Jackson-class Transatmospheric Assault Transport

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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.
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