Isambard-class Support Carrier

Isambard-class Support Carrier

"Is it a carrier? Really? It's built like a colony ship, fights like a carrier, functions like a factory, it's armaments are all over the place, and it carries fighters because it's funny, I guess?  It's such a mixed bag, but still somehow dominates the battlefield."

- Excerpt from a discussion of the vessel at a HIGHCOM meeting Designed by an independent think tank and later refined by Halifax Spacewerx, the Isambard-class Support Carrier saw a radical change in ship design philosophy from nearly every angle. Borrowing design elements from the company's earlier produced Phoenix-class Colony Ships, the odd vessel was produced at the end of Operation: TREBUCHET in 2523 and primarily saw combat in the Human-Covenant war starting only a few years later.

Primary among the ship's bizarre features in the startling dearth of weaponry, most of the ship replaced with a labyrinthine collection of manufacturing equipment designed to produce everything from Longswords to Scorpions, given the right materials. The ship's main focus, however, was producing swarms of drones capable of blocking entire barrages of plasma torpedoes and annihilating targets with a hail of kamikaze attacks with varying payloads. This was assisted by the extensive use of dumb AI traditionally used with heavy industry coordinated by a leading smart AI.

Given the ship's adaptability and unique abilities, it proved a mainstay in nearly every UNSC fleet it was stationed in. Whether used as a purely support vessel, producing vehicles for ground support, as a close quarters slugger spearheading attacks, or as a command vessel and carrier in the back of the action, the vessel proved itself.