of those own fighters launch envelope (forcing enemy fighters to shoot at long range and poor accuracy, or weather an incoming missile storm while burdened with attack munitions. When not used in that role, those same launchers serve to supplement the broadside fire that is the Tyr’s reason for existence.
Each side mounts 16 Heavy Naval Lasers, chosen for their ability to match range with any other weapon in space, and to ensure that Tyr is not left unable to reply against a more agile foe. Backing those lasers up in that role are 20 tubes each for Killer Whale and White Shark Missiles, supported by the Barracuda tubes. This allows Tyr to match the extended-range firepower of any vessel in space, before its heavy guns come into play.
The main broadside weight comes from three triple NAC/20 mounts on each corner. While slightly less weight efficient than the more commonly chosen NAC/30, the Tyr’s designers had mass to burn, and accuracy of fire is at least as important as its weight. Any opponent attempting to duck ‘under’ the Tyr’s missile and laser firepower to deliver its own Naval Autocannon hammer blows will find itself facing 18-NAC broadsides, each likely with more range and accuracy than its own… and the missiles and lasers are still firing, and still hitting…
She is not without her detractors. Fighter and small craft carriage is light, sacrificed in honor of gunpower and long deployment times. Armor could be heavier if the more robust 2.5G design had been chosen. And more than one commander expressed a desire for far greater tactical agility. But time had run out, and the Commonwealth needed something.
Only time would tell if she got what she needed.
Tyr (CA)
Tech: Inner Sphere
Introduced: 2360
Mass: 750,000 tons
Length: 1243 meters
Width: 321 meters
Height: 220 meters
Sail Diameter: 1245 meters
Fuel: 4,000 tons (10,000)
Tons/Burn-day: 39.52
Safe Thrust: 2
Maximum Thrust: 3
Sail Integrity: 5
KF Drive Integrity: 16
Heat Sinks: 7,080 (100%)
Structural Integrity: 90
BV2: 274,103
Cost: $7.405B (Loaded)
Armor
Fore: 87
Fore-Sides: 105
Aft-Sides: 105
Aft: 87
Cargo
Bay 1 (Nose): 84 Marines
Bay 2 (RBS): 10 Fighters, 3 Small Craft (6 Doors)
Bay 3 (LBS): 10 Fighters, 3 Small Craft (6 Doors)
Bay 4 (Aft): 50,121 Tons Cargo (2 Doors)
DropShip Capacity: 0
Grav Decks: 2 (180 meters diameter)
Escape Pods: 50
Life Boats: 50
Crew: 488
Marines: 84
All Crew, Marines in 1st/2nd Class Quarters
Ammunition: 400 Barracuda Missiles
200 White Shark Missiles
200 Killer Whale Missiles
8000 MG Rounds
Notes:
Small NCSS
Mounts 1,350 tons of Standard armor.
100% of required heat sinks
Quirks: Easy to Maintain, Improved Communications, Poor Performance
Weapons:
Nose: Damage
20 Barracuda (100 Rnds) 40
20 MG (2000 Rnds)
Fore Left/Right:
8 NL/55 44
9 NAC/20 (900 Rnds) 180
Broadside:
20 Barracuda (100 Rnds) 40
20 White Shark (100 Rnds) 60
20 Killer Whale (100 Rnds) 80
20 MG (2000 Rnds)
Aft Left/Right:
8 NL/55 44
9 NAC/20 (900 Rnds) 180
Rear:
20 Barracuda (100 Rnds) 40
20 MG (2000 Rnds)
Ribe (Recharge Station)
“Amateurs study tactics. Armchair generals study strategy. Professionals study logistics”
-Author Unknown
The humble recharge station is likely well known to the modern reader, as is their near-ubqitous nature throughout Lyran space. What may be less well known is why.
The first recharge stations mass produced outside the Terran Hegemony were the Chongzhi stations developed by the St. Ives Mercantile League. Billed as a ‘purely civilian station’, the Chongzhi was still admirably well armed, armored, and carried a number of small craft to aid in loading and unloading.
The Lyran Navy looked on the Chongzhi, and saw a solution to a burgeoning problem. They were flanked on all sides by superior forces. Building ships with enough stowage to cruise those long borders and still remain combat worthy was difficult, and needing to reshuffle limited vessels from one border to another demanded more speed than the K-F drive could deliver. Also, trade was the lifeblood of the nation, and competition between various competing mercantile interstellar for the lucrative recharge business was serving no purpose but to drive further wedges between the three founding nations of our great commonwealth.
The Ribe, named for a northern port on old Terra, adopts a slightly different approach than her parent Chongzhi. More focused on commercial than military pursuits, she is more lightly armored, and trades the array of autocannon for bays for up to 60 fighters intended to deter and defeat raids on the station from a safe distance. Such fighters are usually distributed based on local threat assessments, and on quieter worlds deep in friendly space only a squadron may be present. These are supplemented by bays for an equal number of small craft, either cargo shuttles or in some cases heavy attack boats, intended to supplement the fighters.
Like the small craft, the cargo storage is also dual purpose. In protected space, it serves as support to mercantile efforts, and is available to merchants at well below cost, as are the recharging facilities themselves. On hostile borders or over high military traffic worlds, the Ribe’s 60,000 tons of storage is reserved for military supplies, making each one a miniature resupply base to allow the vessels of the Lyran Navy to cruise at length without drawing down their own internal supplies, leaving them fully loaded and ‘agile’ in response to any developing situation.
As is typical of Lyran military projects, berthing for all crew is to a high standard, with the cost in space and weight associated being considered worth it to provide better long term efficiency and morale. The extensive quarters set aside for combat pilots are often repurposed as hotel space, and the large grav deck as entertainment/recreation areas, on Ribe class stations far from hostile space.
Ribe (Recharge Station)
Tech: Inner Sphere
Introduced: 2360
Mass: 500,000 tons
Diameter: 410M (Sphere)
Fuel: 1,200 tons (300 points)
Tons/Burn-day: 3.95
Safe Thrust: .02
Heat Sinks: 154 (Unused)
Structural Integrity: 1
BV2: 2,199
Cost: $175 Million
Armor
Fore: 20
Fore-Sides: 20
Aft-Sides: 20
Aft: 20
Cargo
Bay 1 (Nose): 60 Fighters, (4 Doors)
Bay 2 (Aft): 60 Small Craft, 61,213 Tons Cargo (6 Doors)
DropShip Capacity: 0
Grav Decks: 1 (250 meters diameter)
Escape Pods: 40
Life Boats: 40
Crew: 515
(All first or second class quarters)
Ammunition: 6000 MG Rounds
Notes:
4 Energy Storage Batteries
Weapons:
60 Machine Guns (10 per facing)
Notes on Deployment:
Ships will usually function in 3 squadrons of 4, 2 CA and 2 FF. One FF may be detached from the squadron to address secondary objectives, but a minimum force of 2 Heavy Cruisers with one Frigate for support should remain concentrated at all times. In general service, one squadron is associated with each of the border shipyards, patrolling from there.
Recharge stations currently cover half of the Lyran flagged worlds, focused on high traffic/trade worlds, borders, and 'least time' bridges between areas of interest. Forward recharge stations keep their fighter bays full, and if a war warning is issued, all will be brought up to full deployment.