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This fanfiction article, Drake-class corvette, was written by Leo Fox. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission. |
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The Drake-class corvette was a light UNSC patrol warship, that entered service during the later stages of the Human-Covenant war, served with distinction and continued service post-war.
The Drake-class corvette was notable for having the swiftest combat vessels in the UNSC Navy, largely due to their low mass, modestly-sized reactor, and powerful engines.
History[]
The Drake-class Corvette commissioned by the United Nations Space Command Navy for usage against Covenant forces during the final years of the Human-Covenant War. Engineering schematics for the Drake-class were intially drawn up as far back as 17 June, 2542 with the formal selection process occuring in July, 2542. The Drake-class was to be produced primarily for more cost effective patrolling of UNSC space that was unlikely to come under attack, and to courier VIPs and Special Operations troops.
With the only serious competitors to Weapon System Technologies's low cost offering to continue production of Mako-class corvettes for an increasingly desperate Navy, Misriah Armaments won the UNSC contract bidding by providing individual vessels at several million credits cheaper per unit. The UNSC Navy did end up proceeding with the continued acquisition of Mako-class corvettes through to 2449.
By the time of laying the later flights of Drake-class in the early 2550s, Mars Spacecraft Assembly Incorporated (MSAI) which existed as Misriah's business unit with specialty in the construction of combat warships was already overextended attempting trying to meet existing orders of more effective tactical assets in the form of frigates and destroyers. This lead to MSAI seeking out and purchasing a near bankrupt civilian shipyard, Solaris Shipworks, to use as a subcontractor.
Work successfully was concluded on the 850th Drake-class Corvette, the UNSC Torrin, on 22 June, 2552 only months before the destruction of Solaris Shipworks during the Battle of Earth.
Layout[]
Armament[]
The Drake-class lineage of Corvette were constructed with a cut-down armament that befitted them as a smaller ship of the line. Armed with a Mark VII Light Magnetic Accelerator Cannon as its main armament that fit barely within the warships short frame, a Drake-class' vessel was capable of shooting a 300 ton tungsten slug at 11,991.7 kilometres per second - or roughly 0.03c, with the kinetic force of 3.59751 terranewtons. The Mark 7 MAC/L proved its worth throughout the Human-Covenant War aboard light warships, proving to be an extremely effective weapon system against unshielded Covenant targets, and moderately effective on the energy shields of a Covenant Frigate. However, consistent experiences in combat showed that, while a slug was able to exceed the kinetic absorption thresholds of Covenant energy shielding, another slug was required to disable the enemy combatant. Generally, the minutes-long gap in time between MAC salvos would have allowed a Covenant warship to cycle its shields. This lead to establishment of the practice that the weapon was most effectively utilized when fired immediately following a fleet-wide volley of MAC fire, optimally on a Covenant vessel with no other damage from the volley other than lowered shields.
The MAC magazine was typically comprised fully of the 300,000 kilogram Mark IV Kinetic Projectile, Fragmentation, and was comprised of a small dense depleted uranium kinetic energy penetrator that was designed to punch through the entirety of a target to inflict catastrophic damage. Shrouding the "bullet" was a magnetically-conductive layer of ferric-tungsten that allowed the projectile to be fired from a UNSC Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, and was designed to immediately begin to fragment into millions of shrapnel shards upon impact in order to perforate the maximum number of decks, crew and subsystems on its way through the target. Given the mass and size of the MAC projectiles, only 18 projectiles were carried aboard, stored within a magazine located just forward of the bridge.
The Mark 7 MAC/L required two minutes and fifty seconds of charge from a 'cold' uncharged state to become fully armed for combat. In part due to power recycling systems around the MAC barrel baffles, charging times for successive shots were decreased by 22% - for a total time of two minutes twelve point six seconds for a charge. However, a less forceful, underpowered MAC shot was possible at any point in time.
Complimenting the Mark 7 MAC/L, the class was outfitted with 26 RSGM-16 Archer pods. Each pod contained 28 Archer missiles, with a total of 672 missiles. With an effective range of 50 million kilometres, the RSGM-16 Archer Missile was an Insurrection-war era high explosive ship-to-ship missile that was utilized extensively throughout the Human-Covenant War against Covenant warships, air and ground forces. The usage of Archer missiles on Covenant warships was largely regarded as ineffective by the UNSC Navy due to the effectiveness of Covenant energy shielding technology, used effectively in conjunction with point defence LASER. However, deployment immediately after a MAC salvo was a highly effective tactic against unshielded and damaged Covenant warships, as their crews were less effective in their point defence fire.
Additionally, the Drake and her cohorts were equipped with a pair of RSM-19 Shiva nuclear missiles, deployed through a single centred launch tube on the bow. Roughly four times wider than an Archer missile and equipped with a multiple fissure-fusion type variable-yield warhead, the RSM-19 Shiva was the most effective weapon system in the UNSC Naval arsenal for destroying or disabling Covenant vessels. Designed to have an effective engagement range of 160 million kilometres. A close detonation of a RSM-19 Shiva nuclear missile on a large Covenant warship would incapacitate it, and lower its shields for MAC fire; on a moderate to light tonnage vessel, it would destroy it. However, due to the shortage of nuclear munitions towards the end of the Human-Covenant War, usage of nuclear weapons was sparing and intentionally done after a volley of Archer missiles were already deployed at a target in order to maximize the chances of the missile surviving point defence fire to reach the most effective detonation point, just short of the Covenant warship's shields.
For point defence against hostile lightly armoured vessels, single ships and missile, the vessels was equipped with sixteen networked M502 recessed 50mm point-defence railguns, mounted in eight twin-gun turrets. Computer controlled and integrated with direct feed to RADAR and LIDAR data for increased combat effectiveness, the M502 Point Defence was a close-in weapon system responsible for tracking, engaging and destroying extremely fast-moving enemy targets that pose a threat to the ship or station. Each mount was capable of traversing at 210 degrees per second, elevating at 135 degrees per second and firing approximately 10,000 rounds per minutes, with a muzzle velocity of approximately twenty thousand metres per second (20 kilometres per second). This allowed the weapon system to quickly shred the shields of Covenant single ships and perforate unshielded enemy vessels at an effective range of approximately two hundred kilometres, and a maximum effective range of eight hundred kilometres. Control of a ship's network of M502s was accomplished by a shipboard AI, either 'smart' or 'dumb', under the command of weapons officers on the bridge, although given the extremely rapid nature of emergent threats in zero-gee combat situations, the automated systems aboard the vessel had the authority to commence fire on targets deemed to be an clear and present threat to the warship without the authorization of the command crew or weapons officer. Additionally, individual M502 mounts possessed their own emergency power supply and search/fire control radar, allowing them to lock onto and track their own individual targets in the event of failure of the augmented and much more powerful central search and fire control radar systems, which additionally possessed greater range and resistance to electronic countermeasures.
Additionally, the Drake-class was modular enough to be capable of being outfitted with additional subsystems depending on mission, including HORNET nuclear mine dispensers for tactical deployment of nuclear minefields.
Complement[]
The Drake-class was a small combat warship, and hence was only capable of supporting a compact crew and an even smaller embarked complement of marines and flight crew. Vessels typically had a crew complement of 96 crew, consisting of 13 officers and 83 enlisted rates, in addition to a total complement of 44-79 Marines and flight crew.
Embarked Marine Complement[]
The 47th Marine Regiment was a non-conventional military organization of roughly 15,000 personnel, deliberately divided into detachments and spread across the Reach-based numerical fleets, providing Fleet Marines to active-duty warships for shipboard defence and minor tactical deployments.
On combat deployments, the unit typically consisting of six officers (commanded by a Marine captain [O-3]) and somewhere between 32-64 enlisted troops. The unit additionally had access to a pair of M12G1 Light Anti-Armour Vehicles (equipped with potent M68 Asynchronous Linear-Induction Motors and a pair of M274 Ultra-Light All-Terrain Vehicles.
[]
The air wing aboard the Drake-class vessels were quite small in comparison with other UNSC vessels: its air wing consisted of a total of two D77H-TCI multi-role Pelicans, staffed by around six flight crew and another seven maintenance personnel. When both were in use, they were able to move the entirety of the vessel's Marine Force Recon contingent, as well as both M12G1 Warthogs.
Such an assignment was historically commanded by a Navy Lieutenant (O-3), and was primarily tasked with providing transportation and Close Air Support (CAS) to deployed ground personnel through the usage of a recessed chin-mounted 30 millimetre autocannon, ANVIL high explosive/anti-armour missiles and a rearward-facing AIE-486H mounted from the roof of the troop bay.
In the event of emergency, the Drake-class came equipped with a total of 18 Class-3 Bumblebee Lifeboats, each capable of carrying nine personnel of the complement and strategically placed about the vessel on various decks based off of the geographic disposition of the crew about the vessel whilst at general quarters. The crew were assigned to lifeboats closest to their duty station, due to the limited number of spare seats aboard lifeboats in the event of catastrophe. Each lifeboat tube was covered by an explosively-ejected section of the hull, providing maximum protection to the ship until evacuation was necessary.
Defensive systems[]
The vulnerabilities of space-fairing vessels in combat with each other was well documented by the United Nations Space Command Navy from as far back as the Rainforest Wars of 2126, where it was largely combat of flotillas of bulky and fragile first-generation warships to duke it out with modified cannons using vacuum-enhanced chemical propellant to engage other vessels. Following the conclusion of the Interplanetary War, naval emphasis was in creating slim and nimble ships, constituting the second generation of human warships. Evolution of countermeasures was deemed largely unnecessary beyond a robust electronic warfare suite, with the sole military body in human existence being the United Nations Space Command: necessitating patrol craft capable of engaging targets at stand-off range with missiles: however, the Callisto Incident showed the importance of countermeasures against projectiles and close-in hostile targets, as well as the folly of entirely placing reliance on the performance of missile systems for combat superiority. This led to the retrofitting of existing active duty combat vessels with point-defence weapons systems, and led to the new third-generation of warships in development by 2494 to be designed around a main armament of a Magnetic Accelerator Cannon: the first vessels armed with such a weapon were the Gorgon-class Destroyers. The advent of large kinetic energy weapons like the MAC, projecting lethal slugs at a fraction of the speed of light made effective countermeasures against this form of attack impossible: the only defence a warship had was to detect the projectile with at least several seconds before impact, allowing for the usage of emergency explosive manoeuvring thrusters to throw the ship to the side for a near miss.
The Drake-class corvettes began construction in the latter part of the Human-Covenant War as a late fourth-generation UNSC Navy warship and hence utilized a significant number of passive and active defensive subsystems to protect her from acts of aggression.
The class possessed a passive defence against enemy detection with an external hull layer of low observable zeolite-base UNSC Grey painted RADAR-absorbent material, which was less effective than the much more intricate stealth measures installed aboard the UNSC Dash with the help of the Office of Naval Intelligence for Black Operations.
In the event of detection and missile launch, the class had a powerful AN/SLQ-275 electronic warfare suite to defend itself. Often referred to as the "slick"-275, the AN/SLQ-275 was a multirole computer system that Misriah Armory designed to coordinate the electronic defence of warships, impede enemy communications, and intercept enemy communications. The "slick" utilized sensors on the hull to detect and categorize RADAR "painting" the hull, analyse the RADAR beam characteristics and band to determine the search RADAR type, and process the angle the RADAR came from against a 3D render of the vessel in order to estimate the returned signal intensity. This allowed the Electronic Warfare Officer to determine whether the ship had been detected, and what kind of RADAR band frequency was to be jammed. This was also utilized against incoming RADAR guided missiles, though manipulation of the communication between the launching ship and the missile was also an effective strategy. Additionally, the AN/SLQ-275 was capable of being utilized to disrupt channels of communication for an enemy: jamming all non-UNSC radio networks with impunity. Another core design consideration that went into the AN/SLQ-275 was the interception of enemy data. As such, the AN/SLQ-275 integrates a number of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) disciplines into its design using externally-mounted hardware to detect electronic missions.
Despite her passive and electronic defences, the main defences a Drake-class Corvette had against nearby enemies and incoming ordinance was her sixteen M502 recessed 50 millimetre point-defence railguns, mounted in eight twin-gun turrets. Entirely automated (and monitored by the Defensive Warfare Officer), the M502 Point Defence System was a close-in weapon system (CIWS) primarily responsible for tracking, engaging and destroying extremely fast-moving enemy targets or ballistics that pose a threat to the ship or station. Touting a Human-Covenant War success rate of 93% against incoming missiles and single ships, the M502 PDWS was seamlessly integrated into the various sensors about the ship; namely utilizing a direct feed to the vessel's RADAR and LIDAR data for increased combat effectiveness. Each dual-gun mount was capable of traversing 210 degrees per second, elevating 135 degrees per second and firing approximately five thousand 50 millimetre depleted uranium railgun slugs per minute on each gun, with a muzzle velocity of approximately twenty thousand metres per second (20 kilometres per second). This allowed the weapon system to quickly shred the shields of Covenant single ships and perforate unshielded enemy vessels of a larger tonnage with perfect accuracy to a range of approximately two hundred kilometres, and a maximum effective range of one thousand kilometres. Control of a ship's network of M502s was generally accomplished by means of a shipborne AI, under the command of weapons officers on the bridge; although given the extremely rapid nature of emergent threats in zero-gee combat situations, automated systems aboard the vessel had the authority to commence fire on targets deemed to be an clear and present threat to the vessel without the authorization of the command crew or weapons officer. Additionally, individual M502 mounts possessed their own emergency power supply and search/fire control radar, allowing them to lock onto and track their own individual targets in the event of failure of the augmented and much more powerful central search and fire control radar systems, which additionally possessed greater range and resistance to electronic countermeasures. This lead to a number of documented instances of crippled warships with its entire crew killed in action hold up a short period of continued point defence fire.
Given the velocities that orbital warships reach in combat (especially when travelling in opposite directions like that of the orbital 'jousting' that characterized UNSC fleet actions during the Human-Covenant War,) there was oft little opportunity for command staffs to bring their vessel about to desired course to allow the main engines to effect a radical course correction before a collision was to occur. Realizing the significance that this capability would give to disaster mitigation strategies early on in manned spaceflight, all UNSC warships serving through the Human-Covenant War were equipped with emergency manoeuvrings capabilities in the form of the standardized Mark IV Emergency Thruster System (ETS). The Mark IV Emergency Thruster System was a single-use self-contained system that consisted of a thick titanium case, containing two pressurized tanks of trihydride tetrazine and hydrogen peroxide, a sealed combustion chamber with a blowout panel leading to a shaped nozzle. Each Drake was built with two per axis and installed into reinforced sections of the hull; which was essential, given the nature of the explosive hypergolic propellant. The ETS was activated on authority of the warship commander, integrated shipboard Artificial Intelligence or by the Navigation Officer's prerogative to explosively place a warship on a new course in order to prevent the loss of the vessel. Operation of the ETS was autonomous upon receiving an execute command, which immediately prompted the two tanks of pressurized trihydride tetrazine and hydrogen peroxide to be forcefully injected into the combustion chamber, where the two chemicals explosively reacted. Pressure rapidly built in the chamber, reaching thousands kilograms of pressure per centimetre in mere milliseconds which would reach the designed failure point for the blowout panel, allowing the gaseous explosion out of the combustion chamber and through a directing nozzle. This process net the warship an significant explosive bout of acceleration in the desired direction through in less than a second.
Warships additionally carried a number of AN/SLE-221 flare dispensers on each axis, allowing for the deployment of vacuum-enhanced chemical flares. While unlikely to successfully decoy guided munitions, it was effective in disrupting visual contact of the vessel when rippled off and misleading a foe, in addition to effectively marking positions and signalling other vessels.
For the majority of the Human-Covenant War, UNSC warships lacked any effective countermeasures to plasma torpedoes. The most a commander could hope was that another warship would take a hit in place of his or her command. A common practice - and discouraged by Naval Command as being "reckless" and "wasteful of war material," was for smaller tactical assets (warships like that of a frigate) taking a plasma torpedo for a strategic asset like that of a cruiser or carrier. This was commonplace through the Human-Covenant war with no effective countermeasures being fielded, until the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, where the refit station UNSC Cradle heroic sacrificed herself and her crew as a sacrificial shield for a fusillade of plasma torpedos bound for the Battle Group Leviathan. This allowed the battle to turn in humanity's favour, netting a tactical victory for the UNSC. The logical next step in anti-plasma torpedo technology was the rapid prototyping and production of what was called the Tactical Intercept Station (TIS). At 824 metres long, 700 metre wide, and another 175 metres thick of warship-grade titanium battleplate, the Tactical Intercept Station was a remotely-controlled unmanned expendable shield for UNSC warships. Expensive and fitted with only rudimentary thrusters, utilization (rather, the destruction) of TIS nevertheless lead to theoretical application of titanium dust as a method to disperse plasma. While a worthwhile addition to academic knowledge, practical application of this knowledge proved difficulty until the final years of the Human-Covenant War, advances in reactor output and upsized capacitors allowed for more electrical load-intensive weapons and sub-systems to be installed aboard warships.
Concurrent research by Naval Research and Development division of Misriah Armaments realized the potential of untilizing guass technology to shoot titanium dust-filled canisters at incoming plasma munitions, detonating prior to impact and providing sufficient surface saturation of the plasma to violently disrupt and disperse the superheated mass. Upon receipt of Misriah's Request for Proposal regarding anti-plasma torpedo ordnance, Naval Acquisitions were more than willing to provide funding to further the concept, and was beginning to be pressed into mass production in August 2552 without combat testing, with a limited number were ready prior to the Battle of Earth. The resultant AN/SLE-311 decoy launcher was installed aboard several warships during the early stages of the Battle of Earth, most notably aboard the UNSC Dash, as part of an initiative to increase the survivability of active duty 'black ops' vessels.
The decoy launcher was installed offset to port on the dorsal bow in order to maximize its potential engagement envelope to include the extreme rear behind the vessel, as well as take advantage of a section of free space available in the nuclear weapon armoury for the decoy's bulky ready ammunition supply. Best controlled by an on-board artificial intelligence but also effectively utilized by automated point defence routines, the AN/SLE-311 was tied into optical thermal sensors natively built strategically into the ship, allowing the AN/SLE-311 to simply point its barrel at the thermal signature of an incoming plasma torpedo. It would then fire its projectiles at the oncoming mass of plasma at a rate of four rounds per second at a velocity of approximately three kilometres per second. The projectile then exploded in a programmable amount of time (usually measured in milliseconds) prior to impact to 'cloud' the torpedo with titanium dust in order to dissipate it. A successful design, it was however plagued with toothing problems in its introduction at the closing months of the Human-Covenant War. Marked improvements came with the implementation of the AN/SLE-311(V)3 in 2555 and the AN/SLE-311(V)4 in 2559.
Propulsion[]
The Drake-class Corvette had engineering spaces designed around a slightly cut-down version V3/L Deuterium Fusion Reactor, feeding the vessels two primary fusion drive engines. The V3/L DFR usually used to power Charon-, Paris-, Stalwart- and Strident-class Frigates. The reactor was modified prior to installation to have a smaller enclosure than its cousins on larger warships, due to space restraints. The V3/L DFR was also supplemented with two smaller Mark 14 Mod2 deuterium fusion reactors, in separate compartments to either side of the main reactor, both of which fed the secondary fusion drive engines. The class also had a single auxiliary helium gas-cooled R2/XS fast-neutron fission reactor, coupled to a closed-cycle gas turbine that was rated to operation in microgravity. Its main operation was to run ship functions when the fusion reactors were shut off whilst docked and to provide a secondary source of electrical power.
As a Deuterium Fusion Reactor (DFR), plasma is generated by the fusion of deuterium atoms. The generated plasma is channelled into a series of exhaust manifolds, which in turn, redirect it into the ship's fusion drive. The fusion drive exhaust serves as reaction mass, which provides propulsive Δv for the ship. Operating at full military power, a Drake-class Corvette could produce 30.116 gigawatt-seconds of heat at peak output, which could extract 18.07 gigawatts-seconds of electricity from generated plasma; and give a vessel an acceleration of 1853 metres per second squared. Minor manoeuvring and attitude control was conducted through usage of vernier thrusters and a triamino hydrazine reaction control thruster (RCS) system.
Controlled access to and egress from the slipstream space was provided by a standard UNSC military specification Series IV 'CODEN' Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine, with the fusion drives providing propulsion in slipspace.
Hull[]
The specifications for the Drake-class corvette called for twelve centimetres of Titanium-A battleplate for exterior hull armour, which was deviated from only for a small block of warships including that of the UNSC Dash which was delivered with only ten centimetres of armour. This was a variation accepted by the UNSC Navy as a cost- and material- saving decision, and resulted in the Dash becoming the fastet combat vessel in the UNSC Fleet for years after the Human-Covenant War.
Twelve centimetres of Titanium-A armour was considered acceptable for the duties the corvettes was expected to partake in, affording the vessel protection from small arms fire and light plasma weaponry. The light armour on the class also contributed to lower mass, consequently leading to superior manoeuvring and acceleration performance.
Under the main hull lay a number of layers of lead foil to provide electromagnetic pulse protection and radiation shielding to the crew, with an underlay of composite insulation to prevent the extreme temperatures of space radiating into the internal spaces of the vessel'. Additionally, the hull and lead foil layers masked the warships's internal wireless network being detected/illicitly accessed by external sources and protected from disruption from sources of electronic warfare.
Situated beneath the lead foil and composite layers laid an air-tight belt of foam, contained within a thin titanium enclosure that constituted the pressure hull. The self-sealing foam was stored in the wall cavity at pressure, designed to automatically expand to fill a hull perforation of up to four inches in diameter and solidify rapidly in exposure to air, rendering the compartment temporarily airtight until the damage was able to be repaired. Each of the vessel's bulkheads had a separate belt of self-sealing foam on its top, bottom and sides; each of which was capable of sealing multiple punctured compartments.
Ships of the line[]
| Name | Hull Classification Symbol | Commissioned | Notes | |||
| The following vessels were ordered under the UNSC Navy's 2542 order of 850 Drake-class corvettes, and were commissioned between 2543 and 2552. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNSC Drake | DDC-1405 | 7 January, 2543 | Fought and was heavily damaged immediately prior to randomized slipspace transition following the Battle of Reach, presumed lost. | |||
| UNSC Tofu XII | DDC-1456 | 23 January, 2543 | ||||
| UNSC Magus | DDC-1489 | 30 November, 2543 | ||||
| UNSC Archmagus | DDC-1490 | 29 November, 2543 | ||||
| UNSC Augur | DDC-1584 | 22 June, 2544 | Destroyed whilst exfiltrating Covenant-occupied territory, ferrying special operations forces. | |||
| UNSC Warlock | DDC-1664 | 3 June, 2544 | ||||
| UNSC Chamberlain | DDC-1710 | 9 January, 2545 | ||||
| UNSC Zecora | DDC-1756 | 9 May, 2545 | ||||
| UNSC Jutland | DDC-2097 | 14 October, 2550 | Suffered a catastrophic auxiliary fission reactor meltdown and subsequently lost with all hands in combat during the Battle of Reach. | |||
| UNSC Maginot | DDC-2110 | 24 December, 2550 | ||||
| UNSC Daring | DDC-2194 | 11 May, 2551 | Sustained moderate damage during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, repaired and returned to active service, and later heavily damaged evacuating civilians during the Battle of Tribute; adequately repaired to return to active service in order to participate in the Battle of Reach. | |||
| UNSC Dash | DDC-2247 | 16 February, 2552 | ||||
| UNSC Pony Express | DDC-2255 | 29 April, 2552 | Lightly damaged during the Battle of Reach; overhauled with an experimental slipspace drive to become the quickest vessel in the UNSC Navy and was returned to active service. Later crippled and abandoned during the Battle of Earth, and disintegrated upon rentry of Earth's atmosphere. | |||
| UNSC Torrin | 2 June, 2552 | DDC-2258 | ||||
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