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LNS Challenger Point (CC-1228) - Jane Hartman - 11-01-2014
LNS Challenger Point (CC-1228)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
LNS Challenger Point (CC-1228) is the thirty-second Interdictor-class assault battlecruiser and the twelfth ship in the Liberty Navy named in honor of Manhattan's Challenger Point launch site.¹ Changes to specifications and a decline in Bretonian manufacturing capability meant it was completed and delivered eight months late and over budget, becoming the second most expensive battlecruiser assembled during the Liberty-Rheinland War.²
Challenger Point was laid down by Deep Space Engineering aboard Norfolk Shipyard on 16 May 816. She was launched on 2 November 819 and commissioned 31 October 821 under the command of Captain J. Hartman. The ship is part of Battlecruiser Squadron Two (BACRON-2) of the First Fleet.
Construction
The construction of Challenger Point and her sister ships McAllen, Grays Peak and Clearfield was authorized on 20 June 812 in response to military build-up in Kusari and Bretonia. The smaller crew requirements and modern systems of the Interdictor-class was deemed likely to result in lower ongoing costs and greater strategic flexibility then the competing proposal to construct an additional Overlord-class with escorts, while still resulting in a vessel mounting superior firepower and armor to foreign cruisers of the day.³
Only McAllen was launched prior to the outbreak of the Tau War and the sudden drop in available raw materials from Bretonia threatened to push the completion date for Challenger Point out past 820. With the increase in resource costs Congress reduced the initial order from four battlecruisers to three, cancelling construction of Clearfield. Deep Space Engineering's original contract was expanded to include supply of required materials from Libertonian mining operations to complete Grays Peak and Challenger Point.⁴ Work on Grays Peak recommenced on 2 February 815 - eleven months after the cancellation of Clearfield. The construction of Challenger Point was pushed back further while Deep Space Engineering prioritized the completion of Clearfield, finally commencing work on Challenger Point on 16 May 816.
Rising tensions between Rheinland and Liberty in 816 further aggregated the supply issues plaguing the project, and it was proposed that the hull of Challenger Point be converted to a high-speed transport to assist in the mobilization of ground troops.⁵ Ultimately, the proposal was discarded and the appearance of the Rheinland Elbe-class carrier prompted an upgrade of Challenger Point's original Class V ablative armor to the bulkier Class VIII to better resist the heavy weapons mounted by the carriers.⁶
Originally scheduled for launch in July 819, Challenger Point suffered a further setback when the ship's reactor failed during tests. Initially reported as sabotage, an independent inquiry later found the cause to be incorrectly fitted radiation shielding which, when it failed, resulted in excessive heating of superconducting coils in the ship's fusion reactor, rendering the reactor inoperable. The issue become a point of contention between the Liberty Navy and Deep Space Engineering, with the Navy claiming that the reactor's destruction was the result of a failure by the company to adequately inspect their work. Deep Space Engineering, in turn, blamed the incident on the Navy's orders to upgrade Challenger Point's armor beyond initial specifications - which had interfered with the geometry of ship's compartments, and thus the shielding requirements. Debate over who should pay for the replacement reactor continued for two months before the Liberty Navy agreed to fund the refit.⁷
Challenger Peak was launched on 2 November 819. Additional fit-out and testing by Ageira Technologies, including installation of fire control modules and the recently-developed SERAH (SEnsor - Extended RAnge/Hyperspatial) system, continued until late 821. The ship was commissioned on 31 October 821 and assigned to fleet operations.⁸
Capabilities
Like all Interdictor-class ships Challenger Point is capable of accepting a range of pre-configured mission modules. Unlike traditional combatants, these modules can be altered with the aid of a Guardian-class Fleet Auxiliary without the need for Challenger Point to return to a shipyard. Modules may consist of manned spacecraft, unmanned drones, sensor packages, troop-carrying capacity, mission control facilities, or additional weapons systems.
Challenger Point is equipped with a similar long-life fusion drive to that carried by the Overlord-class, intended to last the service life of the ship and granting the craft endurance limited only by food, water and oxygen supply. While theoretically Challenger Point is capable of conventional sub-light speed interstellar travel under her own power, a lack of cold sleep facilities or the expanded supply bunkers required for such a journey render the concept impractical.⁹
Challenger Point is one of eight Libertonian ships known to make use of the all or nothing approach to armor originally developed for sea-going battleships. Mission-critical systems and facilities are enclosed within a hardened citadel at the center of the spacecraft, whereas the rest of the craft is comparatively unarmored. This serves to grant systems crucial to the ship's operation near-impunity to conventional weapons at the cost of rendering the remainder of the hull vulnerable to even fighter-grade armament.¹⁰
Interdictor-class and weapons of mass destruction
In addition to conventional kinetic bombardment the Interdictor-class is capable of delivering both the TN-3 thermonuclear and R/B-2 cobalt orbit to surface bombs. The Department of Defense has refused to release the names of individual ships equipped with the above weapons for reasons of operational security, but have confirmed that such ships exist.¹¹
As with all starships, the greatest potential destructive potential of the Interdictor-class does not come from weapon systems but from the ship itself, serving as a relativistic kill vehicle. Accelerating at 5G, an uncrewed Interdictor-class vessel could reach .85C within 0.17 light years. This acceleration would take under four months, causing the ship's 47,400 ton mass to impact a target with a force equivalent to 915 thousand gigatons of TNT, nearly 1.8 million times greater than the total energy released during the nuclear tests of the late 20th century.¹² Due to the lengthy time-to-target (allowing retaliatory strikes) and the likelihood of high-speed impacts with the interstellar medium such a maneuver would only be a viable method of attack against immobile targets, such as ground based facilities. A planetary strike of gigaton scale would also be a violation of the rules and customs of war established during the Cambridge Convention 740AS and has not been attempted by any sirian military.
References
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other ships of the same name, see LNS Challenger Point.
LNS Challenger Point (CC-1228) is the thirty-second Interdictor-class assault battlecruiser and the twelfth ship in the Liberty Navy named in honor of Manhattan's Challenger Point launch site.¹ Changes to specifications and a decline in Bretonian manufacturing capability meant it was completed and delivered eight months late and over budget, becoming the second most expensive battlecruiser assembled during the Liberty-Rheinland War.²Challenger Point was laid down by Deep Space Engineering aboard Norfolk Shipyard on 16 May 816. She was launched on 2 November 819 and commissioned 31 October 821 under the command of Captain J. Hartman. The ship is part of Battlecruiser Squadron Two (BACRON-2) of the First Fleet.
Construction
The construction of Challenger Point and her sister ships McAllen, Grays Peak and Clearfield was authorized on 20 June 812 in response to military build-up in Kusari and Bretonia. The smaller crew requirements and modern systems of the Interdictor-class was deemed likely to result in lower ongoing costs and greater strategic flexibility then the competing proposal to construct an additional Overlord-class with escorts, while still resulting in a vessel mounting superior firepower and armor to foreign cruisers of the day.³
Only McAllen was launched prior to the outbreak of the Tau War and the sudden drop in available raw materials from Bretonia threatened to push the completion date for Challenger Point out past 820. With the increase in resource costs Congress reduced the initial order from four battlecruisers to three, cancelling construction of Clearfield. Deep Space Engineering's original contract was expanded to include supply of required materials from Libertonian mining operations to complete Grays Peak and Challenger Point.⁴ Work on Grays Peak recommenced on 2 February 815 - eleven months after the cancellation of Clearfield. The construction of Challenger Point was pushed back further while Deep Space Engineering prioritized the completion of Clearfield, finally commencing work on Challenger Point on 16 May 816.
Rising tensions between Rheinland and Liberty in 816 further aggregated the supply issues plaguing the project, and it was proposed that the hull of Challenger Point be converted to a high-speed transport to assist in the mobilization of ground troops.⁵ Ultimately, the proposal was discarded and the appearance of the Rheinland Elbe-class carrier prompted an upgrade of Challenger Point's original Class V ablative armor to the bulkier Class VIII to better resist the heavy weapons mounted by the carriers.⁶
Originally scheduled for launch in July 819, Challenger Point suffered a further setback when the ship's reactor failed during tests. Initially reported as sabotage, an independent inquiry later found the cause to be incorrectly fitted radiation shielding which, when it failed, resulted in excessive heating of superconducting coils in the ship's fusion reactor, rendering the reactor inoperable. The issue become a point of contention between the Liberty Navy and Deep Space Engineering, with the Navy claiming that the reactor's destruction was the result of a failure by the company to adequately inspect their work. Deep Space Engineering, in turn, blamed the incident on the Navy's orders to upgrade Challenger Point's armor beyond initial specifications - which had interfered with the geometry of ship's compartments, and thus the shielding requirements. Debate over who should pay for the replacement reactor continued for two months before the Liberty Navy agreed to fund the refit.⁷
Challenger Peak was launched on 2 November 819. Additional fit-out and testing by Ageira Technologies, including installation of fire control modules and the recently-developed SERAH (SEnsor - Extended RAnge/Hyperspatial) system, continued until late 821. The ship was commissioned on 31 October 821 and assigned to fleet operations.⁸
Capabilities
Like all Interdictor-class ships Challenger Point is capable of accepting a range of pre-configured mission modules. Unlike traditional combatants, these modules can be altered with the aid of a Guardian-class Fleet Auxiliary without the need for Challenger Point to return to a shipyard. Modules may consist of manned spacecraft, unmanned drones, sensor packages, troop-carrying capacity, mission control facilities, or additional weapons systems.
Challenger Point is equipped with a similar long-life fusion drive to that carried by the Overlord-class, intended to last the service life of the ship and granting the craft endurance limited only by food, water and oxygen supply. While theoretically Challenger Point is capable of conventional sub-light speed interstellar travel under her own power, a lack of cold sleep facilities or the expanded supply bunkers required for such a journey render the concept impractical.⁹
Challenger Point is one of eight Libertonian ships known to make use of the all or nothing approach to armor originally developed for sea-going battleships. Mission-critical systems and facilities are enclosed within a hardened citadel at the center of the spacecraft, whereas the rest of the craft is comparatively unarmored. This serves to grant systems crucial to the ship's operation near-impunity to conventional weapons at the cost of rendering the remainder of the hull vulnerable to even fighter-grade armament.¹⁰
Interdictor-class and weapons of mass destruction
In addition to conventional kinetic bombardment the Interdictor-class is capable of delivering both the TN-3 thermonuclear and R/B-2 cobalt orbit to surface bombs. The Department of Defense has refused to release the names of individual ships equipped with the above weapons for reasons of operational security, but have confirmed that such ships exist.¹¹
As with all starships, the greatest potential destructive potential of the Interdictor-class does not come from weapon systems but from the ship itself, serving as a relativistic kill vehicle. Accelerating at 5G, an uncrewed Interdictor-class vessel could reach .85C within 0.17 light years. This acceleration would take under four months, causing the ship's 47,400 ton mass to impact a target with a force equivalent to 915 thousand gigatons of TNT, nearly 1.8 million times greater than the total energy released during the nuclear tests of the late 20th century.¹² Due to the lengthy time-to-target (allowing retaliatory strikes) and the likelihood of high-speed impacts with the interstellar medium such a maneuver would only be a viable method of attack against immobile targets, such as ground based facilities. A planetary strike of gigaton scale would also be a violation of the rules and customs of war established during the Cambridge Convention 740AS and has not been attempted by any sirian military.
References
- "LNS Challenger Point". Naval Vessel Register. Retrieved 22 May 816.
- "Navy Faces Further Funding Woes." Jeff Einfeld. Defense Monthly. Published 10 September 821.
- Burke, Trevor (7 July 812). "Navy CC-1224, CC-1225, CC-1226, CC-1227: Background and Issues for Congress". Congressional Research Service. Retrieved 23 October 813
- "Pittsburgh Mining Operations to Expand." Hazel Grean. Portsmouth Publisher. Published 20 December 819.
- "Congress to Scrap Battlecruisers?". Navy News Service. 3 July 816. Retrieved 19 July 816.
- "Liberty Revises Warship Order." Kevin Mason. The Fleet Review. Published 1 January 817.
- Akira, Rika (February 821). "Congressional Report: CC-1228". Retrieved 18 May 821
- "Navy to Commission Assault Battlecruiser Challenger Point". Navy News Service. 1 October 821. Retrieved 15 October 821.
- "Roads of our Ancestors: The Modern Practicality of Sub-Light Drives". Colony News Service. 17 March 818. Retrieved 2 May 821.
- "Maine to host weapons tests." Victoria Lewis. Liberty Courier. Published 7 February 816.
- Mansfield, Xavier (September 815). "Space-Based Weapons Platforms: Background and Issues for Congress". Congressional Research Service. Retrieved 31 March 817
- "R-Bombs and You: A Survivalist's Guide." Jamey Mateo. The Bailey Mail. Published 5 February 821.