kotkoozya
Sarissa-class carrier-battlecruiser
Length: 1658 m
Height: 410 m
Width: 483 m
When The Great Insectoid War emerged, Galactic Federation faced severe lacking of modern big battlecruiser/carrier type capital ships that were much needed to the war effort. Existing battlecruisers, such as Brutus-class, although were cheap to build, but also obsolete and was too highly specialized as artillery ships, while light spacecraft played a huge role in combat; dedicated spacecraft carriers also had flaws, being underarmed, underarmored and straight up too small to manage combat without a support group, which is a big issue when whole fleet experience a huge lack of vessels.
So engineers rolled up their sleeves and started to design new multipurpose capital ship class, that would serve roles of both battlecruiser and spacecraft carrier. In its development designers used the experience of their colleagues to the fullest: new vessel featured a hull that partly consisted of large sections - much like in Brutus and a plethora of earlier designed cargo vessels; design team also actively used pre-war battleship projects to reduce the overall cost and fasten the development.
Most difficult part was in creating engines that will provide this behemoth with enough speed and agility. In original project Sarissa ought to be driven by two colossal engines that also feature thrust-vectoring for maneuverability, and although those motors were an engineering marvel, but two of them wasn't enough for certain scenarios, so design team added 4 more engines, much smaller though, that gave Sarissa additional trust and served as back-up engines.
Although this vessel meant to be sort of a blend of battlecruiser and a carrier, it featured solid armament, which would be the envy of any other battleship. It had numerous heavy rapid-firing turbolaser batteries, a plethora lighter plasma cannons, rocket launchers and anti-spacecraft guns and dozens of torpedoes and ballistic missiles, all of which would be more than enough for a ship of its type... But it also mounted 4 artillery pieces originally designed for planetary defense systems that could destroy in one shot vessels of up to a frigate size. Even navy officials rated all this weaponry as a bit overkill for such ship.
Even though many vessels from first production series came into service underarmed and sometimes even lacking four additional engines due to logistic issues, their combat performance was excellent and they swiftly became flagships in many fleets. In conditions where warships often had to operate in very small groups due to a general shortage of vessels, these multi-functional battleships came in very handy, providing both overwhelming firepower and good protection as well as a considerable spacecraft group.
However, it was not without drawbacks: the huge firepower required an incredible amount of energy, just like the engines, and this created a lot of problems. For example, heavy fire from all the guns overheated the reactors very quickly, and if the ship maneuvered at the same time, then overheating could occur in a matter of minutes. Because of this, the captains tried to use weapons quite sparingly, and the four main guns were hardly used at all, with rare exceptions.
Also, despite the high degree of automation of processes on board, there was hardly enough space for supplies and personnel on board - most of the space inside was occupied by weaponry and spacecraft. All this led to the fact that at the beginning of the Sarissa-class operational use the crews either had to constantly replenish their supplies by entering ports or intersecting with supply ships, wasting time, or abandoning part of the ammunition, spacecraft groups or even rescue capsules. Because of this, very often ships of this type were not on long-range combat missions where they were sometimes needed the most.
However, when the situation for the fleet ceased to be so deplorable and the Federation fully established the production of ships in the required quantity, small groups of supply ships were assigned to the Sarissa's, which provided their crews with ammunition, supplies and fuel during long patrols, and during the battle went to the rear, which fully revealed the potential of Sarissa-class.
Despite the fact that until the second half of the war there was no more than one Sarissa in a single fleet, their combat use as flagships was extremely successful. As the fighting took on a larger scale, the Federation fleet received more and more ships of this type, and subsequently they became the basis of the fleet. Even though these ships were expensive to manufacture and repeatedly tried to replace them with newer vessels, Sarissa-class became the most numerous battlecruiser of the entire war.
I thought that it would be appropriate to post this beast while the SHIPtember is ongoing, but nonetheless this is not a SHIPtember MOC - because it's not mine and it was built several years ago. It's another Stepola's unpublished build that I tweaked to my taste, mostly by reducing number of artillery points and designing completely new set of engines.
Sarissa-class carrier-battlecruiser
Length: 1658 m
Height: 410 m
Width: 483 m
When The Great Insectoid War emerged, Galactic Federation faced severe lacking of modern big battlecruiser/carrier type capital ships that were much needed to the war effort. Existing battlecruisers, such as Brutus-class, although were cheap to build, but also obsolete and was too highly specialized as artillery ships, while light spacecraft played a huge role in combat; dedicated spacecraft carriers also had flaws, being underarmed, underarmored and straight up too small to manage combat without a support group, which is a big issue when whole fleet experience a huge lack of vessels.
So engineers rolled up their sleeves and started to design new multipurpose capital ship class, that would serve roles of both battlecruiser and spacecraft carrier. In its development designers used the experience of their colleagues to the fullest: new vessel featured a hull that partly consisted of large sections - much like in Brutus and a plethora of earlier designed cargo vessels; design team also actively used pre-war battleship projects to reduce the overall cost and fasten the development.
Most difficult part was in creating engines that will provide this behemoth with enough speed and agility. In original project Sarissa ought to be driven by two colossal engines that also feature thrust-vectoring for maneuverability, and although those motors were an engineering marvel, but two of them wasn't enough for certain scenarios, so design team added 4 more engines, much smaller though, that gave Sarissa additional trust and served as back-up engines.
Although this vessel meant to be sort of a blend of battlecruiser and a carrier, it featured solid armament, which would be the envy of any other battleship. It had numerous heavy rapid-firing turbolaser batteries, a plethora lighter plasma cannons, rocket launchers and anti-spacecraft guns and dozens of torpedoes and ballistic missiles, all of which would be more than enough for a ship of its type... But it also mounted 4 artillery pieces originally designed for planetary defense systems that could destroy in one shot vessels of up to a frigate size. Even navy officials rated all this weaponry as a bit overkill for such ship.
Even though many vessels from first production series came into service underarmed and sometimes even lacking four additional engines due to logistic issues, their combat performance was excellent and they swiftly became flagships in many fleets. In conditions where warships often had to operate in very small groups due to a general shortage of vessels, these multi-functional battleships came in very handy, providing both overwhelming firepower and good protection as well as a considerable spacecraft group.
However, it was not without drawbacks: the huge firepower required an incredible amount of energy, just like the engines, and this created a lot of problems. For example, heavy fire from all the guns overheated the reactors very quickly, and if the ship maneuvered at the same time, then overheating could occur in a matter of minutes. Because of this, the captains tried to use weapons quite sparingly, and the four main guns were hardly used at all, with rare exceptions.
Also, despite the high degree of automation of processes on board, there was hardly enough space for supplies and personnel on board - most of the space inside was occupied by weaponry and spacecraft. All this led to the fact that at the beginning of the Sarissa-class operational use the crews either had to constantly replenish their supplies by entering ports or intersecting with supply ships, wasting time, or abandoning part of the ammunition, spacecraft groups or even rescue capsules. Because of this, very often ships of this type were not on long-range combat missions where they were sometimes needed the most.
However, when the situation for the fleet ceased to be so deplorable and the Federation fully established the production of ships in the required quantity, small groups of supply ships were assigned to the Sarissa's, which provided their crews with ammunition, supplies and fuel during long patrols, and during the battle went to the rear, which fully revealed the potential of Sarissa-class.
Despite the fact that until the second half of the war there was no more than one Sarissa in a single fleet, their combat use as flagships was extremely successful. As the fighting took on a larger scale, the Federation fleet received more and more ships of this type, and subsequently they became the basis of the fleet. Even though these ships were expensive to manufacture and repeatedly tried to replace them with newer vessels, Sarissa-class became the most numerous battlecruiser of the entire war.
I thought that it would be appropriate to post this beast while the SHIPtember is ongoing, but nonetheless this is not a SHIPtember MOC - because it's not mine and it was built several years ago. It's another Stepola's unpublished build that I tweaked to my taste, mostly by reducing number of artillery points and designing completely new set of engines.