Einstein-Class Aircraft Carrier
Overview
The concept of launching aircraft off of sips is almost as old as the aircraft itself. For two centuries, Aircraft Carriers have served as the might of maritime navies across Earth. It was only natural that these vessels would appear on the interstellar scene. Humanity launched the Dreadnought -ized Aircraft Carrier, SSV Albert Einstein, in 2153. The first vessel in galactic history to sport Fighters as her primary armament.
Kinetic barriershields changed starship battles from short, vicious bloodbaths to extended, indecisive slugging matches. Only the main gun of a dreadnought could punch amass acceleratorslug through the barriers of an opposing dreadnought. This changed when humanity developed the fighter-launched massdisruptor torpedo, a short-ranged weapon that can penetrate kinetic barriers to destroy their projector assemblies.
In combat, the Einstein would stay clear of battle, launching fighters bearing disruptor torpedoes. Fighters were the primary striking power of the ship; if she entered mass accelerator range of the enemy, things had gone very wrong. It was possible to recover and rearm fighters during combat, though the Einstein usually seal the flight deck and tried to stay out of the way. The flight deck was essentially a corridor through the armor and into the heart of the vessel. A single well-placed torpedo is enough to gut a carrier.
Alliance Doctrine dictated the construction of one Carrier for every Dreadnought, ensuring adequate fighter support for Alliance fleets. As such, the Carrier SSV Stephen Hawking would be launched in 2155, alongside the Dreadnought, SSV Elbrus.
Carrier support played a major role during the First Contact war of 2157. Carrier launched Fighters proved devastating to the shields of turian warships and showed the entire galaxy the resourcefulness and unconventional tactical capabilites of humanity.
The Einstein-Class Carrier would go on to be the longest serving class of ship in the Alliance. With 7 additional Carriers being added by 2186 and more planned.
Hull and Superstructure
From stem to stern the Einstein-Class has a length of 964 meters, a beam 258 meters and a height of 145 meters.
It's hull is composed of 90 centimeters of high-density, ablative ceramic composite armour plating. These plates are hung from scaffolds around the ship's interior pressure hull and consist of several layers of armour separated by baffles
Though it does provide protection against kinetic based weapons, the ablative armour is also highly effective at negating the penetrative effects of directed energy weapons such as lasers. The armour boils away when heated. The vaporised armour material scatters directed energy weapon beams. Rendering them ineffectual.
The ship's exterior is lined with strips of pure ceramic as part of her Defused Radiator Array (DRA) radiation system. While cruising, the ship radiates the excess heat of internal operations through these stripes. Making a Everest-class Dreadnought appear striped on thermographic sensors. In some cases, the DRA stripes have been known to glow red- or white-hot. Leading to their nickname "War paint" or "Tiger stripes."
The DRA isn't as effective as regular radiation panels, but if a strip is damaged, the ship only loses a portion of it's radiation capabilities, rather than the entire array.
The superstructure of a Einstein-Class Carrier was centred around her heavily reinforced spine that ran her entire length. On each side of the main hull are the large, angular "wings" that give the vessel her overall wedge shaped. These wings protect the ship by deflecting impacts to her vulnerable broadside. They also house the deployment tubes for aircraft and the docking tubes. The back of the wings held the ship's thruster nacelles.
Kinetic Barriers
The Einstein-Class was also equipped with Heavy Ship mass repulsive kinetic barrier generators. These shields can withstand a direct impact from the main of an Everest-class Dreadnought without damaging the vessel.
Kinetic barriers consist of hundreds of tiny mass effect field emitters that cover the ship's exterior hull. When an object with mass approaches the ship above a certain velocity, it triggers the barriers' reflex system. Generating a localised repulsive mass effect field, deflecting it.
Kinetic Barriers are limited by the amount of stress they can withstand. Sufficient enough kinetic energy can overload the shield generators. Resulting in the temporary deactivation of the system.
Power and Propulsion
The Einstein-Class Carrier was powered by a Nuclear Fusion Power Plant, with Hydrogen fuel cells providing backup power wherever the Plant was offline.
The ships utilise a Mass Effect drive core that worked by introducing an electric current to a core of the rare mineral, element zero. This then generated a dark energy mass effect field that could manipulate the mass of a volume of space time. A positive current increased mass and a negative current decreased mass. Allowing for the generation of kinetic barriers, increasing the power of weapons and altering the mass of the entire ship. Allowing increased mobility beyond what should be possible. It even allowed the ship to move faster than the speed of light.
The drive core allows for increased acceleration, but does not provide any motive power. Even during faster-than-light travel, the ship is propelled by it's sublight thrusters. Four military-grade antiproton drives. Antiprotons are injected into a reaction chamber filled with protium. The most common and stable isotope of hydrogen. Consisting of a proton nucleus and a single electron. The antiproton is the antimatter version of the proton contained at the nucleus of protium, but with the opposite of charge. The resulting matter-antimater annihilation provides unmatched motive power. The exhaust of antiproton drives is measured in millions of degrees Celsius. Any vessel caught behind them will melt like wax to a blowtorch.
For maneuverability, the Einstein-Class is equipped with an array of hydrogen-oxygen reaction control thrusters.
When in combat, the Einstein-class' DRA systems are unable to keep up with the increased radiation output. During combat, they deploy high-efficiency "droplet" heat sinks. Lithium tanks within the hull absorb the heat generated. The liquid is then vented through spray nozzles near the bow as a thin sheet of millions of micrometer-scale droplets. The droplets are then cooled by the cold vacuum of space before being caught at the stern and recycled back into the system. Droplet sinks are 10-100 times more effective than DRA systems. Droplet sheets resemble a surface ship's wake through water. The wake peels out in sharp turns, spreading a fan of droplets as the ship changes vectors and leaves the coolant behind.
Crew and Complement
The official crew size of an Einstein-Class Carrier was 1200, including the Flight Deck crew and pilots, and a battalion of upto 750 marines. divided into 5 companies, each further divided into 3 platoons, which are each further divided into 4 squads.
An Einstein-Class Carrier has 180 emergency escape pods. The three dedicated hanger decks carry a total of 800 F-61 Trident Fighter/Interceptors, 60 UT-47 Kodiak Drop Shuttles and 24 A-61 Mantis Gunships.
Sensors and Communications
Most space battles can occur beyond visually range, as such Einstein-Class Carriers rely heavily on an array of active and passive sensors to remain aware of their surroundings, however "light lag' prevents seeing in real-time over great distances. Due to the light-speed limit, the ship can't see enemy vessels approaching until they have already arrived, as there is FTL travel, but no FTL sensors.
Passive sensors are used for long-range detection and include visual, thermographic and radio detectors that watch and listen for objects in space. A powered ship emits a great deal of energy; the heat of the life support systems; the radiation given off by power plants and electrical equipment; the exhaust of the thrusters.Starshipsstand out plainly against the near-absolute zero background of space. Passive sensors can be used during FTL travel, but incoming data is significantly distorted by the effect of the mass effect envelope and Doppler shift.
Active sensors are used for long-range detection. These include radars and high resolution ladars (LAser Detection And Ranging) that emit a "ping" of energy and "listen" for return signals. Ladars have a narrower field of view than radar, but ladar resolution allows images of detected objects to be assembled. Active sensors are useless when a ship is moving at FTL speeds.
For communication, Einstein-Class Carriers transmit information to the nearest mass relay comm buoy. Comm buoys are maintained in patterns built outward from each mass relay. The buoys are little more than a cluster of primitive, miniature mass relays. Each individual buoy is connected to a partner on another buoy in the network, forming a corridor of low-mass space. Tightbeam communications lasers are piped through these "tubes" of FTL space, allowing virtually instantaneous communication to anywhere on the network. The networks connect across regions by communications lasers through the mass relays. Military communications get top priority in the comm buoy network, ensuring no communication lag due to limited bandwidth.
Armament
The only armament the Einstein-Class Carrier has is it's General ARea Defense Integration Anti-spacecraft Network (GARDIAN) consisting of 215 anti-missile/anti-fighter laser turrets on the exterior hull. Because these are under computer control, the gunnery control officer needs to do little beyond turn the system on and designate targets as hostile. Since lasers move at light speed, they cannot be dodged by anything moving at non-relativistic speeds. Unless the beam is aimed poorly, it will always hit its target. In the early stages of a battle, the GARDIAN fire is 100% accurate. It is not 100% lethal, but it doesn't have to be. Damaged fighters must break off for repairs. Lasers are limited bydiffraction. The beams "spread out", decreasing the energy density (watts per m2) the weapon can place on a target. Any high-powered laser is a short-ranged weapon. GARDIAN networks have another limitation: heat. Weapons-grade lasers require "cool-down" time, during which heat is transferred to sinks or radiators. As lasers fire, heat builds within them, reducing damage, range, and accuracy. Fighters attack in swarms. The first few WILL be hit by GARDIAN, but as the battle continues, the effects of laser overheat allow the attacks to press ever closer to the ship. Constant use will burn out the laser. GARDIAN lasers typically operate in infrared frequencies. Shorter frequencies would offer superior stopping power and range, but degradation of focal arrays and mirrors would make them expensive to maintain, and most prefer mechanical reliability over leading-edge performance where lives are concerned. Lasers are not blocked by the kinetic barriers of capital ships. However, the range of lasers limits their use to rare "knife fight"-range ship-to-ship combat.
Layout
The Einstein-Class has 21 decks.
The front section of the ship is dedicated to ship operations and include the main bridge and Combat Information Centre at the bow of deck 12.
The middle section of the ship is dedicated to the crew and include Mess Halls, Crew's quarters and other crew accommodations. There is also a Medical Bay on deck 14
The aft section of the ship is dedicated to storage and engineering.
Decks 5, 6 and 7 are the Hanger Decks. The Hanger Decks link to the Flight Deck on Deck 8, which contains the Fighters launch bays as well as the 12 Shuttle bays and 6 Gunship bays. The ship's 18 Deployment tubes run between Deck 8 and the tips of the ship's wings. These tubs magnetically accelerate and decelerate aircraft as they enter and exit the vessel.
Ships of the Line
- SSV Elbert Einstein CV-1 - 5th Fleet
- SSV Stephen Hawking CV-2 - 1st Fleet
- SSV Benjamin Davis CV-3 - 3rd Fleet
- SSV Nicola Tesla CV-4 - 1st Fleet
- SSV Isaac Newton CV-5 - 2nd Fleet
- SSV Benjamin Franklin CV-6 - 4th Fleet
- SSV Alexander Fleming CV-7 - 6th Fleet
- SSV Edwin Hubble CV-8 - 7th Fleet
- SSV Freeman Dyson CV-9 - 8th Fleet
