Sa'arm Ships: Difference between revisions

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=== Atmospheric Craft ===
=== Atmospheric Craft ===
'''(The below is not yet canon.&nbsp; It was pointed out in [[Ending This Mess]] but not described as clearly as here.&nbsp; If this is accepted, this should probably be its own article. -ZM)''' <br>
 
&nbsp;&nbsp; The (we need a name.  "Libertas?" They certainly do a good job of 'liberating' wherever they go for the Sa'arm. -ZM) gunboats/landing craft carried by the [[Voluptas]] Conquest Sphere have proven especially difficult for ground-based defenders to deal with.&nbsp; They are not carried ON or IN the hull, they are carried AS the outer hull on the Voluptas, which is the largest class of Sa'arm ship we have met.  Each gunboat has a Sa'arm capital ship's hull as its underside, and it has a Medium [[Particle Beam]] turret sticking through it. <br>
==== Voluptas Attached Gunboats ====
&nbsp;&nbsp; As these gunboats are released while their mother ship is still in orbit, they must be space-rated.&nbsp; However, there are no records of a gunboat going into orbit.&nbsp; Certainly, at the end of the 4th Battle of Earthat, when the surviving defending Confederacy ships gathered to eliminate the Russian Voluptas before it could land, all of the gunboats that Voluptas had released would have been helpful in protecting their mothership if they were capable.&nbsp; This did not happen.&nbsp; We conclude that these gunboats are primarily atmospheric craft with the ability to enter the atmosphere from space and survive re-entry, and may not have many support systems typical of spaceships like antigravity and atmosphere scrubbing.&nbsp; It may help that they are not at 'orbital speed'; they are released from their mothership while it is at orbital altitude but hovering over its selected landing site. <br>
&nbsp;&nbsp; The Voluptas carries many (assume 243) gunboats as the ship's outer hull.&nbsp; Each one has a heavy starship hull on the underside and a Medium [[Particle Beam]] turret sticking through it.&nbsp; See [[Voluptas_Attached_Gunboats]]. <br>
&nbsp;&nbsp; Since these gunboats use a starship's hull as their lower hull, they are effectively immune to infantry ground fire, although artillery and laser weapons will do some damage to the hull.&nbsp; Only damage from above seems to have any effect.&nbsp; Earth's combat aircraft were able to easily down these gunboats from above, but the casualties taken to get a missile or a chaingun in position to fire made these attacks very expensive. <br>
&nbsp;&nbsp; Perhaps an artillery or mortar shell with an air-burst charge and a proximity fuse would have helped, but no such shells that were smart enough to wait until they were _above_ the gunboat were available.&nbsp; Once that idea was put forward such shells were rapidly produced but by the time they made it to the front all of the gunboats had been destroyed by (starship) naval gunfire. <br>
&nbsp;&nbsp; It wasn't the orbiting Sa'arm warships or the hordes of Swarmtroopers that made [[Earth]]'s defenses fall so quickly, it was these gunboats.&nbsp; The [[Confederacy]] has not yet found anything short of a warship's combat shield which can withstand even a single shot from a Medium Particle Beam turret.&nbsp; No passive defense has been found against these things.&nbsp; Only an active defense where the defenders go out and destroy these gunboats before they can fire on their target can work. <br>
&nbsp;&nbsp; These gunboats are comparatively fragile from above, since -aside from the lower hull- they are only built strong enough to do their jobs.&nbsp; There appears to be no upper armor.&nbsp; Certainly, one shot from any starship-mounted weapon can down a gunboat since it strikes from above.&nbsp; Once the 7th Military District's relief fleet arrived in [[Earthat]], there were literally hundreds of armed starships orbiting Earth, and they made elimination of all Sa'arm gunboats an early priority. <br>
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Revision as of 21:22, 26 April 2024

(Copied straight from .XML 'backup' file, needs formatting and corrections. ZM User (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2024 (PDT))

Sa'arm Vessels

(This is not a definitive list but a representation of what has been encountered so far.)

   In many cases there does not appear to be a common design philosophy as you would find within a human constructed fleet.  Often the vessels are modified copies of the ships of another race, including those used by the Confederacy.
   In the same way that NATO gave a designation to the craft used by the Soviets the Confederacy has employed a similar system.  Vessels believed to be hyper capable are given names that begin with a 'V' whilst vessels designed for in-system use begin with 'L'.
   Care must be taken to ensure that the names used -mostly of Roman deities- are not used as vessel names within the Confederacy.

Hyper Capable Ships

Reporting Name Class Comments
(Unnamed Courier) Courier The smallest starships used by the Sa'arm, these ships generally only carry 10-12 crew, apparently serving as communications relay ships.
Vacuna Scout A small vessel, often used in threes which appears to be scouting out systems far in advance of the Sa'arm advance.
Vagitanus Corvette Appears to be a close copy of the Castle class corvette
Venti Destroyer One of the fastest vessels in the Sa'arm inventory but that is it's only attribute of note. See also CSS Stone
Vervactor Cruiser Slow and sluggish, like the battleship, it has quite a bit of firepower.
Volturnus Freighter A Sa'arm vessel somewhere between the Aurora and Kilo class ships in size. The major difference is that it carries its cargo internally.
Vesta Battleship
Volumna Hive Recon Sphere 500 troops. 12 attached light ships. May land and lift off again after refueling
Virtus Hive Colonizer Sphere 10,000 troops and another 100,000 in hibernation/stasis. 27 attached light ships. Lands and stays.
Voluptas Hive Conquest Sphere 25,000 troops, and another 1,000,000 in hibernation/stasis. 30 attached light ships. Lands and stays.



Available names:- Vediovus Veritas Verminus Viduus Virbius  

Intra-System Ships

Reporting Name Class Comments
Lactanus Corvette Appears to be a close copy of the Castle class corvette without the hyper capability
Lares Carrier Described by one Navy Admiral as a barge the Lares is the home base for the Liber and Lima vessels.  It has a minimal maneuvering capability and appears more like a space station than a vessel of war.
Liber Fighter A small vessel, about the size of a Backfire bomber but used as a fighter.  Its primary armament is two lasers of moderate power. Relies more on quantity than firepower.
Lima Bomber Larger than the Liber it carries two plasma torpedoes as its main strike weapon
Lupercus Shuttle "Rescue Mission" says the Lupercus can carry 300 Sa'arm internally and is used by the Voluptus and Volturnas.  It appears to have external hard points although they have never been seen in use. No weapons have been noted.



Available names:- Larentina Laverna Levana Libertas Libitina Lucina

Atmospheric Craft

Voluptas Attached Gunboats

   The Voluptas carries many (assume 243) gunboats as the ship's outer hull.  Each one has a heavy starship hull on the underside and a Medium Particle Beam turret sticking through it.  See Voluptas_Attached_Gunboats.

Sa'arm Ship Manning Estimates

   The Sa'arm seem to do everything in threes, or in powers of threes.  The following is a conversion table from powers of three to decimal system numbers:

  • 3^2 = 9 - Assumed crew of a Lima bomber or (unnamed) courier ship
  • 3^3 = 27
  • 3^4 = 81 - Assumed crew of one Vacuna scout/patrol ship
  • 3^5 = 243 - Size of a colony ship 'freezer' compartment
  • 3^6 = 729
  • 3^8 = 6561
  • 3^9 = 19,683
  • 3^10 = 59,049
  • 3^11 = 177,147
  • 3^12 = 531,441



(Someday this will be a navigation template.  It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links.  Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))

Canon

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