Monsoon Class Battleship.Length - 1,108 meters
Displacement - 1,310,000 tons
Crew Complement - 648
BackgroundBy the modern era the Monsoon is an ancient ship, with the first entering service 782 years ago in 2368 (assuming the 3150 time scale is accurate), and whilst this is basically ancient history, these WarShips helped shape the Terran Hegemony and thus, the Inner Sphere.
The history of the Monsoon class starts in the 2300’s the Terran Hegemony had its Dreadnought Class under construction, but other regional powers were starting to build answers. Namely House Davion with their Defender class Battlecruiser. On paper this ship seemed and sounded formidable, it was certainly faster than a Dreadnought class and packed comparable firepower.
Unwilling to let their established naval superiority slip the Terran Hegemony began work on the next generation of Battleship to produce a vessel that would exceed the Dreadnought class and very firmly hammer home the Hegemony’s domination in space and that it would not be challenged even my a ‘friendly’ power like the Davion’s.
Three hundred and fifty thousand tons heavier than the Dreadnought and five hundred and ten meters long the new Hegemony Monsoon class was a 1,310,000 ton 1108 meter long monster and improved upon the template of the Dreadnought in nearly every metric and would set the standard for Battleship design for centuries to follow.
The first Monsoon’s entered service in 2368, a mere eight years after the Davion’s had constructed their first Defender class and were struggling to build the second ship of the class. And, with the industrial muscle of the Hegemony they started to produce the new Battleship in greater numbers than any other power could even begin to compete with.
The Monsoon class also took advantage of the latest developments in spaceship construction and integrated DropShip collars as well as dedicated hangars for the then newly developed Aerospace fighters, of which eighteen could be carried onboard. This made the ship far more flexible as they could carry DropShips to land tanks and infantry forces and later, Mechs whilst not having to rely on older, DropShuttles and armed shuttles to move friendly forces or act as fighters. Indeed, with her six DropShip collars a Monsoon could carry a formidable invasion force by herself. This was mirrored by the Dart class Light Cruiser which could also carry six DropShips and would have been the main escort of the Monsoon until the Aegis class was introduced.
Nor did the Monsoon lack for firepower, and unlike the Dreadnought the newer ship also featured energy weapons for long range work as well as missile launchers which could be used to deploy nuclear warheads. The Hegemony had moved away from nuclear warheads on its WarShips and instead used kinetic/explosive warheads, but still the capability was there. The Monsoon’s main punch, like the Dreadnought class came from massed ranks of autocannons with NAC-30 and NAC-35’s giving the Monsoon a lethal punch especially at shorter ranges.
Protection was also impressive for the time period with over 2,300 tons of armour plating the ships hull, making her better protected than the Dreadnought and were the most heavily armoured class of WarShip in active service until the later introduction of the Atreus class by the Free Worlds League.
One major failing of the Monsoon class compared to the Dreadnought and Black Lion classes was its thrust rating, at full roar the Monsoon’s three huge thrusters could only generate 1.5g of sustained thrust compared to the 2.5g the Dreadnought could produce. But in terms of fleet speed, this wasn’t a major failing. The NBC (Naga, Baron and Carson) Destroyers that were the main destroyer arm of the Hegemony fleet could also only produce 1.5g of thrust at full burn and this was repeated with the Aegis and Dart classes. Only the big fleet destroyers, the Lola I and II’s could go faster with 3g of thrust and the Black Lion battlecruisers forming the ‘fast wing’ of the battle line were capable of 2.5g sustained thrust.
Unfortunately this low thrust rating also made the Monsoon class sluggish to turn and slow to react if she had to roll to present undamaged sections to a foe. But the cold hard truth of the matter was that there simply was no other ship in service that could step into the ring with the Monsoon. The Defender whilst fast was horribly fragile and lightly built whilst also being outgunned by the Monsoon and it wasn’t until 2448 and 2552 when the Farragut and Atreus appeared that a ship could seriously challenge a Monsoon in a stand-up fight.
But the Monsoon lost its battle with age. The class was heavily engaged in the Age of War and worked hard to preserve the Hegemony’s borders and by the time the Reunification War started the class was over 200 years old and refits could only keep them going so long.
Indeed, the class was refitted several times, at increasing expense as more powerful computers, more modern reactors, newer jump cores and the like were installed, but the Monsoon was falling behind with Hegemony and now SLDF doctrine and technology. But the classes popularity with the Admirals of the Hegemony, many of whom had served aboard these grand old battlewagons kept the class in service and their popularity with the fleets Leadership made it a political and thus hard task to actually retire the class.
The Reunification War was the Monsoon’s last hurrah, and although there’s no record of how many were lost but we can assume that 20 years of warfare saw losses and heavy damage to many of the class.
The aged class would be given one last refit following the Reunification War but budgetary drawbacks and reduced military spending as well as the sheer cost of refitting these now very old ships with the very expensive Lithium Fusion battery system saw it limited to a mere ten vessels. And even this couldn’t keep the class around and slowly the Monsoons started to be decommissioned and put into mothballs and by 2668 the last of the Monsoons was decommissioned and retired. No longer would proud names like
Barham, Thunderer and
Richelieu serve with the SLDF, at least until other ships took their names in service.
But this wouldn’t be the end of the classes service. Several Monsoons were reactivated and given to the Rim Worlds Republic Navy as gifts of a grateful First Lord Richard Cameron to his true and loyal friend Stefan Amaris. Here these ships would serve as the flagships of the RWN until the Stefan Amaris class battleships entered service.
It is unknown if other Monsoons were reactivated during the Amaris Civil War by either side but what is known that at least one Monsoon class ship was seen departing the Inner Sphere with General Kerensky on Operation EXODUS. This ships fate is unknown, and it is presumed that any survivors would have been destroyed in the fighting in the Amaris Civil War or picked up by the Great Houses and then expended in the First and Second Succession Wars as there is no known Monsoon classes left in service anywhere in the Inner Sphere.
DesignThe Monsoon is a brute of a ship, and one that would still probably be quite respectable in a more modern setting. If you’re looking for a ship that’s comparable to the Monsoon, take a Cameron and go MOAR, the two ships are broadly similar, big NAC batteries, good armour, slow speed and a smattering of energy weapons and missiles for long range work.
Armour wise the Monsoon’s not bad, until the Atreus class comes along in 2552 does something exceed the Monsoon’s armour protection and this is mainly due to nearly 200 years of learning from the Hegemony.
Fore – 187
FL/FR – 160
AL/AR – 160
Aft – 170
Unfortunately you can threshold this armour with a NAC-20 and above or paired NAC-10’s and really is more akin to a Battlecruiser’s scale of protection, but again, for their time of service this armour was heavy and because bracket firing didn’t exist at the time you had to get fairly close to cause significant damage and this is exactly where the Monsoon wants you.
The Monsoon's hull is also pretty solidly constructed with a Structural integrity rating of 90, which is the same as the Dart Class CL, considerably better than the Aegis (75) and even better than the Texas class which came out many years later (85) so the Monsoon's got a lot of structural strength and does not have problems like the Agamemnon does of having a glass jaw.
At an ideal angle with her broadsides to you, a Monsoon can point a grand total of 3 x NAC-30’s, 6 x NAC-35’s and 6 x Medium Naval PPC’s at you, oh and a single White Shark missile that may or may not be carrying a nuke. That’s a maximum of 357 points of Capital damage if she hits with the full lot. That will rip apart anything in service in the SLDF’s inventory, even a McKenna couldn't withstand firepower of that magnitude and only the Mjolnir could take that kind of a beating and have some armour left, oh and a Leviathan II but if you're facing that...I forsee doom.
In the Monsoon's case she's got weapons spread out as follows
Bow
1 x NAC-30
4 x Medium Naval PPCs
1 x White Shark missile launcher
Front Left/Right
2 x NAC-30
3 x Medium Naval PPC’s
1 x White Shark missile launcher
Left/Right Broadside
2 x NAC-35
2 x NAC-35
2 x NAC-35
Aft Left/Right
1 x NAC-30
3 x Medium Naval PPC’s
Aft
1 x NAC-30
4 x Medium Naval PPC’s
Which is formidable for almost any period. Even most of the House ships we see in TRO 3068 don't match that, not bad for a ship that was introduced nearly 700 years prior.
But, this is a short ranged mix of weapons, the NAC-35’s are big heavy guns which only go out to Medium range for capital weapons, and even if you use bracket firing, you’ll only get a -1 for all the gun mounts save the two triple PPC’s which then, along with the missile launchers are your main long range weapons, and not very hard hitting ones either. With her lack of thrust the Monsoon really can’t catch opponents and must try and manoeuvre into a position where her opponent must come to her.
And this is where the Monsoon’s obsolescence comes into play as a battleship. Technology changed, weapons got longer ranged and more accurate and the advent of bracket firing made fitting large numbers of a type of weapon on a ship more desirable. This is why the Texas class has those huge 12-gun batteries of NL-45’s. With bracket firing you lose damage, but gain accuracy with the more weapons there are in a battery up to -4 to hit and the damage loss is then offset somewhat by having either large numbers of guns, or hard hitting ones like the McKenna’s with their fearsome quad heavy naval PPC batteries.
Because the armour levels on WarShips in Battletech is actually pretty darn low, really the first ship that gets a major hit in first will be the one that will win (as they really are glass hammers for the most part). The Monsoon is built to plod forwards, her weapons bellowing away firing as many shots as you can to get a hit or two at the longer ranges, and at short range where your hit numbers are going to be better the real work of kicking your target to death can take place. Against a ship that can stand off and fire from long range beyond your effective ability to respond, the Monsoon is in trouble. And a ship like a Texas class could easily cut a Monsoon to ribbons before the Monsoon can bring her autocannons to bare accurately enough to worry the Texas.
Like 95% of the ships in the setting the Monsoon is also vulnerable to fighter attacks but here she’s not that bad off. With 18 fighters of her own the Monsoon can have an adequate CAP to deal with hostile fighters and those 6 DropShip collars mean you could load up on Assault DropShips or Carriers of your own. And I’d honestly expect that a Monsoon would carry at least one Titan class Carrier DropShip into action, as well as Achilles or Pentagon class Assault DropShips for self defence when going into a naval engagement against other WarShips, so lobbing fighters at a Monsoon might not be the quick and easy solution to your Battleship shaped problem either.
The Monsoon also has an absolutely cavernous cargo capacity of 295,637.5 tons or if you take the one that had the Lithium fusion battery, this drops to a ‘mere’ 282,537.5 tons. They also have 6,000 tons of fuel aboard, far more than the horribly short legged McKenna and its pathetic 1,600 tons. This means that the Monsoon is able to keep in the field for a long time.
So, fighting with and against a Monsoon is like fighting against an Aegis or Cameron, they are slow, but are nasty at close to medium range with the odd chance of a longer ranged hit coming your way. Tough, dangerous up close and not something you want to get into a slugging match at close quarters.
MusingsThe lore for this ship makes sense, at least for me, but what comes after with other ships does not. The Texas class came out in 2618 and was an avatar of the bracket firing technology advantages with her big laser batteries and quad NPPC’s. And yet two major ships that followed, the Sovetskii Soyuz which was more a fat frigate than a cruiser and entered service in 2742, and the Cameron which came out in 2688 still carry on the Monsoon’s issue of guns mounts that are incapable of bracket firing decently. A Sovetskii Soyuz could have easily had six-gun batteries of NL-45’s and quad or quintuple mountings for her Medium Naval PPC’s to take advantage of bracket firing. The Cameron can be excused as her fluff paints her as a disaster designed by a committee who didn’t like one another and who communicated through passive aggressive postit notes. The Congress does the same with her paltry armament. Instead the Sov soy, Congress and Cameron all have enough cargo space to lose a decent sized passenger ship in it. *grumbles about strange design choices that could be easily fixed without going into over optimizing territory*
Oh, and one thing I do like about the Monsoon. It’s a bloody handsome ship. Unlike the generally god awful 3057 redone designs, the Monsoon seems to be an ode to the 2750 artwork for warships. Which means its basically an angry tube of toothpaste, but it looks good with it! It looks like a ‘proper’ space ship and looks like it would very much do you harm.
A Monsoon taking part in Operation EXODUS.
I know its been a LONG time since i've done a Warship, but I hope you folks find this article interesting and as always, thoughts and comments are most welcome!
