Vessels of the Protectorate United Navies, part 2: Liberty Class Freighter and Argus-Vigil Class Fleet Defense Cruiser
Liberty Class Freighter - As the Cainite Protectorate expands its reach among the stars, the need for interstellar lift capacity grows. Holdovers from the Imperium, captured/salvaged vessels, local production and similar sources have filled the needs for some time. Yet the skyrocketing industrial capacity, the necessities of military logistics and the steadily growing consumer economies of the burgeoning nation demanded a long term solution.
This is where the Borg Standard Size Interstellar Transport Container(generally shortened to Borg Standard Container; BSC) and the Liberty class freighter come in.
The former is a cube with an edge length of 44 meters, this uniform container size can be adapted to carry almost any conceivable type of cargo, from bulk goods to fuel, from ammunition to frozen food-stuffs. There are also a variety of interlinkable passenger modules to transport civilians, army units with their equipment and even modular field hospitals and other support facilities. All across the Protectorate, old and new space port facilities are overhauled or built up to handle the rapid transfer of this new standard cargo container system.
The Liberty class freighter meanwhile is a minimally armed transport ship a bit smaller than an Imperial cruiser hull, specifically meant to pack as many BSCs as possible into its cargo holds and haul them across the stars. While inspired by the wild variety of different Imperial transport ships which also fulfill this role, the Liberty class is a completely new design from the keel up. As the Liberator laid out the rough specifications, the intended production numbers required a complete rethinking of naval construction techniques. The result is a highly modular design, the individual parts are created in their own dedicated orbital factories and then need only comparatively minimal work during final assembly in the dock yard.
As the monthly production numbers of the Liberty class are ever so steadily climbing, the first Liberty Mk2 fleet tenders are entering navy service. Equipped with better sensors, point defense turrets and gravity engine assisted thrusters to meet the higher performance standards demanded by the PUN, the Liberty Mk2 is more expensive and takes longer to build. It is much better protected in terms of armor and shields, while also carrying a few Cain-Wings for self defense. When combining the strike craft carried by the vessels in a PUN resupply convoy with the squadrons of their Protector class escorts, the resulting number of Cain-Wings and their ordnance can easily deal with any expected threat and even most unexpected ones. While the Liberty Mk2 can carry any type of BSC, they will generally act as troop transports, fleet tenders, supply, hospital and repair ships and such.
Should dire circumstances arise, there is a BSC which serves as a small modular launch bay and can either be used individually to augment a ship's self defense capabilities if required or otherwise may be used en masse to transform either version of the Liberty class into a cruiser sized escort carrier.
It is thus upon the wings of Liberty that the life blood of the Protectorate is swiftly carried across the void between the stars of the Damocles Gulf.
Argus-Vigil Class Fleet Defense Cruiser - The Argus-Vigil has its origins in the Protectorate's first eradication campaign against the scattered Tyranid remnants that encroached upon the borders of its domain as well as assisting nearby Imperial worlds in defeating the splinters of the great devourer at their doorstep. Repeated fleet actions against this most hateful of xenos foes revealed that even with the much improved sensor and point defense capabilities of PUN ships, they still could be ambushed and overwhelmed, despite the Cain-Wing squadrons doing their very best to scout the enemy and thin out the swarm while staying alive.
Specifications for a cruiser sized vessel specialized in the fleet defense role were thus drawn up. In terms of mobility and durability the Argus-Vigil can confidently place itself among its brethren. In direct combat it can contribute with a pair of triple barreled macro turrets, a twin barreled lance turret and a set of prow torpedo launchers, yet the cruiser's offensive armament can almost be called an afterthought in comparison to its sensors and defensive armaments.
Equipped with a multitude of high-power augur arrays, gravimetric detectors and even more exotic sensors, the Argus-Vigil has reliably proven its capability to render almost any stealth technique employed both by human or xenos forces ineffective. Even the ever so capricious Eldar and their dark cousins find themselves at risk of detection.
The massive volume of sensor inputs is then processed to generate precise targeting data for the wider fleet while the Prognosticarium uses the inputs to create highly detailed predictive simulations of the battle with the support from a small group of Tzeentchian divinators.
This then leads to the second part of the Argus-Vigil's role. The broadsides of the cruiser do not hold any launch bays, instead a pair of massive sponsons run along the sides of the ship, with hundreds of long range laser weapons mounted upon them. While possessing the range of a light lance weapon, the Vigil laser defense arrays do not have the power output to do any meaningful harm to the hull of an enemy ship. What they do possess is the precision(guided by the powerful sensor suite) and the fire rate to tear apart swarms of strike craft and salvos of torpedoes at standard battle ranges. A liquid nitrogen cooling system allows for functionally indefinite continuous fire.
Though even in a battle space without the threat of massed strike craft formations or torpedo salvos, the Vigil arrays have shown a reasonable level of efficacy in helping to bring down enemy void shields and then raking across exposed hulls, targeting weak points and reducing the enemy's fighting capabilities. An emerging tactic has the Vigil array laying suppressing fire by targeting the enemy ship's weapon barrels/launchers, forcing them to either hold fire or risk a critical misfire.
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Sooooo... the PUN Admiralty liked the Borg's original design of the Emancipator Class Battle Cruiser so much that they had the Cogboys turn it into three ships: The Emancipator I Class Cruiser, the Emancipator II Class Battle Cruiser and the Emancipator III Class Grand Cruiser. They will be covered in part 3. The same happened to the Proclamator Battle Cruiser, though that will come in part 5 with something else scheduled before that.
In regards to the Liberty freighters: Behold! The Borg/Tzeentchian Conclave of Standards and Measurements' greatest triumph, the BSC! In other news, Protectorate civilian shipbuilding industry goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Honestly, the BSC might just be a bit large at over 85 thousand cubic meters of volume, if my math is correct. Then again, 40k ships are stupidly huge. Being roughly cruiser sized, the Liberty freighter should be large enough to carry an appreciable amount of them.
The BSC can obviously be subdivided to not just carry one type of cargo. Protectorate traders and PUN logistics would probably also use the BSC as a sort of matroshka container, filling them with standardized smaller containers.
It tickled my funny bone to think of Cain having to keep himself from spitting out his recaf as the excited Borg representative rattles off the dimensions of this cargo container. You could possibly put a maintainance workshop for a Warhound scout titan inside of one of these boxes! Wait. Big boxes... big metal boxes. Oh no. Oh yes!
Anyway. Item number 2 on the list: The Argus-Vigil, or as I like to call it: grabbing an AWACS aircraft and welding an entire integrated air defense network onto the sides. The Dark Eldar raid by wannabe Palpatine has given Cain his first scare when it comes to cloaked enemies.
My primary source of knowledge of 40k space fleet combat is from the second Battlefleet Gothic videogame, where the Tyranids have their own type of tactical level stealth. It is absolutely terrifying to have a giant space borne alien pop up out of seemingly nowhere and start omnomnom-ing your ships.
Having the Borgs develop better sensor systems should not be that hard. The space bugs give Ciaphas enough reason to justify for himself that yes, the PUN needs a specialized ship acting as a force multiplier that probably increases the effectiveness of any taskforce it is attached to by several times, not to mention that it can turn a signficant volume of space around it into a no-fly zone.
Final note: I didn't think of any Inquisitors reacting to this entry. Come up with some unhinged Inquisitorial commentary and post it!