Tempest-Class

Storm Of The Sea

The Tempest-Class is a class of frigates that entered its ongoing service with the United Commonwealth Navy in 140 A.S. Highly developed surface combatants, throughout a production run going from 137 to 160 three hundred and fifty ships would be completed and enter UC service, while an additional forty five would be "gifted" to allied navies over the years. The ships would be constructed across the United Commonwealth, divided into four blocks which represented various upgrades and developments on the base design.
Introduced under the same naval reforms that would lead to the creation of the Valorous-Class Carriers and Boxer Blazer and Auxin Arrow carrier aircraft, the Tempest was designed with the same attention to modernity and technology. In line with UC Naval Doctrine of the time, the ships were multi-role platforms with a specialty in air defence, performing the twin mission sets of Carrier Task Group escort, and flagship for smaller Surface Warfare Task Groups.
The ships would see near constant active deployments in both roles, becoming the Fleet's workhorse in every sense across countless wars and conflicts. In the Post-Great War 12 Worlds, though, their increasing age is beginning to tell. With their replacements, the Charger-class, already in service alongside the Tempests, it is obvious to most observers that their retirement is not long to come. Until it does, the ships of the Tempest-class will continue their steady and dangerous work, unwavering symbols of the unyielding storm that is the UCN.

Design

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The Tempests were truly massive ships for their era, with a displacement of ten and a half thousand tons. Using this allocated tonnage, no expense was spared in including as much high end equipment as could be managed.
A powerplant of four Ferdinand Holwitz Type-3600 gas turbines linked to two screws propelled the class at speeds in excess of the thirty five knots required to keep up with the Carriers it escorted, while giving it an operational range of four thousand nautical miles without refueling at that speed.
For armament, the Tempest would lead the 12 Worlds in adopting "Missile Cell Magazines". This weapons system consisted of some amount (in the Tempest's case two sets of thirty two) of vertically oriented "Cells", each of which hold various missiles or rocket-launched torpedoes ready to be fired. This allows for a single ship to vary its loadout of weaponry to the task at hand, granting the whole fleet far greater flexibility. The Tempests also carried a pair of side-mounted URCHIN Ship's Defence Systems, which utilised six Fh-40-N thirty millimetre guns mounted on a sensor-slaved, autonomously controlled turret as a weapon of last resort against incoming missiles. Finally, a rapid-firing Fh-80-N six inch gun was mounted in a turret forwards of the foremost MCM set, capable of engaging land based or surface targets.
Where the class really showed its mettle was in its sensors and battle management systems. A pair of BLUE FOCUS electronically scanned arrays were mounted on the ship's forward supertructure, giving the class its characteristic "cheeks" as well as the best shipborne air-search sensor array not found on a capital ship anywhere. These sensors are further augmented by a number of fire control and surface search sensors, all of which feed their combined data into the Tempest's "Integrated Coordination Infrastructure". First deployed on the Valorous-class, this system allowed every sensor and weapons system on the ship to share their combined information, vastly increasing engagement speed, accuracy, and efficiency when compared to previous warships. Furthermore, the Tempest's were constructed from the start with Operational Relay Networks, a similarly revolutionary technology which did for an entire Task Group or Squadron what the IRI did for a single ship.