UCS Shadow

[Graham Kennedy]

The Shadow class is a typical light cruiser as used by the Coalition since the Tain war. The Shadow is conventional in layout for a
Coalition capital ship. She mounts a three tier AMP cannon armament; the primary tier is composed of a dozen Mark 12s in twin
turrets. The secondary tier comprises 28 mark 3s whilst the tertiary tier is made of 64 Mark 2s. The Mark 2 and 3 coverage is weak
in the aft quarter, a noted weakness of this class.

Two torpedo tubes are mounted; like all cruiser and above classes the Shadow carries the heavy 1950 cm tubes. Thirty torpedoes
are carried.

Provision for fighters is in the forward dorsal hull. Two fighter complexes are mounted here. Each has two angled landing runways,
each capable of landing multiple fighters simultaneously. The Shadow can therefore land a dozen fighters at once. Each complex
has launch catapults for 36 fighters.

The Shadow is a fast ship, with a top cruise speed of 58 kc. The 24 hour dash speed is 74 kc, whilst the maximum rated is 104 kc
for 30 minutes. Endurance at maximum cruise is 16 days for a range of 2,835 light years.



This week's ship is a light cruiser. Internal details will follow...

[Graham Kennedy]

Size comparison...

[Captain Seafort]

Yet another great design - thanks for putting it up. Something I particularly like about these ships of yours is the fact that they're all variations on the same theme, without simply being scale models of each other. It's an extremely well done balance between form being dictated by function and little titbits of difference to look for in each ship, just like real warships, which pays dividends in the sense of realism it creates.

[Mikey]

Very true - I also appreciate the fact that you have created and pointed out a weakness in your own design; one which would be brought about or overlookled due to the ship's function, priority, or design budget. Another example of a quality of your design making it more "real-worldly."

[Graham Kennedy]

What's cool about that last point is that it's actually something that wasn't done on purpose - it evolved naturally. I got to a certain point
in the design and suddenly realised that I didn't have any secondary or tertiary armament back under the stern at all. When I fiddled
with it I found that there just wasn't a lot of room to work any in, either. I managed to get a couple of Mark 2s in under there, but I just
couldn't fit anything else without extending the whole stern. So I figured what the hell, leave it as a weakness of the class!

[Mikey]

However it happened, it makes the ship appear more as a real-world, in-service vessel rather than some ideal which would be discussed in fora like this as impractical to field...

[Graham Kennedy]

And just for fun...

Incidentally, the Askad-Hazaline is a shade over 1 mile long; The Shadow is 1.86 miles and the Kororra weighs in at a little over 3.1 miles.

[Sionnach Glic]

Would love to see the Enterprise coming across that. One word comes to mind: squish.
Great ship.

[Mikey]

The main guns on the smallest of the lot are each the size of the GCS' bridge! Now that's a ship whose purpose will not be called in question!

[Graham Kennedy]

The AMP cannon internal arrangement. Smaller cannon tend to be very self contained, everything built into one module. Larger ones tend to
start having a cylindrical base under the turret with additional modules around it. Much of the equipment is focused on the task of
encasing the matter/antimatter particle streams in fields that let them travel through midspace and various other things. The mass these
systems can encase dictates the round mass, and so yield; the time taken to charge up the systems up over and over dictates the rate
of fire. I'll post the close up views of the different types shortly...

[Graham Kennedy]

The Mark 3 AMP cannon.

[Graham Kennedy]

The Mark 12.

[Deepcrush]

Uh buh?

[Graham Kennedy]

Uh buh?

Whatnow?

[Deepcrush]

*Uh buh?* Means "Oh my god, what the hell is that huge and or weird thing!?"