DARKSTAR CAMPAIGN UPDATE: DUCHESS ANNABEL’S WAR IS OVER

Good morning, Beasts of War / OTT:

As I continue to thank contributors to the Darkstar contribution pool, we’re adding more and more ships to the “Darkstar canon.” The latest is to fulfill the request of a very generous contributor, enough to have not only a battlecruiser (i.e., a “light” battleship”) class named for him, but his name written into the “legends” of Darkstar history.

The Cross class battlecruiser is one of the newer designs coming out of Royal Navy shipyards in recent years, apparently part of an attempt to update the aging line of British battleships and “star dreadnoughts” like the Royal Sovereign class or the ancient Barnham class.  As faster battleships like the American Colorado class and the Prussian Scharnhorst class “pocket battleships” begin to show their capabilities in more recent conflicts, the Royal Navy initiated a project that seems to hearken back to the early 20th Century battlecruisers of Jackie Fisher, warships with the size and firepower of a battleship, but the speed of a cruiser.  The tradeoff was a terrible shortfall in armor protection, which led to a wholesale die-off of the “battlecruiser” line in battles like Jutland, Denmark Strait (death of the HMS Hood, probably the most famous battlecruiser of all time) and against Japanese carrier airpower in early World War II.

Accordingly, the design for the Cross class isn’t quite that extreme.  They keep powerful defensive systems in place, including plenty of armor and a strong ECM and gravitic shielding suite, especially around aft quarters, protecting engines and reactors.  Although the Cross bristles with 25mm and 30mm mass drivers for aerospace defense, other designs like the Roval Sovereign, Colorado, and Yamato and Tirpitz carry more.  This may be the one aspect of the Cross battlecruiser’s defense that may have been slightly cut for the sake of speed, but designers insist the advanced Hawkinge Electronics 01A fire control system more than makes up for this.

Packing the very modern Harland and Wolff “Magnetar Delta” deuterium-tritium reactors in a highly-advanced “superconducting convection” powerplant, the Cross class puts out more power than similar Royal Navy classes like the Royal Sovereign battleships or Ark Royal class supercarriers.  While this doesn’t give her quite the thrust envelopes or maneuverability of a cruiser, it’s easily 50% more than most battleships, more than the Yamato or Tirpitz, and enough to keep up with faster battleships like the Colorado or the New Roman Alliance’s Constantine class.

The lead ship of the class is named for Admiral (later First Star Lord) Sir David Cross, winner of the gigantic Battle of Europa (October 18, 2396), the massive battle against Spanish, French, Italian, and Holy Russian Empire fleets that effectively ended the “Four Moons” Jovian War of 2394-2396.  This was mankind’s largest off-world war to date, and the largest war of any description since the apocalyptic Water Wars of the 2190s.  This battle more or less confirmed that Europa (one of the most valuable moons in the Sol System) would remain a predominantly British colony for at least another century, and  that the Royal Navy would continue to be a major power in the new “black water” era of naval history.  As such, Cross was eventually  hailed as a “second Nelson” (at the Battle of Europa his fleet of sublight cruisers was outgunned at least three-to-one).  After the battle, he was named Viceroy of Europa and First Star Lord, and more or less built the Royal Navy that would eventually make the interstellar leap with the invention of the Darkstar drive.

Other ships are named for Admiral Ramsay (Savior of Dunkirk and naval commander of Overlord),  Vice-Admiral Beatty (battleruiser commander at Jutland), King George VI,  and Admiral Sir Christopher Buckland, victor of the “Marianna’s Hope” War of 2448 (Sirius star system, one of the UK’s first major interstellar conflicts).

The Cross class battlecruisers are just that, nothing less and nothing more.  They carry no torpedoes or sizable aerospace groups, instead focused on speed, maneuverability, protection, and hard-hitting firepower.  They carry eight 15-gigawatt rail guns in the classic “Atlantic Layout” – four double turrets, two forward, two aft.  The secondary battery is a little more unusual, with two triple turrets of Harland and Wolff “Nebula” 8-megakelvin laser emitters mounted in flanking positions of the forward dorsal main gun turret.  A third such laser array is mounted aft.  The unusual arrangement of the two flanking laser emitters means the Cross can never get a full true “broadside” with these secondary weapons, but with more of them mounted forward, a Cross battlecruiser can sling out more long-range opening fire on the initial approach.

The Cross class battlecruiser is a solid design, able to outpace many of her rivals but not suffer from the classic “glass cannon” weaknesses of her spiritual ancestors.  The class is still being constructed, no one knows for sure just how many the Royal Navy will build.  They are not cheap ships by any measure, so the investment may soon slow somewhat until the Cross class really proves itself in prolonged campaign combat.

Ships in Class
Registry Name Commissioned
BC 21 – HMS Cross – 2512, Scapa Flow Orbital, Earth – On Duty
BC 22 – HMS Ramsay – 2514, Hypsibius Installation, Omicron Eridani – On Duty
BC 23 – HMS Beatty – 2516, Scapa Flow Orbital, Earth – On Duty
BC 24 – HMS George VI – 2518, Hypsibius Installation, Omicron Eridani – On Duty
BC 25 – HMS Buckland – 2519, New Londonium Shipyards, Saturn – On Duty
BC 26 – HMS ?? – 2520, Hypsibius Installation, Omicron Eridani – Under Construction