Warhawk Class Frigate

The Warhawk class of Nepleslian warships was designed and fielded in YE 42, near the end of the Kuvexian War. Developed by NAM's lead experimental shipwright, Adept, as a high-mobility, torpedo-based frigate designed primarily for the 3rd Assault Fleet and NSN 4th Fleet.

In its role as a QRF¹⁾, the ship is meant to work with other small and fast pack-hunters such as the Na-S3-1a Jackdaw-Class Heavy Corvette. The Warhawk sees service in many other SMDIoN fleets, but is favored most in the 4th Fleet.

It primarily serves a role as both a harasser and a hunter of stealth-based ships.

The Warhawk was designed to fill a gap in the NSN's fleet roster around its low capabilities with the detection and persecution of stealth-oriented vessels and hidden entities. It was especially needed by the 4th Fleet, a hard-charging quick reaction force, and its desire for smaller and faster ships.

The ship was tailor-made to this role as a QRF ship and protection escort for fleets, but also fills an important role as a hunter-killer; allowing it to not only detect ships and craft in hiding but also run them down and eliminate them.

The Warhawk is a fast attack ship and competent escort for larger ships, intended to fill the role of close-in defense escort and providing limited anti-starship capabilities by itself. It excels in pack hunting due to its powerful anti-ship torpedoes and search and destroy missions for elusive stealth-oriented craft.

• Hunter-killer
• Pack hunting
• Interdiction

The Warhawk has a simple, brutalist design of bulky armor, large engines, and noticeable weaponry such as exposed and armored torpedo and missile bays. The weapons are plain and apparent without sleek coils or covers and without the possibility of failure possible from obscuring the ship's weapons in bays with the exception of two forward laser batteries that tuck into the flanks of the ship. An external bridge with a tall sensor array tops the ship ahead of a wide rear-thruster bank makes up the noticeable silhouette of the ship.

The Warhawk requires a minimalist crew compliment for its size. As such, it can be crewed by a minimum of a single officer and one man in each of the vital roles (pilot, gunner, engineer, etc.), but is recommended to be fully crewed when available. As a hunter-killer and interdiction ship, it boasts an above-average marine compliment usually twice the size of the naval crew size for anti-ship boarding purposes.

See Damage Rating (Version 3) for an explanation of the damage system.

The ship contains a small, externally located bridge on the top of the ship. Its walls are lined with vidscreens and monitors, which the AI is capable of dividing into an almost infinite number of smaller screens upon request. As such, the crew stations are usually simply a desk with a semi chair set up against the station, with workspace being set aside on demand by whoever happens to be working. The floors are carpeted in the standard green of the Star Military of the Democratic Imperium of Nepleslia, with the DIoN emblem stamped in the middle of the lower section of the room.

The higher section contains the captain's seat overlooking all stations, with a posh green seat with a neural interface link similar to those found in many NAM power armors that the captain may use to more directly interface with the ship. The AI will only allow the registered captain or executive of the vessel to access this function.

The warhawk features a centralized Nepleslian Starship Brig near the armory for convenience and features a half dozen cells.

Behind the bridge are two rooms dedicated to the captain and his/her XO. The captains suite is the premium room on any ship. It is akin to a small suite-style apartment with two to three rooms depending on the size of the ship. These rooms come stocked with many amenities

Upon entering, one comes into the captain's private office. This is where the captain meets with crew members privately and does office work. It comes with an ornate wooden desk with several drawers, a desk lamp, a luxurious rolling chair, and two regular chairs. Simple wall hangings and decorations are provided since not every captain in Nepleslia can readily provide furniture and decorations. These can all be replaced if the officer has sufficient personal funds.

Behind this office is a door that leads to the captain's bedchamber. It is a grand room, usually lined with gaudy decorations and cheap purchased imitations of famous artwork. All bedrooms come with wooden flooring as well as a few simple rugs and carpets. The main highlight of the bedchamber is the large, four-poster bed that could easily accommodate two or more occupants.

These decorations can all be replaced at the captain's personal expense.

A small weapons locker is provided for the often expensive personal weapons and armor of a high ranking captain.

Off to one side of the bedroom, usually, the far right corner is a small private bathroom. A shower, sink, mirror, and toilet are all that is provided.

There are two cargo holds at the bottom of the ship, each one can hold a huge standard container's worth of cargo. This space is usually given over to food and other perishable supplies. To keep food fresh, all of these cargo holds are refrigerated and kept in vacuum until they are needed. Replacement parts and mechanical components are also stored in airtight containers.

The ship has enough crew cabins for its crew of fifty-plus an additional fifty additional souls through the use of hot bunking. Crew berths are separated between the crew and marines for discipline reasons and two officers quarters off the bridge for the CO/XO.

A crew lounge is located between the marine and naval crew's cabin berths containing a large Wardroom to act as meeting halls and recreation in the form of large attendance movie viewings and as an emergency triage.

A single mess hall borders a small and spartan galley on this ship. The mess hall contains several screens showing relevant data and information transmitted by the ACE AI as well as holographic projectors to manifest the ACE in holographic form when the need arises.

A sizable and impressive kitchen is present in this ship for its size and is able to house individuals trained in the culinary field at numbers no more than five. Large island tables for work surfaces, Entire walls of ovens, steamers, kettles, tilt skillets, fryers, stoves, and other such culinary devices are present with dishwashing and sanitary spaces enough for a number of washers to keep up with the pace of a half hundred hungry souls daily. As well as the utensils required to cook and prepare them.

In addition, several freezers and coolers are present and labeled for their purposes from deep freezing perishable rations to coolers and produce chillers to even a wine cooler for officers and enlisted alcohols.

Finally, a deep berthing space is allotted under the kitchen for emergency rations and storage and is temperature-controlled. In case of disaster or emergency, this space and those of the other temperature-controlled spaces in the galley can be used to store the dead until they can be cloned in the medical bay.

The Warhawk features a large engineering section located in the rear of the ship behind the bridge but with quick and easy access to all parts of the ship's main corridors and thoroughfares through passageways and elevators. The ship's engineers are responsible for the maintenance of the ship's mechanical and electrical systems as well as the AI. Damage control teams also congregate here for assignments during battle.

Maintenance conduits run through the ship and are only accessible through sealable bulkheads. These conduits can either be really hot and stuffy or extremely cold and possibly airless. As a result, most crewmen wear EVA suits where possible into the cold areas. However, for access to the hot and humid areas, most crewmen choose to strip down.

The ships medbay is located in the center of the ship for the convenience of the crew. It borders on the main mess-hall in case of emergencies to hold and triage wounded and use the tables for operating theaters.

Two Twinmaker cloning vats are adjacent on either side of the medical bay to allow dedicated cloning of deceased marines or personnel.

The ship features standard hallways. These can be sealed off in sections with airtight doors.

On the lowest levels of the ship, positioned alongside the Power Armor bays in the lower decks on the ship. It contains enough firepower to arm a significant force for several engagements and scenarios. Here is where Marines gather to maintain, service and store their weapons assisted by junker drones.

The Armory would contain the following:

The armory also contains multiple utility weapons such as grenades, knives, and axes as well as armor enough for every marine onboard and suits for the tank crew and corona crew.

See Nepleslian Charge Lance On the top spine of the ship, the ship carries three Charge Lance turrets for anti-ship weapons. They are the only weapons on the ship that can fire in a 250-degree arc in front of and to the side of the ship.

• Amount: Three
• Primary Purpose: Anti-Ship, anti armor
• Damage: T-10 light Anti-starship
• Range: 300,000 +/- kilometers
• Rate of Fire: ~60 RPM

The ship contains two Curbstomper bays with one on each upper flank of the ship with five torpedo tubes each allowing for ten consecutive torpedoes before requiring a reload.

see NAM Na-LRMS-XX "Curbstomper" Long-Ranged Missile System

• Amount: Two (2×5 torpedo tubes)
• Primary Purpose: Anti-ship
• Damage: T-8/T-9
• Range: limited only by speed (18,000c)

The ship contains two tubes for the harder hitting Suplex cruise missiles under the ship for when the Curbstompers simply aren't enough to cripple or kill its target. The range and damage increase over the Curbstompers is, however, countered by the ship's ability to only fire two at a time.

See NAM 'Suplex' Joint Strike Cruise Missile JScM-01a

• Amount: One (1×2 torpedo tubes)
• Primary Purpose: Anti-ship
• Damage: T-11
• Range: 23,383,811 kilometers.

The ship contains numerous multi-launch bays on the sides of the ship not unlike the NAM Extended Rack Missile System that house guided Origin-made baby torpedoes. The torpedoes, while excellent for anti-starfighter work, also work enmasse to overwhelm point defense and cripple lighter starships when used effectively.

See Baby Torpedoes

• Amount: Six (6×14 Bays)
• Primary Purpose: Anti-fighter, Anti-starship
• Damage: T-8
• Range: 100,000km

More of a piloted vehicle and less of a traditional torpedo the ship contains eight large torpedo tubes that extend from two covered bays on either flank of the ship. Each one can launch a single boarding torpedo before needing to be reloaded. Boarding torpedoes are larger and faster than normal torpedoes due to needing to be lighter despite their size and have been gutted to accept a prone powered armored pilot that flies it from inside to quickly close the distance to targetted enemy ships. Each torpedo contains a powerful EMP charge to create a breach in a ship's shield and an equally powerful breaching laser often powerful enough to breach the outer layer of a ship's hull and insert the pilot into the vulnerable insides.

Each torpedo contains active flare and chaff countermeasures to protect it from point defense as well as a weak shield but relies mostly on low signature radius compared to other torpedoes to go undetected until it's too late to effectively counter them.

The ship contains a powerful tractor-beam style weapon that can snare ships and craft smaller than the warhawk into losing all momentum and reeling them towards the ship. For larger ships, it can drastically slow them down enough to effectively gut any chance of escape and when used with other warhawks can completely ensnare even some of the largest sub-capital ships to a near crawl.

see NAM Na-DSA-XX Directed Scalar Array Mounted at the font of the ship, A directed scalar array helps protect the ship from incoming threats like approaching fighters. The scalar array targets detected craft or munitions en-route to the ship and can be used to fry unprotected technology like targeting sensors on munitions on or fired by a fighter or enemy craft that may otherwise be unprotected by any protective sensors on the craft.

The scalar array is a directed weapon and can not target more than one craft at a time.

• Amount: One
• Primary Purpose: Anti-fighter
• Secondary Purpose: Sensor disruption
• Damage: Destroys electronics, kills animals, and detonates ordinance.
• Range: 1 AU

see OI-V9-W3600 Heavy Pulse Laser Vulcan

On the sides of the ship are four turrets containing Vulcan heavy pulse laser weapons for point defense use against munitions and fighters.

• Amount: Four
• Primary Purpose: Anti-fighter, point defense
• Damage: T-9
• Range: 140,000km =/-

On the back and spine of the ship, several countermeasure dispensers are present in the case of missile or guidance based attacks threaten the ship. Each belonging to the Na-V6-M3700 "AEGIS" Active Missile Guardian/Interception Suite. The ship uses the Hyperspace fuel tap flare and Anti-radar chaff systems from the Aegis countermeasure suite.

• Range: 325 meters (~0.202 miles)
• Rate of Fire: 2 charges/second
• Payload 12 charges/launcher

• Range: 325 meters (~0.202 miles)
• Rate of Fire: 2 charges/second
• Payload 12 charges/launcher

The ship contains very easy to produce communications systems on the front hull that cover the basics (subspace and radio) and provide an acceptable amount of security. In an emergency, the communications system can act as a low-resolution sensor system by using the receiver to pinpoint radio or subspace transmitters much in the same way that human ears pinpoint sounds.

The ship has an efficient shielding system, relying on a teardrop-shaped spatial distortion to warp space around it and alter the course of laser, missiles, etc. that are headed for the ship. A second system, called “the spike” only protects the front of the ship, acting as a giant cone. It protects the ship from collisions during high-speed flight. Both of the shields can take a lot of damage but are not infallible, and fail after a few good hits.

The gunship is equipped with a mercurite shielding system, which is capable of blocking most forms of electromagnetic radiation. This is useful for blocking electromagnetic pulse-type weapons.

A by-product of antigravity (repulsion) technology, the damper shield has been heralded as the best defense against scalar electro-gravitational pulse weaponry, which are notorious for their ability to destroy ammunition, electronics, and organic life forms. While scalar EM waves penetrate conventional shielding because they can travel wherever gravity can go, the damper field uses a low-power antigravity field that negates the force of gravity and consequently provides an effective shielding system against scalar EM weapons systems.

A Black Veil is installed on the Warhawk to help with its electronic protection and detection from hostile ships and forces.

see Na-M/V-E4100 Black Veil Electronic Warfare Suite

The underside of the ship contains a loud sound system with three speakers hooked directly into the cockpit’s communication system and radio. The speakers are operated by a dial in the cockpit that allows the pilot to change the input settings.

Designed for a quick inspection of ships the multi-dimensional density scanner takes precise gravitational readings at various points in space using a combination of a gravity sensor and the ship’s own hyper pulse drive. The result is a quick 3d mapping of an object or planet surface with density measurements displayed.

Subspace mass sensors instantly detect mass readings and movement of objects up to 1 AU (93 million miles) distant from the ship. The readings are used both for early warning and navigation when traveling at sublight speeds. The readings are not very detailed and cannot detect objects of less than 60,000 kg.

Tachyon scanners detect the disturbances in the gravitic characteristics of normal space caused by the passage of ships traveling through hyperspace. Tachyon scanners also reduce the effectiveness of enemy missile jamming systems.

The Warhawk contains a massive collection of different types of massed sensors that when combined help it detect seemingly hidden vessels and craft in the ship's proximity for up to 150,000km with more accuracy and detection capability the closer the ship is to a hidden target. The system works much in the same purpose as ancient sonar and is directed around the ship in all directions and resounds back results to the ship in an active or passive sensor mode with the former being considerably more effective, but disrupting other nearby ships sensors while the passive is simply always scanning but at the reduced range and effect.

The sensors are tuned to include such things as extremely specific vibrations from most types of known stealth materials as well as pockets of no resistance where smart materials allow sensors to effortlessly glide over them, low aetheric signatures, low-frequency band communications, areas of high-processing and low yield like that of a passive or active AI, engine or power source vibration, thermal and weapon signatures from powered weapons and shields, electrostatic fields, InterNep and Megami links, groups of telepathic-electric signals, etc.²⁾

Unidirectional Gravity Plating plating on the roof emits a pseudo-gravitational field that is attracted to the plates on the floor pushing everything on the ship 'down'. This creates a false sense of gravity that permeates the ship.

The ship's exterior is equipped with two large rapid-launch bays, which are forcefield-contained openings in the hull. The bays make it possible for powered armor to fly out into space at their convenience. The bays also open out which slope down and touch the ground when the ship is landed, allowing troops to disembark.

The Warhawk features a small array of NSMC use power armors for marine use, Attached to the shuttle bay and elevator bay. It is easily accessible by any marine as the frames are each locked in a small bay locked to the bulkhead of the ship and doesn't hinder the marines in any way such as being bottlenecked to enter a dedicated armory.

The power armor bay contains the following to outfit its marine detail:

The Warhawk contains a sheltered shuttle bay on the front of the ship that is protected by armored doors and shields. The shuttle contains up to two shuttles the size of a Na-S/Sh-01 Zachitnik-class Shuttle and comes with two per ship unless alternatives are desired.

Charmaylarg created this article on 2020/09/13 11:00.

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