House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (43 page)

Number Built: 26

Service Life: 1876–present

The
Illustrious
class was a product of the Enhanced Survivability Program undertaken by BuShips in the early 1860s. Unlike some of the other designs spawned by that program, the
Illustrious
class carried the concept far enough to compromise the offensive capabilities of the design, and most authorities consider the ship severely under-gunned. The Admiralty agreed with that assessment and shifted resources to the continued production of the older
Apollo
class rather than the newer
Illustrious
-class CLs.

The
Illustrious
design has been disparagingly referred to as the most expensive destroyer ever built. This is perhaps unfair, as the class has found several useful niches, but the RMN had hoped to use it as a more generalized light cruiser and hence overall it is regarded as a failure. Lacking the firepower to be a credible threat to any modern warship in its tonnage range, standard employment options for the class usually emphasize missions where its defensive armament is an advantage. Initially these deployments focused on situations where it was more likely to find a mismatch in its favor, either hunting pirates in Silesia or in an antiscouting role with the fleet. As the tempo of wartime operations increased, command groups with
Illustrious
-class cruisers attached have taken to detaching them to cover convoy elements while heavier elements have been tasked elsewhere. A related idea that saw
Illustrious
-class ships attached in division strength to deep raiding battlecruiser squadrons as supplementary defensive firepower met with some limited successes early in the war. Their conversion into light, fast-attack transports assigned to the RMMC is also under consideration.

Apollo-class light cruiser extension (Flight IV Apollo)

Mass: 128,750 tons

Dimensions: 441 × 46 × 35 m

Acceleration: 517.7 G (5.077 kps²)

80% Accel: 414.1 G (4.061 kps²)

Broadside: 5M, 4L, 6CM, 4PD

Chase: 2M, 1L, 3CM, 3PD

Number Built: 52

Service Life: 1886–present

After the
Illustrious
class failed to live up to its intended capabilities, another flight of
Apollos
was ordered. Over the course of several years, almost all of the original Flight I hulls were stricken and replacements were commissioned with the same names as the originals.

Recent experience with the
Talisman
class had emphasized the versatility of the basic
Apollo
hull form, and the decision was made to modify the class. Two beam mounts were removed from the broadside and replaced with a pair of counter-missile launchers and their magazines. This reduction in close combat ability was regrettable, but the new design was a welcome addition for task force commanders looking to thicken the defenses of their screen. Operational experience soon made it clear that the design was in many ways superior to the original
Apollo
class and a refit program was put into place to upgrade as many of the original hulls as possible.

At present, many surviving hulls of the original
Apollo
class have been upgraded to the Flight IV standard. At the beginning of its service life, this class was often referred to as the
Artemis
class, although officially they have always been carried on the Navy List simply as Flight IV
Apollos
. The distinction became irrelevant as the remainder of the older hulls were refitted to these standards.

Valiant-class light cruiser

Mass: 154,750 tons

Dimensions: 469 × 49 × 38 m

Acceleration: 516.4 G (5.065 kps²)

80% Accel: 413.2 G (4.052 kps²)

Broadside: 8M, 6L, 2G, 5CM, 4PD

Chase: 3M, 2G, 3CM, 3PD

Number Built: 83

Service Life: 1902–present

With half again the missile broadside of an
Apollo
, the
Valiant
class marks a departure in typical RMN light cruiser design. It is fourteen percent heavier than the
Illustrious
class and takes much of its design philosophy from the old
Courageous
class. The
Valiants
remain effective units even by today’s radically changed standards, boasting a heavier missile broadside than any previous RMN light cruiser, energy weapons equal to those of an
Apollo
, and a respectable defensive suite. Another notable design feature is its heavy chase armament, although fitting in the three missile tubes and two grasers (plus the defensive mounts) required a substantial reworking of the internal hammerhead design.

Like the much smaller
Courageous
class, this capability comes at a price. Solid, reliable, and effective, the
Valiants
are shorter legged and more cramped than most of their contemporaries, despite their larger size. Enough
Valiants
have been built to completely replace the
Courageous
-class hulls as they are decommissioned, with many
Valiants
inheriting their names directly from the older ships.

Avalon-class light cruiser

Mass: 146,750 tons

Dimensions: 461 × 48 × 37 m

Acceleration: 749.9 G (7.354 kps²)

80% Accel: 599.9 G (5.883 kps²)

Broadside: 10M, 4G, 8CM, 8PD

Chase: 2G, 4PD

Number Built: 196+

Service Life: 1919–present

The
Avalon
class is the light cruiser variant based on the same design studies that created the
Saganami-B
heavy cruiser, and it shares many of the same advantages in terms of fire control, protection, off-bore launching and electronics. Although still categorized and deployed as a light cruiser, it is actually smaller than the
Roland
-class destroyer, a testament to the RMN’s policy of classifying hulls based on role rather than tonnage.

Unlike its contemporaries the
Roland
and
Saganami-C
, the
Avalon
does not carry the Mk16 Dual Drive Missile (DDM). Instead it carries the same Mk36 Lightweight Extended Range Missile (LERM) as the
Wolfhound
. The Mk36 single-stage drive package is capable of significantly longer runtime and range than prewar missiles but remains considerably shorter ranged than the Mk16.

The
Avalon
admirably fills the role of a light cruiser as defined by the RMN. The class is being built in large numbers alongside the
Rolands
and
Saganami-Cs
, and many of them have been sent to Silesia, where their capabilities are badly needed at present.

Kamerling-class system control cruiser

Mass: 276,250 tons

Dimensions: 569 × 59 × 46 m

Acceleration: 741 G (7.266 kps²)

80% Accel: 592.8 G (5.813 kps²)

Broadside: 8M, 4G, 12CM, 12PD

Chase: 2G, 6PD

Number Built: 48

Service Life: 1921–present

While listed on the BuShips records as a light cruiser, the
Kamerling
class has the designation of “system control cruiser” and is in fact closer to a replacement for the
Broadsword
-class heavy cruiser.

One of the major disadvantages of the new RMN warship classes and their highly automated designs is that station commanders are finding more and more often that they lack the manpower and Marines to deal with boarding actions, prize crews, piracy suppression, and similar missions.

The
Kamerling
class was designed to address this problem. It takes advantage of the same level of automation and crew reduction as all modern classes, but in addition to the small Navy crew, it carries three companies of Marines, with support equipment and enough small craft lift capacity to move the entire contingent in a single flight.

While capable combatants against anything they are likely to encounter in distant stations such as the Silesian Confederacy, the
Kamerling’s
weapons fit is biased towards defense and, despite its tonnage advantage over both the
Avalon
and
Valiant
classes, its antiship capability is limited for its size due to the tonnage consumed by additional life-support. These ships were never intended to contest space control with another navy’s units. Rather, they were conceived of as units intended to police commerce and restore the peacekeeping and humanitarian mission capabilities which had been lost in the low-manpower designs. However, the explosive increase in construction following the resumption of hostilities resulted in a shortage of building slips. Smaller slips were turning out
Rolands
and
Avalons
as quickly as possible already. Given the massive size of these ships, each one would displace the construction of a
Saganami-C
, so the original build numbers were cut twice.

Only forty-eight have been built and no more are planned until at least 1923. Nearly all of those have been assigned to Silesia.

HEAVY CRUISERS (CA)

For most of its history, the RMN relied on heavy cruisers—and later battlecruisers—as its primary offensive units. Commodore Edward Saganami refined this practice during the Ranier War, and his heroic actions at the Battle of Carson stamped it forever into the traditions of the Royal Navy.

The heavy cruiser is particularly well suited to commerce raiding. Operating in singletons or divisions, cruiser-class ships are easily able to overpower the traditional destroyer and light cruiser escorts and effectively force enemies to protect their supply lines with heavy units of their own, often at the cost of far more units pulled from the front lines than the expenditure of raiders.

While the nature of warfare has changed for many of the last generation of officers to serve King Roger III, moving from one of deep raids with nimble battlecruiser squadrons to the ponderous might of the wall of battle, the tradition has never been forgotten. Strategic planning even today still includes these pinpoint raids. Many in the Navy today believe no officer’s capability has been truly tested until he or she has commanded a heavy cruiser.

Warrior-class heavy cruiser

Mass: 227,250 tons

Dimensions: 474 × 57 × 48 m

Acceleration: 513 G (5.031 kps²)

80% Accel: 410.4 G (4.025 kps²)

Broadside: 6M, 6G, 2CM, 6PD

Chase: 2M, 1G, 2CM, 2PD

Number Built: 46

Service Life: 1794–1906

While perfectly capable for the era in which it was built, the
Warrior’s
missile broadside is light by modern standards, a fact which was only partially offset by the quality of the RMN’s missile penetration aids and seekers. On the other hand, it carried an all-graser broadside, which provided it with a powerful punch in close range combat. The defensive suite is typical of its time of construction, showing more point defense clusters than counter-missile tubes, a balance optimized against contemporary contact nuclear warhead missiles.

Despite these limitations, the
Warrior
proved to be an ideal frontier patrol ship for the Silesian sector. Its smaller size gave it a marginally better acceleration than newer, larger hulls, and, with the right initial geometry, it was capable of running down many light cruisers and even some destroyers. Its missiles gave it a reasonable attack against the lightly defended ships used by liberation front navies and pirates, and the generally low quality of Silesian equipment prevented its weaknesses in active defenses and armor from being a crippling disadvantage.