Arpeggio class Cruiser: Please senator, can you spare a cruiser?

[Liam's Ghost]

Author: So I did the Arpeggio before, but that one had no fluff and was slightly different. Consider this the official model

Arpeggio class Cruiser

  While the blakist incursion of 3069 had triggered a mass mobilization of the military and the largest naval sortie into the periphery in the Bastion's history, on the political and public front, claims of the threat the Word of Blake posed were met with, at best, jaded disinterest. This was not particularly surprising. After all, the Bastion had been here before, first with Amaris, then Kerensky, then the Madsden pirates, and once again with the Clans. All "existential threats" that had ultimately come to nothing. And even if the blakists had come closer than any group, in the end they'd been slapped down quickly and efficently by the Navy, the massive sweep of the surrounding space that had been the "Grand Tour" had turned up few additional blakist groups, and absolutely no evidence of any further threat to the Bastion. This alone was enough to kill any thought of directly intervening in the conflict in the Inner Sphere, no matter the pleading of the Morgan Commission or their supporters in the Senate. A decision that seemed vidicated by the ultimate defeat of the Word of Blake by the many enemies they'd made in the Inner Sphere, without the involvement of the Bastion.

  So while the Bastion's military researchers were able to experiment with and replicate the omnimechs and many of the advanced weapons and technology captured from those blakists the Bastion had encountered, and may have begun sketching out plans to implement this technology and modernize the armed forces, there was none of the political will or the budget to move forward with these plans. In the Navy's case, this meant that design schematics for new heavy destroyers, carriers, and even battleships would be set aside indefinitely in favor of simply maintaining the existing fleet at standard peacetime levels. The navy would even face budget cuts which resulted in slashing caretaker crews serving aboard ships kept in ordinary, as well as increasing a standard active service tour for each ship from two years to four, in order to reduce the amount of time spent in overhaul. While it is difficult to say that the navy was particularly neglected, especially compared to the army, which saw seven of its ten active divisions disbanded during the same period, the present navy is certainly not enjoying the vast budgets or support of its glory days.

  This didn't mean that innovation was completely dead in the Bastion's military, however. But it would be only recently that the Navy would begin to revisit the idea of modernizing and otherwise upgrading the fleet, and even then, this effort would start out as a small, purely experimental project. The basic problem this program was meant to address is that, from a design standpoint, the capital ship fleet was simply old. The core ships of the fleet, the Impetuous and Hunt classes, were certainly capable, and had enjoyed numerous minor updates and improvements during their service lives, but their fundamental designs were over three hundred years old, as were the design principles and assumptions that had gone into creating them. This meant that these ships simply can't make use of some of the latest innovations in technology, particularly jump drive technology, simply because their base designs couldn't incorporate these advances. It also meant that they were built in accordance with standards and tactical assumptions that might have made sense over three hundred years ago, but would later be irrelevant or called into question. Once again, both the Impetuous and the Hunt classes are capable ships, but it is still also inescapable that the Hunt class started its life as an emergency program to get ships into service quickly, and its small size, a direct consequence of that need, is a hinderance to its capabilities. Likewise, the Impetuous was very much an overreaction to the embarrassment of Fleet Problem Three and the demand for a fast heavy fleet element, and as a general service cruiser, it has to be acknowledged that the ship's oversized transit drive is not particularly valuable to its actual service role. The limitations of these classes is something the Navy has traditionally grown accustomed to working around, as generally it is easier to get funding for the construction of more of a proven design than to delve into the experimental. However, putting the most recent innovations in jump drive technology into practice would, for all intents and purposes, require an all new ship design to be built around that advanced core.

  It wasn't much more of a stretch to ensure that new design would also correct some prior mis-steps.

  Ever aware of the omnipresent gaze of the penny-pinchers in the Senate, the Navy would initially submit plans for a small experimental run of four cruisers, securing funding for an initial prototype to be laid down in 3113, with additional ships to follow at an unspecified point in the future. The contract to construct the prototype, to be named the Arpeggio, was awarded to the Philadelphia Naval Yards, in cooperation with the Montauk Proving Grounds (MPG) in the Atlantica system. The decision to go with a shipyard in one of the Colonies rather than the many shipyards around Martin's Landing would cause a bit of a stir in political circles. Traditionally, new WarShip classes had always first been built in the Martin's Landing system before the plans were passed on to yards in the Colonies. However, it was difficult to argue against MPG's particular experience in the sort of advanced KF research that was going in to the Arpeggio's advanced jump drive.

  The plans for the Arpeggio called for an eight hundred thousand ton design, slightly smaller and lighter than the Impetuous class while carrying slightly improved protection and firepower. The ship's primary armament is made up of a uniform battery of forty eight Kreuss XXXa naval PPCs, with five quad mounts placed along each broadside with additional quad mounts protecting the nose and stern. Secondary armament takes the form of an impressive thirty two launch tubes for the standard Barracuda missile system, with three sextuple mounts forward, another aft, and twin mounts on the broadside and aft quarters. To protect against a similar missile attack, and clearly in response to the liberal use of nuclear weapons seen during the fight against the blakist incursion in 3069, the Arpeggio's design also incorporates an impressive laser based anti-missile defense system, the first of its kind in the fleet and a considerable improvement to the ballistic anti-missile systems currently standard in the fleet. Supporting elements have likewise been improved. While the Arpeggio carries roughly the same fighter complement as the Impetuous, the design also includes two additional docking collars, as well as a heavy marine complement of three conventionally equipped and two battle armor equipped platoons. The Arpeggio also carries the same advanced sensor systems of an Adventurous class frigate and, while it is in no way capable of the same sort of deep patrol operations conducted by those long range ships, it still has the storage and fuel capacity for short duration operations away from Bastion territory, something the Impetuous definitively lacks.

  Possibly the biggest improvement of all is in the Arpeggio's jump drive, even if the majority of the drive's capabilities remain classified. Common rumors suggest an improved jump range (anywhere from tens to hundreds of light years) or greater charging efficiency; less plausible claims as being able to jump inside of or into a gravity well or emerge from a jump already in motion relative to the local star; or even truly outlandish or magical notions such as interdicting other jump capable craft, somehow emerging from a jump "out of phase" and thus cloaked from observation, or even the ability to travel between alternate realities. While the Navy remains characteristically tight lipped, many of the Bastion's foremost civilian scientists suggest that some marginal improvements to jump range or improved charging efficiency would be most likely, and a minor improvement of tolerance for gravity wells is at least possible. However, anything more extreme than that is most likely pure fantasy.

  Of course, one cannot simply cram all of these capabilities into an eight hundred thousand ton hull without some concessions, and the Arpeggio makes those concessions in its acceleration profile. The ship's three transit drives offer enough thrust to achieve one and a half gravities of acceleration under standard operation (and up to two and a half under emergency power), only sixty percent of the acceleration of an Impetuous class. This reduction in speed has been hotly debated both within the Admiralty and in endless political and civilian circles, and is either the change the navy had desperately needed or an Agincourt scale boondoggle that has compromised the entire design, with precious little middle ground in the arguments. The navy, for its part, has insisted that the purpose of the Arpeggio is as an experiment to test these assumptions, rather than a finalized platform that will completely replace the Impetuous as the standard line WarShip.

  And so far, those tests have been promising, if not conclusive. Exercises have confirmed that in a direct engagement the Arpeggio is a fair match for an Impetuous, the latter class's greater mobility largely cancelled out by the Arpeggio's somewhat greater protection and ranged firepower. In scenarios that favor mobility, such as chase and interception operations, the advantage shifts more clearly to the Impetuous class, but even in these cases the Navy is careful to acknowledge that in such operations where long high gravity burns are required, it is often the crew, rather than the mechanical performance of the ship, that is the deciding factor. While the Impetuous is clearly the faster ship, it is only able to sustain its acceleration over long periods due to the genetic modifications its crew has received, something that the potential adversaries of the Bastion currently lack. Facing an opponent without those augmentations, even the relatively modest acceleration curve of the Arpeggio is sufficient to simply run most enemies to exhaustion.

  However, speculation on the Arpeggio's role in the future fleet is still fairly premature. The two ships presently in service operate almost entirely as testbeds and technology demonstrators, with currently only very basic ideas for how the ship might fit into any future fleet. Most reputable analysis suggests that the Arpeggio's jump core will eventually go on to form the basis for a family of new ships, much like the Impetuous did, though there are currently no plans to pursue that avenue further. Interest seems to instead be focused on creating a new light destroyer class using similar advanced jump core architecture, with the intention of gradually phasing out the Hunt class. Though even this is only in the earliest of planning stages, and faces heavy pushback from a Senate that struggles to see the need of modernizing the fleet to that degree. It may very well be that the only true legacy of the Arpeggio class will be yet another series of minor, low cost updates that incorporate at least some of its innovations into the existing fleet, rather than an expansive, fleetwide revival.

Code: [Select]

Arpeggio Cruiser
Mass: 800,000 tons
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced)
Introduced: 3115
Mass: 800,000
Battle Value: 144,486
Tech Rating/Availability: E/X-X-F-F
Cost: 27,988,004,000 C-bills

Fuel: 7,000 tons (17,500)
Safe Thrust: 3
Maximum Thrust: 5
Sail Integrity: 5
KF Drive Integrity: 17
Heat Sinks: 5000 (10000)
Structural Integrity: 90

Armor
    Nose: 249
    Fore Sides: 249/249
    Aft Sides: 249/249
    Aft: 249

Cargo
    Bay 1:  Small Craft (10)        2 Doors   
    Bay 2:  Fighter (20)            6 Doors   
    Bay 3:  Cargo (26725.0 tons)    1 Door   

Ammunition:
    320 rounds of Barracuda ammunition (9,600 tons)

Dropship Capacity: 6
Grav Decks: 2 (100 m, 100 m)
Escape Pods: 40
Life Boats: 50
Crew:  52 officers, 175 enlisted/non-rated, 80 gunners, 90 bay personnel, 30 passengers, 72 marines, 48 BA marines

Notes: Equipped with
    lithium-fusion battery system
    1 Mobile Hyperpulse Generators (Mobile HPG)
    1 Naval Comm-Scanner Suite (Large)
1,440 tons of lamellor ferro-carbide armor.

Weapons:                                    Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat)                              Heat  SRV     MRV     LRV      ERV    Class       
Nose (1,030 Heat)
10 Laser AMS                            70   3(30)    0(0)    0(0)     0(0)   AMS         
6 Capital Missile Launcher (Barracuda)  60   12(120) 12(120) 12(120) 12(120)  Capital Missile
    Barracuda Ammo (60 shots)
4 Naval PPC (Heavy)                     900  60(600) 60(600) 60(600) 60(600)  Capital PPC
FRS/FLS (1,030 Heat)
4 Naval PPC (Heavy)                     900  60(600) 60(600) 60(600) 60(600)  Capital PPC
10 Laser AMS                            70   3(30)    0(0)    0(0)     0(0)   AMS         
6 Capital Missile Launcher (Barracuda)  60   12(120) 12(120) 12(120) 12(120)  Capital Missile
    Barracuda Ammo (60 shots)
RBS/LBS (1,890 Heat)
4 Naval PPC (Heavy)                     900  60(600) 60(600) 60(600) 60(600)  Capital PPC
4 Naval PPC (Heavy)                     900  60(600) 60(600) 60(600) 60(600)  Capital PPC
10 Laser AMS                            70   3(30)    0(0)    0(0)     0(0)   AMS         
2 Capital Missile Launcher (Barracuda)  20   4(40)   4(40)   4(40)    4(40)   Capital Missile
    Barracuda Ammo (20 shots)
ARS/ALS (1,890 Heat)
4 Naval PPC (Heavy)                     900  60(600) 60(600) 60(600) 60(600)  Capital PPC
4 Naval PPC (Heavy)                     900  60(600) 60(600) 60(600) 60(600)  Capital PPC
10 Laser AMS                            70   3(30)    0(0)    0(0)     0(0)   AMS         
2 Capital Missile Launcher (Barracuda)  20   4(40)   4(40)   4(40)    4(40)   Capital Missile
    Barracuda Ammo (20 shots)
Aft (1,030 Heat)
6 Capital Missile Launcher (Barracuda)  60   12(120) 12(120) 12(120) 12(120)  Capital Missile
    Barracuda Ammo (60 shots)
10 Laser AMS                            70   3(30)    0(0)    0(0)     0(0)   AMS         
4 Naval PPC (Heavy)                     900  60(600) 60(600) 60(600) 60(600)  Capital PPC


[Daryk]

Decent armor, Point Defenses, Bracket Fire capability, and Missiles... what more can you ask of a Cruiser? ;)

[Liam's Ghost]

  So as of 3121, we have come to the last capital ships presently serving in the Bastion fleet. Those who are familiar with "...And I Feel Fine" might have noted that this fleet apparently doesn't include the Royal Sovereigns, Tiamats, and Riga II carriers mentioned in that story.

  The short form for why this is the case is that this version of the Bastion (what I'm presently thinking of Baseline Bastion) isn't one that has had centuries living in the fear of something existentially horrifying being woken up on Terra. Instead, any "existential crisis" has been very short lived and rapidly come to nothing. There was simply never the need to build the massive deep range fleet seen in "...And I Feel Fine", so they didn't. They talked about it, briefly, towards the end of the Jihad, but then the Word of Blake got taken out by some scrub spheroids, so they didn't have to do anything.

  In other timelines the differences might be even more drastic. For example, if the Bastion were ported into the Empires Aflame universe, it would probably be a sleepy backwater with little of the vast military or industrial might portrayed in the posts I made here, because in that setting, the SLDF actually did its job so the Bastion didn't have to.

  So anyway, that's why that is. I still have soo much stuff left to fill out about the Bastion.

[Daryk]

I think the Bastion would at least have the industrial capacity, as that's part of its reason for being... :)

[Liam's Ghost]

So I think that, now that I've written all this stuff about the Bastion's navy, the next logical step I need to take is probably to go through it and collate the various bits of information into a coherent timeline located in a single document.

Then maybe disassemble all the fluff I wrote, take out all the general historical information that really belongs in a separate historical document, and re-write each entry to better reflect the topic at hand rather than the endless tangents.

Then take all the excess historical information I took out of each TRO style entry, and use that and the timeline to write a coherent history of the Bastion navy in a single unified document.

And also correct any points where I contradicted myself or changed my mind in mid stream.

Then maybe eat a cookie.

[Daryk]

Or several dozen cookies!  That's quite the project!  Good luck! :)

[DevianID]

Im a sucker for fuel and cargo tonnage.  You have less then 1% fuel capacity and 3.25% cargo capacity.

At 17500 points of fuel, that equals 6 days of combat power under 1 g.  So not enough to make a fighting retreat at higher G for the 175 hours and 10 burn days needed to perform a reactor charge to flee other warships dogging you in combat.  The lithium is nice, but needing to use the lithium to flee means never being able to use it more then 1 jump away from hostile territory, per the low fuel and reliance on static out of combat solar charging to get around.

Finally, at only 10 rounds per barracuda, the design can't perform a missile cruiser roll firing waves of bearing launched missiles to engage at a safe distance.  You'd need at least 10x the endurance, some 80k more tons of missiles on 30 tubes, to support less then 2 hours of fighting, so id expect faster, better endurance missile cruisers to be able to blackout this one, hounding it from beyond PPC range.

I glanced through the fluff, but don't understand how far the patrol sweep was when looking for WOB.  If only in the same system as the bastion, basically tied to a base for supply and fuel, then logistics concerns are less important.

I'm also more or less married to battlespace being like ww2 in its gameplay cues, and a big fleet ship like this with less then 10% fuel and 10% cargo feels wrong compared to the star league spaceships I grew up with.

[Cannonshop]

cookies (IRL) are good.  (Cookies on the internet must die in a fire).

[Liam's Ghost]

-snip-

The Bastion's naval strategy is almost entirely defensive. The vast majority of their capital ships are expected to always operate no more than one jump from home territory, and their cruisers don't usually leave their home systems unless picket units have detected a hostile force close to home territory. In theory, they're never more than a jump and an HPG call away from resupply, so their design reflects that. If for some reason they have to stage further out, those ships would have to rely on supply ships to support them.

But they also have a small force of frigates that are built for long range operations. Those are the ones that do the deep patrols and led the sweep searching for Blakist bases, and are expected to operate for a year or more on their own (20% of their own mass allocated to cargo, plus supply dropships docked with them if needed).

The Arpeggio is... technically kind of in the middle of those two extremes? Obviously much closer to the short ranged defense ships than the long range frigates.

Hope that clarifies things a bit.

[DevianID]

The Arpeggio is... technically kind of in the middle of those two extremes? Obviously much closer to the short ranged defense ships than the long range frigates.

Yeah I thought that might be what you were going for, though the missile batteries are still feeling more like emergency fighter defense rather then proper long ranged bearing-launched support for fleet actions.  So like the arpeggio would be fine patrolling 1 jump away, thanks to the LF battery as its get out of jail free card back to base I take it; for anything longer legged then that you have a different cruiser with the 10+10% cargo needed for extended combat actions... makes sense!