Attempt at giving the Sovereign Class life

[Khymerion]

In the Tactical Operations book, there are several pictures of a particular wet navy warship.  Referred to as the Sovereign class, this ship from the small captions was a relic floating on the seas of New Avalon.  It dots through out the sections dealing with advanced support vehicles.  It also didn't take too much of a keen eye to know which ship she really was.

Figuring that a millennium is more than enough time to see the original long faded into scrap yards or ancient terran museums, I figured that the Sovereign class was 'new construction'...  a museum ship of it's own right dating back to the days of the Star League and kept in New Avalon's capital for children to tour on holiday, only taken out to sail for major events.  The Jihad changed that.  The blockade and fighting on planet saw the museum ship put back to sea again and refitted to the best of their ability to bring the ship up to fighting shape.  As to the fate of this and other possible members of the Sovereign class of warships, only detailed analysis of the histories still being sifted through at the NAIS will be able to tell.

When detailing up the Sovereign class, she is clearly inspired by her form; the Sovremenny class of destroyer.  Her tonnage was rounded up from 7940 tons fully loaded to an even 8000 tons to simplify the math.  In addition, other simplifications were done.  The crew was dramatically reduced, assuming 700+ years of technological advancements would continue to further reduce the total crew compliments required to the 80 man crew.  A larger crew would be nice but just not enough slots available to do so.

In addition to that reduction, two major changes between the ancient Sovremenny and the Davion Sovereign class would occur in the weapon systems.  First change, the massive cruise missile launchers.  In the real one, it is twin hex launchers but while trying to stat it out, I had to go with a single 8 tube launcher.  Just not enough slots available to do it accurately.  The next is the two surface to air missile launchers.  Had space been available, twin Arrow IV launchers in two turrets with dedicated ADA missile load outs would have been preferred but a single Arrow IV turret with said load out was used instead.  This was a bit of a pain but just was not enough turrets or slots available.  Slot deficiency also saw the bow and stern LRM torpedo racks reduced to near impotency (since I wasn't sure if Mech Mortars could be made into torpedoes, which would have been better stand ins for the RBU-1000 launchers).  The last major question in this is if the Thunderbolt launchers that are on the sides are able to be torpedo tubes or not.  Would really like it if they could be.

But...  none the less...  consuming every blessed slot to spare, the Sovereign class can be put to sea to hunt down enemy drop ships that decided to land too close to the coastline.

Code: [Select]

Type:  Sovereign Class DDG
Chassis:  Large Naval Vessel (Template C)
Weight:  8,000 tons
Equipment Rating:  D

Equipment
Chassis/Controls                                                     2040 tons
Engine:                      ICE                                       1404 tons
          Cruise:      3
          Flank:       5
Fuel:                    15,000 km                                  2106 tons
Armor: (Bar 10)                                                         43 tons
            Front:                            34              75
            Front Sides:                   34             74/74
            Rear Sides:                    34             74/74
            Rear:                             34             75
            Turrets (x3)                    34             75

Weapons and Ammo
Cruise Missile/50                    Front                     50 tons
Cruise Missile/50 Ammo (8)    Body                     200 tons
2 LB-5X AC                            Turret 1                  16 tons
2 LB-5X AC                            Turret 3                  16 tons
LB-5X Ammo (160)                 Body                        8 tons
AMS                                       Front                       .5 tons
AMS                                       Rear                        .5 tons
AMS                                       Front Right              .5 tons
AMS                                       Front Left                .5 tons
AMS Ammo (96)                     Body                        8 tons
Arrow IV                                Turret 2                  15 tons
Arrow IV ADA Ammo (50)        Body                      10 tons
Thunderbolt-10 (Torp)             Front Left                7 tons
Thunderbolt-10 (Torp)             Front Right              7 tons
Thunderbolt-10 Ammo (60)     Body                       10 tons
LRM-5 (Torp)                          Front                       2 tons
LRM-5 (Torp)                          Rear                        2 tons
LRM-5 Ammo (120)                 Body                       5 tons

Crew:    72+14 officers (Includes gunners and helipad crewmen)

Equipment of Note:  Communications Equipment (10 tons), Helipad, 1 VTOL Bay (50 tons max), Field Kitchen, Mash w/ 4 theaters, 796 ton cargo bay, 100 ton liquid fuel cargo bay (for VTOL support), 8 Lifeboats


BV and Cost can be calculated upon request but this is meant more as a scenario piece to recreate encounters such as those depicted in the Tactical Handbook or perhaps to hunt down annoying carriers like the Luftenburg if deployed in destroyer squadron strength (happily from over the horizon too).

Perhaps in the future, the Sovereign can gain other light support ship brethren to hunt the super submarines like the Triton and Lysander from the Vehicle Technical Readout...  or see 'modern' incarnations commissioned to hunt the dreaded Wyrm class on Terra proper, completing a cycle one thousand years in the making.

[GBscientist]

That's not a bad approximation of the Sovremenny, IMO.  I don't think there's such a thing as Thunderbolt torpedos, so you would be best to replace those with LRT10s, or simply scrap them and upgrade your LRT5 emplacements.  You didn't include the 'Armoured' chassis modification, so anything that hits above 10 points is going to achieve a TAC, unless you wanted it that way to represent outdated armour technology.  Finally, you didn't list how much tonnage was left over for general cargo, and I hope there was some, or the crew is going to get mighty hungry.

[Khymerion]

In my original notes, it did have the armored chassis note...  I did attribute that to the tonnage, I just forgot to make the note here on the upload (since there is not a standard format yet it seems for support vehicles).

I am still waiting on an official call from the higher ups on if there could be a Thunderbolt torpedo or not... asked a few weeks back but always got stuck on the rulings from days of yore where any missile platform could be have a torpedo incarnation so I put the thing in the water as a torpedo launcher (or more accurately, above the waterline and firing them in traditionally).  I really am disinterested in the idea of having an LRM torpedo rack instead of the thunderbolts for the simple fact that for some reason, I can't shake the strange look of firing a swarm of torpedoes at a target instead of one big one.   That might work for a hedge hog style device (akin to the various RBU series weapons) but not for an actual really torpedo. But if the ruling comes back that says that only LRMs and SRMs and not T-Bolts can be torps, than it wouldn't be hard at all to slip the LRM-10s into those slots.  Even if it is a bit of an odd image.

As for the cargo, I think you missed the 726 tons of cargo that was just dropped into a cargo bay.   There was originally an incredible amount of cargo available but that was using a higher tech.   Despite several efforts to try and research it, I could not find a tonnage ratio for perishables per crew member for a typical cruise.  Due to a severe lack of slots, I had to put it all what I could into the standard bay that it ended up in.

Thank you very much for reviewing and finding the holes I had mistakenly left out.   I appreciate it greatly.  Figured if the creators are going to give a model of something, it deserved something close to accurate.

[Fireangel]

I really am disinterested in the idea of having an LRM torpedo rack instead of the thunderbolts for the simple fact that for some reason, I can't shake the strange look of firing a swarm of torpedoes at a target instead of one big one.   That might work for a hedge hog style device (akin to the various RBU series weapons) but not for an actual really torpedo. But if the ruling comes back that says that only LRMs and SRMs and not T-Bolts can be torps, than it wouldn't be hard at all to slip the LRM-10s into those slots.  Even if it is a bit of an odd image.

Not really; it was common to fire more than one torpedo at a high-value target to A) increase the chances of even hitting a fast-moving target and B) increasing the chances of sinking even a well-compartmentalized target.

LRTs are the absolute, undisputed kings of underwater combat. Some might think that SRTs are better crit-seekers, but SRTs require the firing unit to enter the range of several big energy weapons; LRTs don't have that problem; they keep sub marauders at bay.

[dirty harry]

8000 tons and some 671 points of armor?
That would mean something more close to 12.000 tons. Or did you scrap the TO rules on purpose?

Interesting enough i finally constructed something close to that.
Will show it soon.

[Khymerion]

I must have screwed something up again...  I'll try to correct it immediately.   

I apologize for such a blatant mistake.  Thank you for catching that.

That does reduce the armor belt on each location to a more manageable 54 pts (55 pts per turret) per location and gain an additional 12.2 tons of cargo space from the correction.

[Khymerion]

Final edit to the boat...

Change out the thunderbolt 10 torpedoes on the hips and slap in some missile spammy LRM-15s in their place...  simple fix...  just means there is only 80 rounds of ammo for the two launchers but that should be sufficient to get the boat through a typical day.  It doesn't feel like a Sovereign anymore with those launchers but it needs waist torpedoes and those are a simple fix for the tonnage.  Or just drop them down to 10s and pop the bow and stern 5s up to 10s...  meeeh... what ever floats your boat.

Damn bloody itano circus launchers that are supposed to be 'torpedoes'...   BAAAAAH!

[truetanker]

All I get is : " Thunderbolt missile launchers cannot use Artemis IV or Narc guidance systems, but operate like LRMs in every other way. "

Tactical Operations, p. 347 - "Thunderbolt Missile Launcher"
Tactical Operations, p. 410-411


TT

[verybad]

Considering a unit like this wouldn't be used in anything but friendly games, I would would tell anyone complaining about Tbolt Torpedos to go stand in the corner. They make a lot more sense than LRTs, and would be simpler to manufacture. Plus with fewer underwater hits to cause leaks, they're actually less dangerous than LRTs, if somewhat higher average damage. I like the idea.

Now I wan't Cruise Torpedos with 100 map ranges...  :D