Tau Escorts
The First Line

Kir'qath (Defender)-Class Frigate

Size: 1.8 KM long, 0.3 KM abeam at the wings

Crew: Unkown

Max Acceleration: 3 g

Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition and Gravatic shielding.

Standard Main Armament: 1 Heavy Railgun Battery (prow mounted), 4 Gravatic Torpedo Launchers

Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)

Auxiliary craft: 2 Orcas

Lore: The Defender was built as a direct response to the Sword Class Frigates of the Imperial Navy, which seemed unstoppable as they rushed Tau convoys, obliterated huge numbers of defenceless transports, and slipped away with ease before the lumbering merchant defensive fleet could respond effectively. The defender, being the first true purpose-built escort in the still-young tau navy, being the first concentrated effort to halt these deathly raids.

The Defender was slow for an escort, managing only about 2/3rd of the acceleration of the venerable Imperial design, and was not as well protecting having inferior shielding systems and armour that was positively flimsy by comparison. The FTL capabilities of the Defender where also a disappointment. Only able to perform 6 short-ranged jumps with its Ether Drive before being forced to wait 15 Terran hours for a recharge, making the escort woefully under equipped for scouting or patrol duties.

However, as purely a close-defence vessel, the Defender was excellent. Having Gravatic Launchers and Heavy Rail guns able to contest with the Imperial escorts and pose a serious threat even to larger vessels when amassed in large groups. Such was their potency as defensive screening ships, that the Imperium was forced to send larger and larger vessels to oversee raids on convoys and assist the now struggling Sword Escorts that merely decades before made short work of whole groups of Tau ships.

This escalation eventually lead to surrounding Imperial Battlefleets launching fewer and fewer raids, for fear they would lose more than they would gain in such attacks. Much of the Tau Empires early success can be attributed to the Defender, as without the seemingly mediocre escort, expansion into Imperial held territory simply would not have been possible.

Later in the life of the Tau Navy, they still see use, although are now seen more as a liability due to their tactical inflexibility but are still called upon to support some of the heavier Tau ships and protect important convoys travelling through the Empires growing domain.

Skether'qan (Messenger)-Class Starship

Size: 1.2 KM long, 0.4 KM abeam at the wings

Crew: Unkown

Max Acceleration: 5.1 g

Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition and Gravatic shielding.

Standard Main Armament: 1 Heavy Railgun Battery (prow mounted)

Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)

Auxiliary craft: 2 Orcas

Lore: The Messenger was never intended to be a combat vessel, but as the only true scout vessel available to the fledgling Tau Navy, its role in battle was instrumental to their success. The Messenger was, and still is, the smallest and fastest vessel to be fitted with a Ether Drive. Its weapons and protection are purely token, meant to deter an attacker long enough for the Messenger to escape, but the ship does feature some of the most advanced targeting and data handing equipment of the Tau Navy. Meaning the Messenger in battle assist by relaying targeting data to larger ships and screening against bombers, while the larger warships swat aside anything that might aim to destroy the small escort.

The ship is also a favourite for diplomats of the Water Caste. Able to slip in and slip out of naval blockades and offer just enough firepower to convince an opposing party that an agreement favourable for the empire is wise. Such craft being seen used in gun-point diplomacy in many systems throughout the region.

Kass'l (Orca)-class Gunship

Size: 1.5 KM long, 0.3 KM abeam at the wings

Crew: Unkown

Max Acceleration: 4 g

Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition and Gravatic shielding.

Standard Main Armament: 1 Heavy Railgun Battery (prow mounted), 1 Ion Cannon Battery (prow mounted)

Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)

Auxiliary craft: 2 Orcas

Lore: The Orca was the second true escort class to be developed by the Tau Navy, to further increase the power of the growing merchant fleet with effective escort ship designs. The Orca design was an improvement over the Defender in that it was smaller, increasing survivability, more effective sublight engine systems and traded away the slow-moving gravatic torpedo systems with a highly destructive Ion Cannon Battery for anti-escort duties. The ineffective Ether Drive was also gutted, the Earth Caste instead inventing an innovative new way of deploying the defensive escorts: Gravatic Hooks. This meant that Orcas could be tethered to larger ships, which had Ether Drives, and be deployed to where it was needed alongside the capital ships of the merchant navy to defend convoys moving through enemy space.

Although this greatly improved the capacity of the new Tau Navy to deploy effective counter measures to Ork and Imperial raids, the new Orcas also lacked even the limited versatility of the Defender and were very reliant on their mother ship to swing battles in their favour while they acted as defence. Not able to move from a system without a parent vessel, many Orcas would also be left stranded in the event their capital ship is damaged or destroyed: although the presence of Orcas did make such an event much less likely to occur.

Kir'la (Warden)-Class Frigate

Size: 1.6 KM long, 1.8 KM abeam at the wings

Crew: Unkown

Max Acceleration: 4.1 g

Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition and Gravatic shielding.

Standard Main Armament: 2 Heavy Railgun Turrets (dorsal/Wing mounted), 2 Ion Cannon Batteries (Prow Mounted)

Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)

Auxiliary craft: 2 Orcas

Lore: The Warden represents a radical shift in Tau ship design away from refitting existing civilian designs and towards purpose-built warships. Previous escort designs in the Defender and the Orca, while radical for their time, and important for the Tau Navies development, where virtually indistinguishable from the transports they defended. This was no accident as the Earth Caste, looking to make most efficient use of resources and optimise the vessels for defence of convoys, where effectively refits of existing civilian freighters and cargo lighters. This made the perfectly optimised for their intended roles, often mistaken for the very cargo vessels they protected and catching assailants by surprise as they descended on 'undefended' convoys.

But as traditional escorts, they proved woefully mediocre vs their competition. Imperial designs outclassing them in every regard, and Ork designs simply overpowered them with brute force. The Warden was designed specifically as a counter to competing escort designs, to address the capability gap Tau commanders where painfully aware of.

The Warden still required a parent ship to be deployed, but once deployed to an area they were more than capable of operating as independent escort squadrons. Having a massive array of weapons for an escort vessel, larger firing angles, better armour protection, and by far the most powerful engines equipped to an escort in the Tau Navy by that point.

The first encounter by the Imperium occurred immediately after a raid on Tau convoys bound for the Damocles Gulf from Dal'yth to honour a trade agreement made in secret to a local governor. A group of 4 Sword Class Frigates known as the 'Red Prows' successfully engaged and destroyed several Tau convoys and their Defender escorts before running into three of the new Warden Class frigates which had been deployed via a Merchant Class Cruiser thousands of kilometres away.
The two sides engaged in a short and viscous firefight, which ended with neither side a clear victor. The Red Prows losing two of their number in exchange for one Warden destroyed and another Warden badly damaged, both escort commanders chose to disengage for repairs rather than continue fighting.

Although this was not a victory for the Tau empire, it was cause for celebration, as it proved the design was capable of trading toe-to-toe with Imperial escorts and come out of the engagement on potentially favourable terms. For Imperial commanders, it painted a grim picture of what was to come from the Tau Navy.

Kir'shashvre (Castellan)-Class Heavy Frigate

Size: 1.7 KM long, 2 KM abeam at the wings

Crew: Unkown

Max Acceleration: 4.1 g

Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition and Gravatic shielding.

Standard Main Armament: 3 Heavy Railgun Turrets (dorsal and dorsal/Wing mounted), 4 Gravatic torpedo launchers (Prow Mounted)

Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)

Auxiliary craft: 2 Orcas

Lore: Continuing on from the success of the Warden, the Tau Fleet looked to increase the flexibility of its escorts, to have an escort class capable of long range scouting mission as well as combat duties now they had a design that could comfortably challenge the Sword and Firestorm Class Frigates in battle.

The answer to improving versatility was of course to fit an Ether Drive to the Warden and grant them a weapon system more able to challenge the armour and shielding of larger Imperial ships. The Castellan was Earth Caste's final product, trading Ion Cannons for gravatic torpedoes more able to damage large capital ships and increasing the number of wide-angle Railgun weapons for fighting escorts. The Castellan's Ether Drive being much improved from the Defender and Messenger Drives. Able to transport the large escort much greater distances with each jump, achieve more jumps, and require less time to recharge.

The Castellan first saw action above Taros, alongside the defected PDF fleet, against a large fleet of warships sent to deny the Tau the Imperial mining world. The Castellan not only was able to trade toe-for-toe with Imperial Frigates but posed a dire threat to larger warships in large groups. Even able to pursue Imperial commanders back to their staging grounds and mount raids of their own, something that previously was beyond the capabilities of the Tau Fleet. The utter failure of the Imperial Navy at Taros proved to be a turning point for the balance of power in the region. From then on, the Tau could take the initiative in void combat, and had warships able to strike back at the Imperium and consistently best their Imperial equivalents. Imperial Void supremacy over the Tau would never again be achieved, and dark times abound for the future of the Imperial navy in the region.