Franz von Munich Class Battleship
Designed by the Thanzan Empire's Board of Naval Research and Development to be the standard fast battleship of the Imperial Naval, the Franz von Munich-Class has grown to be one of the most common capital ships in the Navy, and a symbol of the Empire's might across the galaxy. Equipped with excellent main weapons capable of decimating enemy fleets at range, with a variety of heavy artillery and missile systems, the armament of the ship has become the standard to which other nation's ships can only hope to aspire. Meanwhile, it has superb mobility, enabling it to escape from all but the fastest enemy capital ships, while it can destroy ships below its size with ease. Despite this, it also has respectable armor, making it more than a mere battlecruiser and giving it the capability to stand in the wall of battle. With all of these features, it is no doubt that the Franz von Munich-Class has grown to be known as the "Sword of the Emperor" - a fitting testament to the Admiral after who it was named.
Franz von Munich-Class ships were designed several decades ago, to replace the host of long ranged cruisers and battlecruisers that had previously served the Empire as long ranged combatants. Although previous classes of ships had done reasonably well in such a role, it was thought that creating a new, standard class of ships would help to expand the overall capabilities of the Imperial Navy. Furthermore, it was desired that the new ship class would have the necessary armor and protection that it would be able to stand in the wall of battle if necessary, to help to increase the amount of ships that the Empire could bring to bear there if necessary. This would be a welcome change from the casualties that the preceeding Thunder-Class Battlecruisers had sustained there during the operations in the G13 Sector, where the situation of the area had forced them to be used in the line, and they inevitably suffered huge casualties, despite the Empire ultimately winning the day. The new vessels would thus be dramatically superior in such a role, creating a new general purpose combatant that would still continue to excell at the role of long ranged combat. They would also have even better mobility than the preceeding ships despite their increases in armor, incorporating all of the advances that had happened concerning power generation and propulsion. As a result, they would combine many of the best features of the Battlecruiser, and the Battleship and Dreadnought, while offering few of the major disadvantages of both. The challenge of fulfilling these specifications was eventually taken up by the Board of Naval Research and Development, which after nearly a decade would finish a design that would be roughly similar to the Franz von Munich-Class Fast Battleship now in such common service today.
At some 12 kilometers in length, the Franz von Munich-Class Fast Battleship is a very respectably sized class of battleships, among the largest yet constructed for the Imperial Navy. They were built on a somewhat irregular hexagonal hull, narrowing at the front and back slightly, although the back also needed to fit the massive engines that propel it to its vast speeds. this hexagon shape was chosen to offer good top mountings for the top and bottom guns, while the broadsides would take into account "sloped armor" as they are reclined backwards at a heavy angle. As a result, presuming that they face the enemy correctly, it is quite difficult to break through. It is some 2,000 meters across at the widest point, while its height can reach up to 1,500 meters when taking into account the superstructures. Although just a side note, another interesting feature of the ship is the massive golden statue of the Emperor mounted at the front of the ship below the railgun, as a figurehead.
One of the great original design expectations for the new battleship class would be superior armament, capable of at least matching that of all other ships of equivalent tonnage in service. In this the designers would not disappoint, as the ship would incorporate both the traditional broadside armament of the Empire's Navy ships, but also massive turreted triple guns on top and bottom of the vessel. The main armament of the ship would thus be something of a throwback to the days of ancient Earth, with no fewer than 8 quad turrets on the ship, 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom. These would be given huge mass driver railguns, which fire huge 18,000mm shells capable of piercing the armor on any known capital ship. What is more, these guns were some 3.6 kilometers in length each, giving each one an effective length of some 200 times their barrel width - enough to give them frightening muzzle velocities. It had been tremendously difficult to design such long guns and of such size, but ultimately they were achieved and offered an excellent increase in long range firepower in both broadside and forward and rear directions. Broadside especially provides some of the highest increases in projectile weaponry, as the concentrated firepower of 32 guns enables superb anti ship firepower and planetary bombardment capabilities. They can do all of this at extreme range too, as the gravity enhanced mass drivers can propel their slugs to approximately a third of lightspeed, and the shells themselves are akin to missiles with onboard guidance and engines that enable them to go even faster at the ending targets.
In addition to this, it also has a very powerful broadside armament. This is mostly composed of laser weaponry, somewhat at odds with the typical broadside cannon armament, but which was designed to permit superior long ranged attacks. The heavy broadside lasers are all of a single type, the Model 95x2000cm anti-ship laser. Some 280 were eventuially decided to be mounted per each broadside, giving 560 of among the largest anti ship lasers yet in service in any navy. To mount this number, all of the traditional broadside cannons were removed; the anti-ship lasers were already adequate in such a role and having these relatively specialized weapons onboard would detract form long ranged firepower. The lasers also have the ability to fire less powerful, but faster firing bursts to destroy heavy enemy torpedoes or lighter capital warships, although even in this case their abilities can best be described as "overkill".
A third major anti ship armament is composed of the missile and torpedo weapons, vital to the long ranged component of the ship's weaponry. Like most Imperial Warships it incorporates at least some of these weapons, but on the Franz von Munich-Class these were greatly expanded. It incorporates both heavy broadside torpedo tubes, and VLS launch systems, designed to engage both enemy capital ships and light cruisers and destroyers. Broadside torpedo tubes were designed to hurl the massive Sword Mk54 Torpdedoes, which weigh in at some 60,000 metric tons each. With hugely sophisticated electronic warfare and countermeasure systems onboard, they can slash through almost any defense, and the massive gravity-nuclear warheads can cripple even kilometer long capital ships. It incorporates 250 torpedo tubes per broadside, for a total of 500 torpedo launchers, and magazine storage space for thousands of them onboard. What is more, each ship has the Javelin Mk75 Anti-Ship Missiles, 6,500 metric ton weapons mounted in VLS tubes on top of the ship. At 8 meters in diameter and 90 meters in height, these missiles are incredibly deadly to many of the lighter ships that could potentially swarm and endanger the vessel. It mounts 4 onboard VLS launch locations for them, with 2 on the top and bottom respectively, each one with missiles arranged in a 100x240 fashion, for a total of 24,000 missiles per area, with a total of 96,000 onboard. They are also quite useful in saturating the defenses of larger ships, and enabling the larger 60,000 ton torpedoes to breach the defenses more easily. Furthermore, these VLS cells can have the onboard missiles changed out for other types, such as anti-torpedo missile (Like the quad-pack capable Swallow Mk85 Anti-Torpedo Missile, which can be fit in 4 for each of the 6,500 metric ton weapons).
Perhaps the most powerful single weapon onboard is the hull running gravity assisted railgun. This is a 24,000 mm weapon that is some 11.2 kilometers long, spanning almost the entire majority of the ship. This massive gun fires a shell at some 50 percent of lightspeed, while the projectile itself is guided enabling it to target enemies at very long ranges. It is one of its main long ranged weapons before it enters broadside range, and it can cause tremendous harm to enemy battleships and capital ships. It is also very useful in planetary bombardment, as the projectile it fires can be fired from effectively any range to strike planets beyond the range of their defenses, thus making the ship very useful in siege confontations. While of course, this is an option that should often be reserved merely for the last resort, it is never the less something that is always in the Imperial Arsenal.
Despite its massive array of offensive firepower, defensive weaponry was not in any way neglected. It has to deal with the threats of massive long ranged torpedo barrages, vast swarms of fighters and bombers, missile strikes, and the array of other dangers in a space warfare environment. To meet this challenge, an array of lasers, guns, and missiles were created, to offer excellent defensive firepower. Guns are mostly responsible for dealing with the challenges of close range threats, such as fighters, and there are as a result two main types onboard. One is a close range very fast firing coilgun of 100mm, that fires shells of 15 kilograms at a rate of fire of 1,200 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of 15,000 meters per second. This was designed to offer excellent anti-fighter and bomber capabilities, as it can easily tear through their light armor with the high velocity and rate of fire. The second weapon is a 300mm autocannon weapon, which is capable of firing 425 kilogram shells (Equipped with nuclear warheads) at a muzzle velocity of 15,000 meters per second and a rate of fire of 180 rounds per minute. This enables slightly longer ranged defensive fire, and it can lay down a cloud of nuclear firepower against the enemy. Both of them are equipped with guided rounds enabling them to further extend their range and accuracy. There are some 8,000 100mm guns mounted onboard and 1,500 305mm guns. Furthermore, it has defensive lasers of the Mark 18 40x12 point defense laser type, 400 millimeter lasers arranged in a 12 laser mounting, capable of functioning akin to a gatling gun with rates of fire in excess of some 200 shots per minute. 1,200 of these were mounted onboard, enabling excellent medium range defense. At longer ranges, missiles are utilized, with the VLS tubes being able to launch the Swallow anti-torpedo missiles missiles(With generally around a third of the available anti-ship missile tubes instead mounting anti-torpedo weapons), while there are also 600 counter-missile launchers which fire missiles equivalent to 750 metric tons, and that are quite effective against most known missiles and bombers/fast attack craft.
In keeping with its style as a battleship, the ship carries very respectable armor. Although some amounts of thickness had to be sacrificied to achieve the lighter weight that is needed for high speed, it still is more than capable of resisting the majority of attacks. It utilizes an "all or nothing" armor scheme, intended to give as much armor as possible to vital sections of the ship, while non-vital sections receive essentiall no armor. The main central citadel with the broadside and the main guns for example, is extremely difficult to breach, while the rear engines also received very heavy armor. Significant parts of the ship though, such as the VLS missile systems, upper decks, and some frontal and rear areas, received relatively little armor, just enough to defend against the majority of fighter and bomber attacks. Meanwhile the shape of the ship also helps it to defend against threats, as the broadsides are heavily sloped back, increasing the effective thickness of the armor, while the gradual shape of the forward section of the ship makes frontal fire pass through large amounts of armor. All of the onboard guns and lasers, especially the hull running railgun, are also equipped with sealable irises, that enhance protection, while onboard munitions are designed to be inert except for when fired. Despite this, they are also stored in heavily armored magazines, making them even more difficult to hit. Furthermore the ship is heavily internally subdivided into no fewer than 4 internal sections, each of which is completely capable of sustaining operations entirely on its own, without the need for assistance from another unit. This gives excellent redundancy, making it even harder to destroy.
However,armor is not the entirety of the ship's defenses. It is also provided with a vast array of electronic warfare systems, electronic countermeasure systems, stealth features, redundancy, fail-safe capabilities, battle damage repair, and internal diagonistics, in addition to its heavy armor and its multitude of defensive firepower emplacements. It has a large number of chaff/decoy/flare launcher systems, of the Model 85x100x2 type. These are designed to launch carefully coordinated bursts of electronic warfare decoys, to effectively hide the ship's profile, distract enemy missiles and smart munitions, and to generate false signals for enemy targeting. There are some 2,000 such launchers onboard, and they are equipped with scores upon scores of thousands of decoys. Furthermore, each vessel has electronic warfare drones of the Model 91 EW class, some 288 total, that are capable of serving as decoys for the ship, mimicking its signature to confuse enemy fire control and guided munitions. It fits on a very good electronic warfare system, including jammers, signal interceptors, scramblers, signal broadcasters, and all of the rest of the array of electronic warfare as it can be used in the modern era of space warfare. The internal systems all have at least quadruple redundancy, in a bid to ensure that it can sustain massive amounts of damage and remain intact and functional. Furthermore, some of the most vulnerable parts of the ship, such as the reactors, are carefully armored and protected. The reactors themselves are a case in point, being behind massive armor cases almost as thick as the main belt armor, while also being designed to be shut off almost instantly in the case of any sustained damage, and can be ejected from the ship with planted charges and massive catapult systems. Excellent onboard battle damage repair and diagnostic facilities are fitted as well, with centralized damage control and auxilary damage control stations spread around the entire ship, with plenty of robotic systems onboard to assist the manual repair of any damage. And despite its massive bulk, it is also stealthy, as it was designed with special sensor absorbing coatings around the edge, a low thermal emissions scheme that can also eject all thermal emissions in one direction away from the ship, specialized materials in the hull to prevent electronic emissions, electromagnets to cancel out the magnetic signatures, and an external coating of smart paint that can turn black to blend in with space.
Shields form a final form of its defensive arrays. It has a massive network of onboard distributed shield generators, fueled by the huge amounts of power generated by the ship. These shield generators are utilized to project a fully encircling defensive ring for the ship, intended to make it as invulnerable to enemy assault as possible. They are especially concentrated forward, where the greatest threat from enemy frontal firing railguns might be expected. Given the range at which the ship operates, this might be one of the few major enemy weapons capable of causing significant harm to the vessel, and thus shielding must compensate.
Sensors are another area where the Franz von Munich-Class reigns supreme. It is equipped with a wide variety of capable and advanced sensors designed to aid in its capability to engage enemy ships at long range, by detecting them and providing adequate fire control solutions. In one way, the ship is actually more of a gigantic sensor array than a warship, as the entire outer hull of the vessel is run through with complicated passive sensors, while it has massive AESA and gravitac arrays. These passive sensors are mostly of the passive radar type that lock onto enemy radar to detect the enemy, and ironically mean that the ship performs best at engaging fully operational enemy battleships. It does however, have its very large AESA arrays, which each side has, with at least 4 per side to provide good detection in all direction. This AESA arrays are also useful as they provide long range fire control if necessary as well. Onboard gravitac arrays, designed to detect the tightly twisted gravity of some ships and many missile types, are also utilized as well, with similar density standards as the AESAs, and thus provide extremely long range and sensitive detection. Various other sensors, such as thermal sensors, and electro-optical detection systems are used as well. This is in addition to the superb long range fire control systems, as each ships has very advanced LIDAR systems, missile fire control channels, and huge numbers of auxilary fire control mounts (With each broadside laser having its own LIDAR system). This means that the ship can very easily engage any ship it detects, and detect those ships very easily. An onboard neutrino sensor has been utilized as well, which helps to provide good passive detection.
While it is a battleship, there were design features intended to reduce the overall size of the crew. The goal of this was that by reducing the crew size, it could fit in more systems of other types, as less space had to be devoted to crew quarters and life support. As the ship wasn't intended to take quite the amount of sustained punishment that a close range battleship would be expected to take, having less crew and more of other systems would be a logical development for the vessel. Still, it didn't cut the crew levels nearly as much as could be done; it still had to have at least some capability to stand in the wall of battle. As a result of all of this, the crew size would be a "mere" 90,000. This was judged as enough to be a compromise between the two sides, while not sacrificing any of the major strengths of either.
As part of such a decrease in crew size, the Ship must incorporate very advanced computer and robotic systems, even more so than normal ships, so as to enable its efficient functioning. Luckily, this is another where the ship does not fall short of standards. Each internal sub-section of the ship is equipped with its own main computer system that is entirely capable of functioning in an independent fashion, while all of them can work together if necessary. Not only does this decrease the threat of any individual hit destroying the entire computer system, it also decreases the threat from cyber warfare, as if somebody succeeds in taking the weapons offline through computer viruses and the like, then only one section will be crippled. Of course, beyond this there are also superb defenses against such attacks. The computers are designed to be very good concerning electronic and cyber warfare, and are able to launch effective attacks upon the enemy, utilizing their superb communications suites, excellent computational facilities, and wonderful onboard software for dealing with such eventualities. This makes them almost impossible to manage to disable through such attacks, as only dedicated cyber warfare vessels pack as much computer capabilities as these ships. It is actually possible to run the entire ship with the onboard computer and robotic control systems and neglect the crew, but efficiency would go down if this happened. They are also profoundly resistant to hacking, so if for example the ship was boarded by the enemy and they attempted to find onboard star maps and navigiation information, this would be an almost impossible affair. That is, if the computers didn't wipe themselves before hand, which they are programmed to do even if the naval officer doesn't issue the order for such.
Power is provided through onboard gravity enhanced fusion generators. As indicated earlier, they are a marvel of defensive planning, being hidden behind massive armor escarpments and with excellent safety features. They are also very good at generating power, all 24 of them (6 per section). Without refueling, the ship can sustain active operations with them for the period of up to a year, as huge amounts of fuel are carried onboard. A network of capacitators and secondary reactors throughout the ship further increase overall power redundancy.
In addition to the onboard crew of 90,000, a powerful presence of soldiers is fitted. This is composed of no fewer than 2entire divisions of troops, nearly 40,000 troops. This is in of itself almost half of the number of sailors onboard, and brings the total complement of the ship up to 150,000. Such a massive number of onboard soldiers makes it almost invulnerable to boarding, while it also makes the vessel effective in planetary assault supports, as it can deliver a large number of well equipped troops to the planet's surface quite quickly. These troops are, as indicated, fully equipped with battle armor, heavy weapons, and other weapons, for both planetary and atmospheric action. During times when their services aren't required in boarding operations, they typically operate in auxilary combat roles such as medical evacuation, damage control parties, and if necessary replacements for sailors in less vital roles. If so needed, the ship carries onboard facilities to carry an entire extra two division of troops for short periods, which can also be utilized for evacuations.
While obviously designed for the direct combat role, there are some carrier provisions for the vessel. It is equipped with no fewer than 4 carrier areas available, on the top and bottom 2 edges of the hexagon sides. These make good mounting zones for the long catapult and landing streches that are used for the hangar facilities, and enable the ship to carry a large number of fighters, fighter-bombers, bombers, specialized small craft, and landing craft. These are capable of providing self defense, offensive capabilities, and invasion capabilities. Some 4,000 onboard fighter craft are carried, of the R46 Drone type. Meanwhile, a smaller but still respectable pool of 900 fighter bombers, capable of fighting their way through to the enemy and dealing heavy amounts of damage to ships and vessels up to the size of light cruisers are utilized. The largest small craft utilized, bombers, are found with some 240 units available for action, and they are capable of dealing harm to even smaller enemy capital ships, as well as ground and planetary installations (Much like the fighter bombers do as well). It also has an impressive amount of planetary assault units, with Temaire-Class Dropcraft which can carry large amounts of troops or large numbers of troops being carried in numbers of around 600 per each ship. Up to 200 other craft can be carried
Being a heavy battleship designed to be the centerpiece of fleets, the Franz von Munich-Class must naturally incorporate excellent command capabilities. They have no fewer than 13 command bridges onboard, with 2 per each sub-section, 2 visual obervation ones on the top superstructures, and an internal main command bridge that is up to standards to be used by even fleet admirals. Furthermore, the ship obviously has all of the needed space for any support staff, while all of the bridges are first rate with holographic displays of the outside world. Or in the case of the four top and bottom bridges, several meter thick super reinforced synthetic materials stronger than even the materials used to make the hull itself,
Engines were an area that saw an immense amount of attention layered on them. Being fast is one of the ship's key advantages, and as a result the huge engines are utilized to give it immense speed. There are no fewer than 7 such engines, with 6 arranged in a ring around a larger central engine, all of them capable of generating immense amounts of thrust. It also has many hundreds of secondary manuvering thrusters around the ship, which give very good mobility for its size. The massive onboard hyper generators also give it first rate strategic manuverbility, rivalling that of the Empire's courier vessels.
Length: 12,000 meters
Width: 2,000 meters
Height: 1,500 meters
Power Generation:
8 fusion reactors
Armor:
3,600cm armored broadside belt
1,200cm armor plating external
4,000cm turret armor
4,000cm armor over magazines and fusion reactors
1,500cm internal bulkheads
1,200cm internal command bridges
6,00cm frontal iris (Normal irises are designed to roughly match that of the area where they are positioned, 3,600 or 1,200cm)
Command Facilities:
13 internal command bridges
Shields:
Heavy shielding, distributed shield generation
Sensors:
MK70U-H/AESA
V67/N/BC-S
Passive thermal sensors
FTL sensors
D-35/CS Passive Radar System
Mk65/BNC Fire Control
Electronic Warfare:
200x85x100x2 D-400/2/EW
288xV48/CSH/EW-D
Electronic countermeasures
Armament:
Missiles:
x 96,000 Mk 56 VLS Cells
x 600 75LRCm Counter-Missile Tubes
Torpedoes:
x500 Sword Mk54 Torpedo Tubes
Lasers:
x 560 Model 95x2000cm anti-ship lasers
x 1,200 Mark 18 40x12 Point Defense Laser Clusters
Guns
x 32 18,000/200 mm Gravity Assisted Mass Drivers
x 8,000 100mm point defense guns
x 1,500 300mm point defense guns
x 24,000/465mm hull running railgun
Complement:
90,000 personal
2-4 Marine Divisions
Acceleration:
High for its size
Endurance:
8 months
Complement of Space Vehicles:
x 4,000 R46 Space Fighters
x 900 Fighter-Bombers
x 240 Bombers
x 600 Dropships
x 200 other craft
Franz von Munich-Class ships were designed several decades ago, to replace the host of long ranged cruisers and battlecruisers that had previously served the Empire as long ranged combatants. Although previous classes of ships had done reasonably well in such a role, it was thought that creating a new, standard class of ships would help to expand the overall capabilities of the Imperial Navy. Furthermore, it was desired that the new ship class would have the necessary armor and protection that it would be able to stand in the wall of battle if necessary, to help to increase the amount of ships that the Empire could bring to bear there if necessary. This would be a welcome change from the casualties that the preceeding Thunder-Class Battlecruisers had sustained there during the operations in the G13 Sector, where the situation of the area had forced them to be used in the line, and they inevitably suffered huge casualties, despite the Empire ultimately winning the day. The new vessels would thus be dramatically superior in such a role, creating a new general purpose combatant that would still continue to excell at the role of long ranged combat. They would also have even better mobility than the preceeding ships despite their increases in armor, incorporating all of the advances that had happened concerning power generation and propulsion. As a result, they would combine many of the best features of the Battlecruiser, and the Battleship and Dreadnought, while offering few of the major disadvantages of both. The challenge of fulfilling these specifications was eventually taken up by the Board of Naval Research and Development, which after nearly a decade would finish a design that would be roughly similar to the Franz von Munich-Class Fast Battleship now in such common service today.
At some 12 kilometers in length, the Franz von Munich-Class Fast Battleship is a very respectably sized class of battleships, among the largest yet constructed for the Imperial Navy. They were built on a somewhat irregular hexagonal hull, narrowing at the front and back slightly, although the back also needed to fit the massive engines that propel it to its vast speeds. this hexagon shape was chosen to offer good top mountings for the top and bottom guns, while the broadsides would take into account "sloped armor" as they are reclined backwards at a heavy angle. As a result, presuming that they face the enemy correctly, it is quite difficult to break through. It is some 2,000 meters across at the widest point, while its height can reach up to 1,500 meters when taking into account the superstructures. Although just a side note, another interesting feature of the ship is the massive golden statue of the Emperor mounted at the front of the ship below the railgun, as a figurehead.
One of the great original design expectations for the new battleship class would be superior armament, capable of at least matching that of all other ships of equivalent tonnage in service. In this the designers would not disappoint, as the ship would incorporate both the traditional broadside armament of the Empire's Navy ships, but also massive turreted triple guns on top and bottom of the vessel. The main armament of the ship would thus be something of a throwback to the days of ancient Earth, with no fewer than 8 quad turrets on the ship, 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom. These would be given huge mass driver railguns, which fire huge 18,000mm shells capable of piercing the armor on any known capital ship. What is more, these guns were some 3.6 kilometers in length each, giving each one an effective length of some 200 times their barrel width - enough to give them frightening muzzle velocities. It had been tremendously difficult to design such long guns and of such size, but ultimately they were achieved and offered an excellent increase in long range firepower in both broadside and forward and rear directions. Broadside especially provides some of the highest increases in projectile weaponry, as the concentrated firepower of 32 guns enables superb anti ship firepower and planetary bombardment capabilities. They can do all of this at extreme range too, as the gravity enhanced mass drivers can propel their slugs to approximately a third of lightspeed, and the shells themselves are akin to missiles with onboard guidance and engines that enable them to go even faster at the ending targets.
In addition to this, it also has a very powerful broadside armament. This is mostly composed of laser weaponry, somewhat at odds with the typical broadside cannon armament, but which was designed to permit superior long ranged attacks. The heavy broadside lasers are all of a single type, the Model 95x2000cm anti-ship laser. Some 280 were eventuially decided to be mounted per each broadside, giving 560 of among the largest anti ship lasers yet in service in any navy. To mount this number, all of the traditional broadside cannons were removed; the anti-ship lasers were already adequate in such a role and having these relatively specialized weapons onboard would detract form long ranged firepower. The lasers also have the ability to fire less powerful, but faster firing bursts to destroy heavy enemy torpedoes or lighter capital warships, although even in this case their abilities can best be described as "overkill".
A third major anti ship armament is composed of the missile and torpedo weapons, vital to the long ranged component of the ship's weaponry. Like most Imperial Warships it incorporates at least some of these weapons, but on the Franz von Munich-Class these were greatly expanded. It incorporates both heavy broadside torpedo tubes, and VLS launch systems, designed to engage both enemy capital ships and light cruisers and destroyers. Broadside torpedo tubes were designed to hurl the massive Sword Mk54 Torpdedoes, which weigh in at some 60,000 metric tons each. With hugely sophisticated electronic warfare and countermeasure systems onboard, they can slash through almost any defense, and the massive gravity-nuclear warheads can cripple even kilometer long capital ships. It incorporates 250 torpedo tubes per broadside, for a total of 500 torpedo launchers, and magazine storage space for thousands of them onboard. What is more, each ship has the Javelin Mk75 Anti-Ship Missiles, 6,500 metric ton weapons mounted in VLS tubes on top of the ship. At 8 meters in diameter and 90 meters in height, these missiles are incredibly deadly to many of the lighter ships that could potentially swarm and endanger the vessel. It mounts 4 onboard VLS launch locations for them, with 2 on the top and bottom respectively, each one with missiles arranged in a 100x240 fashion, for a total of 24,000 missiles per area, with a total of 96,000 onboard. They are also quite useful in saturating the defenses of larger ships, and enabling the larger 60,000 ton torpedoes to breach the defenses more easily. Furthermore, these VLS cells can have the onboard missiles changed out for other types, such as anti-torpedo missile (Like the quad-pack capable Swallow Mk85 Anti-Torpedo Missile, which can be fit in 4 for each of the 6,500 metric ton weapons).
Perhaps the most powerful single weapon onboard is the hull running gravity assisted railgun. This is a 24,000 mm weapon that is some 11.2 kilometers long, spanning almost the entire majority of the ship. This massive gun fires a shell at some 50 percent of lightspeed, while the projectile itself is guided enabling it to target enemies at very long ranges. It is one of its main long ranged weapons before it enters broadside range, and it can cause tremendous harm to enemy battleships and capital ships. It is also very useful in planetary bombardment, as the projectile it fires can be fired from effectively any range to strike planets beyond the range of their defenses, thus making the ship very useful in siege confontations. While of course, this is an option that should often be reserved merely for the last resort, it is never the less something that is always in the Imperial Arsenal.
Despite its massive array of offensive firepower, defensive weaponry was not in any way neglected. It has to deal with the threats of massive long ranged torpedo barrages, vast swarms of fighters and bombers, missile strikes, and the array of other dangers in a space warfare environment. To meet this challenge, an array of lasers, guns, and missiles were created, to offer excellent defensive firepower. Guns are mostly responsible for dealing with the challenges of close range threats, such as fighters, and there are as a result two main types onboard. One is a close range very fast firing coilgun of 100mm, that fires shells of 15 kilograms at a rate of fire of 1,200 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of 15,000 meters per second. This was designed to offer excellent anti-fighter and bomber capabilities, as it can easily tear through their light armor with the high velocity and rate of fire. The second weapon is a 300mm autocannon weapon, which is capable of firing 425 kilogram shells (Equipped with nuclear warheads) at a muzzle velocity of 15,000 meters per second and a rate of fire of 180 rounds per minute. This enables slightly longer ranged defensive fire, and it can lay down a cloud of nuclear firepower against the enemy. Both of them are equipped with guided rounds enabling them to further extend their range and accuracy. There are some 8,000 100mm guns mounted onboard and 1,500 305mm guns. Furthermore, it has defensive lasers of the Mark 18 40x12 point defense laser type, 400 millimeter lasers arranged in a 12 laser mounting, capable of functioning akin to a gatling gun with rates of fire in excess of some 200 shots per minute. 1,200 of these were mounted onboard, enabling excellent medium range defense. At longer ranges, missiles are utilized, with the VLS tubes being able to launch the Swallow anti-torpedo missiles missiles(With generally around a third of the available anti-ship missile tubes instead mounting anti-torpedo weapons), while there are also 600 counter-missile launchers which fire missiles equivalent to 750 metric tons, and that are quite effective against most known missiles and bombers/fast attack craft.
In keeping with its style as a battleship, the ship carries very respectable armor. Although some amounts of thickness had to be sacrificied to achieve the lighter weight that is needed for high speed, it still is more than capable of resisting the majority of attacks. It utilizes an "all or nothing" armor scheme, intended to give as much armor as possible to vital sections of the ship, while non-vital sections receive essentiall no armor. The main central citadel with the broadside and the main guns for example, is extremely difficult to breach, while the rear engines also received very heavy armor. Significant parts of the ship though, such as the VLS missile systems, upper decks, and some frontal and rear areas, received relatively little armor, just enough to defend against the majority of fighter and bomber attacks. Meanwhile the shape of the ship also helps it to defend against threats, as the broadsides are heavily sloped back, increasing the effective thickness of the armor, while the gradual shape of the forward section of the ship makes frontal fire pass through large amounts of armor. All of the onboard guns and lasers, especially the hull running railgun, are also equipped with sealable irises, that enhance protection, while onboard munitions are designed to be inert except for when fired. Despite this, they are also stored in heavily armored magazines, making them even more difficult to hit. Furthermore the ship is heavily internally subdivided into no fewer than 4 internal sections, each of which is completely capable of sustaining operations entirely on its own, without the need for assistance from another unit. This gives excellent redundancy, making it even harder to destroy.
However,armor is not the entirety of the ship's defenses. It is also provided with a vast array of electronic warfare systems, electronic countermeasure systems, stealth features, redundancy, fail-safe capabilities, battle damage repair, and internal diagonistics, in addition to its heavy armor and its multitude of defensive firepower emplacements. It has a large number of chaff/decoy/flare launcher systems, of the Model 85x100x2 type. These are designed to launch carefully coordinated bursts of electronic warfare decoys, to effectively hide the ship's profile, distract enemy missiles and smart munitions, and to generate false signals for enemy targeting. There are some 2,000 such launchers onboard, and they are equipped with scores upon scores of thousands of decoys. Furthermore, each vessel has electronic warfare drones of the Model 91 EW class, some 288 total, that are capable of serving as decoys for the ship, mimicking its signature to confuse enemy fire control and guided munitions. It fits on a very good electronic warfare system, including jammers, signal interceptors, scramblers, signal broadcasters, and all of the rest of the array of electronic warfare as it can be used in the modern era of space warfare. The internal systems all have at least quadruple redundancy, in a bid to ensure that it can sustain massive amounts of damage and remain intact and functional. Furthermore, some of the most vulnerable parts of the ship, such as the reactors, are carefully armored and protected. The reactors themselves are a case in point, being behind massive armor cases almost as thick as the main belt armor, while also being designed to be shut off almost instantly in the case of any sustained damage, and can be ejected from the ship with planted charges and massive catapult systems. Excellent onboard battle damage repair and diagnostic facilities are fitted as well, with centralized damage control and auxilary damage control stations spread around the entire ship, with plenty of robotic systems onboard to assist the manual repair of any damage. And despite its massive bulk, it is also stealthy, as it was designed with special sensor absorbing coatings around the edge, a low thermal emissions scheme that can also eject all thermal emissions in one direction away from the ship, specialized materials in the hull to prevent electronic emissions, electromagnets to cancel out the magnetic signatures, and an external coating of smart paint that can turn black to blend in with space.
Shields form a final form of its defensive arrays. It has a massive network of onboard distributed shield generators, fueled by the huge amounts of power generated by the ship. These shield generators are utilized to project a fully encircling defensive ring for the ship, intended to make it as invulnerable to enemy assault as possible. They are especially concentrated forward, where the greatest threat from enemy frontal firing railguns might be expected. Given the range at which the ship operates, this might be one of the few major enemy weapons capable of causing significant harm to the vessel, and thus shielding must compensate.
Sensors are another area where the Franz von Munich-Class reigns supreme. It is equipped with a wide variety of capable and advanced sensors designed to aid in its capability to engage enemy ships at long range, by detecting them and providing adequate fire control solutions. In one way, the ship is actually more of a gigantic sensor array than a warship, as the entire outer hull of the vessel is run through with complicated passive sensors, while it has massive AESA and gravitac arrays. These passive sensors are mostly of the passive radar type that lock onto enemy radar to detect the enemy, and ironically mean that the ship performs best at engaging fully operational enemy battleships. It does however, have its very large AESA arrays, which each side has, with at least 4 per side to provide good detection in all direction. This AESA arrays are also useful as they provide long range fire control if necessary as well. Onboard gravitac arrays, designed to detect the tightly twisted gravity of some ships and many missile types, are also utilized as well, with similar density standards as the AESAs, and thus provide extremely long range and sensitive detection. Various other sensors, such as thermal sensors, and electro-optical detection systems are used as well. This is in addition to the superb long range fire control systems, as each ships has very advanced LIDAR systems, missile fire control channels, and huge numbers of auxilary fire control mounts (With each broadside laser having its own LIDAR system). This means that the ship can very easily engage any ship it detects, and detect those ships very easily. An onboard neutrino sensor has been utilized as well, which helps to provide good passive detection.
While it is a battleship, there were design features intended to reduce the overall size of the crew. The goal of this was that by reducing the crew size, it could fit in more systems of other types, as less space had to be devoted to crew quarters and life support. As the ship wasn't intended to take quite the amount of sustained punishment that a close range battleship would be expected to take, having less crew and more of other systems would be a logical development for the vessel. Still, it didn't cut the crew levels nearly as much as could be done; it still had to have at least some capability to stand in the wall of battle. As a result of all of this, the crew size would be a "mere" 90,000. This was judged as enough to be a compromise between the two sides, while not sacrificing any of the major strengths of either.
As part of such a decrease in crew size, the Ship must incorporate very advanced computer and robotic systems, even more so than normal ships, so as to enable its efficient functioning. Luckily, this is another where the ship does not fall short of standards. Each internal sub-section of the ship is equipped with its own main computer system that is entirely capable of functioning in an independent fashion, while all of them can work together if necessary. Not only does this decrease the threat of any individual hit destroying the entire computer system, it also decreases the threat from cyber warfare, as if somebody succeeds in taking the weapons offline through computer viruses and the like, then only one section will be crippled. Of course, beyond this there are also superb defenses against such attacks. The computers are designed to be very good concerning electronic and cyber warfare, and are able to launch effective attacks upon the enemy, utilizing their superb communications suites, excellent computational facilities, and wonderful onboard software for dealing with such eventualities. This makes them almost impossible to manage to disable through such attacks, as only dedicated cyber warfare vessels pack as much computer capabilities as these ships. It is actually possible to run the entire ship with the onboard computer and robotic control systems and neglect the crew, but efficiency would go down if this happened. They are also profoundly resistant to hacking, so if for example the ship was boarded by the enemy and they attempted to find onboard star maps and navigiation information, this would be an almost impossible affair. That is, if the computers didn't wipe themselves before hand, which they are programmed to do even if the naval officer doesn't issue the order for such.
Power is provided through onboard gravity enhanced fusion generators. As indicated earlier, they are a marvel of defensive planning, being hidden behind massive armor escarpments and with excellent safety features. They are also very good at generating power, all 24 of them (6 per section). Without refueling, the ship can sustain active operations with them for the period of up to a year, as huge amounts of fuel are carried onboard. A network of capacitators and secondary reactors throughout the ship further increase overall power redundancy.
In addition to the onboard crew of 90,000, a powerful presence of soldiers is fitted. This is composed of no fewer than 2entire divisions of troops, nearly 40,000 troops. This is in of itself almost half of the number of sailors onboard, and brings the total complement of the ship up to 150,000. Such a massive number of onboard soldiers makes it almost invulnerable to boarding, while it also makes the vessel effective in planetary assault supports, as it can deliver a large number of well equipped troops to the planet's surface quite quickly. These troops are, as indicated, fully equipped with battle armor, heavy weapons, and other weapons, for both planetary and atmospheric action. During times when their services aren't required in boarding operations, they typically operate in auxilary combat roles such as medical evacuation, damage control parties, and if necessary replacements for sailors in less vital roles. If so needed, the ship carries onboard facilities to carry an entire extra two division of troops for short periods, which can also be utilized for evacuations.
While obviously designed for the direct combat role, there are some carrier provisions for the vessel. It is equipped with no fewer than 4 carrier areas available, on the top and bottom 2 edges of the hexagon sides. These make good mounting zones for the long catapult and landing streches that are used for the hangar facilities, and enable the ship to carry a large number of fighters, fighter-bombers, bombers, specialized small craft, and landing craft. These are capable of providing self defense, offensive capabilities, and invasion capabilities. Some 4,000 onboard fighter craft are carried, of the R46 Drone type. Meanwhile, a smaller but still respectable pool of 900 fighter bombers, capable of fighting their way through to the enemy and dealing heavy amounts of damage to ships and vessels up to the size of light cruisers are utilized. The largest small craft utilized, bombers, are found with some 240 units available for action, and they are capable of dealing harm to even smaller enemy capital ships, as well as ground and planetary installations (Much like the fighter bombers do as well). It also has an impressive amount of planetary assault units, with Temaire-Class Dropcraft which can carry large amounts of troops or large numbers of troops being carried in numbers of around 600 per each ship. Up to 200 other craft can be carried
Being a heavy battleship designed to be the centerpiece of fleets, the Franz von Munich-Class must naturally incorporate excellent command capabilities. They have no fewer than 13 command bridges onboard, with 2 per each sub-section, 2 visual obervation ones on the top superstructures, and an internal main command bridge that is up to standards to be used by even fleet admirals. Furthermore, the ship obviously has all of the needed space for any support staff, while all of the bridges are first rate with holographic displays of the outside world. Or in the case of the four top and bottom bridges, several meter thick super reinforced synthetic materials stronger than even the materials used to make the hull itself,
Engines were an area that saw an immense amount of attention layered on them. Being fast is one of the ship's key advantages, and as a result the huge engines are utilized to give it immense speed. There are no fewer than 7 such engines, with 6 arranged in a ring around a larger central engine, all of them capable of generating immense amounts of thrust. It also has many hundreds of secondary manuvering thrusters around the ship, which give very good mobility for its size. The massive onboard hyper generators also give it first rate strategic manuverbility, rivalling that of the Empire's courier vessels.
Length: 12,000 meters
Width: 2,000 meters
Height: 1,500 meters
Power Generation:
8 fusion reactors
Armor:
3,600cm armored broadside belt
1,200cm armor plating external
4,000cm turret armor
4,000cm armor over magazines and fusion reactors
1,500cm internal bulkheads
1,200cm internal command bridges
6,00cm frontal iris (Normal irises are designed to roughly match that of the area where they are positioned, 3,600 or 1,200cm)
Command Facilities:
13 internal command bridges
Shields:
Heavy shielding, distributed shield generation
Sensors:
MK70U-H/AESA
V67/N/BC-S
Passive thermal sensors
FTL sensors
D-35/CS Passive Radar System
Mk65/BNC Fire Control
Electronic Warfare:
200x85x100x2 D-400/2/EW
288xV48/CSH/EW-D
Electronic countermeasures
Armament:
Missiles:
x 96,000 Mk 56 VLS Cells
x 600 75LRCm Counter-Missile Tubes
Torpedoes:
x500 Sword Mk54 Torpedo Tubes
Lasers:
x 560 Model 95x2000cm anti-ship lasers
x 1,200 Mark 18 40x12 Point Defense Laser Clusters
Guns
x 32 18,000/200 mm Gravity Assisted Mass Drivers
x 8,000 100mm point defense guns
x 1,500 300mm point defense guns
x 24,000/465mm hull running railgun
Complement:
90,000 personal
2-4 Marine Divisions
Acceleration:
High for its size
Endurance:
8 months
Complement of Space Vehicles:
x 4,000 R46 Space Fighters
x 900 Fighter-Bombers
x 240 Bombers
x 600 Dropships
x 200 other craft
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