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The Saunders class mobile dock is designed to recover and transport damaged or disabled warships over long distances. The demanding role calls for an innovative and unusual design; the Saunders comprises two 2,700 metre long hulls connected forward by an adjustable junction forward. The forward section of each hull contains a midspace shunt, with fuel and power systems below. Between them is a third hull which houses crew quarters and support systems. It also carries a set of eight small tugs which position the load for carrying.

Aft of this the two main hulls narrow slightly, leaving a 320 metre space between them. The Inner surface of each hull is lined with a cradle which has eighteen grappling points. To hold the load securely. The design has considerable flexibility built into it; the adjustable junction allows this hulls to be moved up to 600 metres apart, while the grappler cradles are on a rail which can be extended to up to 3,500 metres long. The position of the grapplers themselves can be adjusted for larger loads. This allows the Saunders to carry objects up to the size of a heavy cruiser.

The Saunders is unarmed and unprotected, lacking both shields and armour. It is neither agile nor fast. Cruise speed is 18 kc in the normal configuration, dropping to 14 kc in the fully extended configuration. Carrying a heavy load the speed will drop still further - for a typical large load like a heavy cruiser, down to 5 kc or so.

Is that big enough to carry a Korran class ship or what ever the most modern colaitions ship is called? Is doesnt seem quite big enough. Or I might be thinking of the type 25 battleship...

Not even close. The blurb describes the heaviest ship that can be carried as a heavy cruiser, which would be around a quarter the size of a battleship.

Overall, another example of the oft-ignored fleet traing, in this case roughly equivalent to the Blue Marlin.

Cool, nice to see more of the background ships being fleshed out.

UCS Saunders carrying a destroyer, and fully extended to carry a heavy cruiser.

Ah cool to see how it expands.

Awesome, Graham. As has been observed, these sort of support ships are usually omitted in sci-fi, even though they'd be invaluable.

One of the things that drive the worldbuilding fun and frolics I do with the Coalition universe is trying to do these kind of support ships. So many people design science fiction warships, but not too many design tugs, cargo ships, tenders, hospital ships, that kind of thing. I'm actually finding it more fun doing those than the warships!

In fact I find myself searching around the net, looking for odd or unusual support ship designs that I can adapt for the Coalition universe. I'm short of ideas in that respect...

Well for a ship idea you could have a small support ship that cleans the windows of the fleet

Universe related question. Where did this universe start. What was the first bit of it you came up with and how did you get the idea. If I remember correctly the lattest ships we see are from around 3000ish while the early ones are like 2100, so what time period did it start?

on a similar note, what are civilia ships like, passenger liners, luxury cruise boats, yachts etc?

Teaos wrote:Well for a ship idea you could have a small support ship that cleans the windows of the fleet

Windows? On a warship? Heck no!

Universe related question. Where did this universe start.

About 14 billion years ago there was a big bang...

What was the first bit of it you came up with and how did you get the idea. If I remember correctly the lattest ships we see are from around 3000ish while the early ones are like 2100, so what time period did it start?

Believe it or not it began with me wanting to draw a ship. I was in my late teens. At the time it was a small, simple thing - few hundred feet long, civilian yacht. It grew into a warship, with a rotating hull for gravity. Over time I refined it and refined it, made it bigger. Then one day I came across a scribble in a book, a couple of curves joined together. That gave me the idea of the curved upper and lower hull concept that you see on a lot of Coalition ships.

The earlier versions of it, with rotational hulls and such, were all basically the same ship just going through design iterations. But I adapted them into the older ships in my timeline.

shran wrote:on a similar note, what are civilia ships like, passenger liners, luxury cruise boats, yachts etc?

Same basic tech but unarmed, unshielded, unarmoured. Civilian designs tend to be backwards, with the engines and power systems at the front, to make them stable in flight. If you take a look at the hospital ship I did, the idea of that is that it is a converted cruise liner.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Windows? On a warship? Heck no!

Good man.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Windows? On a warship? Heck no!

And you run a Star Trek site?

About 14 billion years ago there was a big bang...