Tau Cruisers
Empire Workhorses
Il'fannor (Merchant)-class Cruiser
Size: 4 KM long, 1 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: Unkown
Max Acceleration: 1.9 g
Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition and Gravatic shielding.
Standard Main Armament:
Ke'lshan Configuration: 2 Heavy Railgun Batteries (1 per broadside), 2 Gravatic Hooks (1 per broadside) and 1 Heavy Railgun Battery (Prow Mounted)
Dal'yth Configuration: 2 Heavy Railgun Batteries (1 per broadside), 2 Heavy Ion Cannon Batteries (1 per broadside) and 1 Heavy Railgun Battery (Prow Mounted)
Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 6 Orca transports (Both Configurations) and 2 Kass'l (Orca)-class Gunships (Ke'lshan Configuration only)
Lore: Large, bulky, and never designed as a combat vessel. The Merchant Class was, for a long time, the only ship the Tau had which could be called a 'capital ship' when compared to their immediate rivals among the Ork war bands and Imperial Navy. The Merchant was originally built as a cargo hauler, meant to transport goods in huge bulk between star systems so that frontier colonies could be developed with the utmost speed, and garrisoned against enemy aggression. But, particularly when the Damocles Crusade began, it had become clear to the Tau military that the Merchant required a means of defence against enemy escorts that roved through Tau space with little to challenge them: a capital ship was needed, and the Merchant met the size requirements.
As a result, the Merchant was hastily converted into a warship. Its frame was covered in Railguns and thick armour plates, and it received a gravatic shield generator and more powerful Ether Drive. In combination with the development of the Orca Gunship, the Merchant was chosen as the means to deploy the new escorts by having gravatic hooks fitted to its port and starboard side. This meant that now a Merchant would always have a pair of escorts to defend the large capital ship, in combination with an extensive battery of capital-ship calibre weapons.
Although this was more than enough to deal with convoy raids, the appearance of one or two merchants and their Orcar cohorts usually enough to either destroy an attacking force or force them into retreat, when faced with opposing capital ships the Merchant lacked any effective way of combating them or escaping the unfavourable engagement due to their cripplingly low sub-light speed and relatively short FTL range.
A perfect example was the ill-fated trade mission carried out by the Ura'kym Droma sometime in M41. The ship had been involved in trade for two centuries up to that point and had received its militarisation package to increase security during transit into Imperial-held space, when it ran into a pair of Dauntless class Light Cruisers patrolling the Damocles Gulf for activity. The resulting firefight lead to the destruction of the Merchant and both its escorts for only moderate damage to one of the light cruisers.
Appalled by this performance, the Dal'yth shipyards began fitting the Merchant with Heavy Ion Cannons more able to contest the capital ships of opposing factions instead of gravatic hooks. While this increased the ability of the Merchant to operate independently, and the invention of the Warden Class Frigate greatly improved the Merchants chances of winning a battle in the original Ke'lshan configuration, it was painfully clear that more dramatic changes needed to occur before the Tau Navy could truly operate effective capital ships.
Lar'shi (Hero)-class Cruiser
Size: 4.6 KM long, 0.8 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: Unkown
Max Acceleration: 2.1 g
Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition Gravatic shielding and prow deflector shields.
Standard Main Armament:
Vash'ya Configuration: 2 Heavy Ion Cannon Batteries (1 per broadside), 2 Launch Bays (1 per broadside), 1 Heavy Railgun Battery (Prow Mounted) and 1 Heavy Gravatic Launcher (Prow Mounted)
Tol'ku Configuration: 2 Heavy Railgun Batteries (1 per broadside), 2 Launch Bays (1 per broadside), 1 Heavy Railgun Battery (Prow Mounted) and 1 Heavy Gravatic Launcher (Prow Mounted)
Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 6 Manta Missile Destroyers, 24 Barracuda supremacy fighters, 6 Orca transports
Lore: The Hero was designed as a warship to counter the terror of the Imperial Lunar Class Cruiser. Tau commanders consumed by a desire to end the carnage of the Imperial Line Cruisers with a warship that could effectively challenge the Imperial designs.
The encounter that inspired the creation of the Hero was the Tau encounter with the Lunar Class Cruiser Graf Strupp which had been deployed to the area by Battlefleet Kronos to deal with rumours of xenos expansion and traitors consorting with alien emissaries. The Cruiser being the Battlefleet's only response to the claim, as the mighty battleships and battlecruisers normally sent to quell rebellions where locked in a long war with Hive Fleet Behemoth bound head-long for Ultramar. That being said, the Graf was no lesser vessel. Being equipped with a Nova Cannon, the venerable vessel had served with distinction under innumerable Imperial Captains since the Horus Heresy.
She made her presence known, and struck terror into the hearts of the Tau, by attacking several convoys all along the Damocles Gulf. Her final kill tally isn't known, but she is known to have destroyed at least one Merchant Cruiser and no fewer than a dozen Defender escorts.
The Hero was the result of this brief era of terrifying raids, a ship designed specifically from the ground-up to fight Imperial capital ships. The Hero was longer and slimmer than the Merchant, to pack more weapons onto a ship with a smaller target profile. The Hero also featured a suite of anti-capital ship weapons which included launch bays, which carried a squadron of Barracudas and a squadron of Mantas each; a pair of Heavy Ion Cannon Batteries and a Gravatic Launcher. The latter-most weapon being a new design for a super-massive rail gun inspired by the awesome power of the Imperial Nova Cannon.
The Hero also saw revolutionary increases in her protection, with the addition of a forward deflector shield able to direct enemy fire away from the vessel and prevent would-be fatal shots from connecting with the ships hull.
The Graf would encounter a pair of the new Tau Cruisers during another raid on a small convoy near Mu'Gulath Bay, the Imperial Cruiser baited onto the Tau guns with empty transports. The fight from the very beginning proved the supremacy of the venerable Imperial design. The Lunar Cruiser easily capable of outrunning the Hero cruisers, and her own weapons more than capable of damaging the Tau vessels, although with difficulty thanks to the new defector shields.
However, fatal errors in judgement resulted in the Graf taking a crippling round from the Gravatic Launchers from both Hero Cruisers, setting the ship adrift in space and motionless. The Graf would be later recovered and repaired, but similar suppression tactics would never again be attempted against the Tau Empire.
Although the Hero had failed to be the equal of the Imperial Line cruisers, it did prove that it was a very capable cruiser that could hold its own in a fight. Future configurations would be made to make the ship less specialised as a capital ship killer and improve versatility, but the Hero would remain in service into the 42nd millennium and saw service during the Taros campaign alongside the more modern ships of the Tau Navy.
Il'Porrui (Emissary)-class Cruiser
Size: 3 KM long, 3 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: Unkown
Max Acceleration: 4.1 g
Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition, Gravatic shielding and prow deflector shields.
Standard Main Armament:
Sa'cea Configuration: 2 Heavy Railgun Batterys (wing mounted) 3 Launch Bays (along the spine and prow mounted) and 2 Gravatic Hooks (wing mounted)
Bor'kan Configuration: 2 Heavy Railgun Batteries (wing mounted), 2 Launch Bays (along the spine), 3 Gravatic Torpedo Launchers (Prow Mounted) and 2 Heavy Ion Cannon Batterys (wing mounted)
Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft:
Sa'cea Configuration: 6 Manta Missile Destroyers, 30 Barracuda supremacy fighters, 6 Orca transports and 2 Kir'la (Warden)-Class Frigates
Bor'kan Configuration: 4 Manta Missile Destroyers, 20 Barracuda supremacy fighters and 4 Orca transports
Lore: While small for a light cruiser, the Emissary was the first vessel the Tau Navy built that could fill the role of light cruiser and was a radical upgrade over the Messenger that it was intended to replace in the role of diplomatic vessel. The intention being to provide valuable tau personnel better protection in high-risk systems, or systems not completely compliant with Tau negations.
In the original Sa'cea configuration, this meant the ship itself relatively lightly armed (although still much better armed than the messenger) with only 2 wide-angel heavy rail gun batteries but carried with it two of the deadly new Warden Class Frigates and enough strike craft to challenge a line cruiser or dominate most planets' airspace. In this configuration, the emissary was perfect as a diplomatic vessel, as it could perform its own reconnaissance, and send forwards its cohort of escorts and strike craft to clear a path for the delivery of its on-board diplomats with minimal risk.
However, its potential as a light cruiser detached from envoy duties was fully realised with the Bor'kan Configuration. This configuration giving the light cruiser a scary arsenal of strike craft, ion cannons and rail guns in addition to long-range Gravatic torpedo launchers. This configuration proved its effective during the Taros Campaign. Three Bor'kan Emissarys working in cooperation succeeded in disabling an Emperor Class Battleship with a combination of manta and torpedo strikes, swatting aside the much larger warship's escorts with their ion cannons and railguns, before boarding the ship with breacher teams and battle suits rendering the battleship dead-in-space. The Imperial fleet, without their flagship, was then forced to flee or risk being overwhelmed by waves of tau strike craft.
Lar'shi'vre (Protector)-class Cruiser
Size: 3.8 KM long, 4.8 KM abeam at the wings
Crew: Unknown
Max Acceleration: 3.9 g
Defences: Armour plating of Unknown composition, Gravatic shielding and prow deflector shields.
Standard Main Armament:
T'ros Configuration: 6 Heavy Railgun Batteries (2 prow mounted, 4 wing mounted), 2 Launch Bays (prow mounted) and 4 Gravatic Torpedo Launchers (Prow Mounted)
T'olku Configuration: 6 Heavy Railgun Batteries (2 prow mounted, 4 wing mounted), 2 Heavy Ion Cannon Batteries (wing mounted) and 4 Gravatic Torpedo Launchers (Prow Mounted)
Standard secondary Armament: Railguns and missile banks (belly and spine mounted, undetermined numbers)
Auxiliary craft: 6 Orca transports (both configurations), 6 Manta Missile Destroyers and 24 Barracuda supremacy fighters (T'ros configuration only)
Lore: The Protector, in both configurations, was the first true line cruiser the Tau Navy ever developed. Intended to replace the Hero Class Cruiser, the Protector was a radical redesign which maximised firepower and greatly improved over the older designs in terms of speed, mobility and protection.
While lacking the bulk or durability of Imperial line cruisers, it was more than capable of matching such vessels for firepower. Both configurations having a large number of Heavy Railgun batteries, strategically placed to maximise forward firepower at little expense of broadside firepower. The Protector able to cover very wide angles of fire with its weapon systems. To add to this flexibility, the T'ros brings strike craft for defensive and offensive purposes while the T'olku offers Heavy Ion cannons for greater concentrated firepower. However, lessons learned from the infamous Graf Strupp raids have taught the Tau to deploy their cruisers in pairs. In this way able to always ensure the upper hand over lone Imperial capital ships while maximising firepower and protecting vs swarms of lesser enemies.
The Protector was first encountered by the Imperium during the Taros campaign. Here the Protector proved its lethal potential against Lunar and Dauntless Class cruisers, and as they travelled in pairs they would also be a dire threat to larger vessels if left unchecked. Although Tau commanders preferred to use them as raiding vessels alongside Castellan Heavy Frigates, drawing away Imperial fleets with tempting targets of opportunity and Castellan harassment attacks, then using protector cruisers to slaughter the poorly defended convoys. These raids starved the Imperial front line of much needed Guard reinforcements and essential supplies in the form of food and ammunition. The protector cited as one of the main causes for the failure of the crusade against Taros.