As with the Winchester, special thanks to Wolfcannon for bringing this ship to my attention. Wagon Wheel Type: Frigate In Class: 58 at its height In Service: 2379 Mass: 650,000 Sail Integrity: 4 Thrust: 2/3 Fuel: 2000 tons Structural Integrity: 70 Armor: 910 tons of standard armor (364, 60+7 fore and aft, 61+7 sides) Docking Collars: 3 Fighters: 18 Small Craft: 6 Crew: 400 Lifeboats: 0 Escape Pods: 30 Grav Decks: 2 85 meter Cargo: 51,733 Bay 1: Cargo 1 door Bay 2: Small Craft 2 doors Bay 3: Aerofighters 6 doors Other Equipment: 15,000 tons of sensory equipment Weapons: Heatsinks: 1395 Fore Left / Fore Right 2 Naval Autocannon 20s 5 Autocannon 10s Left Broadside / Right Broadside 3 Naval Autocannon 20s Aft Left / Aft Right 2 Naval Autocannon 20s 3 White Shark Launchers 5 Autocannon 10s Aft 3 White Shark Launchers Ammo: 500 tons of naval AC ammo 500 tons of AC 10 ammo 90 White Shark Designers Notes: KF drive calculated as 50% of the ship's mass. Engine mass is twice that of normal. The Taurian variant has a modern interplanetary drive, which raises its thrust to 4/6 Overview: The development of the Wagon Wheel was due to a number of factors. The most important of these was the increasing sophistication and strength of the naval forces of the Great Houses. Up until this point, there had been little real depth to naval warfare (One admiral compared basic naval tactics to that of a cave man. "Me have big stick, me crush"). Capital warships hadn't had much time to evolve from the embryonic Dreadnought and Dart, and as a consequence the tactics of using warships likewise hadn't had much time to evolve. But things began to change. Faced with the sudden, frightening boom in the Terran Hegemony's naval production and their efforts to restore Terra to primacy among the stars, the still growing great houses were forced to evolve their tactics to counter the military might of humanity's homeworld. As raw killing power gave way to finess, maneuver, stealth, and tactical planning, naval design changed as well. With the enemy no longer lining up in a proper line of battle from the get go, the need for a craft able to figure out just what the enemy was up to became apparent. Hence the Wagon Wheel. Wagon Wheels, however, were not wholly new ships. With the Terran shipyards heavily overburdened with construction of new ships like the Aegis, Monsoon, and Lola as it was, and with other worlds in the Hegemony only in the early stages of industrial development, there was really no capacity for building a totally new warship. Looking for a solution to this quandry, Hegemony engineers found the Winchester. The Winchester was a fine heavy cruiser in her own right and practically brand new, with the oldest ships in the class barely thirty six years old. However, much like her predecessor, the Dart, the Winchester had become a victim of the meteoric advance of technology. Construction of the class had been halted roughly seven years before in favor of the brand new Aegis, and though the class would continue to serve as supplements to the Aegis, their eventual replacement was assured. With this in mind, and with the Hegemony high command wanting a new sensor platform RIGHT NOW, it was decided to refit several Winchester class vessels with extensive sensor systems. The first such refitted Winchester, the Wagon Wheel, reentered service in 2379. Capabilities: Though reclassified a frigate, the Wagon Wheel cannot be regarded as a "true" frigate. She is a modified heavy cruiser, plain and simple. [Editor's note: Many officers identified the Wagon Wheel as a "Razee". This was an obscure reference to the Age of Sail, where ships of the line would have their upper gundecks stripped off (or razed) in order to reduce their weight and improve their handling. These "Razees" (or "shaved ships" as they were also called) filled in for frigates at times when real frigates were in short supply, however they didn't always fully fill the bill.] The only real difference between the Wagon Wheel and the Winchester was in the nose. The Winchester carried a heavy battery of naval cannons mounted in its nose, however the Wagon Wheel sacrifices this battery to mount a massive and extremely powerful sensor system. At the time of its deployment, the Wagon Wheel's sensor system was one of the most powerful and elaborate sensor packages available. So powerful in fact that it was joked that the emissions from a Wagon Wheel's active sensors could strip the paint off of a ship at one hundred kilometers. The Wagon Wheel also holds the distinction of being the warship most hated by environmentalists. This came about as a result of a paper that was published in an environmental journal claiming that a Wagon Wheel's sensors were so powerful that the ship could cause widespread ozone depletion and occurances of cancer simply by being in near orbit of a planet. Though there is absolutely no scientific basis to this claim, many accepted it as fact. In fact, it was widely rumored that the Terran Hegemony actually won the unconditional surrender of one world simply by threatening to bring their Wagon Wheels in and park them over the world with their sensors on full power. Deployment: Though the Wagon Wheel and her sisters served well during the early years of the Age of War, by 2425 the introduction of the purpose built Riga had rendered the Wagon Wheel obsolete. Though some in the high command advocated restoring the ships to their orignal configuration, it was decided that with the class comming up on its hundredth birthday, and with the Winchester largly supplanted by the Aegis, there was no need for the class anymore. At first glance this is a sad state of affairs, as the Wagon Wheel outmatched the Riga in both armor and firepower. However, it was inevitable. The Riga was faster, newer, and more sophisticated, and her sensors, though substantially more compact, were every bit as powerful as the Wagon Wheel's. A heavy arsenal, it was reasoned, was something cruisers needed, not frigates. [editor's note: this trend would briefly reverse itself with the introduction of the Quixote, however it wouldn't last.] Therefore, once there were enough Rigas to replace them, the fifty odd surviving Wagon Wheels were put up for sale to the highest bidders, and most of the Great Houses and major periphery realms made a move to get some (some failed, however, on the grounds that the Terran Hegemony was at war with them at the time and wasn't selling to enemies). As with the Winchester, the Wagon Wheel would earn most of its battle honors in the hands of states other than its producer. During the Reunification War in particular, a number of Wagon Wheels serving with the Rim Worlds Republic and Taurian Concordat would score some impressive victories (the Taurians also upgraded the powerplants of their Wagon Wheels, giving them superior mobility), and during the first succession war, most of the great houses employed Wagon Wheel class vessels, though these few craft would not last long during the war.