House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (46 page)

Designed from the keel out as a squadron flagship, the
Reliant
class has three boat bays with reserved visitor space for up to four additional pinnaces. Early in the First Havenite War, the few
Reliants
in service were most often found leading squadrons of older Homers and
Redoubtables
. As the wartime construction programs accelerated, they rapidly began to replace those earlier classes in frontline service.

Reliant-class battlecruiser (Flights III-IV)

Mass: 934,250 tons

Dimensions: 727 × 92 × 82 m

Acceleration: 616 G (6.041 kps²)

80% Accel: 492.8 G (4.833 kps²)

Broadside: 24M, 4L, 6G, 18CM, 18PD

Chase: 4M, 2G, 6CM, 6PD

Number Built: 73

Service Life: 1915–present

The
Reliant’s
combination of acceleration and firepower has made it a flexible, multi-role platform, but the original design did not age as well as others as the war progressed. Later flights became testbeds for a number of new technologies and doctrinal changes, and the Flight III
Reliants
show a significant evolution of the design, incorporating many lessons learned from observations of the GSN’s
Courvosier
class.

While six percent more massive than the original
Reliants
, the incorporation of a third-generation inertial compensator has allowed them to make up any loss in acceleration, while their massively upgraded active defenses allow them to stand in the wall of battle far better than their predecessors. While they didn’t move to the “all graser” armament preferred by the GSN, their beam weapons are fewer in number but much more powerful than the earlier flights, and the additional two missile tubes give them a slightly heavier broadside.

Any design has its critics and many have argued that the evolution of the battlecruiser as a type stalled with the
Reliant
class. This criticism is especially relevant when compared to the revolutionary designs BuShips has adopted for smaller warships. However, it has always been a solid performer and an additional three squadrons were ordered as part of the emergency wartime construction programs as a stopgap while the new
Agamemnon
and
Nike
classes were tooling up to go into series production.

Agamemnon-class pod battlecruiser

Mass: 1,750,750 tons

Dimensions: 815 × 118 × 110 m

Acceleration: 692.6 G (6.792 kps²)

80% Accel: 554.1 G (5.434 kps²)

Broadside: 10G, 30CM, 30PD

Fore: 4G, 12PD

Aft: 4MP, 4G, 12PD

Pods: 360

Number Built: 85+

Service Life: 1919–present

The
Agamemnon
-class BC(P) is one of the few new classes that Vice Admiral Toscarelli of BuShips managed to get approved under the Janacek Admiralty, though the design lagged behind the
Grayson
implementation of a similar concept. It was an effort to keep the battlecruiser a viable unit in the days of multi-drive missile (MDM) pod-based combat. The
Agamemnon
has a stern hammerhead designed around a pod core capable of deploying four-pod patterns. This design required significant alterations to the stern taper and aft impeller ring. As in the
Medusa
and
Invictus
classes, the pod core extends past the midline. Forward of the core the hull design is similar to a conventional battlecruiser, though to optimize pod storage the RMN has forgone any broadside missile launchers. In order to maximize salvo density rather than missile range,
Agamemnon
pods were usually loaded with the Mark 16 dual-drive missile. This design allowed BuShips to fit fourteen missiles into each pod and maintain actual missile densities per pattern close to that of a
Medusa
or
Invictus
.

Starting with the second unit of the class, HMS
Ajax
, BuShips began to send units already fitting out and in various stages of construction through a refit program to add the Mk20 Keyhole platform. Just over four squadrons were refitted, a process which eliminated half of the broadside graser mounts and resulted in significantly thinner armor over the primary fusion plant. It was originally planned to incorporate the design modification from the keel out in a Flight III build, but with evidence pointing to two of the three losses at Solon being due to reactor hits, that decision is being reevaluated and it is probable that any future Keyhole-capable BC(P)s will be more heavily redesigned to avoid the potential vulnerability of the Flight IIs.

This is a class whose time came too late in many ways. Against a Navy with no MDMs or pod-layers, it is a devastatingly effective platform, as even the Mk16s normally carried by the
Agamemnons
can be launched in quantities great enough to reduce any conventional superdreadnought to scrap well before it could get into its own missile range. Against a peer competitor, however, the limitations of the class quickly become apparent. Despite accepting a design with nearly twice the mass of a conventional battlecruiser, the designers were still forced to make fundamental sacrifices to fit in the pod core and other weaponry. The result is a design that can lay down an impressive weight of fire as long as its ammunition lasts, but which has limited magazine depth and is extremely fragile. In many ways the
Agamemnon
is even less suited to stand in the wall of battle than an older
Reliant
, despite its far greater firepower.

Nike-class battlecruiser

Mass: 2,519,750 tons

Dimensions: 1012 × 129 × 114 m

Acceleration: 674.3 G (6.613 kps²)

80% Accel: 539.4 G (5.29 kps²)

Broadside: 25M, 12G, 32CM, 30PD

Chase: 4G, 12PD

Number Built: 12+

Service Life: 1920–present

A single
Nike
-class battlecruiser was commissioned by the Janacek Admiralty as an operational prototype. For almost a year, HMS Nike (BC-562) was the only ship of her class in service, but the prototype’s combat performance convinced the White Haven Admiralty to proceed with mass production of the class. The first new-construction ships entered service in early 1921 PD.

Carrying fifty broadside launchers capable of off-bore firing the Mk16 DDM, the
Nike
can launch a salvo of fifty missiles into any aspect, and her magazines allow for over forty minutes of maximum rate fire. The class’ improved compensators allow an acceleration rate thirty percent greater than that of the
Reliant
class, despite being over twice the mass of the older unit. While suffering from the greatest “tonnage creep” of any class in RMN history, the
Nike
well illustrates the RMN’s policy of defining ships by their role and not by their tonnage. This has not prevented the size and classification from creating intense debate. In raw figures, these ships are five times the mass of a
Saganami-C
, with only a twenty-five percent increase in missile tubes. Accusations of poor design by BuShips and even outright incompetence are exacerbated by the fact that the Nike carries the same Mk16 DDM as the
Saganami-C
.

These critics overlook important difference in the capabilities of the two platforms and their designed missions. The
Nike
is designed to lead and survive independent long-duration deep-raiding missions in an era dominated by multi-drive missiles. The simple numbers of beam mounts, missile launchers and active defense systems belie qualitative per-mount differences. While a
Nike
and a
Saganami-C
may carry the same missile, each of a
Nike’s
launchers has four times the magazine capacity of her smaller heavy cruiser counterpart. A
Nike’s
grasers and point defense laser clusters are all superdreadnought grade. Their emitter diameter, plasma beam intensity, gravitic photon conditioning hardware, and on-mount energy storage capacity all rival the most modern capital ships. Finally, much of the
Nike’s
impressive mass is devoted to passive defense. Screening and sidewall generators have near-capital-ship levels of redundancy. The external armor system, internal mount compartmentalization, outer hull framing, and core hull construction are all designed to at least prewar superdreadnought standards. Nikes, finally, carry full flagship facilities and incorporate much greater Marine carrying and support capacity. The
Saganami-Cs
, while impressive space control platforms, have little or none of this capability.

The only reason, in fact, that a
Nike
might be less survivable than the prewar superdreadnought is the physical distance between the armor and the core hull. There simply is not enough depth to guarantee the same level of survivability to vital core systems as in a larger capital vessel. Early after-action reports indicate, however, that
Nike’s
survivability against her intended targets (heavy cruisers and other battlecruisers) has been extraordinary.

Above all other design elements, the addition of the Mark 20 Keyhole platform to the
Nike
class allows it a greater level of tactical flexibility than any other warship currently in service. This costs a tremendous amount of mass and creates interesting problems (which some commentators describe as weaknesses) in the armor system. But those costs buy the ability to tether the platforms outside the wedge, which, coupled with the off-bore missile launchers, makes
Nike
the one of the first warships that can fight an entire engagement with her wedge to the enemy. The telemetry repeaters allow full control of both missiles and counter-missiles, and the platforms’ onboard point defenses thicken defensive fire. In addition, the Keyhole platform can act as a “handoff” relay, allowing a Nike to coordinate offensive and defensive missile control for another ship while both keep their wedges to the threat. This flexibility has resulted in vastly increased computational complexity in offensive and defensive engagement programming and helps to explain much of the class’ survivability.

LAC CARRIERS (CLAC)

The first
Minotaur
-class LAC carriers were developed in secret along with the
Shrike
-class advanced LACs as part of Project Anzio. Experience with LACs as parasite craft in the
Trojan
-class Q-ships had shown they could be a powerful force multiplier when transported and serviced by a dedicated carrier, and the RMN set out to design a carrier that could keep up with the rest of the fleet and even survive in the wall of battle if necessary.

Original doctrine had the carriers launching their LACs and then staying far outside the range of the enemy wall of battle, screened by a cruiser squadron or other light units. This doctrine was intended above all to preserve the carrier, since it provided the only hyper-capable way to safely recover the LACs once committed to action.

On many raids and offensive actions this has proved to be a viable approach, but on major offensives or defensive actions the carriers are more likely to stay with the wall of battle, lending their active defenses to the other ships in formation and simultaneously taking shelter under the wall’s antimissile umbrella.

Minotaur
-class LAC carrier

Mass: 6,178,500 tons

Dimensions: 1131 × 189 × 175 m

Acceleration: 428.2 G (4.199 kps²)

80% Accel: 342.6 G (3.359 kps²)

Broadside: 30CM, 28PD

Chase: 9M, 4G, 10CM, 10PD

LAC Bays: 100

Number Built: 18

Service Life: 1912–present