The Chairmen class starship is a derivative of the Statesmen, one of the most common designs to see in Union space. After the destruction of the 6th fleet in battle with the Magnetic Assembly near Reiss it was clear American Union needed a new ship design. Rather than starting with a clean-sheet design, Union Launch Alliance and Stellar designers decided to modify the existing statesman class. The ship's hull was extended to make room for additional systems, and a new engine system was installed. Stellar Arms was already positioned market their latest weapon systems to the American Union to take over for the Magnetic Assembly. The result was a ship more optimized for combat over previous iterations of the ship, with a decreased range and operation duration. The Chairmen also lacks the FTL system of the Statesmen, with the intention of dramatically reducing the cost of losing a starship.
Overview
Name: Statesmen Class (mk3)
Operators: American Union
Manufacturer:
Length: 350 Meters
Diameter (Radiators): 80 Meters
Diameter (Main Body): 40 Meters
Crew:
Propulsion: x6 ULA Mark 17 Fusion Drive
Max Acceleration: 1.38g
Range: ~1 month before requiring resupply
Sensors:
Armament:
Electronic Warfare: MK 23 Naval Bastille Frequency Generator
Support Craft:
Operators: American Union
Manufacturer:
Union Launch Alliance (ULA): Hull / Drive system
Jovian Propulsion Labs (JPL): Sensor Systems
Stellar Arms (SA): Weapon Systems
Length: 350 Meters
Diameter (Radiators): 80 Meters
Diameter (Main Body): 40 Meters
Crew:
250 Ship Crew
50 Crew for support craft
1100 Marines (1 Battalion with Soldiers + support staff)
Propulsion: x6 ULA Mark 17 Fusion Drive
Max Acceleration: 1.38g
Range: ~1 month before requiring resupply
Sensors:
JPL Block 12 Optical/Thermal Sensor Systems
JPL Block 3 Ship Radar
Armament:
x16 UG-301 2.5mm point defense coilguns
x6 UG-324 100mm anti-ship railguns
x1 UG-3001 Launch System
x256 multi-purpose launch cells
x8 Small-Aperture Laser Optics
Electronic Warfare: MK 23 Naval Bastille Frequency Generator
Support Craft:
Superluminal Communications Satellites
Small Inspection Probes
History
For decades, the Statesmen has been the ship at the forefront of the American Union's power projection. Early models of the ship provided security for early colonies, Statesmen were the first to arrive at the now HFR's SLEs during operation Distant Flock after the Daqin-led Massacres, and the Statesmen were the first ships to respond to the Magnetic Assembly after the New Year's Revolution. Their size allows them to carry weapons, soldiers, support craft, and supplies for long duration operations.
Various replacement programs for the statesmen have been started over the past decades, though poor management from the Union has led to these programs being discontinued or otherwise scrapped. Improvements from technological progress have been rolled into the existing statesmen class ships, resulting in the Union government requesting more statesmen class hulls rather than seeking entirely new ship designs. This has led to modernized Statesmen being produced in a second wave at the Lunar shipyards, then a third and fourth wave being produced at Earth, Luna, and the AU’s outer colonies such as the massive Rotislav Megastructures complex in the Hawking Starsystem.
The Mark 3 version of the Statesmen had been on the drawing board for years leading up to 2320. Various contractors and organizations including Stellar Arms and The Magnetic Assembly had provided options for new systems, upgrades, and revisions to the design but The American Union saw little need to further modernize their fleet of warships. This changed dramatically during the New Years Revolution, when the 6th fleet was destroyed by The Magnetic Assembly. This disaster caused the Statesmen MK3 program to kick into high speed.
Over 1 year, the Mark 3 version of the statesmen design was finalized, and hulls were being modified or laid down at shipyards throughout the Sol system. The new Statesmen were designed specifically for the task of retaking star systems like Atlantica and Hawking against opposition from The Magnetic Assembly, and as such have more weaponry and reduced range.
The new Statesmen would be geared more towards direct combat, and losses were expected. To reduce the extreme cost of losing a Statesmen, the superluminal systems were removed from the design. To help differentiate roles between different versions of Statesmen the class would be renamed 'Chairmen'.
Ships of Note
26th Fleet
- AUS John Henry
- AUS Neal Miller
- AUS Ned Lud
Layout
The statesmen has a spacious internal layout capable of accommodating its large crew in reasonable comfort. While the primary crew space is located at the front of the ship, there is additional working space along the core of the ship under the guns, launch cells, and other exterior equipment. The middle area of the ship holds a pair of launch bays that can support shuttle launch operations and docking of various small craft. The bridge of the ship is also located just in front of the main reaction-mass tanks, extended outward and supported with additional armor.
Armor
The statesmen is a relatively well armored ship that has greater armor protection than what would normally be expected for a long duration, long range, mission ship but still far less than some of the extremely heavy ships designed strictly for direct combat.
Anti-Flash layer
Coating nearly every surface is an extremely thin anti-flash layer made up of a highly heat resistant layer of tungsten carbide and an undercoating of industrial diamond. This is intended to provide a high amount of protection against high instantaneous heat flashes from nuclear weapons.
Anti-Laser Layer
A layer of graphite impregnated aerogel is used throughout the ship for protection against laser attacks. Originally a small amount of the aerogel was used throughout the ship and on some sensitive components. After the Union defeat at Reiss in the beginning of 2320 largely due to the extensive use of laser weapons a much greater amount of the material was added to the ship. Two meters of the material was layered on top of the exterior surfaces of the ship, and additional material was injected into any extra space inside of the ship to provide better protection against penetrating laser strikes.
Upper armored plate
When in combat, it is expected that the Statesmen will try and orient the ‘top’ of the ship towards the enemy. This provides the greatest level of protection to the crew and puts the heaviest armor plates between the enemy and the crew. This upper level plate is nearly meter thick at its widest area, and is made from a composite of industrial diamond, Osmium, and Carbon.
Observation deck Spaced Armor
After the disastrous loss of the AUS Jerry Brown in 2320 due to laser strikes coming in through the armored windows of the ship, an extensive overhaul of the interior sections was carried out. Critical rooms were moved further into the ship, and the rooms near the exterior of the ship like the observation and recreational areas toward the front. Additional armor and armored shutters were added on the interior facing sides of these rooms. This would allow the ships to evacuate the rooms and seal them off during combat to use them as extra spaced armor.
Osmium and Amorphous Carbon internal layers with spall lining.
Much of the interior of the ship’s structural components and interior walls are made with layers of sandwiched Osmium, Amorphous Carbon, and internal spall liners to provide a level of protection in depth when the ship is struck by incoming attacks that get through the exterior.
Artificial Gravity Systems
The Statesmen uses a Magnetic Assembly derived anti-gravity system for a combination of FTL drive, creature comfort, defense, and inertial dampening.
The system itself generates an anti-gravity field that can push things away from the ship. These generators are located just ‘under’ the main armored plate of the ship. This allows the field being generated to create an earthly 0.8g of gravity for the crew by pushing them ‘down’ into the floor while also pushing away objects coming at the ship (though this is usually lowered to save power on long duration missions).
Additional generators are also placed throughout the ship to help maintain proper orientation when moving about, and to help establish the superluminal effects of the ship’s FTL system.
CIC
The ship’s primary CIC is located on a tower that extends out from an area just above the primary reaction mass tanks. This area has enough workstations to support 20 people, a central Ops table to track weapon usage and deployment. Behind the Ops table are 3d displays and plotting tools for Navigation across from a table with 3d displays pertaining to ship readiness and repair status.
The rather spacious bridge is designed to allow for operation of the starship as well as conducting operations with a task force spread across multiple star systems.
Cryo Chambers
To further the mission duration of the Statesmen without needing to carry additional supplies, a large cryo-sleep bay is included to house the ship's marine compliment in suspended animation until they are ready to be deployed. ISOC marines are generally 'unhappy' about being put on ice for the duration of their missions though many are quite happy they are still getting paid for time while in sleep.
Living Areas
Despite having a crew complement of 1400, the statesmen is fairly spacious, with enough room for officers and crew to have their own small rooms. Though the enlisted marines are expected to share a barracks, they are at least allowed their own bunks which eliminates the need for hot-racking.
The ship has everything it needs to support a small city including ample supply stores, eating areas, a commissary, mail room, gyms, and lounges.
Armaments
Though frequently modernized, the statesmen is an older starship design, and lacks the large radiators to operate extremely heat-intensive weapons like large anti-ship lasers. Instead, numerous high-capacity physical weapons are setup around the ship to provide a high amount of redundancy, coverage, and long range bombardment capabilities. In turn this makes the statesmen well suited for the majority of operations conducted by the AU such as close orbit policing and long-range power projection.
UG-301 2.5mm 'Sandblaster' Point Defense Coilguns
The Primary weapon system for dealing with threats close to the ship is the UG-301 coilgun. The circular bank of coil guns near the front of the ship fire unguided, relatively fast, metal slugs with a high rate of fire.The small projectiles are well suited for destroying targets such as missiles and can chew through even heavy starship armor at close range very quickly. Due to the unguided nature of the weapons they are not very suitable for attacking targets on long range.
For more see: UG-301
UG-324 100mm Anti-Ship Railguns
Intended to cover the mid-range and extreme range bombardment, the ship’s multitude of 100mm railguns fire a variety of rounds at high speed. These range from unguided metal slugs to guided missiles and a variety of proximity fused explosives. Though they have a much slower rate of fire than the ship’s smaller coilguns, they fire rounds at a much higher velocity. This allows the ship to be a threat to other capital ships at range.
The guided rounds allow for a small amount of course-correction in flight. While this is not enough to chase down a maneuvering starship at range, it is sufficient to deal with any targeting error over inter-planetary ranges. This makes the statesmen well suited for bombardment of targets throughout a star-systems. Precise strikes from these cannons are well publicized throughout the Union as an example of the speed, decisiveness, and overwhelming freedom that they can bring to a conflict.
The UG-324 replaces the UG-311 found on earlier versions of the statesmen. Improvements in materials science and auto-loader technology allow the system to fire a similar number of rounds at a similar rate of fire to its predecessor at a considerable weight reduction. The turret also houses a more powerful fire control radar system for accuracy.
For more see: UG-324
UG-3001 Launch System
Proposed by Stellar Arms, the UG-3001 is a massive launch system designed to fire projectiles at extreme speeds. The weapon is intended to help deal with the range advantage of the Magnetic Assembly's laser weaponry, though the actual effectiveness of fast moving projectiles that can be targeted by lasers is somewhat dubious. Regardless of the effectiveness, the weapon was included by the American Union who is eager to find an advantage in space combat.
For more see: UG-3001
Multi-Purpose Launch Cells
Deep missile magazines are a hallmark of Union ships from long before their ships became space-fairing.
In 2321 the first engagement between The Magnetic Assembly and the American Union's 26th fleet showed that the American Union couldn't compete with the massive number of missiles that ships from The Magnetic Assembly could field. Stellar Arms proposed a quad-pack missile design as replacement option, and many of the Mk3 Statesmen would start fielding this missile system that exchanged range and hitting power for volume of fire.
The Statesman class houses 256 launch cells around its exterior, and can store additional reloads inside of its cargo bays.
See:
Mk 23 Naval Bastille Frequency Generator
The Mk 23 Naval Bastille Frequency Generator is an Electronic Warfare Support system originally designed for naval ships that operated in and around civilian shipping lanes on Earth. It was hardened for use in space after the loss of the AUS Lord Palmerson in 2320 to Cyber-Attack so that Statesmen class ships could be refit with new Electronic Warfare systems as fast as possible.
The system itself was originally designed for short range electronic attack, primarily to jam short range communication systems such as civilian wifi, cellular, and other data networks. The original intended use was for frigates near the coast to be able to safely overtake commercial shipping. While this makes the system somewhat useless in the extreme range combat of space, it does make the system suitable for suppressing communications on starships that are about to be boarded. More importantly, it allows a ship to suppress and control the civilian grade equipment that might be brought onboard by the ship’s own crew. This helps maintain electronic security inside of the ship during operations.
The various sensor panels and wide-band emitters are installed near the ship's CIC tower.
Small-Aperture Laser Optics
Laser Weaponry has normally not been a major focus for the Statesmen class starship. While large laser weapons can dominate a battlefield, they tend to be large, easy to damage, need massive radiator systems, and need to remain far enough away from their targets to avoid return fire. This conflicts with the interdiction and protection role of the Statesmen class starship, so its primary anti-starship weapons are more physical.
There is still a role for smaller laser weapons, and the Statesmen mounts 2 pairs of 4 meter laser optics on either side. These heat-ray style lasers are suitable for damaging optics and destroying small, fast, targets at range. Typically this means shooting down missiles, or destroying vulnerable equipment on enemy ships like optics, communication masts, and other sensors.
Life Support
The Statesmen uses a ECLSS type life support system developed by the Union Launch Alliance that has remained largely unchanged outside of incremental improvements over the last 40 years. This allows the ship to provide a comfortable atmosphere full of breathable air at a full 1 atmosphere of pressure. The ship's Oxygen Generation system and Carbon Dioxide Remove Assembly are fully capable of supporting up to 400 people, providing an ample safe space for supporting the crew in case of loss of functionality or the need to store extra people for transport.The Statesmen also has a grey-water treatment system capable of supporting 300 people almost indefinitely. This system is mostly off the shelf technology distributed through the Union Launch Alliance and is intended to provide usable fresh water for the crew with minimal upkeep or resupply.
Food and other material goods are supplied through the ship's cargo bay. While enough stores can be held for several months of operation, resupply is still required for extreme long-duration missions.