Imperial Light Cruisers
Dauntless Light Cruiser
Size: 4.5 KM long, 0.5 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 65,000
Max Acceleration: 4.3 g
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 light cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 2 double-barrelled light macro turrets (dorsal and dorsal/prow mounted), 12 light macro cannons (6 per broadside) and either a Prow lance or 6 torpedo tubes.
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Apulia lander
Lore: The Dauntless Class is possibly the most heavily mass produced capital ship-sized warship in Imperial history. The ship has a long history, dating back to the early Great Crusade era, and has filled the same role successfully for over ten thousand years.
The Dauntless is designed as a versatile, cheap and reliable scout cruiser platform that was primarily optimised for recon, enforcement and patrol: but could fill a wide range of combat applications and roles. Both primary variants of the ship possess many light macro cannon, powerful argur equipment and escort-like speed and mobility. The light cruisers finding a balance of firepower, speed, utility and protection for a low price and rapid production time. The light macro cannons being much smaller and less taxing on the battle fleets to keep supplied, trading stopping power and range of their larger cousins for a faster rate of fire in combat, making them perfectly suited for chewing apart similarly sized targets and escorts.
The Lance dauntless is even more deadly towards escorts and leans more heavily towards the raiding and anti-piracy potential of the ship. The lance more than capable of overwhelming an escort's defences and destroying the in only a couple of shots.
The Torpedo Dauntless focusses more on providing the ship a means to fight larger ship and support the fleet in larger combat actions. The Dauntless able to send a volley of deadly Melta, Plasma or vortex warheads into much larger and slower to manoeuvre threats.
While the Dauntless may not be nearly as powerful as their line-cruiser cousins, nor as cheap, numerous and easy to hide as escorts, they fit a valuable role in the Imperial Navy. Its long service life, even by Imperial standards, a testament to the ship's overall quality. Even if the light cruiser often over-looked in favour the pride of the fleet: the battlecruisers and battleships, or the more powerful but generally less flexible line-cruisers.
Defender Class Light Cruiser
Size: 4.5 KM long, 0.5 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 65,000
Max Acceleration: 4.1 g
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 light cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 3 Light-Lance turrets (dorsal and dorsal/prow mounted), 12 light Macro Cannons (6 per broadside), 1 prow Lance
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander
Lore: The Defender is a modification of the Dauntless first put together as a proposal by the Fleet admirals of battlefleet Tempestus as part of plans for dedicated anti-piracy fleets laid out in M38. This line of planning and design eventually culminating in the fearsome Invincible Class Fast Battleships in M41.
The Defender modification saw most of the Dauntless' argur equipment removed, removal of her dorsal Macro Cannon armaments and power taken away from her engines; the excess power and turrets being taken away to allow for the fitting of three light lance turrets equipped with the same weapons found on the tried and tested Firestorm Frigates.
While this servilely limited the ability of the ship to fulfil patrol errands and scouting duties, it was a significant boost in firepower. The ship still retained a high speed, respectable protection for the weight class and now had enough firepower to stand toe-to-toe with some line-cruisers. Where the ship shined, however, was in systematically taking apart smaller or similarly sized vessels.
The rapid-fire cannons and lances able to tear apart most opponents before they stood a chance of doing Signiant damage to the Defender. This also made her excellent in convoy patrols. While she was virtually blind alone, with other ships to draw fire and spot targets: The Defender alone could repulse all but the most determined of attacks. The Alien Bane, achieving an incredible kill tally in throughout the Gothic War by defending convoy operations: destroying 17 escort-sized pirate vessels and some 204 pirate strike craft in one battle.
Enforcer Class Light Cruiser
Size: 4.5 KM long, 0.5 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 70,000
Max Acceleration: 4.3 g
Defences: tipple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 light cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament: 2 double-barrelled light macro turrets (dorsal and dorsal/prow mounted), 2 Hangar decks (1 per broadside), a Prow lance turret.
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander, 4 Valkyries, 12 Thunderbolts, 12 Marauders, 20 Furies, 4 Star Hawks.
Lore: The Enforcer Class is a warship feared by many, being a symbol of Imperial power and authority over lesser human empires on many worlds, the Enforcer Class seeing not nearly as much service in front-line combat as in wide use as a PDF ship and keeping worlds from rebelling against the Imperium.
The Enforcer Class armament reflects this: a pair of light hanger bays, ensuring that Imperial forces on the ground always have air supremacy over any insurgency, and a turreted lance for destroying enemy strongholds on the ground, space installations and any space-faring vessels the rebels may possess with extreme prejudice and efficiency.
The Enforcer being so effective in this role that one of them, the Imperial Ghost, preventing chaos-fuelled rebellion in an entire sector: destroying chaos and rebel escorts across multiple planets and supporting Imperial ground forces across the sector until an Imperial fleet could respond.
Despite the Enforcer being very well suited to crushing revolts and small-scale fleet combats, she is poorly suited to larger fleet engagements: her low-ish light cruiser armour as well as small number of batteries and strike craft making her an easy target to overwhelm and destroy for other light cruisers and escorts squadrons: although the turreted Lance can be extremely dangerous to unshielded targets.
The Enforcer Class did see some service in the early stages of Gothic War, Battlefleet Gothic being desperate for carrier capable warships. She performed well against pirate fleets, turreted Lance and strike craft proving an effective counter to the swarmed and poorly armoured vessels: but proved to be a dismal warship when fighting larger threats, being replaced in the light-carrier role by the Dictator class in the mid and late Gothic War.
Endeavour-series Light cruisers
Size: 3.8 KM long, 0.5 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: 58,000-61,000
Max Acceleration: 3.9 g
Defences: Tripple-armoured adamantium prow, faramite-alloy armour plating, 1 light cruiser class Void shield.
Standard Main Armament:
Endeavour: 8 Macro Cannons (4 per broadside), 2 torpedo launchers.
Endurance: 2 Plasma-Lance batteries (1 per broadside, 2 six-barrelled turrets per battery), 2 torpedo launchers.
Defiant: 2 hangar bays (1 per broadside).
Standard secondary Armament: Turbo lasers, missile banks and autocannons (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: (all 3 ships): 2 Arvus lighters, 1 Aquila lander, (Defiant only): 25 Furies, 16 Star Hawks
Lore: The Endeavour series is a group of three light cruisers which are all classes interchangeable with each other in all regards bar armament.
The series of light cruisers stared with the Endeavour class. The Endeavour class was suggested by the fleet lords of battlefleet Calixis in M33. The newly formed and very escort and Light cruiser-heavy battlefleet having a desperate need for more warships that could carry line-ship weaponry. Not having the time or resources to mass produce Line-cruisers, the Calxis fleet lords design and had built a small and cheaply built light cruiser that maximised armour protection and firepower above speed or arguer equipment. The resulting ship was the Endeavour class. Slow, by light cruiser standards, but still fast enough to outrun most larger ships: and armed with a deadly battery of Macro Cannons on each broadside and boasting thick all-round armour protection. The ship very rapidly found itself amid a massive production demand, the light cruiser finding itself in use across the Imperium with nearly every major battlefleet placing orders for them to act as protective escorts for battleships and battlecruisers.
The Endurance Class came much later, in the 2nd War for Armageddon. Battlefleet Armageddon was suffering a steep attrition rate at the hands of the Orks, and it was clear that the Endeavour and its Macro Cannons (although easy to produce and replace) where inadequate vs heavy Ork armour. The battlefleet modifying its Endeavours instead with Plasma lances that could cleave through even the heaviest armour: a group of Endurance Class vessels being more than capable of taking apart even an Ork battleship in very short order.
The Defiant Class came into being in the opening years of M41 with battlefleet Gothic. The battlefleet was desperate for carriers, many of the fleet admirals firmly believing that the future of the Imperial Navy lay with assault carriers and hoped that strike craft would give the edge they needed over the many pirate, Ork and Eldar threats that constantly assailed them. The Defiant wasn't an ideal conversation, sacrificing any gun-armament or torpedoes for pure hander space. This made the ship surprisingly capable in carrying large squadrons of bombers, but at the cost of being cripplingly vulnerable to opposing ships. The defiant being incapable of serving on the frontline without at least moderate support.
