House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (50 page)

Almost unnoticed in the early stages of the developing doctrine was that the endurance of the missile pod allowed a single ship to stack multiple patterns of pods, allowing it to fire double or triple patterns (or more), up to the limits of its individual fire control. As a result, even an outnumbered force could put enough missiles into space to saturate a target’s defenses in the opening salvo. The smaller force might still be wiped out in the end, but no longer would it go quietly.

With the introduction of the MDM and pod-layer on both sides of the conflict, the RMN has been forced to continually reevaluate its own doctrine for defending against the weight of fire a pod-layer can lay down. This reassessment is reflected in countless places, from new antimissile weapons, improved EW, and experimental defensive doctrine to the makeup of task forces and the formations adopted in combat, reflecting a time of rapid change in all areas of warfare.

Medusa-class pod superdreadnought

Mass: 8,554,750 tons

Dimensions: 1383 × 201 × 187 m

Acceleration: 502.8 G (4.931 kps²)

80% Accel: 402.3 G (3.945 kps²)

Broadside: 26M, 13L, 15G, 54CM, 52PD

Fore: 9M, 4L, 5G, 18CM, 22PD

Aft: 6MP, 4L, 5G, 14CM, 20PD

Missile Pods: 492

Number Built: 63

Service Life: 1914–present

The
Medusa
-class pod superdreadnought was in secret conceptual development for over a decade prior to Operation Trojan Horse in 1909 while the Weapons Development Board and Project Ghost Rider worked to develop the weapon systems the class would eventually carry. The success of the prototype pod system in the
Trojans
threw the project into high gear, however, imposing a great deal of strain on BuShips’ design staff.

Even before the first units were laid down, the RMN had begun a carefully crafted disinformation campaign, including a leaked “spring study” for the next generation (conventional) superdreadnought replacement for the
Gryphon
class. Thus the RMN diverted attention from the decrease in new
Gryphons
and gave the Havenite intelligence agencies a plausible explanation for the secret programs being conducted at HMSS Weyland.

Following the Graysons’ lead, the class was renamed the
Honor Harrington
class to honor then-Commodore Harrington after her presumed execution. Following her dramatic return from Cerberus, the class name was changed back to the original
Medusa
. Deriving from the same joint design program, the
Medusa
is similar in design to the final Harrington class, the first units of which were commissioned over a year before the RMN managed to get the first
Medusa
into service.

As the first RMN warship designed from the keel out to deploy missile pods from an internal magazine, the
Medusa
faced some unique design challenges. The most obvious difference between it and any conventional ship of the wall is apparent from the broadside. All of the primary armament has been pushed into the forward half of the main hull to make room for the double rings of missile pod storage in the after section. The second most notable difference is the sheer number of surface arrays, which provide both fire control and telemetry uplinks for the hundreds of missiles these ships can launch in a single stacked salvo. Finally, the defensive armament, located at the upper and lower turn of the hull, extends along its entire length, and the number of point defense and counter-missile installations have been greatly increased over any previous design.

While massively enhancing the ships’ first strike capabilities, the hollow-core filling the after third of the hull reduced its survivability in comparison to pre-pod superdreadnoughts. In addition, the need to mount armored hatches through which to deploy the pods forced the designers to sacrifice some of the after chase weaponry.

Despite the huge increase in offensive firepower, the
Medusas
contain a significant degree of automation in their design and require a crew less than half that of an older conventional design.

The pod rails on the
Medusa
class were designed originally for a modification of the old Mk10 missile pod, of which it could carry 564. Later pods were designed with the same rail attachment points and footprint, varying only in their depth. As deployed during operation Buttercup, the
Medusa
class carried just under 500 Mk11 missile pods, while currently deployed units can carry as many as 800 Mk17 series flat-pack pods.

Invictus-class pod superdreadnought

Mass: 8,768,500 tons

Dimensions: 1394 × 202 × 188 m

Acceleration: 562.6 G (5.518 kps²)

80% Accel: 450.1 G (4.414 kps²)

Broadside: 18G, 84CM, 62PD

Fore: 10G, 24CM, 22PD

Aft: 6MP, 10G, 14CM, 24PD

Missile Pods: 1074

Number Built: 53+

Service Life: 1919–present

The
Invictus
class was on the drawing board at the end of the First Havenite War as the improved successor of the Medusa class, but construction of the first wave of ships had barely begun when the High Ridge Government agreed to a truce with the People’s Republic. As per the drawdown of forces ordered by the new government, construction of the majority of units in the class was suspended and the unfinished ships were placed in storage in their building slips in the Manticore and Grendelsbane shipyards.

At the resumption of hostilities, only twelve
Invictus
-class ships were in commission, with a few more nearing completion in Manticore from previously suspended construction programs. Dozens were lost in the Grendelsbane attack, and over a hundred were laid down as part of the emergency war construction program for completion over the next couple of years.

In many ways the
Invictus
is simply an evolution of the
Medusa
design, with a pod core extending half again as deep into the hull. In a departure from both traditional Manticoran and contemporary Grayson practice, all broadside missile tubes were eliminated to allow for the maximum extension of the missile core, which is capable of holding upwards of a thousand of the new flat-pack missile pods. Internally, the differences are even greater, however, as one of the major weaknesses of the pod-layer concept has been partially offset by armoring the interior of the pod core almost as heavily as the outer hull armor. Almost all of the tonnage advantage over the
Medusa
went into this new armoring scheme, which has greatly increased survivability.

Nevertheless, the greatest weakness of the design remains in the pod rails, and even with the new armoring scheme, a single lucky hit on the pod core can cause enough damage to jam up deployment of the pods “upstream” of the hit. Cross connecting rails, the ability to quickly jettison debris and destroyed pods, and a tractor system that can help the system “leapfrog” over broken rails all help mitigate the effects of this damage, but the incidence of mission kills in pod-layers with otherwise light damage remains potentially high.

By far the most significant improvement seen in the
Invictus
class, however, is the new Mk20 Keyhole platform. At least two versions of this versatile tethered platform exist, but both of them share a number of the same features. Although Keyhole was originally envisioned primarily as a means to improve active antimissile capability, conceptual evolution during development produced a very different end product. At their heart, Keyholes are telemetry relays, multiplying the number of telemetry links the ship can maintain, which in turn allows for even deeper stacked salvos, or a layered approach where conventional ships in the squadron can hand off their onboard and pod-launched missiles to an
Invictus
to centrally control.

In addition, the Keyhole platform extends the sensor reach of the host ship, both with dedicated offboard arrays as well as with the ability to deploy outside the wedge and relay information while the ship has rolled against the threat axis.

Finally, the platform not only replaces and enhances the traditional tethered decoy platform, mounting sophisticated jammers and ECM gear, but is very heavily equipped with point defense laser clusters of its own.

Although no more than two can be carried by even the largest of ships, they are still cheaper to replace than an entire warship, and their heavy onboard array of point defense laser clusters not only allows them a degree of self-defense far in advance of any previous tethered EW platform in Manticoran service, but also contributes significantly to the defense of the deploying ship.

While the
Invictus
is a new design, tested so far in only a few engagements, it is indisputably one of the most powerful and capable warships in existence.

ARMED MERCHANT CRUISERS (AMC)

While the Navy had long maintained the practice of installing defensive armament and sidewalls on its fast auxiliaries, the RMN had never operated Q-ships of any sort prior to Project Trojan Horse. Due to the mounting merchantship losses in Silesia resulting from the drawdown of forces in the Confederacy to replace losses on the Havenite front, BuShips and BuWeaps proposed to take a page out of the Havenite book and build auxiliary warships on essentially merchant hulls. The idea was to convert several of the RMN’s standard
Caravan
-class support vessels from the Joint Navy Military Transport Command into armed merchant cruisers by incorporating some of the new concepts in development. The AMCs would both allow operational testing of some of the WDB’s more radical new systems proposed and combat the growing piracy problem by deploying to the Confederacy as convoy escorts and independent patrol units.

While Trojan Horse as a whole succeeded in protecting commerce in Silesia, it was even more successful as a proof of concept for both LAC and carrier operations as well the internal pod rails and deployment that helped paved the way for the first
Medusa
-class SD(P) in 1914 PD.

Trojan-class armed merchant cruiser

Mass: 7,352,000 tons

Dimensions: 1199 × 200 × 185 m

Acceleration: 190 G (1.863 kps²)

80% Accel: 152 G (1.491 kps²)

Broadside: 10M, 8G, 10CM, 10PD

Fore: 6CM, 6PD

Aft: 6MP, 8PD

Missile Pods: 180

LAC Bays: 12

Number Built: 15

Service Life: 1909–1920 PD

The
Trojan
-class armed merchant cruiser was a testbed platform in many ways, built on the hull of the
Caravan
-class freighter used by Logistics Command for rear area supply.

The armament of the
Trojan
class was unique at the time of construction. While the term “Armed Merchant Cruiser” belies the normal grade of weaponry found on a Q-ship, most of the examples seen in other navies are hybrid designs, able to carry limited cargo in addition to their disguised weaponry. BuShips decided to eliminate all cargo storage from the
Trojan
and use all of the volume freed up for a number of weapon systems, some more experimental than others.

Conventional broadside and chase armament consisted of the sort of missile broadside one might find on a heavy cruiser, except that the weapons in question, both missile tubes and energy mounts, were all superdreadnought-grade installations. Bottlenecks in capital ship construction, coupled with a surplus of weapon system components provided the systems in question, though the nature of the building queues resulted in different units of the class carrying a different balance of missiles and beams. The most common configuration was the ten missile launchers and eight grasers carried by the lead ship, but other ships in the class had mixed beam armaments, all lasers, and in some cases fewer missile tubes and more beams.