Napoleon-class Battleship

Rivalled in size only by Jeanne d'Arc-Class Dreadnoughts and Glorie-Class Carriers, Napoléon-Class Battleships are the second most powerful combat units in the Marine Nationale. With an arsenal of onboard anti-ship weaponry, thick protective armor, faster speed, and greater numbers, they form a key component of the French Republic Union's military forces and its ability to project power. They are also historical symbols, being named after rulers of France. Napoléon of course, France's greatest leader, would thus become the name of the ship class.

Napoléon-Class Battleships were built in response to concerns over the gap between cruisers, and dreadnoughts. The Navy could easily build large numbers of cruisers and a modest force of dreadnoughts, but it could not build enough Dreadnoughts alone to fill the entire line of battle, while cruisers could not stand and fight in the line. As a result, a new class was required, not as large and as capable as the Dreadnought but still equipped with highly powerful anti-ship weaponry. It was also realized that fast moving fleets would require faster ships unlike the massive lumbering dreadnoughts. Thus, the concept of the Napoléon-Class was born from their traditional birthplace of the shipyards of New Marseilles.

At six kilometers long, the battleships are hulking representations of power. Like essentially all other French warships, they are built on an octagonal layout, with a gently sloping rear section that then slants down forward. They also incorporate their decks in an octagonal layout radiating out from the center, instead of latterly or horizontally. This makes the ship approximately identical in form to the Jeanne d'Arc-Class Dreadnoughts, although of course smaller and with dramatically different internal layout. They have a width of 2,000 meters and a height of 1,750 meters.

The main armament for the ship is composed of guns, missiles, lasers, and plasma cannons. As a battleship, it mostly incorporates either superdreadnought grade weaponry or lighter battlecruiser grade weapons. It also proportionally carries more missile and long ranged armament than dreadnoughts. It also has more lasers, and fewer railguns, although plasma armament is about the same. This provides for a longer ranged ship, which is sensible given the faster speed and its attachment to raiding squadrons.

Onboard missiles are of the same type as onboard the Dreadnoughts, with some 3,000 V/4/40-65 VLS. These are capable of holding a wide range of missiles, including large variants of anti-ship missiles, anti-fighter missiles, drones, deployable sensor platforms, so on and so forth. They are also heavily defended, with frontal armored irises, sealed with thick amounts of armor between them and potential enemy threats. The electromagnetic launchers on the design can propel these missiles into space at a reasonably high launch velocity, assisting in their range to targeting enemy ships.

Laser weaponry is par usual, composed of two types. The first are the anti-ship lasers, and the second are the anti-missile and fighter point defense missiles. The ship incorporates the same type as those used on Dreadnoughts, with the VH-1000-74ASLs and the V55-20-6/AFLM. The ASLs are primarily found in the broadside, while the AFLMs are scattered across it in the broadside and other areas to ensure increased defense. 192 of the VH-1000-74ASLs are located onboard, which still enables a broadside of nearly a hundred heavy lasers. These lasers generally serve to target enemy ships, although they can also defeat enemy fighters. Bombers especially are favored targets. Meanwhile, 420 V55-20-6/AFLM are used onboard. These are capable of easily intercepting enemy fighters, bombers, and serving as anti-ship weapons against lighter targets at close range (Where their high rate of fire makes them extremely useful).

Although the battleships did not focus as much on guns proportionally as the Jeanne d'Arc-Class Dreadnoughts, it still maintains a reasonably powerful system of anti-ship railguns, point defense guns, and of course the hull running high velocity railgun that is the heaviest armament of all French naval units. It uses battlecruiser grade railguns, which are 2,400mm and some 912 meters long. Thus they have a length to width ratio of 380. Such railguns are quite powerful, and are useful in long range ballistic bombardment against stationary targets like enemy fleets.

However, there are far fewer of them onboard as compared to the dreadnoughts, with only 96 viewed as an adequate armament, less than a fourth and even less once the capabilities of these railguns are factored in. Besides that, the ship mounts 648 dual 100mm/96 point defense guns, which are the staple of close in defense. The heavy long ranged railgun is a 12,000mm design, and streches for 5,712 meters into the hull, providing for a length to width ratio of 476 to one. This makes it the second most powerful railgun in the entire navy, after those mounted on the dreadnoughts.

Plasma weaponry uses the same installations as those on the larger ships. These are Type65CS/P. However, they were reduced in number. The ship mounts 120 of them, with 60 in each broadisde. Although still capable of causing a great degree of harm to enemy ships, it is not quite the amount of firepower that the largest ships could spew out. Like all other weapons they are heavily armored and defended to prevent them from being potential weak spots in the armor.

Protection for the ship comes from heavy armor, heavy shields, excellent internal damage control, high redundancy, and various electronic warfare and countermeasure capabilities. The ship has, like most other Marine Nationale warships, a heavy external armor protection, in this case some 24 meters of armor externally. It also has heavy internal bulkheads, armor over reactors magazines and command bridges as well as other important places. The broadside of the ship incorporates an armored belt that is 48 meters thick, twice the thickness around the rest of the vessel, which permits for greatly improved defensive capability in this region. Like the Jeanne d'Arc-Class the interior of the warship is heavily subdivided with each section capable of acting on its own, which provides for dramatically superior operational capability even if great damage is sustained. Damage control utilizes both the crew and highly sophisticated onboard automatic functions, so that the ship can repair almost any damage at least partially with enough time. A dispersed dedicated network of shield generators are used, which make them hard to destroy and provide for significantly increased amounts of defensive protection against all forms of protection. Electronic countermeasures include the 192 D-400/2/EW and
72 V48/CSH/EW-D(Although technically D standing for its deployment only on Dreadnought-Grade platforms, an exception was made to provide for their utilization on the smaller battleships). This is in addition to the stealthy nature of the ship's hull, and the electronic coating which can be used to change around its visual look. As low of emissions as possible were also a desirable feature and were pursued. As a result, the ship is hard to pick up, hard to hit, and even harder to damage.

Computing systems for the behemoth are very similar to those used on dreadnought grade warships. It uses a network of dispersed, highly efficient computers. These are designed to be resistant to enemy electronic warfare attacks, while still being able to function efficiently together to command the warship. The onboard AI s are both resistant to said enemy attacks and highly proficient at launching attacks on the enemy as well, useful for the ship's offensive capabilities.

Sensors incorporated to the vessel include the typical wide ranging variety found on Marine Nationale warships. The main active sensors are active scanned array radar, while there are also neutrino sensors, thermal sensors, passive radar sensors, FTL sensors, and visual detection apabilities were incorporated. The main radar sensor onboard is the MK67U-MH/AESA, which has multiple arrays positioned around the ship for long range fire control (In addition to dedicated fire control suite) and detection. The neutrino sensor is the V67/N/BC-S, which has the great advantage of being quite difficult to shield against.

Power is provided by 8 fusion reactors. These are grouped to each section, with each of the sections having at least two reactors so that they can have appropriate power generation and redundnacy. Although not quite as large as some fleet reactors these systems are highly efficient at producing all necessary power for the vessel. They also have the appropriate safety systems with ejection systems, heavy armor protection, automatic shutdown, so on and so forth that could prevent some sort of damage to the vessel if they were to sustain enemy attack.

Propulsion for the ship is achieved through conventional means with engines and manuvering thrusters. The ship is capable of achieving a higher speed than the Jeanne d'Arc-Class Dreadnoughts, however it is still somewhat slow and cumbersome compared to some lighter warships. It has a large number of rear engines, and an even larger number of manuvering thrusters across the ship. The ships top speed can approach lightspeed.

Crew and command center capabilities are also highly important and must be discussed. The warship incorporates a crew of 12,000 personal onboard, which is more proportionally than onboard the dreadnoughts, while it also has an entire marine brigade. This marine brigade supports in various auxilary roles, as well as being capable of offensive operations. There are four command decks each capable of commanding the vessel or other units around it, and with appropriate support capabilities.

The final system to be mentioned is that of the hangar and strike craft. The Battleship incorporates a fair number of strike craft onboard, principally Mirage droids for self defense. The hangar is mostly located on the bottom of the ship where the wide deck is suitable. There are some 696 Mirage drones deployed onboard, backed up by 92 Voltigeur-Class medium fighters. 48 Berthier-Class shuttles and 12 Grenadier-Class assault shuttles are also positioned onboard. These are capable of logistics support, and assaults on enemy planets.

Length: 6,000 meters

Width: 2,000 meters

Height: 1,750 meters

Power Generation:
8 fusion reactors

Armor:
4,800cm armored broadside belt
2,400cm armor plating external
3,000cm armor over magazines and fusion reactors
2,000cm internal bulkheads
1,800cm internal command bridges
3,000cm iris

Command Facilities:
4 internal command bridges

Shields:
Heavy shielding, distributed shield generation

Sensors:
MK70U-H/AESA
V67/N/BC-S
Passive thermal sensors
FTL sensors
Passive radar systems
Mk65/BNC Fire Control
Electronic Countermeasures

Electronic Warfare:
192 D-400/2/EW
72 V48/CSH/EW-D

Armament:

Missiles:
3,000 V/4/40-65 VLS canisters

Lasers:
192 VH-1000-74ASLs
420 V55-20-6/AFLM

Guns:
648 Dual 100mm/96 point defense guns
96 1,800mm/380 Railguns
1 12,000mm/476 railgun

Plasma:
120 Type65CS/P

Complement:
12,000 personal
1 Marine Brigade

Acceleration:
Many dozens of gravities

Endurance:
5 months

Complement of Space Vehicles:
92 Voltigeur-Class Fighters
696 Mirage-Class Fighters
48 Berthier-Class shuttles
12 Grenadier-Class Assault Shuttles