Void Naval History: Virmirean Battlecruisers
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
In fact, we are currently on your second entire class and conceptual generation for battlecruisers.
Your first design was the Kamar-class.
Frankly, this class was a lemon. While it was decisive in its role, this was primarily due to luck and good commanders. The ship was, conceptually, an elongated Strala-class heavy cruiser (your workhorse design as of the start of the Wars, and indeed, of the quest). In-universe, this is the reason why battlecruisers are classified as battleship-ified cruisers (BCs) -- they literally began life as exactly that. This led to many questionable decisions born of sheer oversight. While the drives were improved to take advantage of increased power generation, the shields were not and the armor was, in addition to being deliberately light for its size, an awkward extension of the Strala's armor layout, which was not at the time understood to just fundamentally not work for a ship a kilometer long. The Kamar, like the Strala, lost shields on the first dreadnought hit, was crippled on the second, and was destroyed on the third. This did not serve well on a ship built to be a primary fleet combatant; while Virmire found roles for battlecruisers, a fleet battle is not their favorite playground. However, it had heavy firepower, and its intrinsic advantages partnered with good use and sheer luck to grant it a successful career.
Refits over the course of its lifespan primarily focused on improvements to the kinetic barriers, allowing the barriers to withstand three dreadnought rounds, as well as a secondary race to upgrade drives and armor in order to try and improve survivability without losing speed. However, the armor scheme handicapped it, and once the successor class was designed, the Kamar was phased out one-for-one with its successors, the individual ships being scrapped in order to recycle the materials. The first generation of battlecruiser designs, the Kamar holds an odd place in the Navy's heart; an innovative leap forward in response to very specific needs, but, in retrospect, an embarrassing first attempt that lucked its way into survival.
Your second -- and current -- design is the Durrahe Korun-class.
This class was built from the ground up to include quarian shipbuilding techniques and suit Beshkarian doctrine, as well as integrating lessons learned from the Kamar. The most crucial step began before the first designs were ever made, when Minister K'Sharr ruled that the next battlecruiser design would not be intended as a Battle Fleet capital ship. Instead, they were built from the ground up as a raid leader, with each battlecruiser expected to operate as the flagship of its own task force detached from the main body of its parent fleet while on tour. This demanded very different design decisions, beginning with the controversial decision to reduce their length to 800 meters from the Kamar-class's kilometer length. While this significantly slashed firepower and put the Koruns at a substantial disadvantage against enemy dreadnoughts in any environment but their favored melee, the attendant decision to retain the same type and number of power generators as the Devastator-class kilometer dreadnoughts, which would enter service a year after the Koruns, meant that the smaller spinal cannon freed up a massive amount of power for other functions.
Thus, in addition to unusually extensive command, control, and communications facilities, improvements focused on speed, barrier strength, and heat management. The Koruns match the latest rachni heavy cruisers for speed, and significantly overmatch the rear-line garrison forces they most typically engage. In STL flight, they are nimble and fast, and large heat radiation banks enable it to remain in combat for far longer than most ships. Barriers also saw fierce investment, with the incredible new reserves of power along with incremental improvements in barrier technology enabling barriers that can soak five dreadnought shots before failing. The Korun's barriers are -- albeit barely, thanks to more sophisticated Citadel designs -- the strongest in the galaxy for the ship's size. In addition to power, you found space in the mass budget for these improvements with
A fully-mature, second-generation design, the Durrahe Korun-class battlecruiser is a point of unambiguous pride for the Navy. While it struggles against dreadnoughts, it remains capable of dominating cruisers, and has found a rock-solid role as a raider. Some members of the design remain in service with the Battle Fleets to grant an extra measure of punch in the melee, but the second generation of battlecruisers is defined by a specific focus on a primary mission outside of fleet combat.
Your third BC class remains prospective, but closer to reality every day.
While the Durrahe Koruns were expected to remain in service for many years before replacement, the reactor technology gleaned from Yulair relics has changed everything. The increase in power generation is insane. It is no hyperbole to say that your entire navy is now conceptually -- if not functionally, since you have yet to begin mass production -- obsolete as a result of this single invention. Shipbuilding companies received some of the first prototype models and have submitted several designs taking advantage of the sheer amount of power it provides. Some are talking of a return to kilometer designs in order to revisit the days of a battlecruiser being a brawling dreadnought; others talk of a ship capable of outmaneuvering older CLs, or mounting the most formidable barriers, bar none and by a huge margin, in the entire galaxy. Whatever the case may be, the next battlecruiser class promises a lot.
In short, the battlecruiser design has evolved significantly over the course of the quest, both physically and in terms of its doctrinal role.
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