Type 47 Destroyer

[Graham Kennedy]

One of the mainstays of the Areldeni fleet, the Type 47 is a balanced, capable design which, despite using the old twin lobe Midspace drive system remains comparable in capability to its Coalition counterparts such as the Askad-Hazaline.

The Type 47 follows standard Areldeni design philosophy, with an aft hull containing most of the power and drive systems whilst the forward hull carries the bulk of the weapons and accommodation. The ship is fitted with eighteen Mark 7.8 AMP cannon in nine double turrets. The main gun layout leaves something to be desired compared to Coalition vessels; only three of the main turrets can fire on the forward axis, three on the aft, four up and five down. In a head or stern fight, then, the ship can only bring a third of her main guns to bear - as compared to the Askad-Hazaline, which can fire 56% of her main armament forwards and 44% aft. The Type 47 can thus be expected to fight on the beam whenever possible. Fighter and torpedo defence is provided by 43 of the ubiquitous quad barrel CIWS. The majority of these are concentrated on the forward ventral hull.

The torpedo armament is also heavier than the Coalition counterparts. Six tubes are carried to the four on the Askad-Hazaline. The torpedoes themselves are also twin lobe Midspace designs, and lag behind Coalition designs in range, agility and speed, though they are believed to have heavier warheads and shields. The torpedo magazine is reloaded through two dedicated hatches in the bow rather than through the tubes themselves.

In Midspace flight capability the Type 47 is less agile than comparable Coalition designs, and somewhat shorter ranged. More importantly the maximum speed is somewhat slower than the Askad-Hazaline at 92 kc to 96 kc, and although a narrow difference this would allow a Coalition destroyer to dictate the terms of an engagement, at least to some extent.

Little is known about the Type 47s shielding, and there is considerable debate concerning how well protected it is.

[MetalHead]

I like how (from what I've seen) Areldeni design is based heavily on the same scheme just scaled up, (comparing the battleships to this design anyway) simple but done correctly and effective. I love the connection between hulls, looks really cool

[Graham Kennedy]

Actually that's the one thing I DON'T like about how this one turned out. It looks a little too much like a scale of the Battleship design for my liking. I did what I could to alter the proportions, fiddled with it for days trying to make it look sufficiently different. I may fiddle with it more.

[Mikey]

Old-school broadsides for this one, eh? I foresee Areldeni forces fighting ships-of-the-line.

[Graham Kennedy]

The basic combat model is something like World War II, though with a bigger role for battleships. The big ships - cruiser and above - all carry fighter complements as well as big guns and torps, whilst the destroyer and frigate types carry only guns and torps.

Fleet combat typically follows several phases;

Find the enemy. Typically done via recon flights by Frigate scouts, AWACS ships, AEW small craft.

Close on them. Basically, maneuver into position to launch attacks, undetected if possible.

Attrition. Here you would send out fighter strikes. Fighters are generally regarded as being capable of destroying small ships, but not so much big ones. If a squadron of attack craft got through and launched a concerted attack on a Destroyer, it would be toast. But even the whole complement of a Battleship wouldn't likely be able to kill another battleship, and would suffer very badly in return. So the basic task in this stage is to whittle away at the screening force around the battleships; try to take out their destroyers and frigates, cruisers if you can, and inflict whatever damage you can on the battleship shields.

Close. Again, move in to close range for an all out attack.

Full engage. The big ships close in and slug it out, hopefully having gained an advantage in the earlier rounds. Do all the damage you can, hopefully force the enemy to retreat in disarray or be destroyed.


For a destroyer like this, it's job in the early stages is to act as a scout and recon unit, to screen the big ships at the core of the fleet from anything hostile, to provide early warning of incoming attacks, to disrupt fighter formations as they come in if possible, to soak up the fighter attacks to save the big ships whilst attriting them as much as possible. When the fleets do close with one another Destroyers would engage any remaining enemy destroyers and frigates and try to finish them off, and hopefully try to get in a few torpedo attacks on the enemy battleships, split their fire and let your own battleships have that much better a chance.

If they operate on their own it's more in the line of what a destroyer might do today; general purpose stuff, convoy escort, show the flag, that kind of thing.

[Reliant121]

The joining section between the fore and aft hulls looks a lot more vulnerable on this compared to the battleships, how vulnerable do you think it actually is?

[Sionnach Glic]

Aye, I'm a bit worried about how much of a weak point that section may be.

[Graham Kennedy]

It's thinner in proportion to the hull, so hard lateral turns would be problematic. This wouldn't be anything like as maneuverable as Coalition destroyers, and if it really pushed it, it would likely snap the neck clean in two.

The Areldeni would really do better to switch to single hulled ships, but that would be much more expensive, they'd have to cut the fleet size at least in half to afford it, and it would be a 20 year long rebuilding process. They're too wedded to the idea of bigger and better version of what they've used before to bite the bullet... and they hope that if they can just go big and strong enough with what they use, it will be enough to accomplish what they want.

[Mikey]

I seem to remember something about the Areldeni being resource-poor in comparison to the Coalition. This adherence to an older, established design would be typically symptomatic of that.

[shran]

the connection between the 2 lobes seems a bit unclear to me, cna you give a cut through at the neck? It seems square to me, though it may be oval or a square with rounded angles. Almost any shape.

[Graham Kennedy]

The neck is indeed square, or oblong anyway. It's extremely solid - apart from accessways and pipelines and such, it's basically one massive structural beam.

[Teaos]

Exactly how big of an advantage technologically is it to the Coalition having a supply of Nuetronium?

[Mikey]

I'd think some amount of neutronium would have to be available to the Areldeni, in order for them to be a competitive spacefaring race.

[Graham Kennedy]

It's more an economic and political boon than a direct technological one. Forcefield generators rely on having an "antenna", the element that actually projects the field. The denser the antenna material is, the more efficient it is at what it does. Neutronium is somewhat hampered as a material in that it behaves as a liquid; it needs to be contained and shaped by other fields generated by less dense materials in turn. But still, neutronium field antennas make the most efficient generators out there. Far more efficient overall than their closest rival, which is itself an exotic form of matter, or about ten or twenty times more efficient as ordinary materials. Whilst it's possible to build interstellar ships without it, even fast, long range ones, they'd be at least ten times more inefficient and expensive to run. It would be like building a fleet of oceangoing wood-fired paddle steamers today.

The big energies involved in something like a midspace drive shunt will cause the neutronium to break down and decay over time, which means you have to replace the neutronium every now and again - not often, a couple of times over a ship's life cycle.

The upshot of all that is there is a huge and ongoing demand for neutronium across the galaxy. Even those who don't have the tech to mine and handle it themselves want to buy the latest neutronium-based gizmos from those who do.

Neutronium itself is best mined from pulsars, and the newer the pulsar is the more easy it is to mine. An old, slow-rotating neutron star would be all but impossible to mine neutronium from. There's about ten pulsars in the galaxy suitable for mining, and they are huge cash cows to those that own them. A good third of the Coalition's economy depends on the export of neutronium or neutronium products.

Politically, if there's one thing that gets the Coalition recognition and acceptance on the galactic stage that it otherwise wouldn't get, it's the fact that they sell neutronium. Some play games with who they sell to - charge different prices depending on how much they like you, that kind of thing. In the Coalition there are laws restricting the export of advanced neutronium based products to certain trustworthy friends, but the mining and selling of the bulk product itself is in private hands, and they sell at a flat rate on the open market to all comers. Not playing favourites like that makes them a lot of friends.

[MetalHead]

well graham, as an author, I can understand why you're slightly dissatisfied with the design, but the consistency of the technology makes alot of sense to me, and as a member of the audience, I like that, alot. It reminds me of a line from your story "Portal" where the trek crew makes a quick analysis of the Star Destroyer, noting that the same technology has been around for huge amounts of time, only massively scaled up with minor tweaking upgrades.