Cray
08/30/03 05:47 PM
24.165.241.224
|
code:
AeroTech 2 Vessel Technical Readout VALIDATED
Class/Model/Name: Colonial Marines Jackson Tech: Inner Sphere / 2100 Vessel Type: WarShip Rules: Level 2, Standard design Rules Set: AeroTech2
Mass: 100,000 tons K-F Drive System: (Unknown) Length: 300 meters Power Plant: Standard Safe Thrust: 2 Maximum Thrust: 3 Armor Type: Lamellor Ferro-carbide Armament: 8 AR10 Launcher 2 NAC/20 80 Small Pulse Laser 2 Heavy NPPC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ==Overview:== The quintessential USMC transport, the Jackson-class Transatmospheric Assault Transport was a heavily armed, stealthy warship that defined interstellar warships for a generation.
. The Jackson's Bow and Phased Array Sensors
Dorsal View of the Jackson and its Mass Drivers .
code:
Indeed, the Jacksons (technically USMC ships rather than USN, and technically a troop transport, not a combatant) were so effective in ship-to-ship combat that an embarrassed USN had to rush to design superior combatants. The giant 250000-ton Montana-class battleships accounted for 2/3 of US warship procurement funds during the Helium War, but only destroyed 2 of the 31 Chinese warships wrecked during the war. The Jackson-class transports accounted for 25, not to mention their numerous, vital troop deliveries and orbital fire support missions. . ==Capabilities:== The huge Jackson-class Transatmospheric Assault Transports delivered a full USMC battalion (with command platoon) to trouble spots throughout the colonies. . Its weaponry and maneuverability were also daunting for the era. Like most ships of the time, it expected to either approach defenders head-on from its jump point or sneak up on a target with its bow toward the victim. Accordingly, it mounted a total of 8 AR10 multi-role launch tubes around its perimeter, with twin bow railguns [NAC/20s] and a monstrous spinal neutron accelerator [twin HNPPCs; L3 rule: both hit or miss the same location on one to-hit roll]. . Topping this heavy weaponry is exceptional maneuverability. With 3500 tons of H-He3 fuel, the Jacksons carried 0.5c of delta-V and the monstrous engines needed to deliver an incredible 1.5Gs of sustained acceleration. While many fusion-powered launch vehicles can match this, none are more than 1% of the mass of the Jackson and none can match the Jackson's fuel efficiency. . The Jackson has two flight decks in its stern section, one typically holding the Marines' 200-ton dropships and the other holding a dozen autonomous kill vehicles. In the Helium War, the AKVs were usually variants of the 100-ton F-43 Comet. . The high thrust, high impulse engines of the Jacksons enabled them to almost dance around the inefficient People's Heavenly Navy space dominance vehicles ("battle barges" or "target practice") during the 2075-2078 Helium War. The heavier firepower a Jackson could bring to bare on a sluggish PHN SDV ensured China could never hope to achieve space superiority in Saturnian space. The Jacksons' equally heavy armor allowed them to survive counterfire that bypassed their daunting point defenses. During the Helium War, no Jackson TAT was lost and only 38 crewmen died. . And, of course, no one who lived to tell the tale could forget the "Finger of God" neutron beams that carved glowing columns through Titan's atmosphere to obliterate Chinese positions. The flashing meteoric strikes of the Jacksons' railguns were almost an afterthought in comparison. . ==Battle History:== As the first shots of the "Helium War" were fired on and around Titan, China quickly learned that it's cutting edge space dominance vehicles (filled with licensed American, European, and Japanese equipment) were outclassed by the US ships in Saturn space. How badly outclassed wasn't immediately clear - in this first ever "real" space battles, both sides were skittish and would retreat after light damage and a reassessment of "probables" (sensor ghosts). This meant the Chinese understood they tended to lose engagements, but saw US ships retreat, too. The People's Republic came away with an unrealistically high assessment of the capability of their ships. . Worse, PRC Naval Intelligence wrongly estimated how the US would deploy it's fleets during the war. It had hoped to tie up the US fleet with distributed raiders while its main fleet "readjusted the balance of socioeconomic dominance" in Saturnian space. Things certainly seemed to start that way and during that period of false hopes China formed its incorrect estimate of US ship performance. This overestimate ended when it ambushed the J. Glenn. . The J. Glenn was caught low and slow over Titan. It had been delivering a battalion of reinforcements and hundreds of tons of supplies to the USMC and US Army units on Titan when four Chinese SDVs whipped over Titan's horizon in a head-on approach. The officer on watch had the forethought to slap the emergency engagement switch, letting the Glenn's computers engage targets. There was simply no time for the human crew to properly prepare for battle. . The PRC ships had already deployed capital missiles that salvoed on the Glenn, far more than the Glenn's point defenses could handle. Further, in an era when sensors lagged behind ECM, the reason that turning fire control over to computers was disapproved of was made clear: the Glenn inadvertantly blew two of its own AKVs out of space in the first frenzied minute of combat. However, the Glenn's railguns also destroyed one "battle barge" in two salvos while its Sandia LINAC crippled another PRC ship. This potent weapon left an irradiated wreck with a few Chinese survivors to die of radiation poisoning in a couple of hours and almost no functional systems on the vessel. . The PRC missiles hammered the Glenn with their clouds of iridium pellets. In a testimony to the edge US armorers had gained over weapon, only a few dozen decks were blown open to space. In a testimony to the Glenn's crew's training, most of the crew was already at battle stations and if they weren't in their combat hard suits, they had at least sealed their uniforms/partial pressure suits. Only two dozen died outright in the onslaught. The Chinese volleyed some missiles from their stern chaser tubes and expected the Glenn to use its "headstart" in the opposite direction to escape, much like ships had done in earlier engagements. Or maybe the missiles would cripple the Glenn's engines. In any case, they were lighting their engines and accelerating away at full throttle, 0.15Gs. . Instead, the Glenn turned 180 degrees (protecting its engines and most of its crew decks with its bow), braked to an outright halt in 3 minutes of hard burning, and came after the two PRC SDVs. The Glenn's 8 surviving AKVs followed suit. In four more minutes, the Glenn had matched the "battle barges'" velocity and began overtaking them. It weathered a dying drizzle of capital missiles, returning fire with its own. Its AKVs damaged the engines of one battle barge, which was swiftly finished off by railguns and LINAC when the Glenn overtook it. The final Chinese ship was overrun in much the same manner, though it was crippled by the Glenn's missiles. . The US would learn from victory. It needed to stop being so...cautious...in space-to-space battles. (The terms used in the Pentagon were rather more pungent than "cautious.") It had very good ships and the Chinese did not. This led to the next lesson: don't dribble away forces in pennypackets chasing down the less numerous Chinese raiders. Rather, the USN needed to stomp them hard at the real point of contention (Saturn) where over half the Chinese fleet was, all trapped and immobile by its need to protect the upstart Chinese He3 mining facilities. Then the pesky raiders harrassing the (someone has to say it: less valuable) civilian interstellar colonies could be hunted down. . ==Variants:== The first few ships all varied by minor improvements. In 2066, the Block IIa Jacksons entered mass production and defined the remainder of the class. The first ships were revised to the Block IIa standard by 2070. The ships were upgraded several times during their service lives before finally being mothballed in 2120. . ==Notable Vessels & Crews:== The TG-17 J. Glenn both accounts for the most casualties suffered by a Jackson-class transport and the most Chinese SDV kills by one warship, and neither are due to a bloodthirsty focus by the crew. Rather, it was a classic "blunder into an ambush and fight your way out." However, the USS J. Glenn gave the USN valuable lessons in space-to-space warfare and inspired the crushing Saturn Turkey Shoot of December 2075. .
==Deployment== The first Jackson left the Vulcan shipyard in 2063, yet another escalation in the "Cryogenic War" and a response to the Chinese use of armed He3 transports in Saturn space. It was followed by a sister ship in 2064, another in 2065, and then three every year from 2066 to 2075. The 33 ships of the class enabled the USA to not only quell violence and any thought of foreign annexations of US interstellar colonies, but they also proved invaluable in the Helium War around Saturn. . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Class/Model/Name: Colonial Marines Jackson Mass: 100,000 tons
Equipment: Mass Power Plant, Drive & Control: 12,000.00 Thrust: Safe Thrust: 2 Maximum Thrust: 3 Kearny-Fuchida Hyperdrive: Compact (Integrity = 4) 45,250.00 Lithium Fusion Battery 1,000.00 Jump Sail: No Sail (Fusion-Charged K-F) .00 Structural Integrity: 50 5,000.00 Total Heat Sinks: 500 Double 301.00 Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 3,570.00 Bridge, Controls, Radar, Computer & Attitude Thrusters: 250.00 Fire Control Computers: 1,308.00 Hyperpulse Generator: 50.00 Armor Type: Lamellor Ferro-carbide (170 total armor pts) 100.00 Capital Scale Armor Pts Location: L / R Fore: 33 Fore-Left/Right: 28/28 Aft-Left/Right: 28/28 Aft: 25
Cargo: Bay 1: Small Craft (12) 2,400.00 Bay 2: Fighters (12) with 2 doors 1,800.00 Bay 3: Cargo (1) with 2 doors 3,667.00
Escape Pods: 100 (7 tons each) 700.00
Crew and Passengers: 30 Officers (26 minimum) 300.00 100 Crew (35 minimum) 1,000.00 30 Gunners (26 minimum) 300.00 280 Marines 1,400.00 84 Bay Personnel .00 Weapons and Equipment Loc SRV MRV LRV ERV Heat Mass ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 AR10 (20 KW, 40 B) Nose * * * * 40 2,700.00 2 NAC/20(60 rounds) Nose 40 40 40 -- 120 5,024.00 20 Small Pulse Laser Nose 6(60) -- -- -- 40 20.00 2 Heavy NPPC Nose 30 30 30 30 450 6,000.00 2 AR10 (10 KW, 20 B) L/RBS * * * * 80 3,200.00 20 Small Pulse Laser L/RBS 6(60) -- -- -- 80 40.00 2 AR10 (10 KW, 20 B) Aft * * * * 40 1,600.00 20 Small Pulse Laser Aft 6(60) -- -- -- 40 20.00 1 Lot Spare Parts (1.00%) 1,000.00 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TOTALS: Heat: 890 100,000.00 Tons Left: .00
Calculated Factors: Total Cost: 6,214,168,000 C-Bills Battle Value: 31,796 Cost per BV: 195,438.67 Weapon Value: 19,793 (Ratio = .62) Damage Factors: SRV = 1,175; MRV = 935; LRV = 737; ERV = 291 Maintenance: Maintenance Point Value (MPV) = 177,862 (44,587 Structure, 90,725 Life Support, 42,550 Weapons) Support Points (SP) = 190,190 (107% of MPV) BattleForce2: Not applicable
.
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.
|