Farragut Type: Battleship Mass: 1,200,000 Sail Integrity: 6 Thrust: 3/5 Fuel: 2000 tons Structural Integrity: 95 Armor: 2280 tons of Ferro Aluminium (1368, 256+10 fwd, 200+10 aft, 228+10 others) Docking Collars: 6 Fighters: 36 Small Craft: 16 Crew: 800 Lifeboats: 30 Escape Pods: 30 Grav Decks: 2, each 150 meters Cargo: 82,750 Bay 1: Fighters (36) 4 doors Bay 2: Cargo (82,750) 5 doors Bay 3: Small Craft (16) 2 doors Weapons: Forward 20 Naval Laser 35 Fore Left / Fore Right 4 Naval Autocannon 25 3 White Shark Left Broadside / Right Broadside 10 Medium Naval PPC Aft Left / Aft Right 10 Medium Naval PPC 2 White Shark Aft 4 Naval Autocannon 25 Designer's Notes: Second revision of the Farragut class battleship. The craft has lost 600,000 tons, which makes it a size that I am more willing to accept. Though waste tonnage was able to eat most of the mass deficite this created, I still had to drop half the autocannons and eight of the naval ppcs to get the ship down to the proper mass. Coincidentally this doesn't really bother me as it nicely dealt with the problem of this craft being nearly as good a mckenna as the mckenna. On a whim I added ferro aluminium armor to keep the ship's good (for its era) armor protection. I am now much more happy with this ship. Overview: The Farragut class battleship was originally concieved as a flagship and ultimate deterent in the Terran fleet. Just over thirteen hundred meters long and massing 1.2 megatons, the Farragut was the largest ship of its day and likewise carried the heaviest firepower and armor, enough to outclass any ship it could expect to come across. These qualities, however, made the ship a rare comodity in the Hegemony fleet. Because of its shear size and complexity, a Farragut cost roughly three times as much to build as the Hegemony's main line battleship, the Monsoon class, and likewise it required an enormous crew to run. These factors limited production of Farraguts dramatically, and as a result there were only about forty of the class in service by the time of the founding of the Star League. Nevertheless, the Farragut was a respected and feared warship, and a welcomed addition to the Star League arsenal. League admirals regularly chose the powerful ship as their command ship, and the league built an additional twelve Farraguts before 2652, when the McKenna class battleships, which drew a great deal of inspiration from the older ship, came into service and supplanted it as the ultimate warship. Despite its excellent war record and its reputation for indestructability, the Farragut did have some problems. The ship's fire control computers had frequent problems with tracking multiple opponents, up to the point that at least one Farragut was lost because its fire control system simply stopped working. This is primarily due to the large number and variety of weapons the ship carries, which simply becomes too much for the computer to handle at once, especially when the ship tries to engage multiple opponents. The best way ship commanders have found to get around the problem is to use their weapons in stages and to concentrate on destroying individual targets before moving on to new ones. The ship's biggest problem, however, rests with the naval laser batteries nestled under its nose. These light naval lasers were added as an afterthough on the suggestion of a ground officer interested in developing tactics for light naval support fire. Though the Ares Convention prohibited the use of warships for large scale saturation bombardment, it was theorized that the lowest grade naval lasers could produce a bombardment roughly comperable to standard artillery and well within the guidelines of the Conventions. The tactic soon proved itself viable during the reconquest of Terra Firma, and it was decided that the Hegemony's newest warship would carry an integral low level bombardment capability to support ground operations. The soon to be commisioned Farragut was therefore quickly modified to support a battery of twenty naval lasers under its nose, replacing six medium naval PPCs that were to be installed there. Unfortunately, the placement of the weapons soon proved to be a hinderance more than a benefit. The shorter ranged weapons reduced the ship's "closing firepower" (the ability to engage a target while closing at the maximum possible range), and their placement under the nose, while providing the maximum possible arc for the weapons in their orbital bombardment role, meant that the ship could not use them against targets directly above it, creating a blind spot that could be exploited. Worse yet, the lasers added a significant burden to an already taxed computer system. Nevertheless, the designers and admirals were pleased with the design, and the generals were happy to have the option of calling down naval support fire in tough situations. Despite the misgivings of some and the occasional problems with the computer system, the Farragut proved to be a capable and lethal warship, and continued to serve long after its contemporaries, such as the Monsoon, began to disapear. Farraguts served all the way through the Amaris Coup, and three survived in the hands of the SLDF to accompany the Exodus fleet. A dozen, long before transfered to the successor houses in better days, fought and were destroyed during the succession wars. Ten more had been mothballed before the Amaris Coup, and though their fates are uncertain, it is most likely they were destroyed during the coup by one side or the other. Little more than a curious footnote is a Farragut class ship named the Black Prince. This battleship led a naval squadron chasing Taurian rebels in and around the Pirates Haven star cluster during the periphery uprising, and it, along with the modified Monsoon class battleship Draco, were lost in the cluster during an ambush. The loss of the Black Prince and the Draco were a severe blow, and one that was largely hushed up by Kerensky in order to preserve morale, but a great many questions still surround the event. Both battleships had been operating independently in the star cluster, each seeking a different adversary. Though the Draco was well suited for this sort of an operation, the Black Prince wasn't and the question remains about why Admiral Cutter would take his flagship alone into an operation better suited for a smaller, faster ship. As far as can be proven, there are no witnesses to the Taurian ambushes that destroyed the Black Prince or Draco, and the only evidence of an ambush is an emergency HPG transmission originating from the Black Prince, indicating that they were under attack. Official reports of the incident state that Admiral Cutter decided to go out looking for personal glory and wandered into a trap. Of course, the conspiracy theories don't stop there. A story, most likely begun by Taurian propaganda sources during the war, but since taking root among many in the Taurian Concordat (and at least once presented as a fact in a Taurian college histoy book) claims the Admiral Cutter and his crew were against supressing the periphery uprising and fled the inner sphere rather than carry out orders to attack the Taurian Concordat. According to the story, the Draco was sent into the Pirates Haven star cluster in order to hunt down and destroy the Black Prince. The only real evidence of this story is the death bed account of a former pirate from the era who claimed to be a witness to a pair of very large warships engaged in a battle on the edge of the cluster, The larger one jumping out of the system after first crippling the smaller one and leaving it for lost. This story, in adition to fueling claims that one of the Star League's more respected flag officers would fire on his own and abandon the inner sphere, was also largely responsible for the belief that the Draco is still out there in the Pirates Haven star cluster waiting to be salvaged. Though it is most likely little more than a fairy tale, the story of the Black Prince, much like the similar story of the cruiser October Revolution and other ships, has captured the hearts and minds of many a lostech prospector, and not a few have searched the periphery looking for her. Very few are willing to admit that even if she were out there, the ship carried a full year's worth of supplies, and would by now be virtually impossible to find.