Name: Statesmen Class
Operators: American Union
Manufacturer:
Union Launch Alliance (ULA): Hull / Drive system
Jovian Propulsion Labs (JPL): Sensor Systems

Length: 300 Meters
Diameter (Radiators): 80 Meters
Diameter (Main Body): 40 Meters

Crew: 250
50 Crew for support craft
1100 Marines (1 Battalion with Soldiers + support staff)

Propulsion:
Max Acceleration: 1.4 g

Range: ~6 months before requiring resupply

Sensors:

Armament:

Electronic Warfare:

Support Craft:

At the time of their production, the statesmen was built with the most advanced technologies available to the Union. This included artificial gravity systems that allowed the ship to have a ‘space boat’ style internal layout, powerful fusion drives that enabled long distance travel, and a miniaturized superluminal travel small enough to fit on a starship that would enable travel between star systems. The original batch of starships were produced at Lunar shipyards and were then deployed to conflict areas in the solar system.

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.

Statesmen class ships were already preparing to travel to the Hawking star system prior to the New Year’s Revolution that saw the Magnetic Assembly ousting nearly all Union-aligned politicians during their local elections and withdrawing the Hawking System from the Union. The speed and decisiveness of the Magnetic Assembly’s movements left the Union without any presence in the star system, and it would fall to the statesmen class starships to restore communications with what remained of the Union in system.

• AUS Elbridge Gerry
• AUS Lord Palmerson
• AUS James Tully
• AUS Jerry Brown
• AUS David Lewis
• AUS Ralph Hise
• AUS Robert Rucho

• AUS Huey Long
• AUS Robert Archbald
• AUS Budd Dwyer
• AUS William Tweed
• AUS Lyndon B Johnson
• AUS John Mitchell
• AUS Thatcher
• AUS Vicente Fox
• AUS Bachelet
• AUS Itō Hirobumi
• AUS Katsura Tarō
• AUS Floriano Peixoto
• AUS Prudente de Morais
• AUS Nelson Mandela
• AUS Ernest George Jansen
• AUS Joaquín Prieto
• AUS José Antonio Páez
• AUS Guillermo Tel Villegas
• AUS Plutarco Elías Calles
• AUS Emiliano Zapata

• AUS Winston Churchill
• AUS Robert Walpole
• AUS Edmund Burke

• AUS Joseph McCarthy

• AUS Patricio Aylwin

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

For more see: UG-311

Deep missile magazines are a hallmark of Union ships from long before their ships became space-fairing.

By 2310 Union ships were using a launch cell derived from the Magnetic Assembly’s containerized component modules. Each cell can hold 2 9m long missiles, which can be equipped with a conventional or nuclear warhead. Typically they only use conventional warheads so as not to break the nuclear taboo.

The Union’s standard missile is padded heavily with a laser-resistant carbon material to make it reasonably protected against laser strikes. It is also equipped for remote guidance as well as a radar-based seeker for tracking a target on its own. These missiles are middle-sized when compared to the spectrum of anti-ship missiles, and have a decent combination of numbers, armor, and speed.

The Statesman class houses 256 launch cells around its exterior, and can store additional reloads inside of its cargo bays.

See: ULA Anti-Ship Missile

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.

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.

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.