Leviathan class Assault Transport

BARD PAPER: SARA5000

Leviathan class Assault Transport

From Path of Tears pg 38

"These ships will provide the Coalition with the capability to move large numbers of combat troops from one world to another and conduct opposed landings. Each of these ships will carry a light brigade, and include launch facilities for a spearhead battalion of drop troops. Although this capability is not intended for use in combat, the Leviathan class will be streamlined to allow landing on planetary surfaces.

Proponents of the coreward stategy see these ships as providing new capabilites to pacify worlds far out in the AO, while consolidating strategists expect that these ships will be used closer to home."

Designer's Notes

POT lists a brigade as having three batallions of roughly 500 soldiers each. I assumed a light brigade was one with only two battalions. The ship is also supposed to be able to drop a spearhead battalion into combat. I figured that 400 soldiers and 100 dummy capsules dropped with most of their command and control assests located on the ship sounded like a spearhead battalion.

The ship was designed with FFS with the help of Antti Lahtinen's spreadsheet. An older version was designed with SSDS

Description

The Leviathan class Assualt Transports will be the biggest ship in the Coalition Navy upon completion. The same team of Naval architects that designed the rest of the Clippers designed the Leviathan class. It shows this lineage, both in its appearence and its internal arrangements. The ship looks like a streamlined version of the Aurora and Maggart classes Clippers, with the addition of small stabelizing wings in common with theLancer and Fussilier classes. (For a picture of the Lancer/Fussilier class see their respective Battle Rider counters.)

The inside of the ship also resembles the other Clippers. This has its good points and its bad. The mechanical systems on each of the clipper line tend to be versions of each other, and reduces the amount of training maintence staffs need. The staterooms are also identical allowing transfered sailors to feel instantly at home. Unfortunatly some of the problems with the other clippers have not been fixed, every stateroom still has the same badly designed fresher made by Novastar Inc. It has a habit of backing up and "regurgitating" its contents back over the floor of the fresher. The Navy has tried to get Novastar to fix the design but since Novastar's CEO August Delparo was just arrested for treason, the company is in a state of confusion and has been unable to come to any agreement over replacing the designs. So when Delparo gets convicted, alot of Coalition sailors will cheer his downfall.

Operations

During a hostile landing, 400 marines will use the drop capsules to make a meteoric descent. They will be accompianed by 100 MK II capsules in various loadouts, depending on the mission and the commander's preferences. (For details on drop capsules see RCEG.) At the same time the ship will be firing planetary assualt missiles at enemy targets. As its laser turrets are equiped with tunable lasers, they can also be turned on targets on the ground, though they are intended at point defense weapons.

Once a beachhead has been achieved, the ship can launch its Fury class Assualt Landers, which carry a further 196 marines. At the same time, any carried grav vehicles can be launched. These can include Intrepid class Grav Tanks, Pyrrhus class Support Sleds, and Ferret/Mongoose class Attack Speeders. The remaining Marines can be carried down by a second wave of the Furies or the Leviathan itself can land. This is only done when the landing zone is secure.

The Leviathan is designed to do more than simply transport the Marines to their destination, once above the battle site it can provide support to its Marine complement. It has 500 planetary assualt missiles (see RCEG for details) to soften up ground targets. It also has numerous communcation facilities to act as a command post while the battle is underway. It has an additional computer which is for use by the Marine complement for mission planning. It carries several surveilence satellites in a small 2-ton hanger. These satellites can be launched to provide real time knowledge of the battlefield.

The Leviathan is normally expected to carry a Drop Infantry brigade, but in case it carries an armored brigade, the Heplar drive has been built oversize to compensate for the greater density of armored vehicles. THe Leviathan can carry an extra 10,000 tons without any loss of mobility.

It is not expected that the Leviathan class will opperate alone. It does not have the firepower to take out opposing starships. It will probably operate in concert with several clippers or destroyers. After these ships have cleared away enemy spacecraft they can be used as orbital artillery. Fussilier class will not tend to be used in this role, as their partical accelerators do not work as well in this role as theLancer class's meson gun. Aurora class, Maggart class, and Belladonna class Clippers can also carry fighters which will provide air support to the troops.

Leviathan class Assualt Transport

General Data

Displacement: 5,000 tons	Hull Armor: 20
Length: 128.85 meters	Volume: 70,000 m³
Price: 2.14 GCr	Target Size: M
Configuration:Streamlined Needle	Tech Level: 12
Mass (Loaded/Unloaded): 53,248.8 / 37,817.0

Engineering Data

Power Plant: 7.4 GW Fusion Power Plant, 0.1 year duration (111.0 m³ fuel)

Jump Performance: 2 (10,500 m³ fuel)

G-Rating: 2G HEPlaR (3150 MW/G), High-Efficiency CG Lifter (500 MW)

G-Turns: 25 (J1: 38.3; 51.7 using all jump fuel), 393.8 m³ fuel each

Maint: 2,536

Electronics

Computer: 3xTL-12 Fibre-optic computer (0.8 MW), TL-12 Standard computer (0.4 MW)

Commo: 10xLaser (3000 km; 0.04 MW), 10xMaser (1 hex), 2xMaser (1000 AU; 0.6 MW), 10xRadio (1 hex; 1 MW)

Avionics: Imaging EMS, inertial/gravitational positioning, 160 km/h NOE

Sensors: 2xAEMS (10 hex; 27.5 MW), PEMS (4 hex; 0.15 MW),

ECM/ECCM: EMS Jammer (10 hex;55 MW), 300 sensor decoys (100 Laser, 100 AEMS, 100 PEMS), EM Masking (70 MW)

Controls: Bridge with 42 bridge workstations, 86 normal workstations, fire control center (2 workstations), Standard Automation

Armament

Offensive: 10x 95Mj Laser Turrets. The turrets have no local control.

Defensive: None

Master Fire Directors: 10xTL-12 (4 Diff Mods; 10 hex; 2.95 MW; 1 crew),

Name	Short	Medium	Long	Extreme
95 MJ Laser Turret	10:1/8-24	20:1/4-13	40:1/2-7	80:1/1-3

Accommodations

Life Support: m³ LS volume (9.88 MW), Gravitic Compensators (129.99 MW)

Grav Compensation: 3 G.

Crew: 148 (2xManeuver, 12xElectronics, 86xEngineer, 10xGunnery, 14xMaintenance, 3xSteward, 1xMedic, 20xCommand) There is room for 1000 Marines, but they follow their own command structure and it is not included here. Stewards for the full complement of marines are included here.

Crew Accommodations: 7xLarge Stateroom (1 kW), 110xSmall Stateroom (0.5 kW), 500xBunks. One large stateroom is for the Captain, while the other 6 are used by the Marines. The XO gets a single stateroom, while the rest of the ships crew double up. The remaining 37 small staterooms are for the remaining Marine Officers. Several of the Marine staterooms are used as briefing rooms.

Other Facilities: Electronics Shop (0.6 MW), Machine Shop (1 MW), Sick Bay (0.8 MW)

Cargo: 14000 m³ (1000 tons), 40 Large Hatches. It is expected that each trooper brings about 1 ton of equipment and supplies, including battle dress suits, weapons, ammunition etc. The average soldier won't actually be lugging around this much gear, it is an average number. Many pieces of equipment such as field hospitals, artillery pieces take up more room, and are not actually assigned to a given soldier.

Small Craft and Launch Facilities: 14x7-ton spacious hangar for Fury Assualt Landers, 500x0.3-ton docking ring for Planetary Assualt Missiles (See RCEG), 500x0.5-ton docking ring for Drop Capsules, 1x2-ton minimal hangar for various satellites.

Air Locks: 50

Notes

Total Fuel Tankage: 20,454.8 m³ (1,461.1 tons).
Fuel scoops (5% of ship surface), fills tanks in 1.46 hours.
Fuel purification machinery (31.92MW), 23.07 hours to refine 20,454.8 m³.
Crew requirements are calculated by using 'Original FFS' crew model.
69.1 MW power shortfall.