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Description
Length; 1,110 meters
Displacement 1,310.000 tonnes

During the Reunification War the nascent SLDF found to its cost that jumpships were vulnerable and little more than barely mobile targets and the loss of a large jumpship and its dropship cargo could adversely affect a whole campaign.

Whilst Warships did carry dropships these were mostly assault dropships for their own defence and space superiority leaving the job of hauling troops to jumpships which in turn required heavy escorting, taking units away from the fleet and front lines.

The Admiralty put forwards tenders for a large ‘troop carrier warship’ that would be able to carry a large number of dropships as well as be able to defend itself from hostile ships that usually went jumpship hunting, normally destroyers, frigates and corvettes.

Blue Nosed Clipperships put forwards a design for what they called an ASDC (Assault Ship Docking Collar) design. Based on the Monsoon class battleship’s hull the design featured 14 dropships collars in two groups of seven, running in a row along the ships spine and belly.

The interior was also heavily reconfigured to replace the Monsoon’s trio of grav-decks with a pair of 85 meter grav-decks filling out the majority of the interior. The aerospace compliment was also altered, reduced to 12 fighters but also capable of carrying 12 small craft or shuttles. The weapons fit was also radically altered with the majority of the autocannon based weapons being removed save the bow and fore/aft quarter autocannons all be it with the weapons being reduced in calibre to NAC-20’s.
The missile launchers were also altered and replaced with Barracuda launchers to deal with smaller and more agile targets with eight launchers being carried (two on each fore and aft quarter). The broadside NAC-35 turrets and associated ammunition were replaced with four turrets, each mounting a quartet of NL45’s. The bow and stern quarter Medium Naval PPC’s were also retained. The lasers increased the ships heat load significantly and extensive improvements were made to the weapons cooling systems allowing for the ship to fire roughly 75% of its armament without heat issues.
It had been planned to fit the ships with a Lithium-Fusion battery but the expense of this very new piece of equipment and tightening budgets meant that it could not be fitted, although space was set aside for it to be added.
Deployment

Completed after the Reunification War the first Fearless class ASD left her slip at Titan to begin trials with the fleet. The odd number of docking collars was initially seen as strange but instead the ship was permanently assigned two dropships for self-defence purposes whilst the other twelve would be used to carry troop and Mech carrying vessels. Although slow and ponderous to answer the helm the class was not meant to take part in the battle line unless something had gone very wrong, and war-games found that the ship could handily defend itself against destroyer’s or other smaller faster craft attacking it.

Unfortunately the computer systems required repeated overhauls to fix targeting issues with the new programmes that would allow the mountings to engage small craft. Electrical gremlins also were common with the class having to run their reactors at 105% which meant more common trips to the yards for overhauls. Because the ships were yard queens they were also not often deployed but often spent long times laid up in reserve.

Despite these faults, twenty of the class were built and were eventually displaced by the larger, more modern Potemkin class. Relegated to second line squadrons the surviving Fearless class ships would see service in the Amaris crisis when they were pulled from mothballs. Two were salvaged by Rim World Forces and were destroyed in battle, the four survivors joined General Kerensky on Operation EXODUS and have not been seen since.

By the AMAZING mattplog.deviantart.com/

Description
Length; 1,110 meters
Displacement 1,310.000 tonnes

During the Reunification War the nascent SLDF found to its cost that jumpships were vulnerable and little more than barely mobile targets and the loss of a large jumpship and its dropship cargo could adversely affect a whole campaign.

Whilst Warships did carry dropships these were mostly assault dropships for their own defence and space superiority leaving the job of hauling troops to jumpships which in turn required heavy escorting, taking units away from the fleet and front lines.

The Admiralty put forwards tenders for a large ‘troop carrier warship’ that would be able to carry a large number of dropships as well as be able to defend itself from hostile ships that usually went jumpship hunting, normally destroyers, frigates and corvettes.

Blue Nosed Clipperships put forwards a design for what they called an ASDC (Assault Ship Docking Collar) design. Based on the Monsoon class battleship’s hull the design featured 14 dropships collars in two groups of seven, running in a row along the ships spine and belly.

The interior was also heavily reconfigured to replace the Monsoon’s trio of grav-decks with a pair of 85 meter grav-decks filling out the majority of the interior. The aerospace compliment was also altered, reduced to 12 fighters but also capable of carrying 12 small craft or shuttles. The weapons fit was also radically altered with the majority of the autocannon based weapons being removed save the bow and fore/aft quarter autocannons all be it with the weapons being reduced in calibre to NAC-20’s.
The missile launchers were also altered and replaced with Barracuda launchers to deal with smaller and more agile targets with eight launchers being carried (two on each fore and aft quarter). The broadside NAC-35 turrets and associated ammunition were replaced with four turrets, each mounting a quartet of NL45’s. The bow and stern quarter Medium Naval PPC’s were also retained. The lasers increased the ships heat load significantly and extensive improvements were made to the weapons cooling systems allowing for the ship to fire roughly 75% of its armament without heat issues.
It had been planned to fit the ships with a Lithium-Fusion battery but the expense of this very new piece of equipment and tightening budgets meant that it could not be fitted, although space was set aside for it to be added.
Deployment

Completed after the Reunification War the first Fearless class ASD left her slip at Titan to begin trials with the fleet. The odd number of docking collars was initially seen as strange but instead the ship was permanently assigned two dropships for self-defence purposes whilst the other twelve would be used to carry troop and Mech carrying vessels. Although slow and ponderous to answer the helm the class was not meant to take part in the battle line unless something had gone very wrong, and war-games found that the ship could handily defend itself against destroyer’s or other smaller faster craft attacking it.

Unfortunately the computer systems required repeated overhauls to fix targeting issues with the new programmes that would allow the mountings to engage small craft. Electrical gremlins also were common with the class having to run their reactors at 105% which meant more common trips to the yards for overhauls. Because the ships were yard queens they were also not often deployed but often spent long times laid up in reserve.

Despite these faults, twenty of the class were built and were eventually displaced by the larger, more modern Potemkin class. Relegated to second line squadrons the surviving Fearless class ships would see service in the Amaris crisis when they were pulled from mothballs. Two were salvaged by Rim World Forces and were destroyed in battle, the four survivors joined General Kerensky on Operation EXODUS and have not been seen since.

By the AMAZING mattplog.deviantart.com/