Semmes

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Raphael Semmes Class Missile Cruiser =

The Semmes Class of Missile Cruiser is a standoff-range missile platform with very impressive combat potential. It boasts a spacious CIC for processing and displaying near real time updates from FTL probes and sensor arrays in other fleet vessels, which allow it to leverage the information from the integrated battle management system to engage distant targets it might not otherwise be able to detect. The magazines are somewhat undersized, which can result in a Semmes running out of ammunition during a battle if expenditure is not carefully managed. This makes it important to have logistical resupply vessels available to a fleet that includes these ships.

Usually a cruiser design is not as tightly focused on engaging larger capital ships, so this vessel would make a poor escort vessel capably of protecting a larger ship from smaller threats other than from small craft like fighters or bombers. However, the firepower of the platform is a welcome asset in a large fleet engagement. The large size of this platform, the relative lack of armor and the capital-ship-focused armament makes this somewhat fit the concept of a battlecruiser.

The Semmes has three transporter nexi.

Statistics

• Tonnage (Metric Tonnes): 60,000
• Length (Meters): 180
• Tons per Meter: 333.33
• Crew: 47
• Officers: 12
• Enlisted: 35 Concubines are carried and some assist as crew.

Weapons

The Semmes has two 2-meter missile launchers with magazines of 80 missiles staggered amidships port and starboard. Segmented rotary magazine allows tactical selection of 10 different weapon configurations. Upgraded to four fleet-standard 55 centimeter missile launchers with magazines of 290 missiles fore and aft staggered port and starboard. Segmented rotary magazine allows tactical selection of 10 different weapon configurations.

Defensive Weapons

Upgraded to four quad batteries of 37mm counter rotating pulse cannons instead of original twelve single mounts.

Engine Performance

• Drive Generation Number 3rd
• Normal Space (in G's):
  • Standard sustained acceleration: 60
  • Emergency acceleration: 90
• Acceleration compensation (% felt) 2
• Hyper space:
  • Cruise Speed: 22
  • Emergency Speed: 30

Ships in Class

Naming Conventions: Original captain of innovative ships

• CG-001 Raphael Semmes
• CG-002 George Dixon
• CG-003 Reginald Bacon
• CG-004 John Worden

Story Usage

A textual analysis of the story repository, current as of 9/2019 and performed on 2019-09-27 and using SS Lib ver 1.16.03 (9/27/2019) identified the following usage counts for Semmes:

• Pyrrhic Victory by akarge (Timeline month: 162) 12 instances.
• Destination Azahar by deGaffer (Timeline month: 30) 6 instances.

Story Quotes

From Pyrrhic Victory by akarge relevance:4086 at paragraph 28 of 102
OR, you could already be behind and to the flanks when the Swarm dropped out of hyper in the first place. A squadron of six Semmes class missile cruisers in three divisions was trailing the enemy fleet from three sides, left, right and 'above'. If they had been cars on the freeway, they would all have been one lane over in the Swarm's blind spots. Per standing orders, they had each flushed their tubes of all four light missiles and the two heavy torps as soon as the enemy started dropping out of hyper. Now, reloading quickly, they got a second aimed salvo off with the missiles before the Swarm even realized they were there. The heavy torps had a lot more range and final speed but their launchers were slower to reload. With the Semmes' huge acceleration advantage of seventy-five Gs, they then slipped out of the range of the spheres' heavy weapons. The attacks had been done from just inside the missiles' extreme range while on a parallel course. Their later missile attacks would require speed runs tangential to the Sa'arm fleet's weapons envelope. This would only place the ships at risk during the moments of closest approach. Three of the Swarm in-system corvettes, a battleship and a cruiser were quickly destroyed and two more cruisers were seriously damaged by the first salvos. The largest sphere had also taken a hit and was trailing atmosphere and debris. True to their reputation, even in an ambush situation, the Swarm ships managed to knock out many of the incoming missiles with their particle beams and lasers, but one big torpedo had hit the hive sphere even after it was itself lasered and no longer accelerating. Several tons of scrap metal hit the sphere at one hundred kilometers per second. The half a billion-ton ship pressed on, now a bit lighter, accompanied by an expanding cloud of debris. One of the deploying in-system corvettes had taken another hit that would have smashed into its mother ship. The Colonizer Sphere took no damage from the nearby explosion, but the corvette was completely destroyed.

From Destination Azahar by deGaffer relevance:1720 at paragraph 3438 of 3596
The new missile cruiser Raphael Semmes was among the capital ships of the fleet. Among the crew of Raphael Semmes were Major Bronson and Commander Williams as the weapons and engineering officers respectively. The ship had a two-meter missile launcher and two 50-centimeter missile launchers along each flank. Each of the launchers was fed by automated magazines that were loaded with various propulsion and warhead combinations.

From Pyrrhic Victory by akarge relevance:1416 at paragraph 51 of 102
The Swarm fleet was nearing fifty kilometers per second in speed. Now the escorts started after the Semmes class ships on their flanks. Flights of either three attack fighters or three corvettes moved out past the formation boundary and pursued the Semmes. The cruisers used their acceleration advantage to stay well outside the two hundred kilometer range of the enemy particle beams and, once the escorts were far enough away from the formation, the human ships launched full salvos. The Swarm point defense systems were overwhelmed. Out of fifteen Swarm ships chasing them, only two survived to return to the formation. Other hive escort ships pulled in closer. The Swarm had learned that lesson quickly.

See Also

• Warships

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