The Imperium Warcraft Askad-Travine was the first Turgran warship to be fitted with an artificial gravity field system.
Systems which dampened out the high accelerations possible with repellor drives had been in service for a
considerable time, but that was all they did - artificial gravity still had to be generated by rotation, as it had been for
centuries. Although artificial gravity systems had begun to become available by the 2610s, the Allied Navies
considered them too unreliable for use on warships. By 2630, though, the technology had matured enough for the
Imperium Navy to proceed with a cautious experiment.
Wary of introducing a revolutionary change in a single step, the Turgran Navy decided to produce a conventional ship
which included an AG pressure hull as wall as the standard rotating one.
The Askad-Travine class frigate was therefore essentially two ships combined. Besides the twin hull concept she
was essentially a standard ship of the era; she carried 84 of the tried and tested Alvan-1 offensive missiles and 48
point defence missiles in the venerable octuple launchers. Beam armament comprised six twin gamma ray
laser cannon.
A six spine repellor allowed a sublight acceleration of 75 standard gee, while the armoured pod carried a quad sail
configuration allowing a top speed of 280 x c.
The AG hull was intended to carry as few vital systems as possible; the Turgrans still didn't really trust AG systems
and it was intended that the ship should suffer little or no loss of capability if the AG hull failed completely. Most
of the crew quarters and recreational facilities were located in this hull, along with food stores and other non-combat
related items. Some thought was even given to having the sail pod attachment point mounted on the rotating hull
rather than the AG hull, but this was deemed to be impractical.
The Travine joined the fleet in 2634, and initial trials proved successful. The AG system functioned well in both peacetime
and combat; indeed, on one occasion when the ship took a laser hit, the rotation of the main hull had to be shut down
during the three month return to base, leaving the majority of the ship in zero gee whilst the AG hull continued to perform
flawlessley.
The success of the Travine led to a good deal more enthusiasm for AG systems aboard ships in both the Turgran
Imperium and the Human Empire.[/img]
