My offering for the CCS
Faith, Power and Glory and I may (was) have been listening to this whilst writing it which gave me her name -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw07-izQ5qQWould love to know any feedback :)
BackgroundConstruction on the CCS
Faith, Power and Glory was halted when the Nightlord class vessel was only 5% complete when Chief Scientists Gambor (Einstein) convinced Khan Terrel N’Buta that the WarShip could be altered to radically improve its performance and strengthen the Tourman of Clan Cloud Cobra far more than a ‘standard’ Nightlord class would.
With his Clan’s naval strength needing to be increased in the face of an increased tempo of WarShip construction across the Homeworlds Khan N’Buta agreed upon seeing the proposed design and authorized construction to be resumed to the new design.
Chief Scientist Gambor and his team had drawn influences from the history of the SLDF and Star League, central to these was the ‘Mass Driver Mania’ of the 2730s to 2750s. Although Mass Drivers were a grossly inefficient and inelegant weapon and the design of one was not to be pursued, the preference for a ship able to bring shattering firepower in a head on engagement was heavily inspired by the failed Mass driver weapon systems.
DesignThe base capabilities of the Nightlord, to be able to carry and deploy a full Galaxy of Mech’s or Elementals was not removed, as this helped make the huge WarShip highly flexible, and should any return to the Inner Sphere take place, the Cobra’s planned to be part of it, one way or another and the ability to rapidly deploy ground forces was too potent a force multiplier to give up.
The aerospace compliment was also greatly increased, with hangars for 50 fighters as well as another 50 Small craft which could deploy Elementals to seize orbital facilities as well as deploy and recover the Mech’s if needed. The number of DropShip collars was reduced to three but these would normally be Assault DropShips to act as heavy escorts or provide firepower for assaulting forces.
All of these forces could be coordinated from the WarShip thanks to her powerful and heavily augmented communications and scanning equipment that could accept and display feeds from thousands of sources from Mech’s on the ground to satellite feeds and friendly WarShips and DropShips sensor scans and if necessary the ship would be able to control an entire campaign for a world or system.
But despite these formidable capabilities, the biggest change to the Nightlord hull, save the addition of another 50,000 tons of mass was the complete revamping of the weapons systems to make a vessel quite unlike any other ever constructed or conceived.
Like the Soyal that served as the ships inspiration the
Faith, Power and Glory is built for a frontal attack profile. With massed banks of heavy calibre autocannons, supported by a quartet of heavy naval gauss rifles the battleship can obliterate an opponent and shatter any WarShip or station known to exist with heavy gunfire. This formidable firepower is then hugely augmented by the huge number of AR-10 missile launch systems that cover the ships broadsides, a total of 60 launchers can launch enough missiles to obliterate a fighter or DropShip attack at huge range whilst using the ships advanced electronics these launchers can even fire ahead and astern with little difficulty.
Unlike the SLDF era vessels in Clan service that lack almost any form of anti-fighter weaponry, the
Faith, Power and Glory made up for this with a staggering number of autocannons and LRM launchers situated in the fore and aft quarters. Each section boasts 100 Ultra-2 pattern autocannons, 100 LB-10 pattern autocannons and over 80 LRM-20 missile launchers. This blistering array of weapons can smash any aerospace fighter strike or Assault DropShip that got within range and at close range the massed guns and missiles can batter through WarShip armour though sheer volume of fire. Installing this number of weapons did cause problems with supplies and this forced the Cobra’s to turn to Clan Diamond Shark who offered to pick up the shortfall of weapons in return for production rights for several OmniMech’s the Shark’s lacked.
Finally, a heavy layer of anti-missile guns with deep ammunition lockers allow the ship to defend itself against hostile weapons.
Service recordThe Cobra’s were able to keep the details of the
Faith, Power and Glory secret and most Clans simply assumed that she was a slightly modified Nightlord. What emerged over Homer was a completely new vessel that was both Nightlord but also something very new. Her firepower was not tested until the attack on the Babylon Diet by a joint multi-Clan Taskforce. During the orbital battle over Babylon the CCS
Faith Power and Glory was challenged by the CSV
Zalman’s Endeavor as the Battleship moved to support forces involved in the battles on the world below.
Accelerating to full speed the
Faith, Power and Glory’s Commander, Star Admiral Sven Grey declared that he would not use his ships forwards battery against the ‘Inferior’ vessel he faced to make it a fair fight. The Captain of the
Endeavor accepted this as his ship was heavily out massed and outgunned. Star Admiral Grey did not say that he would not use his ships missile batteries though and a single barrage of Killer Whale missiles from all 60 launchers was all that was needed to cripple the
Zalman’s Endeavor with multiple hits that caused significant damage along her bow and forward quarters forcing the ship to request Hegira to combat fires in her hangar bay and with all forwards firing weaponry disabled she was unable to reply to the huge barrage of missiles that would follow.
During the Wars of Reaving the
Faith, Power and Glory was a primary combatant in the wars that boiled through Clan space. Her massed anti-fighter weapons protecting her and friendly vessels against assaults from hostile Clan and Society forces. She met the
Zalman's Endeavor once again and this time crushed her in a frontal assault that obliterated the older vessel in a single salvo. The
Faith, Power and Glory though was crippled during a raid over Babylon by a computer virus introduced by a Society agent onboard. The virus wiped the ships computer core and damaged the electronics of the ship as it did. It was only due to the diligence of the Engineering crew that the reactor was quickly shut down before it overloaded. Adrift and with only battery power to provide life support the
Faith, Power and Glory was recovered and put into dock to be repaired, but the loss of many Scientists greatly delayed the work needed and the ship missed the Viper Annihilation that signalled the end of the Wars of Reaving.
