STRANGE DAYS; STRANGE SHIPS

The agony of the General War created many unusual situations, and of course every strange situation was bound to result in an even stranger solution. A few examples.

NEW TOURNAMENT UNITS

(R3.J6) KLINGON DV7 HEAVY CARRIER (DV7): As the Klingons slowly (and some would say reluctantly) moved into the fighter business, their path took numerous twists and turns as they sought a distinctly Klingon solution.

One of these efforts was known as the DV7 heavy carrier. Rather than placing fighters in the rear deckhouse (which had proven disappointing in the D6V), engineers at the Karowak Design Bureau proposed replacing the standard boom with a new much broader one that would have a pair of long fighter bays down either side. As this added considerably to the mass of the ship (increasing the movement cost by a third), the engineers added a warp engine from an F5 under the boom. The mass of the boom dampened the oscillations which prevented the mounting of such an engine on the booms of other D hulls, but the extra power was not enough to overcome the drag of the mass. The Karowak Design Bureau even announced that this would allow the ship to move to the point of attack, then detach the boom to make a closer approach to the target!

There are a series of reports indicating that one D7 was converted to this design, although other sources insist that that only a boom was converted (and may not have been completed as it was, these sources claim, never mated to a ship). Still other sources insist that only computer simulations were conducted of the design.

The fighter group was unusual, including a squadron of 16 fighters (designed to overwhelm squadrons of 12 Kzinti fighters) backed by a flight of six Z–Ds which were to have been used for anti-ship attacks. Computer simulations reportedly found this squadron arrangement to be unwieldy, and there are reports that the ship would have been deployed with two squadrons of ten (or perhaps 11) fighters.

The one saving grace of the design was the arrangement of launch tubes down each side of the boom, a feature borrowed from the Hydrans. (The Klingons went their enemies a turn better by providing a launch tube for every fighter.)

The DV7 design was ultimately rejected for several reasons. The boom proved structurally unsound, as the bay section (perforated by the launch tubes) was hung from the frame rather than being part of it as would have been the case with a Hydran ship. The fighter group proved unwieldy. The ship suffered from a poor turning rate due to the heavy mass forward of the hull/boom joint. During one test (perhaps a simulation) the ship’s own disruptors destroyed several fighters as they were launching. Recovery of fighters proved very difficult, as the forward tractor beams had to snag each one and load it into its launch tube (no "landing hatch" was provided as the Klingons thought it to be redundant). Even with the added center engine, the ship was simply too slow. The ship lacked significant support facilities for the fighters it carried, having no spare fighters, only 50 spaces of drone storage, and no ability to lend EW to its fighters.

The design incorporated the B refit, the K and Y175 refits probably would have been installed.

Based on a design by Jessica Orsini.

Other Data: Spare Shuttles 1+0, Year in Service Y169, Docking points 7, Explosion Strength 22, Notes Y1, other data same as D7.

Fed and Empire Data: (11) 8-7/(3) 4-3. One, only, can be built as the allowed heavy carrier in any year replacing a D7 and paying twice the conversion cost of a D7 to D7V plus the cost of fighters. Escorts must be provided as listed above. Note that the lack of support facilities for the fighters results in a weaker "crippled" side.

(R4.J5) ROMULAN DOUBLE-HAWK (DBH): This ship was the result of an accident. In an effort to save money, a shipyard owned by one of the Romulan Great Houses (House Tyrolean) had taken to building two SkyHawks back to back in a bay which was simply not big enough. In theory, construction was sequenced so that the first ship would be completed and launched before the construction crews working on the other one reached the middle section of the slipway.

In Y178, House Tyrolean was suffering from financial difficulties due to Gorn raids on some of its holdings. Delays in paying for materials resulted in one SkyHawk being held in the slipway longer than it should have been. Cutbacks in funding meant that the lights in the bay were turned off and construction crews worked by small portable lights which lit up only the area in which they were working. Inevitably, the two crews found themselves welding structural members to beams which the other crew had put in place, and the result was a "double-ended" SkyHawk that was coming and going at the same time. Rather than admit the gigantic mistake, House Tyrolean presented the ship to the Emperor for his daughter’s birthday. Rather than insult House Tyrolean by refusing the gift (which might have plunged the Empire into Civil War), the Emperor quietly accepted the gift and sent the ship to the front lines in the hopes that it would be quickly destroyed. It was.

The ship suffered a number of problems as a result of its "accidental" design. A special module was constructed for it that only it could use (it was totally incapable of using any other SkyHawk module). The "rear" plasma torpedoes had to be moved to special fairings to allow the warp engines to operate, and these fairings interfered with the proper functioning of the engines causing the ship to maneuver like a "sick grogran" and greatly increasing its cloaking cost. The unbalanced design made radical maneuvers dangerous.

Other Data: Year in Service Y178, Docking Points 13, explosion strength 17, Notes Y1.

Fed and Empire Data: 6/3. One can be built in Y178 as a substitution for two SkyHawk builds. No more can be built.

(R5.J5) KZINTI AD HOC DRONE FRIGATE (ADF): The destruction of the Kzinti drone bombardment cruiser Onager by a Klingon force in Y181 put the admiral in that sector into a difficult position. He had to maintain his drone bombardment schedule, but had no ship capable of doing it. Noting that a pair of battle pods had been stored at one of his battle stations, Admiral Cat-with-crooked-tooth requested a tug. The request was denied. He then set about trying to find some other way to mobilize the pods, as their copious drone racks could easily handle the assigned bombardment missions. The obvious solution was to hard weld them to some other ship, and the choice came down to either a standard CM or a Scout-Frigate. Admiral Cat-with-crooked-tooth sought the advice of his staff, and became convinced that the frigate was the best choice. While it would be far slower than the CM+Pod combination, even the CM could not get away from a pursuing Klingon. Moreover, the scout frigate would have to be assigned to the missions anyway to provide targeting.

In the event, his orders to hard weld the pods to the SF were relayed to Fleet Command which led to his immediate relief (Fleet Command did not have tug immediately available to use those pods, but was not willing to see the asset thrown away by a local commander). An analysis of the design revealed that even with the pods hard-welded to the hull, the ship was so fragile that any high energy turn or commencement of erratic maneuvers would have torn the ship apart.

Other Data: Spare Shuttles 1, Year in Service Y181, docking points 6, Command Rating 5, Notes DB, <>, CJ. This ship is destroyed if it ever breaksdown or attempts erratic maneuvers.

Fed and Empire Data: (3)6-2/0. One can be built in Y181 by adding two battle pods to a Scout Frigate at a cost of one EP. If the unit is ever damaged, it is destroyed, i.e., two points of damage destroys the ship, or one point if no other ship is present. This unit has no crippled side, the ship is so slow it could not escape if it was badly damaged by enemy action.

(R6.J5) GORN ACROCANTHOSAURUS FAST LIGHT STRIKE CRUISER (FLC): For a ship which was never actually built, this design was one of the most enduring in Gorn history. It was the creation of Sssloth Belsssons, a junior naval architect working at the main Gorn shipyard when the Gorns entered the General War. Having heard that the Gorn government would give rewards to anyone who made a significant contribution to the war effort, Sssloth reasoned that an unfinished cruiser in the shipyard could be sent into combat a full two months earlier if it dispensed with the forward and aft bubble sections. Expecting a reward and promotion when he presented the idea to the head of the shipyard, Sssloth was crushed when his idea was rejected. Visibly upset, he lost his temper and physically attacked his boss, but was quickly restrained by co-workers. Shocked, the boss decided that Sssloth needed a change of scenery and dispatched him to a front-line battle station to take charge of the repair facility there. This was, technically, a promotion (the job did pay better), but it was actually banishment, as it took Sssloth away from the mainstream of Gorn naval architecture and design.

Two years later, Sssloth thought he saw a chance to redeem himself. A heavily damaged light cruiser came into the battle station for emergency repairs. As the forward disk was heavily damaged, Sssloth displayed initiative by "amputating it" and converting the ship into a "strike cruiser’. (This version of his design would have had only 12-box engines instead of the 16-box engines seen on the SSD. It also would have had the CL’s weaker shields and phaser armament. The BPV would have been 100.) The captain of the ship was not amused and raised enough stink to have Sssloth fired and sent to a civilian shipyard in the distant (off-map) regions. Sssloth stayed there for the rest of the war, refining his design in his extensive spare time, waiting for a chance to prove himself right.

His third and final chance came in Y189, when Andromedans were rampaging through Gorn space and the financially exhausted Gorn fleet was initially unable to deal with them. Sssloth proposed that ships could be built 30% faster using his design, and yet would be nearly as combat effective. His proposal was very nearly given serious consideration, but fleet command ultimately decided to concentrate its resources on X-ships.

Other Data: Spare Shuttles 3, Year in Service Y174, Docking Points 5, Explosion Strength 17, Command Rating 7, Notes Y1, CJ.

Fed and Empire Data: 8/4. Can be substituted for a BC in the production schedule.

NEW TOURNAMENT UNITS

Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB) has, from the inception of the original tournament, been bombarded with demands from non-cruiser officers to be included. These demands really exploded after the introduction of the PF Demolition Derby in the Tournament Book. ADB has generally told those who command smaller ships that their chance to play in the tournament will come when they rise to command cruisers, and generally left it at that.

However, this has not satisfied many others who have pointed out that they are not qualified to command cruisers, or have already passed the grade where a cruiser would be an "appropriate" command. To answer this, ADB, Inc., has decided to issue four new tournament "units".

TOURNAMENT TF-15 FIGHTER (TF-15): The TF-15 is a "heavily" (I mean REALLY HEAVILLY) modified F-15 fighter. Its purpose is to allow individual fighter pilots (and squadron and wing commanders) who could never aspire to command a cruiser the opportunity to participate in Tournaments. Besides the standard tournament modifications (five batteries, two tractors, etc.) the unit was provided with an infinite supply of automatically reloading drones, and two drone points each TURN. Warp packs are provided (in an exception to the tournament prohibition) but their presence and use does not increase any damage scored on the TF-15. The unit also has chaff packs (another exception to tournament rules) which also reload automatically. The unit is presumed to be constantly generating some amount of power to operate its "added" systems. It also has labs to enable it to identify seeking weapons.

Discussion is continuing at this time on whether or not the unit will be allowed the use of Fighter Pods. A proposal by Kzinti, Klingon, and Federation fighter pilots that it be allowed to begin any tournament round with four "remotely controlled" admin shuttles, one of which is a scatter pack, is also under review.

TOURNAMENT FREIGHTER (F-AL-T): Civilian freighter captains insisted that their long service makes them fully qualified to compete in Tournaments. To this end the Tournament Large Phaser-Armed Freighter is presented. The Phaser-Armed freighter was selected because civilian captains from any race (except the Andromedans at this time) might command such a freighter. Of course, the effort to bring the ship up to tournament standard has resulted in rather extensive modifications. Some freighter captains are insisting that the ship should have "option mounts" to allow it to select between other armaments that might be found on an armed freighter. However, as it is unlikely that any Gorn freighter captain ever commanded a freighter with fusion beams, or any ISC captain ever commanded a freighter with disruptors, this has so far been rejected.

TOURNAMENT BASE STATION (TBS): Base Commanders complained that their assignments to static defense installations has not enabled them to truly show what they could do. This has resulted in the Tournament Base Station. Early in the development of this unit the "Romulan Solution" to a stationary base (launch plasmas to force a weasel, cloak, rearm and repair shields. Repeat until weasels expended. Continue to repeat until base station destroyed.) forced a decision to allow the base some mobility. It is possible that too much mobility has been allowed, but only testing will prove this. The Base was given only Phaser-4s for armament, and does not otherwise possess any heavy weapons (this will please Orion Base Commanders, but otherwise was the only compromise to allow all Base Commanders, again excluding Andromedans, to use the unit). Note that shielding was reduced to "Tournament levels". The base is believed to be at greatest risk against seeking weapon races as it has few defenses to employ against such weapons while also attempting to engage the launching ship. In part this is made worse by the elimination of the Aegis system and its special sensors. In partial (very partial) compensation two lab systems were added.

TOURNAMENT B10 (B10T): Large Ship Commanders complained that their promotions to command BBs, DNs, BCHs, and BCs robbed them of the opportunity to show why they were worthy of the promotions to be begin with. For this reason, the Tournament B10 is provided. Note that efforts have been made to reduce the unit to tournament levels. Shielding, tractors, and battery decks were reduced. The K refit was eliminated (which also eliminated the aegis systems which are not allowed in tournaments anyway). Since SFGs are not allowed in tournament play, these systems were eliminated. In recognition of the unit’s large size, any single internal striking the ship is tripled. Thus if a damage point hits a phaser, three phasers must be destroyed. If a damage point hits a bridge box, three bridge boxes must be destroyed. If less than three of a given system are available (e.g., only one or two phasers are in arc, only one or two disruptors remain) the extra damage points are simply lost and not scored. They do not become excess damage.