Cray
06/19/02 09:48 AM
64.83.29.242
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DETROIT-CLASS LIGHT CRUISER
Tech Base: Star League
Tonnage: 1,000,000 tons
Engine: 360,000 tons
....Thrust: 6
....Overthrust: 9
KF Drive: 452,500 tons (Integrity: 20)
Sail: 80 tons (SI: 5)
Lithium Fusion Battery: 10000 tons
Controls: 2500 tons
Structural Integrity: 50000 tons (Integrity: 50)
Armor: 1000 tons
....Front: 255
....Sides: 305
....Rear: 255
Fuel Capacity: 6000 tons (120 tons pumps)
Docking Collars: 2000 tons (2 dropships)
Small Craft Bays: 12000 tons (60 craft)
Crew: 3500 tons (350 crew)
Marines: 2160 tons (180 battle armor)
Passengers: 9200 tons (920 passengers)
Grav Decks: 400 tons (4x250m diameter)
Escape Pods: 2800 tons (400)
HPG: 50 tons
Cargo: 28790 tons
Weapons:
....16 Heavy Naval PPCs (2/arc including broadsides) 48000 tons, 3600 heat
....160 ER PPCs (20/arc including broadsides) 1120 tons, 2400 heat
....136 Pulse Small Lasers (17/arc including broadsides), 136 tons, 272 heat
Fire Control: 4926 tons
Heat Sinks: 2358 tons (3252 DHS, including 894 free; 6504 heat capacity)
The Detroit-class light cruiser was conceived as a multi-role vessel capable of independent action, convoy escort, and supporting ships of the wall. It also shows the thinking of naval architects who do not expect their products to face other warships but rather (at the most) swarms of fighters. It is also clearly a ship designed to carry out the foreign policy of isolationists: punitive raids, rescue of nationals, and warfare without general planetary occupation. Despite the megaton of equipment inside its armor, the Detroits are considered light cruisers due to their performance (fast, lightly armed, capable of independent action.)
The Detroits are extremely swift, part of the reason they're deemed light cruisers by the USNA's Navy. Detroits are able to pace most medium fighters and run down heavier fighters, not to mention outrun (or more often, overtake) virtually all dropships in use at the time of their construction. This makes them extremely potent in their role as convoy escorts and battle wall support vessels as they can engage threats well away from their charges. The ability to sustain 3Gs has lead to the Block Ia (and later) Detroits being equipped with superb sensor arrays for use in reconnaissance missions ("naughty picture runs"), supplementing the minute and aging Bugeyes.
The main battery of the Detroits is another reason they are only considered light cruisers rather than true ships of the wall. The main battery is an array of 16 LANL Heavy Naval PPCs mounted in eight double turrets. Certainly potent by Inner Sphere standards, these titanic weapons have limited anti-shipping firepower. On the other hand, the HNPPCs are more than capable of gutting most dropships in a single salvo, making them a daunting threat for any fighter carrier that threatens the charges a Detroit is escorting. They also provide outstanding, pinpoint naval fire support for the Detroits' Marine contingent. The secondary battery of the Detroits consists of 160 LANL Extended Range PPCs. These give a Detroit fearsome anti-fighter firepower. Point defense is rounded out by a dusting of point defense small pulse lasers that are equally at home sweeping missiles from the sky and evaporating boarders.
Finally, the ability to conduct independent action in support of a fairly isolationist government is obtained by the Detroits' healthy marine contingent. (Note: in this case, "marines" refer to all ground combat units a Detroit carries, i.e. the ones who can describe themselves as, "my @ss rides in Navy equipment, sir", not just anti-boarding troops.) The standard Marine complement of a Detroit is a battalion of battle armor and "whatever the dropships are carrying." The standard dropship complement of a Detroit is a pair of Iwo Jima-class "space assault transports" (i.e. standard troop haulers). These are vaguely derived from Unions and supplement their mech company with a light vehicle company and an infantry company. It is not unusual for Detroits to carry an additional regiment of non-battle armor infantry in its roomy passenger quarters. The infantry regiment is usually delivered by the 6 assault shuttles a Detroit counts are part of its standard complement. The Detroits' marines are supplemented by 3 wings of 18 fighters with Navy pilots. (The fighters are carried in small craft bays, enabling Detroits the option of trading fighters for additional landing craft.) Detroits have been deployed to seize lightly inhabited planets by their lonesome, retrieve/rescue hundreds of nationals stranded on House planets when relations soured, and conduct punitive raids by their lonesome. Though small and considered by "gunboat admirals" to be undignified compared to a proper battleship, the Detroits' prodigious passenger capacity leaves plenty of room for a task force command staff. The high accelerations a Detroit can achieve also enable it to avoid trouble a battleship might not be able to outrun. For this reason, the USNA maintains two Detroits fitted with additional communications equipment and better passenger quarters.
(Comment: I gave each passenger, be they infantryman, battle armor trooper, or admiral, 10-ton quarters. The standard battle armor trooper complement includes an additional 360 tons for the 36 "fire teams" (points) they represent. Additional infantry carried as passengers should include their gear as part of the ships' cargo capacity. Each fighter and small craft was treated as having a pilot and a tech. The crew needed to be around 310; I fattened it out to 350.)
The Detroits look like long, blunt-nosed cylinders with a cluster four rocket nozzles astern for the ships' powerful, quad GE 750X interplanetary drives. The warships are about 100m in diameter and 400m long. Around the waist of the ship is a torus (donut) of 260m diameter. The torus is supported by 8 spokes, 4 angling forward and 4 backward. The torus holds 4 counter-rotating grav decks in its armored shell, which in turn hold the primary crew facilities of the Detroits. Though this arrangement appears flimsy, the torus represents a surprisingly narrow target and is well armored. Futher, the torus should be unoccupied during combat, so its loss only means an inconvenience for the crew. The Detroits' bridge is in the core of the ship (wrapped around the thin KF core, of course) at the notional "hub" of the torus for best protection.
The gravdecks are each 250m diameter and 10m long. They generate .5G at 2rpm, a spin rate fast enough to disturb some visitors. The decks hold all of the quarters and most of the non-combat crew facilities of the Detroits. To avoid lengthy times reconfiguring crew quarters between zero-G coasting with spin "gravity" and thrust "gravity", the gravdecks can splay open like flowers to reorient for thrust-based "gravity." Crew and the normal fighter pilot and marine complement enjoy fairly roomy single-occupancy quarters (in emergencies, these can be doubled up). Passengers normally occupy still roomy quarters, but with 2 double-bunks per room. Detroits have excellent recreational facilities and, like most USNA vessels, are renowned for their kitchens.
Somewhat behind the torus are the docking collars and landing pads (!) for dropships. Dropships dock nose-first into the side of a Detroit, but then are pivoted 90 degrees so they are oriented for thrust-based acceleration. As the docking collar is not strong enough to hold a multi-thousand-ton dropship dangling from it under 4.5G's acceleration, a strong support platform is swung out under the dropship. This arrangement allows dropships to dock and drop free while the cruiser is under thrust. The dropships are docked at the notional "ventral" and "dorsal" sides of the Detroits. Between them are the 10 bay doors (5 per side) for the small craft bays. When a Detroit is under thrust, fighters are ejected with electromagnetic catapults. Retrieval while the Detroit is under thrust requires the fighter to be "grabbed" by large grappling arms, which allows the fighters to cease thrusting and be pulled in. This retrieval often proves difficult for heavily damaged fighters. The Detroit has a secondary small craft bay in its concave nose. (Head on, the Detroit resembles a hollow point bullet.) This secondary bay cannot launch and retrieve while the ship is under thrust.
The stern double HNPPC turret is hidden obnoxiously between the four engine exhausts and the stern secondary/PD weapons mounts are also scattered around the engines. They are aimed by sensor booms well clear of the exhausts and thus have no trouble firing through the haze of superheated hydrogen behind a maneuvering Detroit. Attackers, however, have found it difficult to pinpoint these weapons.
DEPLOYMENT
The Detroits are a common vessel in the USNA fleet, accounting for a third of its warships. Since 3030, the Interstellar Policy Council member-nations have made no effort to hide their warship fleets from the Inner Sphere and the USNA is no different. The Detroits are often scattered around the Inner Sphere "showing the flag," carrying IPC diplomats to and from House and Periphery capitals (they make popular transports due to the roominess of their quarters and interplanetary swiftness), or pulling nationals off a planet that has had a revolution or other disturbance. Several IPC nations have purchased Detroits from the USNA (both new and used) for use as command cruisers, Presidential yachts, and transporting diplomats.
NOTABLE VESSELS
The Fox. Though new construction, the Fox is a considerably "dumbed down" version of a Block IIb Detroit. "Dumbed down" is a relative term - the Fox's equipment is thoroughly state-of-the-art for the Inner Sphere and it retains both its HPG and lithium-fusion battery. The Fox is fitted as a "Presidential Yacht", which is basically a command cruiser with several quarters given a multi-million C-bills makeover. Other modifications include trading the facilities for 180 battle armor marines for 252 conventional marines and replacing the ER PPCs with standard PPCs. The small pulse lasers and heavy naval PPCs remained.
The Fox was given by the IPC to Hanse Davion in 3028 as a wedding present. (Melissa Steiner-Davion, historian by training, received an extant copy of the Terran "Vault of History"). It was meant to symbolize the Solar system was opening its borders...well, somewhat reducing its isolationism...with the Inner Sphere, particularly the new Federated Commonwealth. (Ironically, the Fox was almost half paid for by misplaced bribes from Inner Sphere corporations attempting to open the Solar market.) The Fox came with a veteran crew who trained their AFFC replacements and student visas to give the future AFFC crew proper training at the War Academy of Mars.
The Fox's appearance over the wedding reception was dramatic: the warship used its capital PPCs to graze the atmosphere on both sides and stir a horizon-to-horizon arrowhead of auroras that curled and faded away behind the arrowhead, like a magical ship's wake through the sky. (The idea was borrowed from a Bollywood stunt using an Indian warship to do the same for a particularly high-budget but poorly received film.)
As of 3030, MII0 and Loki had only found 87 "bugs" on the ship (and are morally certain there were only a token 100 to begin with). None of these have been found in the "admiral's" quarters normally occupied by the First Prince, indicating the Fox is probably a fairly honest goodwill gesture.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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NathanKell
06/19/02 06:32 PM
24.44.238.62
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A 1MT light cruiser? Isn't that massive overkill?
Of course I like it!
And, for your other piece of Clantech, may I submit Micro Pulse Lasers? Perfect for point defense and battle armor, two areas that seem dear to the heart of the USNA Armed Forces if not the whole IPC.
And I'd really love to see your expansion of the "Sign in Blood" series with this AH included...
(visions of FCS Fox appearing over Sian dance maniacally through my head right about now...)
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson |
Cray
06/19/02 07:34 PM
12.91.127.190
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Originally I was hoping for a 500kt range ship, something I could call a destroyer or frigate. But 81.25% of the ship's mass was some kind of engine. To get on even token weaponry I knew it had to be big. I ended up shedding 20 points of structural integrity anyway.
As for Sign in Blood, I have had absolutely NO ideas for any sequels to the series. The second one, "Regret to Inform" was sorta forced. I mean, I've had *ideas* for a third, but no scripts have formed in my head.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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NathanKell
06/19/02 09:13 PM
24.44.238.62
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Naw, I meant an update of "Sign in Blood" et al. which includes the IPC.
I'd love to see Theodore Kurita sign that treaty on a warship...hmm, the FCS Missouri?
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson |
Cray
06/21/02 03:00 PM
64.83.29.242
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It occurred to me that since I designed the Detroit Class with cover art from sci-fi novels in mind, I might be able to find those novels on-line to provide better imagery:
www.scifi-az.com/sfaz-04g.htm
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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