Narukami Destroyer, Era Report 2765 DC
First launching in 2380 the Narukami was the Draconis Combine’s answer to the question, what does a WarShip look like. Cursed with a poor industrial base the Combine could not attempt “big” ships so instead went for swarming tactics. The final result is impressive to say the least.
At 670,000 tons the Narukami is slightly smaller than its most obvious contemporary, the 2345 vintage Lola-class destroyer. Where the Lola had an 115,000 ton cargo bay, the Narukami only had a 53,000 ton bay and put the rest of the mass into weapons and guns. With a 23% larger engine the Narukami had 33% more thrust. Improved ferro-aluminum armour allowed the Narukami to carry twice as much armour for nearly the same mass, while the Narukami carried 34% more weapons than the Lola. Notably the Lola had already adopted fighter bays while the Narukami still employed small craft bays. But the Narukami had capacity for a Combine squadron (12) while the Lola could only manage six fighters and two small craft.
The downside to all of this capability was reliability. The Terran Hegemony wasn’t building ships with thrust ratings this hard because those kinds of forces broke ships. The Narukami’s history is one of stress fractures and engine failures. So much so that outside of times of war it was cheaper for the Combine to operate Hegemony castoffs than their own Narukamis. 2770 and the uncertainty of the Amaris era saw a new burst of Narukami building. Notably these weren’t refits and it is noted that Narukamis were always cheap to produce suggesting a somewhat disposable nature. These Block II Narukamis differed by using fighter bays and more modern armour. Apparently a few of these ships survived the Succession Wars. The benefit of large numbers I guess. Unfortunately their own reliability rendered them unusable and they had all been scrapped by the Jihad.
One of the more interesting features of the Narukami is how much it looks like the Combine fleet of the 3060s. The 12/2 figher bays, and 70 point NAC bays in the quarters mirror the Kirishima-class as cruiser. The Kirishima and Inazuma-class corvette share the triple docking collars and 5/8 thrust rating while the Inazuma shares the Narukami’s bow Naval PPCs and takes its AA cues from the destroyer. Finally the Inazuma and Tatsumaki-destroyer share the Narukami’s emphasis on auto canon. Ironically the Tatsumaki also shares the Narukami’s reputation for unreliability.
Using the Narukami is brutally simple. Close to medium range and use the big NAC broadside. A Narukami is more than capable of gutting a Lola in a single salvo. Likewise Congress or Riga-class frigates are little more than speed bumps. One needs to look to the Dart-class cruiser to see a Hegemony platform capable of resisting a Narukami. Combat against the Hegemony has an interesting dynamic. The Narukami was clearly designed to use pack tactics against the Hegemony’s heavy units, but the Narukami’s are equally vulnerable to pack tactics from the Hegemony’s own destroyers.
Defeating a Narukami means exploiting its weaknesses. This means its armour. Though heavy compared to Hegemony destroyers it is still relatively weak as is the structural integrity. Neither Narukami’s AA is anything special. The capital weapons are too inaccurate to hit fighters over 14 hexes while no conventional weapons reach this far. This makes the Narukamis vulnerable to fighters able to sit at these ranges for extended periods of times. Bear in mind that the Narukami’s ECM field will make shooting at these ranges very difficult and in most cases mind numbingly boring. Few House conventional weapons that didn’t use ammo could reach that far before 3050, meaning this tactic is nearly unviable.