Class/Model/Name: Tone Class Fighter Cruiser (CAV)

Tech: Inner Sphere / 3067

Vessel Type: WarShip

Rules: Level 2, Standard design

 

Mass: 850,000 tons

Frame: UA Series 2

Power Plant: (insert DC engine here)

 

Safe Thrust: 4

Maximum Thrust: 6

Armor Type: Ferro-carbide

Fore: 234

Fore-Sides: 256

Aft-Sides: 256

Aft: 230

Heat Sinks: 3,000 (6,000)

 

Armament:

80 Victory Nickel Alloy ER Large Lasers (10 in each arc)

20 NL-45s (4 each FL, FR; 2 each in all other arcs)

20 NL-55s (4 each FL, FR; 2 each in all other arcs)

30 NAC-30s (4 each FL, FR; 6 each LBS, RBS, 2 each AL, AR)

 

Manufacturer: Chatham Yards

Location: Chatham

Communications System:

Targeting & Tracking System:

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==Overview:==

(July 3068)

The Tone -class fighter cruiser was the brainchild of Rear-Admiral Yugi Nishimura. Adm. Nishimura was part of the Draconis Combine Naval Reporting Committee during the war to liberate the Terran Hegemony. The Committee was tasked with following the SLDF’s naval battles and using said data to develop improved naval doctrine for the Combine. Though not the highest-ranking member of the committee, Adm. Nishimura was thought by most of the DCA to be its best mind.

 

In 2774 Nishimura used a major committee report to advance his idea for a cruiser. He outlined a design that he believed would be able to counter a thick fighter screen. Carrying 72 fighters (2 full wings) and a massive battery of NACs, the ship was designed to power through enemy fighter and dropship screens and tear an enemy capital ship to shreds at close range. Nishimura’s stated plans for the design had it teamed with two destroyers and four assault dropships to give it the added punch to power through any resistance. Despite concern within the DCA over the cost of the design, its outstanding performance in simulations convinced the DCA to order it into production at the Chatham as the Tone-class, with the first ship completed in 2777. Four Tones were completed (see Deployment for their histories and fates). Their heavy fighter complement prompted the DCA to give them the designation of Aerospace Cruisers (or CAVs).

 

 

 

==Capabilities:==

In some ways, it is surprising that the Tone class was authorized, since these ships are very different from the formation attack geared cruisers the DCA had been using. The Tone was intended to use its escorts and fighter screen to clean the way while it powered through the enemy to reach broadside range. Twenty-four NAC-20s give it enough hitting power to rapidly destroy any cruiser and most battleships. Forty Naval Lasers give the vessel a powerful anti-Dropship armament. Adm. Nishimura recognized the need for Warships to carry organic anti-fighter defenses and so had the design equipped with eighty large lasers. The ships 3g maximum acceleration ensured that it could easily reach firing range.

 

 

 

==Deployment:==

By March of 2787, the Star League was no more, the SLDF had left the Inner Sphere, and war was brewing. The DCA fielded four Tone class cruisers: the Tone herself, Chikuma , Ashigara , and Ibuki . The Ibuki , the newest ship, had been assigned along with an understrength destroyer (DD) flotilla of 3 to protect the Izumi Jumpship yards at Altair from Davion attack. On March 29th, that attack arrived in the form of the Iron Duke-class battleships Duke of Marlborough , and Benbow supported by 4 cruisers and two DD flotillas of five ships each. Though Ibuki put up a gallant fight and succeeded in damaging the Marlborough and destroying one the cruisers, she was destroyed and the shipyards were crippled.

 

Revenge would not be long in coming, for her sister Chikuma , along with the Wave -class destroyer Onami , picked up the trail of the damaged Marlborough . Chikuma and her DD caught up to the battleship (along with the Rodney -class cruiser Cunningham and the Furious -class carrier Courageous ) in the Genoa system on May 15th. The fierce engagement that followed was thought to have destroyed all ships involved in it. Certainly the few Combine survivors reported that their ships were totaled. Having done all they thought they could do, the survivors used their one remaining functional dropship to head for the planet and await extraction. When this did not come, they dispersed themselves among the local population and were gradually forgotten.

 

The remaining two Tones would see their great hurrah in 2790 at the great bloodbath known as the battle of Cholame. Adm. Nishimura himself commanded the task group containing the two cruisers during this battle. Leading from Tone , he took her and Ashigara on a screaming max thrust firing run through the AFFS’ battleship line. Both ships opened fire with their main batteries as they passed through the Davion fleet, each one raking several ships in turn. Ashigara was blown apart by return fire but Tone briefly fought her way clear. As he watched the FSS Churchill (an Iron Duke -class BB) pull out of the line, Adm. Nishimura saw a chance for another kill and ordered his ship to close what he thought was a cripple. Unfortunately for him, his assessment was wrong: Churchill had pulled out to make a run for a transient pirate point her nav officer had found. She had taken little damage up to this point and now turned to pour no fewer than five broadsides into the hapless Tone . A direct hit on the bridge by the second salvo killed Nishimura and destroyed the ship’s helm, leaving her helpless against the battleship’s shattering fire. The fifth broadside finished off Tone , with only 15 of her crew surviving her loss. The respite proved long enough for Churchill to exit the system.

 

With the loss of Tone , the class became just another class of ships lost to the Succession Wars until November of last year, when the salvage Jumpship Thlasca entered the far reaches of the Genoa system searching for useful wreckage. The expedition was the brainchild of Paul Bennington, a man whose knack for salvage searches had already led him to a fully restorable Jumpship in 3064. Bennington had almost every C-bill he possessed riding on a success. In the event, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. His search happened upon the drifting, crippled Courageous and after boarding the vessel found her to be salvageable. Bennington hurriedly sent a message in-system to call for retrieval crews and soon no fewer than 6 FS salvage teams were on station. Further searches of the system revealed the fates of the ship that had fought there: the Cunningham and the Onami had both been blown apart and only traces of them were found. Amazingly though, Chikuma , and Marlborough were both found intact enough to allow salvage.

 

Needless, to say the finding of a Combine WarShip by Fed Suns ships in an FS system posed raised a number of thorny questions regarding the fate of the vessel. Some in the Combine, led by the Black Dragon Society, demanded that House Davion return her at once, with only compensation for the salvage to be paid, a demand that was decried as ludicrous in the Federated Suns. The situation could have gotten unpleasant if it had not been for the clever mind of Duke George Hasek. Duke Hasek proposed to return the ship in exchange for the purchase of two full battalions of new production battlemechs at a 75% discount, terms that proved acceptable to Theodore Kurita. The purchase deliveries were begun in March of this year (with half the mechs slated for the Syrtis Fusiliers and the other going to the Davion Brigade of Guards) and the ship’s K-F drive had been repaired sufficiently to allow her come home by April. The two Fed Suns ships meanwhile have sent to FS yards for repairs and overhaul, with Courageous going to Delevan, and Marlborough going to Kathil.

 

The Chikuma meanwhile has been sent to Chatham for restoration. Current plans call for her to reenter service in the spring of 3070.

 

 

 

 

Tone- class Fighter Cruiser	(All masses in tons)	Tech: Star League
Mass:	850000
K-F Drive Mass:	384625
K-F Drive Integrity:	17
Jump Sail Mass:	73
Sail Integrity:	5
Engine Mass:	204000
Fuel:	2500	(6250 points)
Fuel Pumps:	50
Structure:	68000	Structural Integrity: 80
Bridge Mass:	2125		Additional:
Heat Sinks:	3000 (6,000)	Free: 684	2316
Armor:	1800	Ferro-Carbide	Points: 1440	+ 8 each facing
Crew/ Tech quarters (257):	1799		Fore: 234
Officer/ Pilot quarters (114):	1140		Fore-Sides: 256
Marines (12 platoons):	72		Aft-Sides: 256
Escape Pods (40):	280		Aft: 230
Life Boats (60):	420
Fighter Bays (72):	10800
Small Craft Bays (6):	1200
Docking Hardpoints (4):	4000
Grav Decks (3):	300
Lithium-Fusion Battery:	8500
Fire Control:	10620
Weapons:
80 ER Large Lasers	400	10 in each arc
20 NL-45s	18000	4 each FL, FR	2 each in every	other arc
20 NL-55s	22000	4 each FL, FR	2 each in every	other arc
24 NAC-30s	84000	4 each FL, FR	6 each LBS, RBS	2 each AL, AR
1200 Rounds NAC-30 Ammo	960
Cargo:	20020