Baron Class DestroyerLength- 545.5 meters
Displacement - 480,000 tons
Crew Compliment - 275 + Space for 30 Passengers
Now I’m going to start with a bit of non-canon conjecture, but the THN and SLDF seems to have operated a mix of ‘hi-low’ ships for its Destroyers and escorts. This started way back in 2345 with the introduction of the Lola I class destroyer. These are not small ships, clocking in at a meaty 680,000 tons, and these were joined from 2351 with the Essex I class destroyer which were very cheap and cheerful despite their considerable 560,000-ton bulk.
But as the years went on the mass produced and lightly built Essex I started showing its age and design limitations. And the THN and nascent SLDF wanted another destroyer type vessel that would replace the Essex as the ‘low’ end ship. The result of this would be a steady drumbeat of designs of broadly similar specs and performance but different weapon choices and layouts and today we’ll be covering one of those, the Baron class destroyer.
The Baron itself is, quite small at 480,000 tons she’s smaller than the Essex and we can assume was designed to be cheaper and easier to produce. The THN and SLDF liked its destroyers to be fairly cheap and cheerful. Unlike the destroyers that you would see in service with the House Navies the THN/SLDF destroyers were built to be deployed en-mass and work together in squadrons to mass firepower and their onboard fighters. This was the case with the Baron, but the Baron class had a somewhat fraught design program.
Coming into service during a period where the Terran Hegemony was carrying out an active policy of ‘aggressive peace making’ which basically slapping everyone else around if needs be whilst also trying a diplomatic approach. The iron fist in a velvet glove approach, although when needed, the glove would also be iron. It was felt that the Hegemony’s neighbours were coming a bit too close in terms of technology and the Essex class risked being outclassed. So, step forwards the Baron class which started production in 2515. Unfortunately, the ships then revolutionary engines failed to reach anywhere near the required performance without undue technical issues and after two years of failed attempts trying to reach the designed specs, the engines were downrated to produce less thrust (and presumably less stress on themselves and the ship.)
These undue delays to the launching and commissioning of the Barons saw them regarded as obsolete by the time the first ship was launched and fell far short of what the THN wanted. As a result the nascent SLDF gave half the class away to the member states of the Star League a little over sixty years later whilst retaining the remaining ships for SLDF service.
With their downrated engines the Barons had disappointing performance with sluggish acceleration and poor manoeuvrability, but in reality, this wasn’t a bad thing as it was perfectly fine for the fleet speed of the time, capable of matching the speed of the Aegis, Dart and Monsoon class ships that formed the main arm of the THN at the time.
Despite this rather limited performance that resulted in a ship that was slower than the Essex which it was surely meant to replace, the Baron’s still a capable ship. With superior protection compared to the Essex with thicker plating across the section the Baron’s more survivable. Here the Baron makes use of what seems to be the then newly developed Ferro-Aluminium armour to save weight whilst increasing her protection by using 256 tons of the new armour compound to plate the ships hull and vitals. The choice of being more technologically advanced is also echoed in the weapons battery. Whereas the Essex’s firepower was centred around naval autocannons with small groups of lasers, the Baron swaps this and focuses heavily on laser batteries that, if they were around in later years, would serve the ship well with the advent of bracket firing. These large clusters of 35cm lasers are supported by light calibre naval autocannons, similar to those used on the Essex, giving her a good hole punching ability for her size.
Despite being smaller than the Essex, the Baron’s firepower is near equal to the Essex, which isn’t bad for a ‘small’ destroyer. The Baron also has an additional option, she has a sextuplet of White Shark missile launch tubes and these big missiles can be fitted with nuclear warheads, which were quite common at the time and these can cause significant damage to hostile WarShips or obliterate inbound fighter strikes.
In an improvement over the Essex class, the Baron can carry a flight of six fighters for self-defence as well as a flight of six Small Craft which can make them quite flexible. To save money the Hegemony didn’t fit any of its destroyers with DropShip collars but as destroyers would be deployed en-mass they could escort themselves and form a lattice of fire to ward of hostile DropShips.
With a larger grav-deck and fuel tanks the Baron can also remain in the field longer and keep her crew more comfortable during long missions. With over 130,000 tons of cargo space and 6,500 tons of fuel the Baron can remain in the field for long and with her predominantly energy based weapon mix, she does not have to worry about running out of ammo quickly either.
Unfortunately due to the faulty engines (I get the feeling the Baron was supposed to be as fast as the Essex) the THAF and nascent SLDF didn’t really find the ship to be to their liking and many were sold off to the House fleets to become common units in their navies. The Baron also found use as a very heavily armed transport for dignitaries and important people as they could carry up to 30 passengers in first and second class quarters, and pirates and ‘raiders’ (totally not agents of other Houses honest!) would be far less inclined to tackle a near half million ton WarShip than they would a JumpShip.
The class would serve adequately in the Reunification War alongside its similar cousins the Carson and Naga classes (which sometimes leads to the trio of roughly similar ships being called the NBCs) but post Reunification War the NBC’s soldiered on but were replaced by the Essex II class Destroyer The Baron was then largely retired from SLDF service and either sold to Member States, scrapped or used as exercise targets.
The class would go on to have a longer life in the service of the House fleets, but the fires of the First and Second Succession Wars were unkind to the class, and the last active Baron, the DCS
Yedo was destroyed by the LCS
Invincible during the climatic Seventh and Eighth Battle of Hespereus II. And, with the destruction of the
Yedo, it seemed the Baron class was finally extinct. That is until the Word of Blake fielded three of these old destroyers as part of their forces in the Jihad.
These three ships the
Light of Faith, Light of Hope and
Light of Glory would see considerable service during the Jihad but the last ship was destroyed at the Battle of Dieron and this finally saw the end of the Baron class.
ThoughtsThe Baron class is not exactly a ship that makes you go wow! She’s a destroyer, she’s poorly armoured, she’s slow but she looks nice, and has an interesting history and shows seemingly divergent ways of thinking in the THN and SLDF fleets as to how a Destroyer should be armed.
Smaller and slower than the Essex the Baron has the same rather weak hull strength meaning that once her armours gone, she’s going to fold very quickly but her armour’s better than the Essex class and the later and more successful but just as slow Naga class of destroyer. Her guns are what catch the eye, unlike the autocannon heavy Essex the Baron’s a laser boat.
Bow on she’s got a sextuplet of 35cm lasers whilst her fore quarters have a pair of NAC-10’s and a pair of White Shark missile launchers. The broadside battery though is an eye opener, ten NL-35’s are her only weapons but that’s quite a punch, and if they were ever updated to allow for bracket firing, that would be a very nasty anti-fighter battery whilst also giving the ship a fairly hard punch for a ship its size. The aft quarters are somewhat under gunned with just a pair of NAC-10’s whilst the stern is covered by a pair of NL-35’s and a pair of White Shark launch tubes.
The designers also put a decent cooling system and a full broadside with both fore and aft arcs thrown in as well will not stress the Baron’s cooling system and you’ll only get issues if you throw the other broadside into the mix, but then if you’re having to fire both broadsides in a small and lightly built destroyer, you’ve got way bigger problems than a bit of heat on your plate.
Really the Baron is what you could call a Destroyer Escort, she’s not fast and can only produce the same thrust as an Aegis so she accelerates slow and can’t really turn all that well, but this is fine for plodding along with friendly cruisers or escorting DropShips in and out of a system. She’s not got the speed to go running off after someone and get into a lot of trouble, that’s the Lola I’s job and that’s why I think the Lola I is more a ‘fleet destroyer’ whilst the Baron’s built to be more at home escorting friendly capital ships.
Fiddling around with the excellent ship builder -
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=56111.0I was able to recreate the Baron and checked to see what having her have the same thrust rating as the Essex I (so 3/5 instead of 2/3) would have cost, the result was a rather mere 30,000 tons of cargo, still leaving the ship with over 100,000 tons of it which is plenty enough. So, whilst it’s only my conjecture that the Baron was meant to be faster she’s got the tonnage available if the engines had worked as intended.
So there you have it, the Baron, a rather unassuming and not overly flashy ship but an interesting one none the less and also quite a looker!
As always, thoughts and comments are most welcome!
The DCS Yedo
