House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (47 page)

As the first operational unit of Project Anzio, The
Minotaur
-class LAC carrier can embark one hundred
Shrike
- or
Ferret
-class LACs in individual bays along the broadsides. Each bay is sealed by an armored hatch and can be completely pressurized if necessary to provide a “shirtsleeves” environment for hull maintenance, though that is rarely done for routine maintenance and operations. The LAC is held in place by a docking cradle, while an oversized boarding tube seals over the nose, allowing for easy access to the graser emitter and point defense for maintenance. Separate loading tubes run from the carrier’s high-speed magazines to the LAC’s missile and counter-missile launchers, allowing a LAC to be re-armed with a standard missile package in a matter of minutes.

Offensively, the
Minotaur
-class CLACs carry offensive weapons only in the hammerheads, with a heavy defensive weapons fit on the broadsides. The
Minotaurs
were the very first ships to be built from the keel out to fire the new (at the time) Mk41 capacitor-driven multi-drive missile, though they carry them in too few numbers to be more than a minor deterrent against anything larger than a heavy cruiser. The addition of the MDMs gave them the ability to harass any light raiding force dispatched to attack the carriers while the LACs were in-system, while the squadron would be forced to run from anything heavier.

The entire LAC complement of the carrier is organized into a single LAC wing, with a separate wing staff reporting to the wing CO, called the COLAC. The COLAC in turn reports to the carrier’s commanding officer. Carrier-based support is provided by the LAC crews themselves, along with a core of specialists belonging to the wing. Much of the early doctrine was built by the crew and COLAC of HMS
Minotaur
during working up, with modifications for lessons learned at the Second Battle of Hancock.

Hydra-class LAC carrier (Flight II)

Mass: 6,145,750 tons

Dimensions: 1129 x 188 x 174 m

Acceleration: 428.5 G (4.203 kps²)

80% Accel: 342.8 G (3.362 kps²)

Broadside: 36CM, 36PD

Chase: 12M, 12CM, 12PD

LAC Bays: 112

Number Built: 94+

Service Life: 1914–present

While officially on the books as the
Minotaur-B
class, these ships are most often referred to as the
Hydra
class, after the lead unit of the new design. The
Hydra
class is slightly smaller than the Minotaur but carries twelve more LACs, extending the broadside length by sixty meters and cutting the chase magazine space in half.

While their active defenses are markedly lighter than those of the
Medusa
and
Invictus
classes, the
Hydras
have proved reasonably survivable in support of the wall of battle, especially when included in the defensive umbrella of the rest of the wallers.

Starting in 1920 PD, the Flight II
Hydras
have had their launch tubes and magazines configured to fire the Mk23 fusion-powered MDM rather than the much larger Mk41, and the elimination of all chase beam weaponry allowed them to increase the launch tubes to twelve, in addition to an increase in the defensive armament. This change reflects the operational realities of how little business carriers have in engaging in beam combat with ships of the wall, as well as providing them with a credible threat at extended range against anything below the wall.

DREADNOUGHTS (DN)

The RMN built two squadrons of battleships shortly after the first transit through the Manticore Wormhole Junction, and they served as the primary defensive component of Home Fleet, with regular overhauls, for nearly 250 years.

By the time the Navy began its expansion under King Roger III, the People’s Republic of Haven had over two hundred battleships already in commission, and Roger flatly refused to build a warship that was qualitatively inferior to anything Haven had in service at the time. The last of the RMN’s small battleship force was decommissioned in 1868 PD, when sufficient dreadnoughts had been built to replace them.

Unlike the People’s Navy with their core of battleships for rear area support or the Imperial Andermani Navy with its “fast wing” of light superdreadnoughts, the RMN has historically kept all of its capital ships concentrated into heterogeneous squadrons and task forces filling the same doctrinal niche, the wall of battle. The natural consequence of this doctrine would have been for the RMN to begin building the more-powerful superdreadnoughts for the wall after inertial compensator improvements made the SD concept viable. Even with the strength of their economy, though, Manticore was unable to afford the number of hulls necessary, and hence continued to augment their superdreadnought force with new dreadnought construction.

The emergence of the modern missile pod, with its light-weight grav drivers, more numerous launch cells, and laser head-armed single-drive missiles, produced salvo densities which increased the relative vulerability of the already vulnerable dreadnought significantly. The type was increasingly relegated to rear area roles, and the introduction of the
Medusa
-class pod-layers of Operation Buttercup, armed with multi-drive laser head missiles, led to its outright demise. A dreadnought-sized ship of the wall simply could not support the mass and volume required to mount competitive offensive and defensive systems. Most of the remaining dreadnoughts were quietly retired by the Janacek Admiralty, and the last of them was decommissioned early in 1921 PD.

Ad Astra-class dreadnought (1878 refit)

Mass: 3,895,500 tons

Dimensions: 1064 × 154 × 144 m

Acceleration: 450.8 G (4.421 kps²)

80% Accel: 360.7 G (3.537 kps²)

Broadside: 18M, 14L, 12G, 6ET, 8CM, 18PD

Chase: 4M, 6L, 2G, 2CM, 8PD

Number Built: 11

Service Life: 1632–1913

The design of the
Ad Astra
class was refined over a few decades of operational experience with the
Manticore
-class battleship, a locally-built, Solarian licensed design. At almost twice the tonnage of the
Manticores
, they were the first Manticoran capital ships uncompromisingly designed for power projection as opposed to system defense. Reality fell somewhat short of expectations, however, as a succession of isolationist foreign policies resulted in a hyper-capable battle fleet that was firmly anchored to the Manticore system. Their first actual out-system deployment wasn’t until 1674 PD, when they accompanied the First Battle Squadron to Silesia after the Battle of Carson to force the Confederacy to sign the Cherwell Convention.

Nearing three hundred years old when the first one was decommissioned in 1908 PD, the
Ad Astra
-class dreadnought was the longest serving single class in the history of the RMN. Subject to several major refits, and rebuilt virtually from the keel out in 1878, the ships decommissioned in the early days of the war bear little resemblance to the original ships laid down in the seventeenth century.

A full two squadrons (sixteen hulls) were originally planned, but only eleven ships were actually built. The first four ran afoul of cost overruns and multi-year delays in construction as the yards were expanded to handle hulls of their size, and a bitter budgetary debate in Parliament in 1651 PD suspended the entire program for almost half a century before the funding could be found to complete the class.

In the late 1880s, the entire class was modernized, despite the fact that the lead unit was over two centuries old. The original autocannon were replaced with modern point defense laser clusters, the armor was thickened in a few critical locations in response to the laser head threat, and electronics and missile launch systems were upgraded. Little could be done about the limited number of counter-missile launchers, a standard feature when these were built but a critical weakness in the era of the laser head.

Despite these shortcomings, the class continued well into the twentieth century, when the last units decommissioned midwar to provide crews for the final flight of
Bellerophons
.

Royal Winton-class dreadnought

Mass: 5,814,750 tons

Dimensions: 1216 × 176 × 164 m

Acceleration: 431.9 G (4.235 kps²)

80% Accel: 345.5 G (3.388 kps²)

Broadside: 20M, 18L, 16G, 6ET, 12CM, 28PD

Chase: 6M, 6L, 2G, 4CM, 10PD

Number Built: 21

Service Life: 1846–1916

Over seventy years after the last RMN ship of the wall had been completed, the Admiralty realized at the turn of the nineteenth century that it needed to modernize Home Fleet. While the previous classes had all seen service life extension programs and heavy refits, two centuries of advances in naval warfare had rendered them obsolete, despite their modernized weapon systems.

The design study for the
Royal Winton
and
Samothrace
classes began in 1812 PD, building on the Navy’s experiences with the existing wall of battle. The
Royal Winton
-class dreadnought was designed to completely replace the RMN’s handful of battleships, joining the
Ad Astras
to provide a total of two active battle squadrons of dreadnoughts each led by a division of superdreadnoughts, with sufficient hulls to rotate through regular refits without any reduction in deployable forces.

Half again as massive as an
Ad Astra
, the
Royal Wintons
were nearly as large as the old
Manticore
-class superdreadnoughts and, by any objective standard, their combat ability was equal or better as well.

While nothing could compare to the glacial construction pace the
Ad Astras
had encountered, both the
Royal Winton
- and
Samothrace
-class superdreadnoughts suffered their share of “growing pains” as the Navy and civilian shipyards learned how to design a ship of the wall for series production. The class was broken into three distinct flights, each with a slightly different weapons fit, and even within a given flight no two hulls were exactly identical.

Gladiator-class dreadnought

Mass: 6,846,000 tons

Dimensions: 1284 × 186 × 173 m

Acceleration: 421.5 G (4.134 kps²)

80% Accel: 337.2 G (3.307 kps²)

Broadside: 22M, 18L, 24G, 1GL, 8ET, 18CM, 26PD

Chase: 6M, 4L, 6G, 6CM, 10PD

Number Built: 34

Service Life: 1868–1920

With King Roger’s shipbuilding and infrastructure initiatives and the experience in building the
Royal Winton
and
Samothrace
classes, the shipyards had worked out most of the initial problems involved in building wallers by the time work began on the
Gladiators
, and both Navy and civilian yards were ready to embark on true series production.

The
Gladiator
class was built as a brawler, designed with an intentionally light missile broadside. Instead, it was equipped with the heaviest beam armament that could be fitted into a hull of this size, including an extensive suite of energy torpedo launchers and later refitted with the newly developed grav lance, a weapon capable of disabling a target’s sidewall at extremely close range, in an early attempt to make a decisive wall engagement possible. The range limitation required a wall equipped with it to get close enough to actually use it, however, which (of course) meant that the primary effect of its introduction was simply to make fleet commanders across the galaxy even more cautious about close engagements.

The decision to greatly increase the
Gladiator’s
defenses, particularly the counter-missile launchers, proved prescient. The original rationale for the greatly increased area defense—even at the expense of the far more effective point defense clusters—was to allow the Gladiator to screen both itself and other units in the formation as they closed towards beam range. With the standoff attack range of the laser head (first deployed by the IAN in 1872 PD), the utility of the short-ranged point defense clusters was critically reduced almost literally overnight, and the
Gladiator
was one of the few older classes to weather the transition.

Overall, despite the lost missile broadside, the
Gladiator
was a solid design, and remained in service a couple of years past the more modern
Majestic
class due to its better survivability and passive defenses. Plans were drawn up to substantially refit the surviving units with sufficient defenses to remain in the wall of battle even in the era of pod-based combat. The cease-fire and transition to the Janacek Admiralty scuttled those plans, however, and only a few
Gladiators
remained in service when the war resumed.

Majestic-class dreadnought

Mass: 6,750,500 tons

Dimensions: 1278 × 185 × 173 m

Acceleration: 422.5 G (4.143 kps²)

80% Accel: 338 G (3.315 kps²)

Broadside: 28M, 18L, 20G, 24CM, 24PD

Chase: 8M, 6L, 4G, 8CM, 8PD

Number Built: 40

Service Life: 1896–1918 PD

Following her father’s death and the subsequent forcible annexation of the Trevor’s Star System (and terminus) by the People’s Republic of Haven, one of Queen Elizabeth’s first actions was to reaffirm her commitment to her father’s naval buildup, including a provision to more than double production of capital units within five years.