Federation Battleship: Finished at last... almost

[Teaos]

Ok so I've finally gotten around to doing the final write up for the Federation battleship we designed a few months back. I probably need to tidy it up a bit more but for the most part its done. I also have some sketches I've got but I'm not really happy with them so I may work on them a bit more before adding them.


Federation Battleship - Paladin Class

Design History

During the events of the early 2370's Starfleet recognised the need for new class of starship to deal with a new level of threat. Many thought that with the advent of the battle cruiser and escort class Sovereign and Defiant (respectively) many with in the Admiralty thought this need had been fulfilled.

It was not until the disastrous first contact and subsequent war with the Dominion that they realised the need for the first ever true battleship class of starship.

Thus in 2370 after the destruction of the USS Odyssey the head of Starfleet issued orders for preliminary R&D work to begin on a new class of starship. Much like the Defiant project that was also under way at the time it was decided to put the project in the hands of a small, yet highly qualified team rather than the more open plan design process usually. Although initial design work progressed well it was hampered by numerous political events.

With the exceptional performance of Defiant in early encounters and with the heavy costs of the Sovereign class rumblings of scrapping the project entirely started to sound in the halls. The administrative head of the seventh fleet was particularly fierce in his criticisms of the programme and trying to get its resources reallocated to his shipyards which where in the process of building a entire wing of Akira class ships. Just as the project was about to be scrapped altogether and its resources reallocated to other projects the Valiant incident happened.

The destruction of a single ship in the scope of a quadrant wide war would not even raise eyebrows under normal circumstances. But the destruction of the Valiant was far normal, the loss of one of the new wartime class of ships would be troubling, the destruction of one in full combat when it was unable to inflict any significant damage on a new class of enemy ship was almost cause for panic.

Although the ship and her crew were in far from top form the loss of the Valiant to the new Dominion Battleship sent shock waves through the admiralty. The fact that two top ranking admirals had children in red squadron who subsequently went down with the ship cemented the fate of the Battleship project.

The existence of an enemy ship more than twice as powerful as the best ship in the fleet and unassailable by anything short of a small fleet was too much of a threat to ignore.

With support from almost all quarters and the personal support of several high ranking admirals the Battleship project had all the help it needed. For a time they were almost inundated with offers of aid and suggestions, so much so that the design team re-located from Earth to Jupiter station.

With no doors closed to them and with what amounted to a rubber yes stamp the design team were able in integrate cutting edge technology and completely ignore standard Starfleet design practices.

But once more the tides of war would determine the fate of the ship. Just as the team submitted their finalised design the Allied fleet bore down on Cardassia prime.

With the end of the war and a dramatic cut in military spending the Admiralty couldn't justify the continuation of a Battleship programme when the entire fleet needed to be rebuilt and the science and exploration wing that had been seriously neglected during the war needed funding.

Thus for the second time the project was all but cancelled. While several of the technologies involved continued development and field testing all other resources previously available to the project to reallocate and the team reassigned.

It was not until the events of the Reman rebellion and the near destruction of the Federation flagship to yet another ship that significantly outgunned anything fielded by the Federation once again looked towards the Battleship project.

With the fleet reaching pre war numbers and the weaknesses in both the Sovereign and Defiant designs evident the okay was given for the production of the Battleship class to begin.

Over the next three years various components of the ship were tested, most notable the four nacelle configuration and the phase lance.

With field testing complete and the okay from the Admiralty production began on the first ship of the class.

After two more years of production the ship, now christened the USS Paladin floated out of Spacedock as the most powerful ship ever fielded by the Federation or her allies.

With a shake down cruise that took her from the core of the Federation to the Klingon boarder and back to Spacedock. It was decided by the admiralty though that a prolonged trip through Breen space my be beneficial to quadrant stability thus the cruise was extended by several months to accommodate the display of force.

With two more of the class in production and several more on the books the USS Paladin has been assigned to its first mission. A baptism of fire taking on a rouge Dominion faction in the Gamma Quadrant as the flagship of a combined alliance fleet.



Specifications:



Command unit:

Learning from the horrible loses suffered during the war, Starfleet has positioned the bridge of the ship deep inside the saucer section to protect the command staff. This makes changing out the command modules more difficult to upgrade and change but dramatically improves the survivability.

The bridge on the Paladin is host to the single most advanced command module fielded nest to the fleet command unit. A unique feature of the bridge is that it is host to the master control panels for each of the ships independent computer core making it the only place on the ship where everything can be controlled from at once. This makes taking over the ship all but impossible with out first capturing the bridge.

Another new feature of the Battleship is the addition of a fleet control bridge, positioned directly behind the main bridge, it is home to several holographic projectors and multiple communication stations so that a fleet commander or commodore can stay fully informed and in contact with the fleet. The positioning directly behind the main bridge allows instantaneous communication between the fleet commander and the flagship.



Computer cores:

Another first is the addition of multiple independent computer cores, essentially every major department has its own major computer unit completely independent of the other cores on ship. This not only proves greater redundancy but makes hacking the ships computer or taking over the ship far more difficult as the only place all the computer cores are accessible from is the bridge.

With independent cores for tactical, operations, engineering and another core for general use all the operations, both standard and battle, are run independently creating a far more secure system. In an emergency any of the cores are capable of performing the function of the others but only with direct authorisation from the captain and a manual switch over.



Propulsion:

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the battleship class ship was the deployment of a four nacelle design. Although this configuration had been tried in the past with varying levels of success it was decided that the survivability offered by the extra nacelles out weighed the costs, both in terms of added weak points on the ship and the higher fuel consumption.

The extra nacelles did offer a slight boost to the over all speed which was considered important for a ship that had been looking at a top speed almost 20% slower than that of the fastest ships in the fleet.



Security:

The life support systems and security plans on the ship have been updated with the latest tactics and hardware to offer maximum control. This will allow far greater macro and micro control over the various systems of the ship and even allow them to be used offensively in case of a boarding.

The ship has also been divided into dozens of sections with the ability to be totally isolated. Entire portions of the ship could be blown away with no ill effect on the rest of the ship; this offers greatly improved survivability and reliability both in and out of battle.

And new feature of the ship is total environment transportation evacuation TETE for short. This function uses the onboard transporter system to beam every particle of matter out of any of the predefined sections of the ship. This can be used to evacuate enemy units or any dangerous matter be it solid or gas.

With the new sectioning of the ship specially forged blast doors have been fitted through out the ship to seal off any section of the ship manually as well as the standard force fields. This can be used to hold hull breaches as well as for more basic security functions.

The distribution of hand weapons through the ship is also far more regulated, with only security and senior officers having access to them.



Protection:

The design brief for the new Battleship was to put protection and survivability above everything else. It was with this in mind that the new class of ship was to be fitted with the most advanced and comprehensive armour and high energy shielding seen on a Federation ship.



Armour and hull:

While the exact makeup of the amour is still classified it is known to be upwards of 60cm thick ablative armour, this is a level of protection unmatched by any other class of vessel currently fielded. With the entire hull covered and only minimum gaps for weapons emplacements the risk of hull breaches or internal damage is severely reduced from all but the most powerful attacks.

The hull its self has been almost ridiculously reinforced. With double the standard amount of bulk heads and structural reinforcing typically seen on a Federation Starship along with the most powerful SIF currently in use the Battleship has a survivability that is unmatched by any ship fielded in the quadrant.

With the exclusion of all non military related scientific equipment and the reduction in luxury the build quality of the ship was able to be dramatically increased as it didn't have to fit in large, and for a battleship, useless equipment.

Another first for this class of ship was the inclusion of a independent power unit for the shields to add extra protection and survivability in battle. This along with the simpler bubble shield configuration grants great survivability and dependability.

With shielding in the seven million Terra Joules range the shielding can with stand attacks from even the most powerful weapons know to exist. The simplistic design of the bubble shielding allows for lower maintenance and better survivability. It also allows power to be easily directed to specific parts of the shielding increasing the overall survivability. The ability to expand the shielding over other bodies was also considered when choosing the bubble shielding. The shielding is run through regenerative shielding processes allowing the shields to adjust to incoming fire increasing their efficiency.



Weaponry:
Beam:

As the design brief both called for a ship with the raw fire power to take down any class of enemy ship it would come up against as well as taking part in wider fleet actions the weapons are thus a mix of extremely heavy weapons and more flexible weapons.

The Battleship will be the first class of ship in the fleet to field the new Phase lance weapon developed by Starfleet R&D.

The Lance had been in development for well over a decade, it was put into development after the Dominion war. Starfleet realised the need for a weapon that could penetrate the heavy shielding and weapons that had been deployed by other powers.

After having been field tested on test bed ships the development of the lance was far from smooth. It was found early on that channelling that much power through the standard arrays used was impossible, the synthetic crystals used to focus the beam could not handle the amount of energy focused on them. The hardware needed to support such a powerful weapon was also problematic. The coolant systems couldn't keep them cold enough under normal circumstances.

After research into more effective crystals was deemed to take to long and not be sure to turn up any useable results the team design team explored other ways to make a highly powerful single point beam.

After numerous trials of different techniques it was finally settled on to use a multiple point crystal lattice (MPCL). This was a series of highly pure phaser array crystals placed in a spiral along the inside of an 11 meter long barrel. When the weapon fires each separate phase crystal fires in sequence, with the correct calibration this delivers over 70,000 terra watts worth of energy in a beam only 20% larger than a standard type XII.

At the end of the barrel a Vishay compression belt forces the beam into a single point preventing it dispersing over the distance to its target. This greatly increases its range and efficiency.

Under ideal circumstances the entire barrel and accompanying hardware are kept at less than 1 degree Kelvin. This greatly improves its survivability and firing rate in combat. Once fired the coolant system needs to rapidly yet evenly cool the entire system or risk catastrophic failure of the weapon.

With the Lance providing extremely heavy forward fire power more conventional yet still extremely powerful phaser arrays were positioned around the ship for full coverage with heavier coverage on the forward section to rip through enemy lines. These are of the same make as those used in the Sovereign class ship and were thus much simpler to install.

In another first for a capital ship the Battleship is also fitted with turret mounted rapid fire pulse fire canons. Previously only seen on the Defiant class ship these weapons offer large destructive power for their required power. Four of these weapons are placed on forward facing turrets, two on the dorsal and two on the ventral. A final one is placed at the back dorsal surface of the saucer to cover the rear of the ship.

These weapons were added with the intention of having them disable enemy shielding while the more accurate phaser arrays disable the ship.

The turret had proved especially difficult for the design team in incorporate into the design as they would provide several weak points for enemy fire.

It was by chance that while the team in the initial design process had been stationed at Jupiter station a former crewmen from DS9 happened to be working on another project there as well. It was thus due to an overhear conversation that the old engineer suggested they take the weapons turrets fitted onto DS9 and tweak them to work on the ship.

With remarkable few modifications the turrets were able to be fitted onto the hull with only marginal loss in protection. This was considered a more than fair trade for the versatility the canons would offer.



Torpedoes:

Due to the size and speed of this ship torpedo fire power was considered secondary to beam weapons and protection since the ship could not position its self for firing as smaller ships could.

Nether the less due to the size of the ship it still fields a formidable torpedo array.

Two Rapid fire torpedo tubes and one late Generation burst fire tube offer forward facing torpedo power in the same league as more dedicated torpedo ships. Another Burst fire tube and two burst fire tubes aft facing offer good coverage for the ship.

A new feature incorporated into the design was the idea of a "fire deck". Unlike other classes of ships that had torpedo tubes positioned all along its height and width all the tubes on the battleship are on the same deck. This allows for greater movement of torpedo stock to where its needed and allows the crew to maintain and supply the equipment far easier.

All the tubes can fire both Photon and Quantum torpedoes with only minor modification to switch between each type. This can be done by a well trained crew in under an hour.

A moderate torpedo stock is supplemented by a Photon torpedo replicator which can restock the torpedo stock after battle.


DITL statistics


Paladin Class

Affiliation: Federation

Type: Battleship

Unit Run: 1, USS-Paladin
2 more in construction, several more in the books.
Classs remains in production.

Commissioned: 2389

Dimensions: Beam: 243m
Height: 114m
Length: 740m
Decks: 31

Mass: 5,130,000 Metric tons

Crew: 1050

Armament: 1 x Phase Lance 70,000 TW
5 x Rapid fire pulse fire canons 75,000 TW
7 x Type XII Phaser arrays 52,500 TW
2 x Rapid fire torpedo tubes
2 x Pulse fire tubes
2 x Type III rapid fire tubes
Torpedo stock: 800

Defence Systems: 7 million Terra Joules regenerative shield system.
Heavy Duranium/Tritanium Double hull plus 60 cm Ablative armour.
High level Structural Integrity Field

Warp speed: Normal cruise: 8
Maximum cruise: 8.6
Maximum warp: 9.2

Strength indices: Beam firepower: 4,000
Torpedo firepower: 7,750
Weapon Range and Accuracy : 1,800
Shield Strength : 2,593
Hull Armour : 9,400
Speed : 852
Combat Manoeuvrability : 850

Overall strength: 4,634

Diplomatic capability: 4

Expected hull life: 90 years

Refit cycle: Minor: 18 months.
Standard: 2 years
Major: 10 years

Endurance (time without external support): 10 months.

[shran]

Proton torpedoes? Shouldn't that be photon torpedoes?

[Teaos]

Dammit, I always make that typo.

[Lt. Staplic]

It's OK Teaos, we forgive you.

[Sonic Glitch]

No we don't . This is Trek not Wars.

[Bryan Moore]

Good stuff. Not to nitpick (as it's a legit question), wasn't the scout class ship in the original TOS Technical Manual called a Paladin Class?

[Reliant121]

Close, she was that Saladin.

[Lt. Staplic]

There is a Paladin Class though, I'm not sure which show it was in but I was actually looking through a schematics book online and there was a Paladin Class, I'll see if i can find the link to it.

[Lt. Staplic]

here we go:
Illustrator: Temporal Graphics
Copyright: 1988

Summary:
The outstanding success of the Galaxy Class exploration cruisers and the promising reports on the Olympic class dreadnought project, has prompted Starfleet to begin a total overhaul of the existing fleet and to begin contracting for the construction of several new classes of ships. The first of the new vessels to be constructed is the Paladin Class Scout/Destroyer because of the class' mission flexibility. The new warp technology combined with advanced weapons, defenses and computer systems allows even the relatively small scout/destroyer to handle a wide variety of crisis situations quickly and efficiently. This will be vital during the sensitive conversion process since entire sectors will be left defenseless while the ships that normally patrol them will be in drydock. Ships that cannot be converted will be retired, scrapped or stripped of weapons and sold to the private sector.

here's the link: http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/pa ... troyer.php

[Reliant121]

hmmm...interesting. I suppose there isnt any issue with reusing a class name.

AND GODDAMN THAT THING IS UGLY!

[Deepcrush]

Tough luck, for them, our Paladin is better.

[Sionnach Glic]

Far better.

[Deepcrush]

Just as a fun thought, I wonder how many of these SF could build in a year...

SF has about a dozen shipyards but how many of these are big enough to support building something of this size?
How long does it take to build, and what would the total cost be?

[Sionnach Glic]

I'd imagine it would take a couple years to build one for each shipyard.

[Deepcrush]

Well, didn't Teaos state that it was an 18 month build time for the Paladin?

I was thinking more along the lines of how long would it take to build a new shipyard?