Paladin Battleship
The Paladin is the greatest and most powerful vessel which graces the fleet of the The Order of Talon. Massive, bristling with weapons, with incredibly thick and strong armour, almost unbreakable void shields and impressive speed for its size, it is the representation of Divine Will of the God Emperor, to bring enemies of His message trembling to their knees. What is truly unique about it is that the Talons employ it not as cowardly vessels to stand off at range and attack enemy ships from afar, but rather for the only courageous, honourable, and holy mission that a warrior can have: to attack, to get into grips with the enemy, to crush them and exert his will - and the Emperor's will - at a range where one can see the white eyes of the unholy. Paladin is designed in this philosophy, for its weapons, armour, shields, speed, are all based around the fundamental question: getting space marines across the void of space, to crush the enemy with sheer brute force in boarding actions. In this, it is terrifyingly effective.
Description:
Paladin looks like a massive floating space cathedral. It has a huge armoured ram bow, a long dorsal deck with pedestals that gradually go upwards, and then a rear cathedral like superstructure, with bridges, communication, living quarters for the crew (much of this is effectively unarmoured to save on mass and be able to devote the armour to other parts of the ship). Massive tubes for torpedoes festoon the sides, and on the bottom there is a bottom superstructure as well, much like the top with spires and communication and sensory equipment peaking out into the darkness of space. A huge Imperial Eagle is on top of the vessel, while a golden statue of the Emperor is on the bow, adding His power to the protection of the vessel. Huge engines are in the rear, while maneuvering thrusters are positioned along the rest of the ship to provide for movement to the sides and upwards, or for braking the ship. Total length reaches 8,200 meters, with a width of 1,200 meters and a height of 2,400. It is built from ultra-dense alloy, hardened, and then buttressed with vast quantities of hardened plasteel and adamantium, and then with ferrocrete buttresses that brace the main hull.
Armament:
The main armament - as far as ship mounted weapon systems go - are the power lances, i.e. lasers of the vessel. These are mounted in powerful batteries along the dorsal spine and ventral path of the ship, firing forwards and to the side. Huge weapons with massive power drain, they are capable of overwhelming the shields on enemy ships and blasting through them, to wreak tremendous damage on the other side. These lances are optimised for short range, being delivered in devastating salvos to bring down enemy ships, particularly their shields.
The Paladin also carries smaller weapons, designed for defensive purposes or for destroying smaller enemy ships, with large point defence turrets which hurl at ultra high velocity rounds, often with nuclear warheads themselves, to destroy incoming missiles, torpedoes, fighters, and destroy smaller ships. These are also backed up by laser defence turrets, which essentially achieve the same thing, with greater precision and range, but less devastating effects. These are mounted all over the ship, providing defence against essentially all angles. There are a massive quantity of these weapons, since the ship is designed to weather huge amounts of enemy fire.
Of course, all of this armament carries an overriding objective: making it possible for the Astartes to board an enemy ship. This is no easy feat. The presence of enemy point defence, fighters, explosive weapons, main battery armaments, the sheer distance of space, speed of combatants, and enemy shields and armour makes for boarding enemy ships extremely difficult. Even if it were to be accomplished, casualties would be exceptionally high, so as to render it prohibitively expensive.
But not all is lost. For one, the Astartes have mastered the art of gravity manipulation, and the result is that they are able to have extremely high velocity impacts controlled to some extent. Thus a boarding craft slamming onto an enemy vessel is not instant death for the passengers on the boarding craft. Still, the problem is getting them to the enemy ship past point defences.
This is accomplished through the broadside of the ships, which are equipped with torpedo launchers. A very wide number of different torpedoes can be carried, including long-ranged missile torpedoes, unitary nuclear shells, and planetary bombardment torpedoes, but the two main torpedoes used are cargo torpedoes and boarding torpedoes. Cargo torpedoes do not sound like they would be a weapon of war, but they are actually huge sub-munition carriers, shot out like shotgun shells from the ship's torpedo launchers. Each cargo torpedo is filled with a vast number of nuclear bombs, which are thrown out from the torpedo at great velocity in a dispersion pattern around it, exploding in the vacuum of space. The result of this is a vast cloud of light, fire, flame, and absolute blinding for enemy sensors. These are programmable shotgun shells in effect, and could be fired in a huge swarm of nuclear rounds in space at enemy ships if desired, not exploding in the vacuum but rather detonating against enemy shields and destroying ships, and they can be used for point defence - laying down a massive field of fire against incoming missiles or fighters. But the former is best accomplished through the missiles or unified shells with a single, far more powerful, warhead.
What this provides cover-for is the boarding torpedoes. These are launched from the same tubes immediately after the cargo torpedoes, and each contains a complement of space marines, with heavy frontal armour and shielding on the torpedoes, and are equipped with their own propulsion and manuevering. Following in the footsteps of the rain of nuclear fire provided by the huge nuclear shotgun blasts, they are very difficult to see and target by enemy defences. Each one carries armour tunnelling lasers which slash through whatever is left of enemy shields after the main lances of Paladin are done with them, burrowing deep into the enemy ship, and then releasing their deadly cargo of space marines to take over the enemy ship from within.
Although not intended to be used in regular operations, the bow of the ship, which is described in greater detail in protection, is a massive ram, hugely armoured, which can be used to ram and destroy enemy vessels, smashing through them, with the potential to quite literally cut enemy ships in half - if the speed is appropriate. This is not to mean if the speed is fast enough - it is rather if the speed is slow enough. In space, the speed at which vessels can travel is so incredibly fast that if two vessels were to collide, the result would be mutual destruction. Thus ramming attacks are only possible at a speed which is fast enough to catch an enemy ship, but not so fast as to mean that everything is destroyed.
Protection
There are formidable active and passive protection systems for the Paladin, which are designed to make it all but impossible for enemy ships and forces to be able to destroy it. Active measures have been discussed onboard, with the extensive network of point defence guns, which stop enemy missiles, torpedoes, and fighters with an overwhelming hail of lasers and projectile firing. The passive protection relies upon armour and shields.
The armour scheme on Paladin is based upon the idea of it being a highly aggressive and offensive ship, which is supposed to attack at full speed to break into enemy fleets and to unleash its deadly complement of Astartes to board enemy vessels. This puts a priority upon this aggressive mode of assault, and thus the front of the ship on its bow is extremely well armoured, with a singularly massive hunk of solid armour prayed and incanted over by techpriests, forged in the most powerful and advanced armouries and foundries known to the Astartes. Blows that would annihilate entire cities, which would crack apart small planets, which would utterly destroy a smaller ship, seem to glance off this massive forward ram with barely a dent, meaning Paladin can close the range in relative safety to the enemy. By the nature of most of its weapons being on the broadside, this cannot be quite as well armoured, but even this, as well as the dorsal and ventral spaces on the ship, are still very well protected indeed, capable of shrugging off the firepower of almost any enemy warship, withstanding tremendous punishment. Furthermore the interior of the ship is heavily built, with thick internal bulkheads, especially over magazines and reactors, and almost all systems have redundancy so far as possible - multiple command bridges, multiple engine rooms, multiple computer systems, multiple reactors, multiple fire control centres, all serve to make the ship extremely difficult to disable.
The one significant weakness in the ship's armour scheme is the engines, as the back of the ship cannot be very well protected. Thus it requires escorts to be able to cover the rear from enemy attacks.
Massive shields also serve to make the ship extremely resistant to enemy attacks, with no fewer than 4 massive shield generators providing for protection for the vessel, with when each one falls, the three remaining ones exist to absorb enemy energy weapon attacks. The result of this is that the sheer amount of firepower which must be directed against Paladin to simply take down the shields - for void shields can only absorb so much damage before they collapse - is mind-boggling, and incomprehensible. If the shields are taken down, then presuming the generators are not damaged too much, in several minutes they will be brought back up again.
This provides for a great degree of protection against enemy warships, but what if the enemy, much like ourselves, tries to board? Such a course of action would be the height of foolishness, as it would result in the enemy sustaining massive losses even before they came onboard, due to the extraordinary concentrations of defencive firepower provided on the vessel. But if they do manage to achieve this, or if like us they possess access to teleporters and are willing to take the casualties that this mode of transport entails, then Paladin's essential command spaces and marine quarters are fortress-like, and during battle are garrisoned by Astartes and Order Armsmen. If the enemy comes onboard, they provide for points of resistance where counter-attacks can be coordinated, and mean that an enemy fighting through the ship will either have to devote out-sized resources to screening them, or take extremely heavy casualties attempting to capture them.
Damage control on the vessel is designed to be as effective as possible, with the crew being universally trained in damage control, distributed damage control stations, universal authority given to damage control command, and the onboard systems supposed to be simple and repairable. During battle most of the ship is designed to be depressurised, to limit the risk of fire spreading in the atmosphere.
Boarding and Complement
As mentioned, the principal objective of the vessel is to board the enemy. This is achieved with its hefty complement of Astartes, of which there are no fewer than 12,000 onboard. During battle they are both used to attack the enemy and man the weapons and defensive stations onboard, as well as providing security against enemy attacks. The complement of regular crew reaches some 300,000. Both of these figures are the numbers for standard operations, and can be increased in necessity if need be, far more in the way of Astartes who can be carried onboard and crew numbers much increased.
In addition to its huge weapons suite, there is also a very extensive complement of fighters and bombers which can be carried onboard, with the ability to launch 12 squadrons of bombers or fighters, for defence or offensive purposes. Typically these are fighters as more fighters can be carried and these fighters are more useful for defending the ship during its offensive actions, since its real means of applying offensive action to the enemy is itself, through its boarding groups and weapons, and thus the bombers are unneeded. It also has lighters, transporters, and cargo transports, suitable for carrying out invasions of planetary space or for the routine task of movement from ship to ship.
Sensors, Command and Control
The huge size of Paladin gives it the best sensor suite in the fleet, with the X-500 Ultimo Array being the pride and joy of the Navy. It has two modes of operation, with a passive or active mode, the passive mode relying upon taking in gravitational, electromagnetic, thermal, and optical emissions, enabling it to detect enemy vessels. If this is insufficient, it is capable of active emitting, emitting advanced electromagnetic signals to detect enemy vessels, but this has the tendency to light the vessel up like an enemy of the Emperor who has been torched and burning to death in a massive ball of flame, so if there is any pretension to stealthy whatsoever, this is not to be used. Furthermore, it is a lightspeed operation, so while nothing can hide from it, if it was attempting to detect something far away, then first the waves would have to radiate out to them, and only at this point would they radiate back - giving the enemy a substantial period of time to know that Paladin is there and to respond, while Paladin does not yet know of them. Of course, all of these sensors are far less important than the scriers and the readers of the warp onboard, who thanks to the blessings of the Emperor - he who lives forever, even in death! - can detect psychic energies and find enemies this way.
Command and control onboard are the most advanced of any ship in the fleet, with the space and command and control facilities for an admiral and flag officers to be able to run an entire fleet. Contact with ships in sub-light space is assured through advanced sub-light communication systems, lasers and radios, which can have very high degrees of discretion and protection - the lasers are whisker-thin, and are almost incapable of being picked up by anybody but the intended target. In any case, all of the information is heavily encrypted. For faster than light communication, teams of Astropaths (psykers) onboard are capable of instantaneous communication all across the galaxy.
Propulsion
Propulsion on the sub-light realm is assured by the massive plasma engines, which are powered by the massive onboard fusion reactors. There are multiple fusion reactors, with sufficient fuel to keep them running for many years at a time, and are redundant and capable of operating independently, meaning that battle damage is not too severe of a threat. There are also various manuvering thrusts which provide for deceleration and, well, maneuvering. Interstellar travel is assured by the warp drive, which is always a.... risky proposition to use. Like other ships, Paladin must travel between Mandeville points, their navigators peering into the warp and guiding the ship for its longer ranged travels.
Description:
Paladin looks like a massive floating space cathedral. It has a huge armoured ram bow, a long dorsal deck with pedestals that gradually go upwards, and then a rear cathedral like superstructure, with bridges, communication, living quarters for the crew (much of this is effectively unarmoured to save on mass and be able to devote the armour to other parts of the ship). Massive tubes for torpedoes festoon the sides, and on the bottom there is a bottom superstructure as well, much like the top with spires and communication and sensory equipment peaking out into the darkness of space. A huge Imperial Eagle is on top of the vessel, while a golden statue of the Emperor is on the bow, adding His power to the protection of the vessel. Huge engines are in the rear, while maneuvering thrusters are positioned along the rest of the ship to provide for movement to the sides and upwards, or for braking the ship. Total length reaches 8,200 meters, with a width of 1,200 meters and a height of 2,400. It is built from ultra-dense alloy, hardened, and then buttressed with vast quantities of hardened plasteel and adamantium, and then with ferrocrete buttresses that brace the main hull.
Armament:
The main armament - as far as ship mounted weapon systems go - are the power lances, i.e. lasers of the vessel. These are mounted in powerful batteries along the dorsal spine and ventral path of the ship, firing forwards and to the side. Huge weapons with massive power drain, they are capable of overwhelming the shields on enemy ships and blasting through them, to wreak tremendous damage on the other side. These lances are optimised for short range, being delivered in devastating salvos to bring down enemy ships, particularly their shields.
The Paladin also carries smaller weapons, designed for defensive purposes or for destroying smaller enemy ships, with large point defence turrets which hurl at ultra high velocity rounds, often with nuclear warheads themselves, to destroy incoming missiles, torpedoes, fighters, and destroy smaller ships. These are also backed up by laser defence turrets, which essentially achieve the same thing, with greater precision and range, but less devastating effects. These are mounted all over the ship, providing defence against essentially all angles. There are a massive quantity of these weapons, since the ship is designed to weather huge amounts of enemy fire.
Of course, all of this armament carries an overriding objective: making it possible for the Astartes to board an enemy ship. This is no easy feat. The presence of enemy point defence, fighters, explosive weapons, main battery armaments, the sheer distance of space, speed of combatants, and enemy shields and armour makes for boarding enemy ships extremely difficult. Even if it were to be accomplished, casualties would be exceptionally high, so as to render it prohibitively expensive.
But not all is lost. For one, the Astartes have mastered the art of gravity manipulation, and the result is that they are able to have extremely high velocity impacts controlled to some extent. Thus a boarding craft slamming onto an enemy vessel is not instant death for the passengers on the boarding craft. Still, the problem is getting them to the enemy ship past point defences.
This is accomplished through the broadside of the ships, which are equipped with torpedo launchers. A very wide number of different torpedoes can be carried, including long-ranged missile torpedoes, unitary nuclear shells, and planetary bombardment torpedoes, but the two main torpedoes used are cargo torpedoes and boarding torpedoes. Cargo torpedoes do not sound like they would be a weapon of war, but they are actually huge sub-munition carriers, shot out like shotgun shells from the ship's torpedo launchers. Each cargo torpedo is filled with a vast number of nuclear bombs, which are thrown out from the torpedo at great velocity in a dispersion pattern around it, exploding in the vacuum of space. The result of this is a vast cloud of light, fire, flame, and absolute blinding for enemy sensors. These are programmable shotgun shells in effect, and could be fired in a huge swarm of nuclear rounds in space at enemy ships if desired, not exploding in the vacuum but rather detonating against enemy shields and destroying ships, and they can be used for point defence - laying down a massive field of fire against incoming missiles or fighters. But the former is best accomplished through the missiles or unified shells with a single, far more powerful, warhead.
What this provides cover-for is the boarding torpedoes. These are launched from the same tubes immediately after the cargo torpedoes, and each contains a complement of space marines, with heavy frontal armour and shielding on the torpedoes, and are equipped with their own propulsion and manuevering. Following in the footsteps of the rain of nuclear fire provided by the huge nuclear shotgun blasts, they are very difficult to see and target by enemy defences. Each one carries armour tunnelling lasers which slash through whatever is left of enemy shields after the main lances of Paladin are done with them, burrowing deep into the enemy ship, and then releasing their deadly cargo of space marines to take over the enemy ship from within.
Although not intended to be used in regular operations, the bow of the ship, which is described in greater detail in protection, is a massive ram, hugely armoured, which can be used to ram and destroy enemy vessels, smashing through them, with the potential to quite literally cut enemy ships in half - if the speed is appropriate. This is not to mean if the speed is fast enough - it is rather if the speed is slow enough. In space, the speed at which vessels can travel is so incredibly fast that if two vessels were to collide, the result would be mutual destruction. Thus ramming attacks are only possible at a speed which is fast enough to catch an enemy ship, but not so fast as to mean that everything is destroyed.
Protection
There are formidable active and passive protection systems for the Paladin, which are designed to make it all but impossible for enemy ships and forces to be able to destroy it. Active measures have been discussed onboard, with the extensive network of point defence guns, which stop enemy missiles, torpedoes, and fighters with an overwhelming hail of lasers and projectile firing. The passive protection relies upon armour and shields.
The armour scheme on Paladin is based upon the idea of it being a highly aggressive and offensive ship, which is supposed to attack at full speed to break into enemy fleets and to unleash its deadly complement of Astartes to board enemy vessels. This puts a priority upon this aggressive mode of assault, and thus the front of the ship on its bow is extremely well armoured, with a singularly massive hunk of solid armour prayed and incanted over by techpriests, forged in the most powerful and advanced armouries and foundries known to the Astartes. Blows that would annihilate entire cities, which would crack apart small planets, which would utterly destroy a smaller ship, seem to glance off this massive forward ram with barely a dent, meaning Paladin can close the range in relative safety to the enemy. By the nature of most of its weapons being on the broadside, this cannot be quite as well armoured, but even this, as well as the dorsal and ventral spaces on the ship, are still very well protected indeed, capable of shrugging off the firepower of almost any enemy warship, withstanding tremendous punishment. Furthermore the interior of the ship is heavily built, with thick internal bulkheads, especially over magazines and reactors, and almost all systems have redundancy so far as possible - multiple command bridges, multiple engine rooms, multiple computer systems, multiple reactors, multiple fire control centres, all serve to make the ship extremely difficult to disable.
The one significant weakness in the ship's armour scheme is the engines, as the back of the ship cannot be very well protected. Thus it requires escorts to be able to cover the rear from enemy attacks.
Massive shields also serve to make the ship extremely resistant to enemy attacks, with no fewer than 4 massive shield generators providing for protection for the vessel, with when each one falls, the three remaining ones exist to absorb enemy energy weapon attacks. The result of this is that the sheer amount of firepower which must be directed against Paladin to simply take down the shields - for void shields can only absorb so much damage before they collapse - is mind-boggling, and incomprehensible. If the shields are taken down, then presuming the generators are not damaged too much, in several minutes they will be brought back up again.
This provides for a great degree of protection against enemy warships, but what if the enemy, much like ourselves, tries to board? Such a course of action would be the height of foolishness, as it would result in the enemy sustaining massive losses even before they came onboard, due to the extraordinary concentrations of defencive firepower provided on the vessel. But if they do manage to achieve this, or if like us they possess access to teleporters and are willing to take the casualties that this mode of transport entails, then Paladin's essential command spaces and marine quarters are fortress-like, and during battle are garrisoned by Astartes and Order Armsmen. If the enemy comes onboard, they provide for points of resistance where counter-attacks can be coordinated, and mean that an enemy fighting through the ship will either have to devote out-sized resources to screening them, or take extremely heavy casualties attempting to capture them.
Damage control on the vessel is designed to be as effective as possible, with the crew being universally trained in damage control, distributed damage control stations, universal authority given to damage control command, and the onboard systems supposed to be simple and repairable. During battle most of the ship is designed to be depressurised, to limit the risk of fire spreading in the atmosphere.
Boarding and Complement
As mentioned, the principal objective of the vessel is to board the enemy. This is achieved with its hefty complement of Astartes, of which there are no fewer than 12,000 onboard. During battle they are both used to attack the enemy and man the weapons and defensive stations onboard, as well as providing security against enemy attacks. The complement of regular crew reaches some 300,000. Both of these figures are the numbers for standard operations, and can be increased in necessity if need be, far more in the way of Astartes who can be carried onboard and crew numbers much increased.
In addition to its huge weapons suite, there is also a very extensive complement of fighters and bombers which can be carried onboard, with the ability to launch 12 squadrons of bombers or fighters, for defence or offensive purposes. Typically these are fighters as more fighters can be carried and these fighters are more useful for defending the ship during its offensive actions, since its real means of applying offensive action to the enemy is itself, through its boarding groups and weapons, and thus the bombers are unneeded. It also has lighters, transporters, and cargo transports, suitable for carrying out invasions of planetary space or for the routine task of movement from ship to ship.
Sensors, Command and Control
The huge size of Paladin gives it the best sensor suite in the fleet, with the X-500 Ultimo Array being the pride and joy of the Navy. It has two modes of operation, with a passive or active mode, the passive mode relying upon taking in gravitational, electromagnetic, thermal, and optical emissions, enabling it to detect enemy vessels. If this is insufficient, it is capable of active emitting, emitting advanced electromagnetic signals to detect enemy vessels, but this has the tendency to light the vessel up like an enemy of the Emperor who has been torched and burning to death in a massive ball of flame, so if there is any pretension to stealthy whatsoever, this is not to be used. Furthermore, it is a lightspeed operation, so while nothing can hide from it, if it was attempting to detect something far away, then first the waves would have to radiate out to them, and only at this point would they radiate back - giving the enemy a substantial period of time to know that Paladin is there and to respond, while Paladin does not yet know of them. Of course, all of these sensors are far less important than the scriers and the readers of the warp onboard, who thanks to the blessings of the Emperor - he who lives forever, even in death! - can detect psychic energies and find enemies this way.
Command and control onboard are the most advanced of any ship in the fleet, with the space and command and control facilities for an admiral and flag officers to be able to run an entire fleet. Contact with ships in sub-light space is assured through advanced sub-light communication systems, lasers and radios, which can have very high degrees of discretion and protection - the lasers are whisker-thin, and are almost incapable of being picked up by anybody but the intended target. In any case, all of the information is heavily encrypted. For faster than light communication, teams of Astropaths (psykers) onboard are capable of instantaneous communication all across the galaxy.
Propulsion
Propulsion on the sub-light realm is assured by the massive plasma engines, which are powered by the massive onboard fusion reactors. There are multiple fusion reactors, with sufficient fuel to keep them running for many years at a time, and are redundant and capable of operating independently, meaning that battle damage is not too severe of a threat. There are also various manuvering thrusts which provide for deceleration and, well, maneuvering. Interstellar travel is assured by the warp drive, which is always a.... risky proposition to use. Like other ships, Paladin must travel between Mandeville points, their navigators peering into the warp and guiding the ship for its longer ranged travels.
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