Magpie class Corvette

In class: 107 at its height
In service: 2737

Mass: 300,000
Sail Integrity: 3
Thrust: 3/5
Fuel: 4000 tons
Structural Integrity: 60
Armor: 360 tons of ferro aluminium armor (36+6 per facing)

Docking Collars: 0
Fighters: 18
Small Craft: 4
Crew: 163
Lifeboats: 4
Escape Pods: 4
Grav Decks: 1 95 meter
Cargo: 18,521

Bay 1: Small Craft 1 door
Bay 2: Fighters 6 doors
Bay 3: Cargo  1 door

Other equipment
HPG


Weapons:
Heatsinks: 1207

Forward
2 Naval Autocannon 20s
4 Naval Laser 45s

Fore Left/Fore Right
3 Naval Autocannon 20s
1 Barracuda Launcher

Aft Left/Aft Right
2 Naval Autocannon 20s
1 Barracuda Launcher

Aft
2 Barracuda Launchers

Ammo
1250 rounds of Naval AC ammo
360 Barracudas


Overview:

Though General Fredasa's New Arms order of 2735 was best known for producing the Sovetskii Soyuz class cruiser, all parts of the fleet got a good looking at. In a report filed early that year, the SLDF's Planning and Strategy division identified a number of potential weaknesses in the fleet. Among these was a serious deficiency in the cruiser force, with the fleet still heavily dependent on ancient Aegis class cruisers and the more modern Luxor still rare. A second, similar weakness existed in the corvette force, with the Vincent class still serving as the mainstay despite being roughly three hundred years old. In the words of the report, "Though the Vincent certainly has a great deal of room for upgrading, the simple fact is that no matter how much upgrading is done, the Vincent will always be oversized and drastically undergunned. Currently the ship is at times a poor match for the increasingly sophisticated pirate bands and rogue forces it is expected to control, and we do not anticipate any improvement in the situation without a drastic refit that will prove costly, expensive, and time consumming. The ship is just too old. Smart Modularity has carried the Vincent through its career very well, however it is still opperating at better than one hundred years past its intended service life."

With that in mind, it was decided that a new corvette was needed to suplement and eventually replace the aging Vincent. After a lengthy design competition, the SLDF awarded the contract to Di Tron Heavy Industries.

Capabilities:

The best possible description for the Magpie might be that it accomplishes as much as possible with as little as possible. The ship's hull, KF-drive, and propulsion system are either identical to or modified from those used for the Carrack class transport, while the ship's weapons were all originally intended as replacements for Aegis class cruisers (which were expected to be phased out soon). 

The main firepower of the ship comes from twelve Imperator-20 naval autocannons. These guns provide staggering firepower for a corvette, however, though a reliable cannon that has been in use for centuries, the Imperator-20 is not the most compact of designs (as it was designed for use on cruisers and battlecruisers). The amount of space they take up tends to produce rather cramped conditions aboard ship.

Backing up the main guns are four Magna-45 naval lasers mounted in the nose. Though they do not add much real firepower, they give the little ship the ability for some measure of harrassing fire against distant targets.

Primary anti-fighter defense is provided by the Magpie's abnormally large fighter complement. Many engagements in the periphery had proven that pirate bands could at times call upon numerous fightercraft, and it was decided the ship needed an effective defense. Magpies were usually assigned the newer Thresher heavy aerospace fighters (a major refit of the old Hammerhead incorporating a more potent weapons load) which actually gave them not only a good defence against hostile fighters but also an additional offensive weapon to call upon.

For defense the ship depends on its heavily reinforced hull (providing roughly four times the structural strength of the Carrack hull it was based on) and nearly four hundred tons of ferro aluminium armor. Though the somewhat more advanced armor was more expensive than the standard plate originally planned, designers decided that the extra protection was worth it.

The only real flaw in the design is its propulsion system. That's not to say there is anything really wrong with it. The propulsion system is a proven, reliable design, it's just small and doesn't provide all that much thrust. This meant that the Magpie is far from the most nimble of corvettes, and can find itself at a serious disadvantage in certain curcumstances.

Deployment:

Though rather cheap to build (cheaper than usual thanks to the recycled armament) Magpies were never really built in large numbers. This was primarily due to the death of Simon Cameron in 2747. The SLDF, with a very real fear of war between the great houses breaking out, decided building front line combat vessels was more important than patrol craft, so they shifted most of the resources allocated to building the Magpie to other projects like the Sovetskii Soyuz and Riga, which slowed work down dramatically.

[editor's note: this would also lead to the decision not to retire the Aegis class cruisers. However, with much of the stockpile of replacement guns for the crusiers depleted in the process of building Magpies, it was necessary to expand production of naval weapons to restock them. Several weapons companies benefited greatly from this and Magna, the company that produced the naval lasers used by both the Magpie and the Aegis, is said to have taken a Magpie (the bird, not the warship) as their mascot as a result.]

When young Richard Cameron finally took full control of the League and the threat of impending civil war died down (for the briefest moment), most expected that more resources would be allocated to build Magpie class ships.

Of course, most didn't count on how much of a spoiled brat Richard Cameron was. Cameron didn't really care all that much about building a "boring" patrol ship, and his efforts in the Naval arena tended to focus the SLDF on big, expensive, powerful ships that, though giving the fleet some impressive capabilities, still led to the neglect of a key area of the SLDF's duties and left the patrol forces woefully outclassed by their neighbors and enemies.

Another tragedy of the Magpie's tale was that the ship never served in the role it was intended to serve in. Designed for opperations in the periphery, the entire class was kept inside the Terran Hegemony. Early on it was the fear that one of the House Lords would make a move to sieze the throne in the wake of Simon Cameron's death that led to this policy, however, when Richard Cameron took up the reigns of power as first lord, he just never bothered to reassign the ships.

[editor's note: truth be told, it doesn't look like anyone in the SLDF with the possible exception of the corvette skippers themselves thought too much about patrol ships. The time spent not replacing the Vincent is proof enough of that. Kerensky certainly could have reassigned the ships himself, but he didn't either. The blame for this entire mess certainly can't be laid at one person's feet. Lots of people dropped the ball here.]

When the Amaris Coup hit, the entire class was still in the Hegemony, left behind in order to help ensure the safety of the Hegemony while the rest of the SLDF was away to knock heads in the Periphery. No SLDF Magpies would survive the first year of the Coup.

However, this is not the final tragedy, as Magpies did survive. When Kerensky led his forces into the Rim Worlds Republic, his ships were frequently confronted by Magpie class vessels built by the Republic from stolen plans. The best estimates of the SLDF was that Amaris had roughly three dozen of the powerful little corvettes in service by the time the Coup began. The final tragedy of the Magpie's unfortunate life was its use by a madman against the SLDF.

Though all of these ships were destroyed during the conquest of the Republic, and three production facilities were located and destroyed, there are persistent rumors supported by strong circumstancial evidence that there was at least one more shipyard out there that Kerensky was unable to find. Of course, many a prospector has been searching for it, but none have been successful.