Agamemnon Class Heavy Cruiser.Class - Heavy Cruiser
Length - 720 meters
Displacement - 820,000 tonnes
Crew Compliment - 396
Before the Jihad in the warship building spree that the Great Houses got involved in, off all of them the Free World’s League that came closest to having a ‘proper’ navy as the Star League would recognise it. Using their huge industrial strength that was if anything benefitting from the Clan Invasion and what followed the Free World’s League Navy grew to be the biggest fleet in the Inner Sphere outside of Comstar or the Word’s hidden fleet. Even the Invading Clans could not boast such numbers without bringing in their Warships and of all the Clans only the Ravens outmatched them.
The FWLN’s doctrine evolved around a Carrier Action Group. Built around the huge and expensive Thera Class Super Carriers, these in turn would be escorted by a pair of Eagle Class frigates as well as being assigned any Zechetinu class Corvettes and Impavido class destroyers. But the centrepiece of the escort group was the large and impressive looking Agamemnon Class Heavy Cruiser.
With construction beginning in 3058 the 820,000 tonne cruiser was designed and built by Irian Technologies and Imstar Aerospace and was named after an Greek King from ancient mythology who was the leader of the Greek’s during the Trojan War. It was also the name of a sailing ship of the Line commanded by one of the most famous pre-space flight naval commanders, Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson and formed a chain of naval ships with the name for centuries.
The Agamemnon class falls between the SLDF’s Sovietski Soyuz heavy cruiser and the lighter Black Lion II Battlecruiser and reflects the design choices of many of the Houses warships with a large number of individual weapons as well as a sharp eye on anti-aerospace fighter and dropship weaponry to create a more multi-purpose ship rather than the anti-shipping focused SLDF era vessels in service with the Clans.
In line with her multi-role design the Agamemnon carries 18 fighters and has docking ports for four dropships. The FWLN was in the habit of permanently assigning dropships to a Warship as was done with the Thera class, and its most likely that the Agamemnon’s dropships were part of her air wing and an organic part of her compliment and ToE rather than being attached as and when needed.
When added to the Thera’s compliment of fighters and dropships as well as the pair of Eagles on-board compliments this formed a very formidable screen of fighters and assault dropships whilst the Thera would act as a mobile supply vessel for her smaller escorts (much like modern CBGs) although with over 70,000 tonnes of cargo space the Agamemnon is not lacking in stowage for supplies either.
But of course the meat and gravy of a Warship is its weaponry and here the Agamemnon is not lacking. Armed with a hefty mix of Naval Autocannons, lasers and Heavy Naval Gauss rifles the heavy cruiser outguns a Sovietski Soyuz and comes closer to the Black Lion in terms of raw firepower, all be it in a different way. The Agamemnon has a mix bag of large calibre NAC’s whilst the Black Lion’s firepower was more uniform with its guns in larger groups whereas the Agamemnon’s weapons are at most, mounted in pairs, with the largest weapons, the NAC-40’s and Heavy Gauss rifles mounted in single mounts. Well there is two triple NAC mount but that’s for ‘light’ NAC-20’s one each on the aft left and right arcs (each turret can produce a 600 point punch which can make any dropship in existence at the time turn into a cloud of debris.)
The Agamemnon also features an extensive battery of anti-fighter weaponry with each arc being covered by a mixture of lasers, PPCs, LRM and SRM launchers as well as each quadrant being covered by a quartet of AMS’s to deal with incoming fighter and capital scale missiles. This battery of anti-fighter weaponry is common to most 3067 era vessels and is a defining feature of them compared to the SLDF era ships that tended to completely forgo anti-fighter weaponry outside of small batteries of guns on a few classes.
The Agamemnon is also a fairly fast vessel, its three massive engines can generate a maximum of 3g of thrust which allows them to easily outpace the Clan’s Sovietski Soyuz class ships and keep pace with smaller ships like the Lola III at full thrust.
But all this performance comes at a very worrying cost. To fit the weapons, fighter and dropship compliment and have an impressive thrust rating from its engines the Agamemnon is VERY lightly built and has armour more akin to that of a large destroyer rather than a heavy cruiser. It’s got a thinner hide than its Davion equivalent the Avalon class, and is even less well protected than the thin hide of the Sovietski Soyuz whilst its structural integrity is woefully lacking, ships like the Lola III and Essex Class destroyers are more structurally solid.
This makes the hard hitting, fast and impressive Heavy Cruiser be a proverbial glass hammer. History was unkind to the Class as well. With the outbreak of the Jihad the Word of Blake captured or suborned a vast majority of the Free World’s League’s Warships and these then perished in the fighting that boiled through the Inner Sphere.
Of the four Agamemnon’s built only one survived the Jihad in service to the Free World’s League or the competing clusters of worlds that made up that disintegrating realm. The FWLS Menelaus along with an Eagle class frigate and a crippled Thera class carrier form the bulk of the League’s navy and it’s only remaining capital ships, a huge drop from the 34 new built hulls as well as other assorted salvaged Warships that bulked out the fleet (possibly another 20 odd ships).
DesignWhere to start, the armour is bad, really really bad, and combined with the fact she has a structural integrity worse than Lola’s, Essex or any other Warship until you get to the Vincent and Zec class corvettes. This thing has load baring posters of Thomas Marik doing a thumbs up instead of structural support beams. In an environment where ships of her size usually have a SI rating of around 70 if not more and a maximum armour of 57 means that this ship is INCREDIBLY crunchy, a veritable glass hammer. It takes a mere 6 points of damage to threshold this and that can be done by pretty much anything. Fighters guns can abrade the armour in very short order and then start critting her This is VERY bad. This means that sending an Agamemnon against another warship is a very risky prospect when it’s so vulnerable to warship scale weapons or even a determined fighter strike.
One thing in the Aggy’s favour is that it does have AMS along as some Small pulse lasers which add (all be it in a limited fashion) to anti-missile protection but it’s not great coverage as would be seen on later PWS where missiles were seen as a huge threat. With four AMS and four SPL’s per arc this can reduce missiles somewhat, it’s advisable to target White Shark’s with them, sure a Killer Whale hits a bit harder but the Shark has a higher crit chance. If nukes are flying (and boy in the Jihad did they ever fly) then the Agamemnon is in serious trouble if a bucket of instant sunshine makes contact.
Another thing about the Aggy is its surprisingly huge cargo capacity, for a ship that’s 10,000 tonnes heavier than a Black Lion it has similar amounts of cargo space, meaning she can cruise the stars for a looooooong time before you run out of hard tack biscuits. With 18 fighters and four dropships on-board you can also keep them in the field for a long time as well so this could make this cruiser act more like the traditional SLDF frigate of long patrols and keeping an eye out for hostile forces or supporting an invasion force. But it also works well as an escort, all be it a final line of defence for a Thera.
FirepowerGun wise the Aggy’s got a meaty punch, even if they are kind of Star League in their layout, this means it’s a close and hose gunboat rather than the later (Luxor, Texas, McKenna) sniper designs. Dual NAC-30 bays on every arc give you a hefty slap and can make any dropship at her time of introduction (Achilles and Noruff) for example suffer a critical existence failure as their armour can’t take a 600 point punch from the big NAC’s.
Paired NL-55’s on every arc also give you a good long range anti-fighter punch whilst Heavy Naval Gauss rifles and big bore NAC-40’s on the bow and stern (with the single mount Gauss on the broadside arcs) give you additional wallops to finish off a damaged craft or rip a big hole in something coming close. With its weapon layout really you want to engage someone where you can bring your front/aft left/right arcs to bare alongside the broadside guns. This can produce a lot of firepower whilst giving you the most coverage with the AMS. The anti-fighter weaponry consists of a mix-bag of LRMs, ER large lasers, ER PPCs and SRM-6’s at short range and these are in decent enough numbers to damage fighters. Most fighters don’t want to get kicked by a quartet of PPC’s whilst the dual mount lasers and single mount LRM’s can plink away at longer ranges and cause damage as fighters close.
Fighting and fighting with oneIn a battle the Agamemnon is best used as a bully against smaller craft. She’s so lightly built that going one on one against even something like the smaller and lighter Impavido is a bad idea. 60 point weapon bays are not uncommon (Lola’s for example or anything on an Aegis) and all it takes is one of those 60 point hits to completely strip a whole section of armour. The Aggy must overwhelm its targets quickly and before they can retaliate. Getting sucked into a 1-1 fight is a good way to turn this ship into an 820,000 tomb for her 396 crew.
Modern 2nd Generation Pocket Warships also screw with the Agamemnon. This isn’t really a criticism of the design, no one could have foreseen how PWS were going to evolve in such a short time. But a PWS with sub-capital cannons will do lots of damage and a squadron or two will be able to defeat an Agamemnon through firepower and attrition. So something like a Tiamat, Taihou or Arondight and Isegrim can wear down an Agamemnon’s armour in short order but take casualties doing so.
A big group of fighters can also defeat an Agamemnon despite her anti-fighter defences. All you need is 9 hits from a squadron with even a single 10 point weapon bay and the armours gone. Any more and so too is the cruiser. And that can be done with a medium fighter squadron. Some modern flying bricks like the Eisensturm can actually take a NAC-30 hit in a full squadron whilst delivering 30 capital scale damage per turn. Yeowch! You could only need three Squadrons of Eisensturms to take down an Agamemnon, as long as you’ve dealt with the Aggy’s own fighters and dropship escorts of course.
Older assault dropships and 1st Generation PWS can also do it, all be it at a higher cost considering that the NAC-30’s can insta-gib any dropship.
But bring enough and the lightly built Agamemnon will crumble, joined in death by the carcases of the dropships her guns brought down.
This is why the Agamemnon works best as part of a fleet, cruising alone she’s in trouble, but with a typical Marik flotilla, she’s part of a greater whole and contributes greatly to the fleet with her fighters, guns and dropships.
Interestingly the Agamemnon might serve best a threat on a strategic scale rather than a tactical one. With her huge cargo bays, her HPG, Lithium Fusion battery and organic support she can patrol the borders, carry out strikes or hop in, attack and then disengage to disrupt attacks, whilst her cargo bays make her a decent mobile resupply point for friendly dropships and fighters.
Overall the Agamemnon is a capable (and very handsome looking) ship but one with an amazingly glassy jaw, and she has to be used cautiously as she’s so damn fragile that her punch is in no way backed up by her build. She kind of reminds me of ‘Fisher’s follies’ a trio of ‘Large Light Cruisers’ designed by the British Admiral Fisher in 1915. He was a naval genius who had some at times very interesting ideas. With no Capital ships being allowed to be ordered he went ahead and ordered three ‘large light cruisers’. At the time a light cruiser weighed in around 5,000 tonnes, these monsters tipped the scale at 22,000 tonnes, but he got away with it because he portrayed them to the Government as ‘light cruisers’. Armed with four 15-inch guns but protected with a mere 3-inches of armour (light cruiser scale) these ships were ones without a real goal. Fast, and with a heavy punch but being so lightly built that firing their own guns damaged them. They were basically useless as designed and were later converted into aircraft carriers.
The Agamemnon is not quite so useless, but has the same kind of flaws. Fast and well-armed but with thin hides and on lightly built hulls. Against a smaller ship they do fine, but if pulled into a long fight or Kerensky help them, against a cruiser or large capital ship then these fine, but finely built ships will be expanding clouds of debris in short order.
HMS Agamemnon
Internal structural supports on the class, along with LOTS of drywall.
Written with aid and assistance from the mysterious benefactor, as always thoughts are most welcome.
