Defiant Type: Corvette In class: 60 at its height In service: 2366, refitted 2459, 2566 Mass: 220,000 Sail Integrity: 3 Thrust: 3/5 Fuel: 6000 tons Structural Integrity: 50 Armor: 220 tons of standard armor (22+5 each facing) Docking Collars: 0 Fighters: 0 Small Craft: 2 Crew: 150 Lifeboats: 0 Escape Pods: 10 Grav Decks: 0 Cargo: 41,800 Bay 1: Small Craft (2) 1 door Bay 2: Cargo (41,800) 2 doors Other equipment none Weapons: Heatsinks: 1728 (enough) Forward 3 Naval Autocannon 10s Fore Left/Fore Right 4 Naval Laser 35s 4 Autocannon 5s 4 Autocannon 10s Left Broadside/Right Broadside 4 Naval Laser 35s Aft Left/Aft Right 4 Naval Laser 35s 4 Autocannon 5s 4 Autocannon 10s Ammo 30 tons of Naval Autocannon ammo 80 tons of autocannon 5 ammo 80 tons of autocannon 10 ammo Designer's notes: Underweight by about sixty tons Overview: When the Taurian Defense Force was first formed in the year 2360, the government of the Concordat knew that their first line of defense would have to be naval. Without an active force of warships sufficient to oppose (if not outright defeat) any enemy aproach against the Hyades Cluster, the Concordat had little chance of standing against a major assault by either of its much larger neighbors. To this end, officers of the TDF put forward a list of requirements for the Concordat's first warships. They had to be well armed enough to engage larger opponents, fast enough to run when the enemy outgunned them, and they had to be able to make long voyages far from a ready source of supply, given the lack of available supply bases on most of the Concordat's still young colonies. Most important of all, they could not be very large. The Concordat had limited capabilities for shipbuilding, and ships much above three hundred thousand tons would stretch these capabilities to their limit. The Defiant class corvette was among the first ships produced as a part of that effort, with the first ones comming in service in 2366. Capabilities: The Defiant's most important feature has always been the ease with which it could be upgraded. Though when most people talk about smart modularity they are thinking of the Terran Hegemony's Vincent class corvette, the fact is that the concept really wasn't new when the Vincent was launched. The Concordat in particular made heavy use of similar concepts with their Defiant. They knew that the high costs of warship construction would make a hull that could be extensively modified when needed rather than just replaced would be an extremely valuable thing, so engineers made sure that the Defiant could meet that requirement. Over the course of its career, the Defiant has undergone two major refits and numerous minor upgrades, keeping it largely on par with its nearest competitors. The 2566 refit in particular had a remarkable impact on the design. Advances in propulsion technology in particular had resulted in a major reduction in the ship's engine mass. Taking the opportunity to enhance the vessel's firepower, engineers made extensive changes to the hull, making room for thirty two light naval lasers and turning the Defiant into a powerful gunboat almost on a par with the newer Bulldog (though of course lacking fighters). In order to counter the increased power demands of the naval lasers, in adition to upgrading the existing power system, workers took the novel aproach of installing a trio of large battlemech fusion engines to handle much of the ship's minor power needs. Deployment: Though many Defiant class vessels were still in opperation when the Reunification war had begun, the Concordat had begun to slowly retire the class when the better, stronger, and faster Bulldog came into service. Though all were refitted with the additional naval lasers in 2566, forty of the existing Defiants were placed into mothballs soon after, with most of the remainder assigned as defense and supply ships for the Hyades cluster and two given the role of deep range exploration vessels. The precaution of mothballing most of the class rather than scrapping them soon proved fortuitous during the Reunification war, when the Concordat was able to quickly reactivate the mothballed ships, which were primarily tasked with running supplies to the rest of the fleet and defending the Hyades Cluster. Most Defiants were lost when the SLDF fought its way into the Cluster, though according to legends told after the war, Defiant class vessels made up the bulk of the so called lost squadron. Another persistent legend of the Defiant claims that several (as many as half a dozen) might have ended up in Draconis Combine space. According to the story, the Concordat made a deal of sorts with the Combine in which Kurita would provide a safe haven for Taurian raiders to strike against House Davion and the Terran Hegemony in exchange for a cut of whatever loot the raiders recovered. Of course, this legend is nothing more than a rumor, and though a rather well equipped pirate band did conduct several opperations along he border between Kurita, Davion, and the Hegemony after the war, there is no proof that Kurita supported them in any way.