The seventh class of fleet destroyers with the name Cepheid, this current generation were built, starting in 2940, after the previous generation of Fleet destroyers' Matter-Antimatter reactors were found to be cracking after just 20 years of hard running. Along with the cracked reactors of the previous generation, the new generation of capital ships coming on line, including the Enterprize class fleet carriers (Eagle, Earnest, Effortless, Elegant, Enterprize, and Essexs), and the Royalty Class battleships were at supra-luminal speeds too fast for the older fleet destroyers to escort, compared to the Admiralty class battleships (Anson, Collingwood, Cunningham, Fraser, Farragut, Halsey, Lee, Nimitz, Nelson, Rodney, Spruance, and Smith), and the Battle class carriers (Cape St Vincent, λ Cephei, Denmark Straits, Europa, Lexington, Pearl Harbour, Pillars of Creation, Midway, North Cape, Sirius B, Trafalgar, and Yorktown). The decision was taken to create a new generation of fleet destroyers, cruisers and battleships, including the Cepheids, the Crown Colony class light cruisers, the Galaxy class fleet cruisers and the River class escort heavy cruisers. At the time, battleships were shelved, as the Admiralty class were relatively new, and they had held their own in the border skirmishes with other human stellar empires, however the Tarquin invasion has forced the new battleships to be created.
At 350 metres long, the ships are getting up to the length of light cruisers, giving tonnage and space for future modernisations, which has been very useful. Designed for extreme sublight speed and good cruising at superluminal speed with the MAMR and engines built for the Crown Colony class cruisers, a ship class double the gross displacement, fitted. When built they were armed with 120 0.5 gigaton MAIM torpedoes fired from 2 autoloading launchers, and 6 1.5 terawatt point lasers. However, recent modernisations has upped the torpedo yield by a gigaton and doubled the laser armament to 6 double mounts.
Named after a variable star type, as all destroyer classes are, in this case the Cepheids, there are currently 150 hulls built, plus three destroyer leaders, with an average availability of 85%.
As such, the individual ships of the class are named after specific Cepheid stars including HMS Polaris, Eta Aqulia, Zeta Gemini, X Sagittari, IX Cassiopeiae, TW Capricorni, and with the Destroyer leaders being the HMS Delta Cephei, Leavitt, and W Virginis.
As more Royalty class battleships come on line there is an option for another block of 50 hulls and a fourth destroyer leader.
Power Generation
1 BAE Systems' Mark 2, B Class Destroyer, 1 Petajoule Matter-Anti Matter Reactor;
2 Vickers-Armstrong 100 terajoules Fusion Reactors.
2 Vickers-Armstrong 100 terajoules Fusion Reactors.
Propulsion
1 BAE Systems' Mark 5 'Michael' Superluminal engine;
4 Pratt & Whitney Generation 35, 'Baby Cobra' Sublight VASIMR Engines;
12 Pratt & Whitney Halo RCS VASIMR units.
4 Pratt & Whitney Generation 35, 'Baby Cobra' Sublight VASIMR Engines;
12 Pratt & Whitney Halo RCS VASIMR units.
Weapons & Armament
2 Lockheed-Armstrong 2956 pattern torpedo tubes with 120 1.5 gigaton MAIM torpedoes;
12 paired, BAE Systems dual purpose, Mark 11, 1.5 terawatt point defence lasers.
12 paired, BAE Systems dual purpose, Mark 11, 1.5 terawatt point defence lasers.
Armor and defense
Internal Main Belt Armour: 5 metre thick Aluminium alloy; 2.5 metre ceramic ablative layer;
BAE Systems Mark 3** Active Thermal Redistribution;
4 Royal Armouries, Enfield Point Defence 200mm Railguns.
BAE Systems Mark 3** Active Thermal Redistribution;
4 Royal Armouries, Enfield Point Defence 200mm Railguns.
Communication Tools & Systems
2 BAE Systems Mark 2A4 long range subspace radio system;
2 BAE Systems Class 20 Quantum Encoders;
1 BAE Systems 'Discovery' internal radio system;
1 Phuture Fonics 'Tribal' sound powered comms system.
2 BAE Systems Class 20 Quantum Encoders;
1 BAE Systems 'Discovery' internal radio system;
1 Phuture Fonics 'Tribal' sound powered comms system.
Sensors
1 CHERUB Multispectral array;
2 APOLLO Stellar Navigational suite packages;
1 VOYAGER Planetary sensor package;
2 GUARDIAN Fire control directors, 3 TOURNEY Point defence directors.
2 APOLLO Stellar Navigational suite packages;
1 VOYAGER Planetary sensor package;
2 GUARDIAN Fire control directors, 3 TOURNEY Point defence directors.
Additional & auxiliary systems
1 Microsoft: 500 Exabyte VIRTUE Flight Computer, with 2 internal redundancies.
4 Inertial frame positional trackers.
4 Inertial frame positional trackers.
Class
Used by
Nickname
Blinkers
Designation
Her Majesty's Spacecraft
Motto
Half as Bright, Twice as Fast
Manufacturer
Creation Date
2940
Decommission Date
Still in commission.
Crew
Owning Organization
Military Formation Usage
Current location
Price
£1.5 billion per unit.
Rarity
Uncommon
Related Technologies
Width
100 metres
Length
350 metres
Height
150 metres
Weight
50 gigatons
Speed
Supra-luminal: 8 light years/hour; Sub-luminal: 75% Lightspeed
Complement / Crew
200
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