In commemoration of the famous Battlestar Galactica's decommissioning, the Caprica Inquiry is creating this article about the Jupiter class Battlestars and the Galactica specifically.
BACKGROUND:
The Jupiter class Battlestars can trace their design back to the 1942 design planning for the caprican next generation capital ship and the Battlestar class Heavy Carriers of the Virgonian Navy.
The Battlestar class was originally designed with the lessons learned in the later Imperial Wars. The class has far more armor and armament than any other Carrier of the time, equaling or surpassing, most Heavy Cruisers of the time. This is due to the improvements made to FTL accuracy in the years leading up to the design's proposal. While in the 19th century, FTL jumps were wildly inaccurate and left vessels at extreme range from one another, newer FTL drives were capable of more precise jumps. It was not enough precision, as of the design proposal, to jump directly into effective ballistic range, but it was close enough for the distance to be closed rapidly. The Battlestars were made to account for this, having massive amounts of armor and ballistic weaponry to fight at close range alongside its normal complement of Fighters. The Battlestars also included large flack batteries traditionally only seen on Frigates and a respectable amount of missiles. This combination created a vessel capable of completely independent operation.
After the class was commissioned in 1930, several other colonies took note of the class, and many began the creation of their own versions, like the Leonin Artemis class. These vessels began to be called Battlestars after the original class.
The Caprican Navy started a design competition for the creation of its next-generation capital ship in 1936. Several designs were submitted for the contest, of which design four held several similarities to the later Jupiter class. It was similar to the other first-generation Battlestars with one major exception, it was big, insanely big. The design outmassed all other Battlestars of the time by a large margin.
While the design had some interest, it was eventually discarded with design 11 being accepted and becoming the Cerberus class Supercarrier. There were several reasons for the design's rejection. The first was simply cost; the design was massive and had a unit cost half again the next largest design's cost. That cost meant the caprican military could not procure the wished-for hulls with the approved budget. The final nail in the coffin was not a flaw in the design but in caprican industry. The caprican military-industrial complex could not provide the necessary amount of armor needed for the design in a realistic time frame, meaning the armor would have to be either of a lower-tech version which could be produced in less expensive and limited factories, or a large amount of money would have to be spent to increase production, money the military did not have.
As the arms race dragged on, however, the CAF began looking for a way to end the costly arms race. Their solution was to create a class of Battlestars so big and in so many a number, that no other colony could match Caprica. The arms race had led to a increase in both the caprican military industrial complex and military budget enough so that the idea was feasible. It would also drum up more orders for caprican shipyards, as many of the less developed colonies were looking to order Battlestars for their own defense. Whether this plan would have worked or not is unknown.
In order to create these Super Battlestars, the CAF looked back at design four and began to modify it into the Jupiter class that is known today.
Four years before the Cylon War began, the four Jupiters the CAF ordered began construction. The original four ships, Jupiter, Galactica, Mercury, and Athena, would begin operations late into the first year of the war, construction being rushed near the end and several components unfinished while the ships were operating.
During the negotiations to create the Articles of Colonization, things were beginning to fall apart and Caprica and some of the other colonies were trying to find a way to make it work. The solution was for Caprica and several of the other pro articles colonies to agree to pay for the construction of eight additional Jupiter class Battlestars, and once the threat of the Cylons was over, each colony would get to keep one. This was agreed-upon and eight more Jupiter class Battlestars began construction.
SIZE:
The Jupiter class was the largest and most massive ship of its time at 1440 meters long and 12 million tons, twice the mass of the Artemis class.
The cost of the vessels was equally massive, the original 12 vessels costing more than the pre-war yearly military procurement budgets of all of the colonies combined.
The construction of the Jupiter class, faced many challenges, as no warship or even ship at all not counting mobile space stations had ever been built at the scale of the Jupiter class before.
While the Jupiter class and the Galactica are not especially impressive now, during its time, it was a herculean effort to construct the class, and the methods discovered by the construction of the Jupiter class paved the way for the construction of even larger vessels like the Mercury class.
ARMOR:
The Jupiter class was supposed to be equipped with 4 million tons of armor, the most advanced of its day. The class actually had two layers of armor, one external and one built into the ships.
The external armor was lighter than the integrated armor, being only 1.5 million tons total, but it was easily replaceable and acted as a spaced armor system for minimizing nuclear and shaped charge warhead effectiveness. The layout was designed so that the external armor layer would take most minor damage and could be easily replaced, while the inner layer of armor would protect the vessel from any dangerous fire that penetrated the outermost layer. the majority of explosive charges and missiles would have already detonated upon the outer layer, leaving only inert materials to strike the inner layer, unless the outer layer has been damaged significantly.
During the war, however, most of the facilities capable of producing the more advanced armor used by the colonial militaries were destroyed by the Cylons, greatly limiting the supply of the advanced armor. Ironically, the fear of the Caprican Military about design four would occur with the Jupiter class. While the class was prioritized for the more advanced armor, its limited supply meant that replacement armor was not always forthcoming, and new Jupiters sometimes were not built with the advanced armor at all, using more primitive armor.
After the war, a project to refit all Jupiters with pre-war armor began, with most having full pre-war armor by 1975.
During the decommissioning preparations for the Galactica, the outer layer of armor was removed to be used for other vessels, but the inner layer was considered too difficult to remove, and it would need to be replaced by different plating in order to ensure the operation of the vessel, an expense considered too large for some extra armor material.
ARMAMENT:
When the Jupiter class was first commissioned, the ships were equipped with 48 Ares Munitions AM-35 762mm PPML (Plasma Propelled Munitions Launcher) anti-ship cannons in 24 twin turrets. They used plasma to propel its shells, allowing higher velocities, less explosive materials within the ship, and more velocity control.
During the war, production of PPMLs was limited, with most production facilities being lost and many designs being lost during cyber attacks. As the war dragged on, battle damage and wear and tear dwindled the supply of PPMLs at the military's disposal. As the Colonial Navy lost PPMLs on some vessels, they could not replace them. As supply issues got worse, chemically propelled ballistic weapons began to be used on warships as main weapons, not having seen widespread use as main warship weapons in over 120 years. The chemical cannons had an average of half the kinetic energy of their PPML equivalents, and their addition caused major ammunition problems due to the propellant.
In order to limit the loss of firepower from the use of chemical cannons, many vessels are equipped with far more chemical cannons than they would PPMLs. Those Jupiters that were given these refits had 80 Mark 2 762mm chemical cannons in 40 twin turrets. The addition of these cannons caused ammo problems and created holes in the armor.
Starting in 1970, the Colonial Navy began to refit the remaining Jupiter class Battlestars with Mark 9 anti-ship PPMLs.
The Jupiter class was first equipped with 1028 Caprican Dynamics 50mm CD-97 Flack Cannon in 514 turrets. These weapons created flack fields around parts of the Battlestars, nearly impenetrable walls of shrapnel capable of destroying missiles and Fighters. Their flack fields are one of the most important tools at a Battlestar's disposal. The CD-97 proved itself as a reliable weapon and stayed in service on the Juipiters until the 1970 refit, where they were replaced by the Mark 16 Flack Cannon. The Jupiter class has a massive amount of ammunition for their 50mm cannons, so much in fact that they commonly resupplied other vessels with 50mm rounds from the ammunition stores of the Jupiters in emergencies. Some of the vessels that were given chemical cannons had their 50mm ammo stores replaced with 762mm ammo storage space, though some were not given those alterations.
Finishing off the Jupiter class's armament are 12 Piconian M-22 Realodable Heavy Missle Tubes. These tubes can fire heavy missiles of several types. The most common missle types used are HEAT, Kinetic, Flack, and Nuclear. Jupiters are designed to carry 120 missiles so there are ten full salvos worth of missiles on the Jupiter class. This is an equal or even superior armament to some of the dedicated Missle Frigates and Cruisers in the Colonial Fleet.
Flack missles are commonly used to supplement Jupiters' point defenses, forming massive clouds of shrapnel to destroy Fighters and missiles.
Nukes were in very limited supply during the war, and the Jupiters were given priority for nukes allocated for the fleet as they were so durable that it was almost guaranteed to use them before being destroyed.
ENGINES, REACTORS, AND FTL:
During the Cylon War, the Jupiter class ships were equipped with 6 Interstellar Fleetworks IF-284 Tylium Engines, capable of accelerating the vessels at 10 Gs of safe acceleration, though in order to conserve fuel and minimize engine wear, they usually did not exceed 3 or 4 G acceleration. The three remaining Jupiter were refit in 1970 with Scorpion Fleetworks SF-297 Tylium Engines, increasing the acceleration to 12 G, with 3 or 4 still being the normal acceleration.
The Jupiter class has enough Tylium to Jump 500 times without considering other fuel requirements.
The Jupiters get power for the other systems like weapons, computers, lights, and everything else from four Aurora-Mcnamara Power AMP-317 Reactors. In the 1970s refits, the AMP-317 was replaced with the AMP-495.
About 21 years ago, an explosion occurred within the Galactica. The explosion damaged the central two engines and killed over a hundred and fifty crew members. While the Galactica was still in operation, its engines were severely damaged. The Galactica is not supposed to activate the engines except for in emergencies to ensure no further damage occurs. While it was possible to fix the engines, the cost was too much for the navy to be willing to pay for an aging vessel, and so she was set up as a stationary sentry at the L5 point between Gemenon and Caprica, not leaving for 20 years.
The Jupiter class was equipped with the Kobol Interstellar KI-77 FTL Drive. The drive had many problems as it was too small for the Jupiter class. This lead to the flight pods of the Jupiter class being made retractable.
In the 1970s, the KI-77 was replaced by the KI-104, which made the retractable flight pods unnecessary.
COMPLEMENT AND CREW:
The Jupiter class holds the distinction of being the only Battlestar class to carry every Viper ever in service by the Colonial Navy. During the early years of their service, the Viper I saw use on the Jupiters, before being replaced for most of the war by the venerable Viper II. In the Later years of the war Viper IIIs were deployed on a few Jupiters, though their small viper tubes lead to them having minimal effectiveness. The final months of the war saw the early versions of the Viper IV operating on Jupiters and into the early post bellum years. After the 1970 refit, the remaining Jupiters carried Viper Vs in limited numbers, and than were completely loaded with Viper VIs after their introduction. They would than be equipped with a small number of Viper VIIs when they were available.
The ability of the Jupiters to carry the Viper III through the Viper V was limited due to the size of the Jupiters launch tubes. The tubes were too small to fit the newer Vipers, leading to the newer Vipers having to launch out of the flight pod. This lead to the Jupiters being equipped mostly with aging Viper IIs. The constant increases in Viper size started by the Viper III ended with the Viper VI, mostly as a cost saving mesure and to ensure the new Mercury class Battlestars could manufacture the Vipers at a reasonable scale.
The Jupiters were designed to carry 240 Vipers, 24 Raptors, and two Shuttles. The Raptor IIs were replaced on the remaining Jupiters in 1980 with new Raptor IIIs, which included FTL Drives, greatly improving their usefulness.
The Jupiter class was designed for a crew of 5000, a very small number considering its massive size. It is still a much higher number compared to any equal-sized modern vessels, with the Mercury class, half again the Jupiters mass, having 2100 less crew.
PRODUCTION, USE, AND FATES:
The original Jupiter class ships were produced in three batches of four ships, staggered so that the same factories could produce components for all the Battlestars one after the other. The first batch began construction in late 1948, with the first two, Galactica and Jupiter being commissioned a few weeks before the Cylons reinitiated major operations in late 1952, with Athena and Columbia being commissioned in early 1953. The second batch began construction in the middle of 1949, with Atlantia, Pegasus, Mercury, and Demeter being commissioned in late 1953. The third batch began construction in early 1950, with Acheron, Juno and Cerberus being commissioned in late 1954, while the Bellerophon was delayed by damage done during a raid, causing it to be commissioned in mid-1955.
Out of the 12 vessels constructed, only three would survive the war. The Jupiter, the first of the class, would be the first to fall, being destroyed while resupplying during a Cylon raid in early 1953. A Minerva class Battlestar would be given the name until being decommissioned in 1990, with the new Jupiter, a Mercury class, planned for commissioning in 2003.
The Demeter would be next, not even surviving a month in service, being destroyed during the Battle of Zeus in 1953. A class of Battlestars would be named after the ship during the war, with many serving to this day in the Colonial Navy. The new Demeter was decommissioned in 1992, with the new Mercury class Battlestar Demeter being commissioned in the same year.
The Mercury and the Cerberus were both destroyed in the fifth Battle of Caprica in 1955. A Valkyrie I class Battlestar was named after the Mercury but was destroyed during the Ninth Battle of Canceron in 1959. The latest class of Battlestars in the Colonial Navy was named for the Mercury, the first of the class beginning construction in 1980, with the first of the class commissioning in 1986. A Demeter II class Battlestar was named after the Cerberus but was destroyed during the Battle of Icarus Anchorage in 1957. A Mercury class Battlestar named Cerberus was commissioned in 1992
The Bellerophon was lost during the Battle of the Pantheon Nebula in 1956. A Valkyrie II class Battlestar was commissioned in 1962 and continues to serve to this day, though its decommissioning date has been set for 2004; immediately after the decommissioning, the name will be given to the Mercury class Battlestar Bellerophon, construction having begun in 1998.
The Battlestar Pegasus holds the dubious honor of being the only Jupiter class Battlestar to be captured during the war. In 1958 the Pegasus was boarded by Cylon forces while fighting in Sector 9. The Cylons captured the secondary damage control station and vented most of the ship before taking the bridge and jumping away. The Pegasus would fight for the Cylons for the rest of the war. Its fate is unknown as the Cylons took her with them after the armistice. The new Mercury class Battlestar Pegasus was commissioned in 1980. Currently, the Pegasus is going through a minor refit at the Scorpia Shipyard.
The Battlestar Acheron was destroyed by the Cylons in 1958