Emperor

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

   The Emperor Class was the Confederacy Navy's standard Battlecruiser design for most of a decade.  Little is known about them beyond the fact that they were "Improved Kongos".  The Kongo Class was a low-manning heavily armed and armored but not very maneuverable design produced by Beerat.  It was easily overwhelmed by massed small craft and thus needed escorts to help defend against that, but it was otherwise a successful design.
   When the War Council chose the Kongo as the basis for a standard design, the new Mars Yard modified the design to take into account the ease of manning any ships built in the same system as Earth.  With the destruction of the UN faction the AIs were willing to provide newer technology to the Navy, and the yard was also able to improve the acceleration, handling, and integrated point-defense outfit without sacrificing any of the armor or firepower, making the Emperor class one of the more long-lived designs we used during the Swarm War.

Armament

   Main Armament - The Emperor Class battlecruisers mounted four turrets, two on each side of the hull.  Each turret mounted a single "Junior Hero" coilgun.  This weapon could accelerate a 100-kilo slug to 100 kilometers per second relative to the ship.  Each main coilgun could 'see' any target within 193 degrees of directly overhead from the turret, so if the turrets were opposite there would be a 26 degree overlap above and below where all four guns could fire on a target.  However, this arrangement would leave huge arcs where only two guns could bear and some arcs forward and aft where only one could bear.
   To ease this weakness, the forward two guns were placed slightly above the centerline of the ship while the two after guns were placed slightly below the centerline.  This prevented all four guns from firing at the same target, but at least two guns could fire at any target and for a slight majority of the targeting sphere three guns could all fire at one target.  If one or more turrets were damaged, the ship could choose between staying in formation to take advantage of defensive fire from escorts, or maneuver to bring the fourth gun to bear at the cost of leaving the formation.
   Secondary Armament - The Emperor Class mounted two launch tubes for a 2-meter 'Skip' hyper-missile which could enter hyperspace, drive to a precalculated position, exit hyperspace, and home into the target from there.  This was not as effective in live combat as desired because the missile had neither the sensor suite nor the brains required to actually navigate in hyperspace.  All it could do was calculate direction, distance, and estimated time until arrival.  Since exact pop-out position could not be calculated, the Sa'arm could usually still see the missile coming and attempt to destroy it.  The class standard included a single magazine feeding both tubes which held twenty reloads.
   The Emperor Class also mounted four standard 55cm "Shipkiller" missile launch tubes on each side between the main turrets for a total of eight tubes.  Each side was fed by a magazine carrying 40 missiles for a total of 88 missiles if both magazines and all tubes were full.
   Point Defense Systems - As built, each Emperor carried six 'rings' of point defense mounts, two forward of the forward pair of main turrets, two between the turrets, and two aft of the after pair of main turrets.  These were named Bow, Forward, Fore-Mid, Aft-Mid, Aft, and Stern for ease of identification.  The four middle rings each alternated eight StarSparrow mounts with four Point-Defense Lasers and four Point-Defense Railguns.  The Bow and Stern rings only had two Starsparrow mounts but three each PDLs and PDRs.  All mounts in the Bow ring could fire directly forward, and all mounts in the Stern ring could fire directly astern.
   The StarSparrow missiles were self-guided and homing, had a standard engagement envelope of 100km to 3000km, and had an explosive warhead to destroy any small craft, missile, or plasma torpedo it hit.   The Point Defense Lasers had no range limitations and very rapid slew rates, but they did minimal damage and could only be expected to damage the control system of a small craft or a missile.  The PDLs did basically nothing to a Plasma Torpedo or a ballistic slug or missile.  The Point-Defense Railguns had an official usable range of 1km to 20km, but each shot eroded the rails, lowering the accuracy of the next shot.  The PDLs were able to destroy, disrupt, or knock off-course any incoming weapon, but they could only be depended upon to hit on their first shot, requiring rail replacement after every engagement.  All Confederacy warships mounted all three types of Point-Defense system from the time they were developed until the end of the war.

Engineering Plant

   Propulsion - With the demise of the UN faction on Earth, the Confederacy released newer technology to the Humans.  The Emperor Battlecruisers and Sirius Heavy Cruisers were among the first designs to benefit.  The source Kongos used the same propulsion plant as the much smaller 'Snake' design of assault cruisers and were more than a bit ponderous in acceleration and maneuverability.  The Emperors, though, received better plants and could keep up with any previous-generation Navy ship, making them very popular among their commanders.
   Power - Power plant layout followed the Kongo design.  The ship had six separate power rooms.  Two power rooms were designated as general-purpose and ran the ship and all shipboard systems, while the other four were dedicated to combat systems.   Each main turret had a single power room it normally fed from but in emergencies it could also feed from a second one.  No matter what happened to the rest of the ship, as long as a turret had its power plant, magazine, and reloading mechanism intact it could keep firing.

Small Craft

   Shuttles - The Emperor design included two large hangar spaces, one dorsal and one ventral.  Each one could carry three 'House-Cat' shuttles, or a Bengal and a single 'House-Cat', or two Leopards or Panthers.  The third option allowed the ship to project a full company of Marines at once from each hangar.   The hangars were surrounded with compartments which could be used as maintenance shops or cargo holds.

Manning

   As designed the Emperors required a Core Crew of several hundred Volunteers, with many more non-combat jobs being done by Concubines.
   In addition, they carried over from the original Kongos a large amount of reconfigurable space intended for mission-specific use.  The design provided for berthing and other support for a full company near each hangar, so an Emperor Battlecruiser could carry, equip, and land two full companies of Marines with no other support needed.  In practice, however, if Marines were called for then far more than two companies would be required so the cargo spaces were usually used for general supplies or family housing.

(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))