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This fanfiction article, Classification system of the UNSC Navy, was written by The All-knowing Sith'ari. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission. |
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This article, Classification system of the UNSC Navy, is currently under active construction. |
Like the sea-going navies that preceded it, the UNSC Navy makes use of a classification system for its warships, providing an easy, at a glance system to compare relative ship strengths without having to get bogged down in the details of tonnage and gun diameters. Similar to a system used by the Old Earth Royal Navy, the UNSC Navy divides its ships into two broad categories; "Ships of the line" and "Non-rates".
Ships of the line[]
Ships of the line are so named because they are designed to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships will manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of guns or missiles to bear. Since these engagements are almost invariably won by the heaviest ships carrying the most powerful guns, the natural progression is to build vessels that are the largest and most powerful of the time.
Capital ships[]
The capital ships of the navy are its most important warships; the ones with the heaviest firepower and armor. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a fleet. They include Supercarriers, Carriers, and after the War of Vengeance, Battleships and Battlecruisers.
Supercarriers[]
Supercarriers are the largest vessels of any space-going navy. Originally an unofficial term used to describe the largest type of aircraft carrier, the term has become an official designation for any starfighter-carrying warship in excess of four kilometres in length. They will also often mount heavy anti-ship armaments. Due to their large interior hangers, they are more fragile than smaller but more heavily armed warships, and so in combat, they remain outside the battlezone and launch starfighters in support of capital ships, occasionally closing to fire a missile or MAC salvo if necessary. Because of their size and expense, even the UNSC can only maintain a few of these ships and given their vulnerability to conventional and asymmetrical threats, more and smaller carriers have been suggested over the years, such as the Musashi-class Carrier and the Stalingrad-class Carrier. However supercarriers are considered to be more cost effective than smaller carriers
An example is the Trafalgar-class Supercarrier
Carriers[]
Carriers are vessels that carry large numbers of starfighters in the lieu of heavy anti-ship weapons, relying on these vast complements for their defence. They typically measure between one and a half and three kilometres in length. Due to their large interior hangers, they are more fragile than smaller but more heavily-armed warships, and so in combat, they remain outside the battlezone and launch starfighters in support of capital ships, occasionally closing to fire a missile or MAC salvo if necessary. During planetary invasions, they provide tactical and strategic air support in conjunction with the UNSC Air Force. Despite their lack of ship-mounted armaments, with its fighters, a carrier can deploy numbers of ordnance considerably in excess of those launched by cruisers with a considerably lower number of casualties.
An example at the lower end of carrier size is the Stalingrad-class Carrier at one-point-five kilometres in length. The Musashi-class Carrier is at the higher end of the band at three kilometres.
Battleships[]
Originally a non-existant ship type, battleships are arsenal ships that were first developed by the UNSC Navy during the First Great War in the face of their terrible disadvantages against the Covenant. They generally occupy the same size category as carriers, with the smallest (and first designed) battleships at one-point-five kilometres in length, and the largest stretching to three kilometres. They are purely ship-to-ship combatants and as such do not carry fighters or Marine complements, and are characterised by immensely thick armour plating, heavy shielding, and instead of MAC guns carry hundreds of missile pods deployed on an extendable boom out off the ship's stern, allowing tens of thousands of missiles to be fired at enemy ships. They are typicaly the most heavily armed ships in an armada, and the most expensive. A disadvantage to this offensive mindset is that they are more fragile than other warships due to the central hollow core containing the missile pods, and the small number of point defence systems for ships of their size. Therefore, they must be supported by screening vessels and carrier-deployed fighters during major fleet actions.
The Invincible-class is an example of the smallest battleships, at one-point-five kilometres, and with the construction of the three-kilometre King Arthur-class, the Invincible-class was re-classified as a battlecruiser and relegated to screening duties.
Battlecruisers[]
The battlecruiser is a type of arsenal ship defined as a cruiser-sized warship with an armament similar to a battleship's. As such, they carry point defence and armour plating of similar standards to cruisers, but the missile pod-based armament of a battleship, allowing for greater acceleration and massive "first strike" capability. They are typically the same size as cruisers, ranging from one to one-and-a-half kilometres in length, but because of their hollow missile pod storage core, they are more fragile than cruisers and require greater screening. Due to their battleship-scale armament but more fragile construction, they have been referred to as "eggshells armed with sledgehammers", which was an issue that plagued the deployment of the first class of battlecruisers. Because of their smaller size, battlecruisers cannot carry the longer ranged Multi-Stage Missiles used by battleships, and so they typically travel with the screen ahead to deliver a first srike against the enemy screen using shorter-ranged MSMs, cutting through the enemy's heaviest missile defence to give the battleships a clear shot at the heaviest enemy capital ships.
The Retribution-class was an example of the smallest and first battlecruisers, at one-point-two kilometres, and with the construction of the three-kilometre King Arthur-class and the subsequent re-classification of the Invincible-class as a battlecruiser, they were scrapped due to their inability to keep up with the King Arthur-class' massive missile complement.
Escort warships[]
So named because of their role in escorting larger capital ships, escort warships are usually considerably smaller and cheaper than capital ships. They provide screening from missiles or plasma torpedoes, scouting duties, and add to the capital ships' firepower, often considerably.
Cruisers[]
Historically, the definition of a Cruiser has been similar to a Frigate or Destroyer, but combining the two ships into one - the firepower of a Destroyer, with the range and flexibility of a Frigate. Often, the three ship classes would even share the same hulls, with minor differences in armour thickness, armament, crew number, and so on. Today, however, UNSC Cruisers more closely resemble pocket Battleships - while totalling in at under 1.2 kilometers, much larger than UNSC Frigates or Destroyers, they still pale in comparison to the larger Supercarriers, Carriers and Battleships, are heavily armed and armoured, and are designed form the fore of offensive fleets. Therefore, during the first days of long-ranged MSM combat, they were the smallest vessels that could carry Multi-Stage Missiles, though other ship classes have since been "up-sized" to carry the larger MSMs. They serve as fast, armed reconaissance vessels, and in major fleet actions, travel ahead with Battlecruisers to deliver a first strike against the enemy's anti-missile screen. In the absence of heavier tonnage vessels, cruisers often serve as flagships of naval formations, and all ships incorporate a secondary CIC for this purpose.
The Halcyon-class Cruiser was an early Cruiser class, but one that was never fully adopted, and even when it was reintroduced served in extremely minor roles. The Marathon-class Cruiser was more effective, and certainly more popular among Naval circles. The Kuznetsov-class Cruiser was retired fully before the end of the First Great War, while the Hektor-class Stealth Cruiser was introduced in 2554 and retired in 2561.
Destroyers[]
Destroyers are designed exclusively for long-range and long-term operations, either engaging enemy warships, armed reconaissance and scouting, or escorting larger naval formations, serving as a defensive screen. In this regard, Destroyers differ significantly from Frigates in two critical areas - armament and armour, both of which are possessed in greater amounts. Destroyers often sport between 1.5 and 2 meters of solid Titanium-A battleplate, and carry larger missile pods and an additional Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, meaning that they can take and deal out a good deal more damage than the lighter frigates. The additional mass means that their manoeuvring is slow and clumsy in comparison, and hinders their acceleration and deceleration, but the additional firepower and defences more than make up for this. They are also geared heavily towards anti-starfighter and anti-missile duty, boasting large numbers of point defence systems and countermissiles to deal with fighters and incoming missile or plasma torpedo barrages. The heavy armament of Destroyers is designed to take out vessels larger than themselves but too manoeuvrable to be dealt with by the heavier weapons aboard Cruisers or Capital Ships. The term Destroyer is actually a truncation of the term "Torpedo Boat Destroyer", as during the Insurrection, rebels would often heavily modify medium-sized cargo vessels with hundreds of missile pods, which were classified as Torpedo Boats by the UNSC Navy for ease of identification. Their relatively high manoeuvrability meant that heavy Capital Ship MACs and missiles found it difficult to get a target lock, necessitating the need for a similarly-sized vessel that had lighter weapons that could track the Boat but also had enough of them to deal out the destructive firepower necessary to take out a Torpedo Boat. Thus the Destroyer was born.
The Cavalier- and Paladin-classes were examples of the UNSC's latest Destroyer designs at the start of the War of Vengeance, replacing the older GW1-era Iroquois- and Heracles-class ships.
Frigates[]
Typically the lightest vessels to sit in the line of battle, Frigates carry the lightest armour and weapons of all ships of the line, but also carry disproportionately large numbers of point defence systems. Their role is to thicken the point defence of the Capital Ships they escort, while denying the same ability to the enemy by destroying their own Frigates. Frigates have typically been based around speed and manoeuvrability over heavy armour, and as such their have been examples of Frigates dodging Archer Missiles and even plasma torpedoes, while larger, heavier warships were more vulnerable and hence, during the First Great War, often had shorter life expectancies. Despite this defence advantage, however, Frigates were nearly useless in their conventional role of defence and anti-Frigate duty due to the energy shields of Covenant Frigates, and as such were only useful in costly "swarm" attacks on enemy vessels that were only successful with three-to-one numerical superiority. With the end of the First Great War, however, new Frigate classes incorporating the latest technology from Project EXCALIBUR were deployed against the Covenant Remnant Factions, fulfilling their traditional roles in a way that amazed and terrified their enemies.
The Commonwealth- and Gettysburg-class Frigates were examples of UNSC Frigates during the Insurrection and First Great War, but were replaced by the Ajax- and Miranda- class with the advent of the War of Vengeance.
Non-rates[]
So named beacuse they do not sit in the line of battle, these vessels support the fleet in operations, and include troop transports, convoy escorts, and Prowlers.
Combatants[]
In contrast to support starships, which are logistics vessels, combatants are designed to deliberately engage a similarly-designed enemy ship in combat and expect victory.
Sloops-of-war[]
Sloops-of-war are stealthy, delta-wing shaped vessels that are between a Corvette and Frigate in size, used in a variety of roles by the UNSC Navy. These include commerce protection and raiding, anti-Prowler warfare, stealth reconnaissance, mine-hunting, and mine-laying. For this reason, sloops are designed with modular components in mind, allowing them to carry anti-mine gear, an advanced stealth package, large numbers of anti-starfighter or anti-Prowler weapons, a mine-laying bay, or a single capital missile for use against even the largest merchant ships, or against larger capital ships as a last resort.
The UNSC currently operates only one sloop class, the Black Swan-class Sloop.
Corvettes[]
Prowlers[]
Support starships[]
Support starships include logistics vessels which transport food, fuel, and munitions to resupply the fleet, hospital ships which can accomodate several thousand personnel wounded during battle, and repair platforms which can repair all but the worst damage to even the largest warships. Originally, there were many different types of logistics ships, but most modern designs occupy all three transport roles. The weapons of support ships are purely defensive.