Viper Class Scout Sloop

Not to be confused with the Viper-Class Missile Destroyer, Viper-Class Scout Sloops are small reconnaissance and escort ships of the Imperial Navy and are among the smallest Imperial starships capable of carrying a warp drive. It is used mainly for short-term spy missions aimed at specific hostile regions, and to this end is equipped with powerful auspex and augur scanners to collate as much information as possible, and immensely powerful real space plasma engines for retreating to a safe Warp jump. However, the Viper is not heavily armed, as extensive weapon batteries would draw vital power from the sensor arrays and engines.

About

• Manufacturer: Mechanicus Forgeries
• Model: Scout Sloop
• Class: Viper
• Cost: 16,833,628,000 cR (Rounded up 17,000,000,000 cR)
• Length: 500 m (1640.4 ft)
• Wingspan/Width: 210 m (688.9 ft)
• Height/Depth: 340 m (1115.4 ft)
• Thruster Unit(s): ×2 Macro-Plasma Engines, ×3,000 Micro-Ion Thrusters, ×5 Retro-Chemical Thrusters
• Powerplant: UH-40 x.R Nuclear Fusion Reactor
• Maximum Cruising Acceleration: 180,000 m/s (111.8 miles per second)
• Range: 4 months travel before resupply
• Weight: 13 Megatonnes (28,660,094,084 lb)
• Hull layer order: 1 m Ceramite > 1 m Plasteel
• Shielding: Void Shielding (Resistant up to 2 kilotons) Gellar Fields
• Guns: ×1 Voidsunder-pattern Lance, ×20 Caestus-pattern Railguns, ×50 Mk.XV Titan-pattern Close-In Weapon Systems
• Communication Systems: Vox Communication Systems, Laser Communication Systems
• Complement: ×20 Small Craft
• Sensor Systems: SS-80 Auspex Array (20,000,000 kilometer range)
• Other Systems: Escape Pods, Fire Control Systems, Interior Bridge System
• Role Reconnaissance, Escort

History

The Viper is the smallest Warp-capable vessel used by the Battlefleet Calixis. The Viper is a fast scout ship, with immensely powerful realspace plasma engines. It is used for short-term spy missions aimed at specific hostile regions: unlike, for example, a Dauntless-class Light Cruiser, which will conduct broad patrols over a wide area, the Viper charges into hostile territory at high speed. There it uses powerful Auspex and Augur scanners to collate as much information as possible, before retreating to a safe Warp jump point while usually pursued by enemy ships. Given its specialist role, the Viper is unsurprisingly limited in many ways. It is a tiny starship, with very restricted space for additional components. Furthermore, it is not heavily armed, as extensive weapon batteries would draw vital power from the sensor arrays and engines. They are rare vessels in the Calixis Sector and are not ideal vessels for Rogue Traders, given their highly specialized nature. However, more enterprising and wealthy Rogue Trader dynasties will often employ a Viper as part of a larger fleet, leapfrogging ahead of the main force to rapidly establish the nature of each planetary system encountered.

Auspex Array

The sensor systems of the Viper-class are incredibly powerful, with an effective range of twenty million kilometers, allowing it to accurately detect capital ships within a system and analyze a planet. Similar to the Cobra-class Destroyer, the SS-80 includes the following systems:

• Hyper-spatial Sensors
• Wide Area Surveillance
• Multi-Spectral Targeting Systems
• Light Detection and Ranging
• Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar
• Synthetic Aperture Radar
• Active electronically scanned array

Bridge

A common theme among smaller imperial ships, the bridge of the Viper-class is a mock one, located deep with the center of the ship, surrounded by armor. Instead, thousands of cameras and sensors litter the ship's exterior, allowing for an unparalleled view of the battlefield.

Class

Viper Class Scout Sloop

Used by

• Viper Class Scout Sloop

Manufacturer

Adeptus Mechanicus

Owner

Bjorn Felrider