Glorious-class Carrier

Glorious-class Carrier

As the UNSC began the lengthy task of rebuilding its armed forced, they embarked on a modernisation effort to bring their warship effectiveness up to at least technological equality to their Covenant counterparts. Humanity has always enjoyed a tactical and strategic superiority, but the advanced technology the Covenant employ meant certain defeat across hundreds of colonies. As part of this modernisation, the Navy commissioned the Glorious-class Carrier. Constructed at the Alpha Centauri Naval Shipyards, the Glorious-class ships would see first combat during the Blood Covenant attack on the colony in 2557, effectively beating of a numerically superior fleet with only a dozen ships and sixty squadrons of the new Blackburn Clawmore space superiority fighter. During the rest of the war, the Glorious-class carriers would see combat in a dozen star systems, carring mixed complements of older Longsword fighters and Claymore fighters for flexibility. One carrier, the UNSC Audacious, would be converted into an orbital assault carrier, allowing the UNSC improved mass orbital insertion capability, successfully used during the ground invasion of the Tapach and Walresh system supply base colonies by the UNSC Marine Corps.

History
With the collapse of Sierra Space Systems, and the devastation of Misriah Armouries' Mars-based infrastructure, the UNSC turned to Bellum Aerospace Industries for the next generation in carrier warfare. Developing the Glorious-class Carrier, BAI intended the design to be compatible with a variety of UNSC spacecraft, ranging from the Albatross and Pelican dropships to the Longsword fighter, and adaptable to any future craft developed for the UNSC. In this regard, the Glorious-class would later prove itself extremely flexible and adaptable for a variety of combat roles, carrying supply dropships, the high-payload but cumbersome Longsword Interceptors, and the extremely agile but short-range Blackburn Claymore fighters that would be introduced as the Glorious class neared completion. With the loss of Reach, Alpha Centauri was designated as the UNSC's new dominant military centre, housing the Stanley-Abernathy Naval Shipyards. Construction began on twelve of the ship in early 2553, with hopes that they could be in service by 2556.

The outbreak of the War of Vengeance, and the UNSC's increasing involvement in the conflict, delayed completion until 2557, but final fittings and trials were scheduled for June 30th of that year. As the warships began their trials, their sensors detected nearly two hundred enemy warships entering the system - while hesitant to believe a Blood Covenant fleet would invade human territory so far from the frontline, the twelve Carriers deployed fighters and engaged the fleet, defending the shipyards until a combined UNSC/SAF response force could arrive, driving off the attackers with no Carrier losses and less than a dozen fighters. After minor repair work and the neccessary fittings, as well as the activation of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engines, the Carriers officially entered service in September, 2557.

Participating in Operation: BAGRATION, two Glorious-class Carriers, the UNSC Majestic and Verdant, participated in the raids on numerous Blood Covenant supply and refueling outposts, their fighter support and command-and-control capability coordinating the rapid strikes on sensitive targets. A third, the UNSC Audacious, was converted into an orbital assault carrier, allowing the UNSC Marine Corps to land the 13th Division and the 506th ODST Battalion on the Tapach and Walresh supply colonies, capturing valuable intelligence and equipment for analysis, and proving the flexibility of the class in other roles. The loss of the UNSC Curnunnos during the Blood Covenant's Operation: Tartarus stripped the orbiting defence fleet of a central control, and helped in the penetration by Blood Covenant cruisers to the groundside conflict. By 2560, another five Glorious-class Carriers had entered service, boosting the UNSC Navy's fighter support capacity significantly.

Design
In offensive terms, the Glorious-class Carrier is poorly armed. It is equipped with twelve Archer fusion missile pods, capable of engaging unshielded enemy warships and lightly armoured fighters and dropships, as well as a pair of SIM-332 Azrael nuclear missiles for heavier capital ships, but for the most part its armaments are designed with a defensive role in mind - its fourteen Helix 50mm CIWS turrets are able to intercept enemy fighters and boarding craft at extreme close range with overlapping fields of fire, while the Gungnir, and Eris missiles are intended to support other capital ship guidance systems, linking them all to a central AI for efficient processing. A small number of offensive measures were retained - the Archer and Neith missiles for attacking unshielded targets, and a pair of more devastating SIM-332 Azrael missiles for attacking capital ships - but otherwise the class relies on its complement of sixty C800 Blackburn Claymore fighters for offense and defence, keeping them armed and fueled for attack runs, bomber escort, and so on.

Its reliance on fighter attack and defence means that the ship is not especially specialised for any single role - if required for troop transport and ground invasion roles, fighters can be replaced by a variety of dropships and hangars can be quickly converted into armouries and vehicle bays. Barracks are set up towards the core of the ship, able to transport slightly more than a Division at a time with most of those personnel in cryonic storage until "thawed" for deployment. The only ship to be converted in such a manner, the UNSC Audacious, performed extremely well in conjunction with two Herald-class ships, and saw the rapid and effective deployment of the 13th Marine Division and the 506th ODST Battalion on two worlds successively.

The hull itself is compartmentalised for superior damage control, and the outer hull possesses "buffer" layers, reinforced with vanadium support beams. While not as efficient as that of, for example, the Halcyon-class cruiser, they are still effective in damage control. Hangars themselves form most of the port and starboard hulls, and possess extensive damage control measures to prevent decompression or the spread of fire through the ship; vital systems, such as the engineering compartments, crew quarters and cryonic storage areas, and the bridge, are all located in the central sections of the hull, protected by layers of Titanium-A reinforcements and auxilary plating. A rotating gravity ring at the rear of the ship allows crewmembers to prevent the health effects of microgravity, but for the most part the ship lacks the artificial gravity systems now standard on most warships to save power and cost - the lack of gravity to resist means that spacecraft takeoff is less complicated, and therefore less likely to succumb to technical faults in the process.

2557

 * UNSC Glorious
 * UNSC Majestic
 * UNSC Verdant
 * UNSC Rapacious
 * UNSC Audacious
 * UNSC Badon Hill
 * UNSC Mercia
 * UNSC Wessex
 * UNSC Northumbria
 * UNSC Fimbultyr
 * UNSC Biflindi
 * UNSC Asagrim

2560

 * UNSC Alcaeus
 * UNSC Asclepius
 * UNSC Curnerros (Lost with all hands in the Battle of Middangeard/Operation Tartarus, 2560)
 * UNSC Palomedes
 * UNSC Olyndicus

Quotes

 * "Has anyone heard anything about the Trafalgar II? My son was serving aboard it and he stopped his letters three months ago. Is that normal?" (Mrs. J. A. Fitzsimmons, January, 2559)
 * "They're not much to look at, but then enither is a beehive - its the bees inside that everyone fears. And boy, those Claymores are devastating!"
 * "Our ships entered the system. We thought we had surprise on our side. We thought they would be unprepared. We thought that a mere dozen ships would be a trifle to deal with. We were mistaken - their fighters swarmed us, and by the time we recovered the human and Sangheili fleets had arrived, and begun to simply destroy us. It was all we could do to escape!"
 * "The Olyndicus was apparently named after the ONI Deputy Director of Operations. Not by name, but by codename - how's that for paranoia?!"