The core of the Imperial battle lines, the Resolute-class Battleship was built near the end of the Alpha Wars and fought in the last major battles of that war. This included escorting bombardment monitors to Alpha Prime, Bravo, and Charlie and defeating the remnants of the Alpha fleets. These ships would be the major combatants of the Time Of The Five Emperors, as the pretender fleets would hold onto their dreadnoughts, super-dreadnoughts, and monitors for “critical” missions.

Replaced by the Bismark-class battleship during the middle-Hegemony era, the Resolute-class would have the distinction of being the largest ship stored in the Ghost Fleet caches.

Design History

The Resolute-class was built to replace the Hood-class battleship, and like all Imperial battleships it was built around heavy defenses and beam-heavy weapons. The biggest issue was that the ship lacked the mass to mount a planned 11cm positron beam cannons, so an array of eight triple turrets carrying 9cm positron beam cannons was mounted. 

With a mass of about 75,000 tons fully loaded, the Resolute-class would back up it’s main battery with sixteen 700mm missile tubes, firing the Mk-28-ModA (and later ModB, ModC, and ModD) missiles, with extremely deep magazines. One of the biggest complaints of the class is that while its metaspace cannon has range (with a 430m accelerator tunnel), the actual discharge aperture is smaller than the Alaska-class at 40cm. This means that while engagement ranges are longer, they are not significantly longer and at most the Resolute can get two more shots versus an Alaska-class.

Like all Imperial warships, the Resolute-class mounts heavy active point defense, including counter-missiles, sixteen Rodeo-class missile decoys, and an AN/SG(E)-60 jamming system with eight “spike” jammers. The class also mounts heavy armor, initially fibersteel, but followed up with battle chrome armor in later Hegemony refits. According to Imperial naval doctrine at the time, the shields for the class are equal to 200% of the ship’s armor in the bow, dorsal, vental, port, and starboard arcs, and 150% aft.

Along with a full ECM suite, the ship mounts enhanced stealth systems with a high-grade military hypersink for IR damping and hull modifications to make it harder for active sensors to track the ship. The Resolute-class mounts a double extension VLBI array that gives the class an effective 1000/1800 meter aperture size, allowing extremely long detection ranges against even stealthed ships. One of the biggest complaints of the class was acceleration, with the ship “merely” having a 300G acceleration rate (with later Hegemony refits giving it a 320G acceleration). Slipspace speeds were kept at the 6 light years/day standard of the Imperial Navy, with six slipspace rings.

Like all capital ships, the Resolute-class carries a “light” marine battalion, with a company-sized powered armor “morgue” in the Imperial era (a full battalion “morgue” would be installed in the Hegemony era). For support in long-duration missions, the ship is fully capable of atmospheric fuel scooping and material printing (with quantum fabricators and harvesting drones installed in the Hegemony era).

As a fleet capital ship, the Resolute-class carries full fleet command facilities, including quarters and a fleet bridge for senior staff. The class had four major revisions, the first being the replacement of the earlier AN/SG(E)-60 with the AN/SG(D)-62 ECM array. The second was post-Alpha war when the 9cm positron beam cannons were replaced by 9.5cm beam cannons, giving the class slightly more “punch” at most combat ranges. The third was the conversion of earlier versions of the ship to the new Hegemony standard with antimatter reactors and quantum fabricators. The fourth and final revision was the replacement of the fibersteel armor with battle chrome armor.

Service History

The Resolute-class was a ship of the Alpha Wars and the later Time Of The Five Emperors. The biggest issue with the class was that it was under-gunned and over-armored for most of the missions it would perform. As the core of a fleet task group, the class did well, but as a “ship of the line” it was not as good as it could have been.

The class would remain in service through the Hegemony era, but replacement of the class would be soon as the Bismark-class, able now to mount 10cm positron beam cannons and having a larger metaspace cannon aperture meant that the Resolute-class would enter second-line service very quickly.

This class also has the distinction of being the largest possible ship in a Ghost Fleet cache, and only in the largest of the caches. While proposals for variants of the class- including a fleet tender-would be proposed, none would get off the drawing board.

General Characteristics

Dimensions: 510 m x 45 m x 40 m

Mass: 75,000 tons (consistent across all flights)

Power Systems:

3x Yoyodine Type 50 Gravity Fusion Reactors (Imperium Era, Flight I-IV)

3x Yoyodine Type 51 Antimatter Reactors (Hegemony Era, Flight V-VI)

3x Yoyodine Type 47-A Antimatter Reactors (Hegemony Era, Flight VII-VIII)

Propulsion Systems:

8x Q-Coils (300 G acceleration Flights I-IV, 320 G acceleration Flights V-VIII)

4x Slipspace rings (6 LY/day, Flights I-V, 6.5 LY/day Flights VI-VIII)

Endurance:

180 days on stored supplies, fuel scoops (Imperium Era)

180 days of antihydrogen at 90% power, theoretically unlimited material endurance (Hegemony Era)

Crew:

One Class VII AI, five Class VI AIs, 35 Officers, 60 NCO, 370 Able Spacers, 300 Marines, backup bioshells and cybershells (Imperial Era)

One Class VII AI, five Class VI AIs, five Class V AIs, mixture of uploads and biological crew equaling 600 crew members, 300 Marines, backup bioshells and cybershells (Hegemony Era)

Armament:

1xMetaspace Cannon, 430m accelerator tunnel with a 40cm discharge aperture.

24x9cm positron beam cannons in triple turrets (two dorsal, two ventral, two port, two starboard).

(Flight V-VIII 24×9.5cm positron beam cannons in triple turrets (two dorsal, two ventral, two port, two starboard).)

16x700mm missile tubes with gravity launchers, four arrays of four port and starboard.

Defenses:

Stealth Systems: Radar sheath, IR dampener w/high-grade military specification hypersink, hull form.

ECM: AN/SG(E)-60 Electronic Warfare Array, with “spike” and “strobe” jammer options.

(Flight V-VIII-AN/SG(D)-62 Electronic Warfare Array, with “spike” and “strobe” jammer options.)

AN/SG(V)-32 Electronic Warfare Array with two port and two starboard “spike” arrays.

16x Rodeo-class missile decoys, 16xMirrorball-class sensor decoys (dispensers ventral and dorsal).

Point Defense: 24 40mm xaser cannons with double-bounce gravity mirrors in independent casemate mounts.

24 20mm xaser cannons with double-bounce gravity mirrors in independent casemate mounts.

12x150mm counter-missile launchers, mounted in a quad set in the bow, pairs on the port, starboard, dorsal, and ventral.

Shields: Standard Hegemony Navigational Shields, enhanced shields to the bow.

Combat Shield Generators-200% capacity bow, dorsal, ventral, port and starboard, 150% capacity stern. (All Flights)

Armor: Fiber Steel, 11 cm maximum (Imperium Era)

Battle Chrome, 11 cm maximum (Hegemony Era)

Secondary Craft:

3xPinnance, 5xCutter, 18xType 2 Recon Drones, 10xType 3 Recon Drones (Imperium Era)

3xPinnance, 5xCutters, 8xHarvesters, 20xType 2 Recon Drones, 12xType 3 Recon Drones (Hegemony Era)

Designer Notes

The Resolute was…not the ship the Imperium wanted, in many ways. They were hoping for something with bigger guns, but were unable to mount larger positron cannons on it. There wasn’t enough hull space for more missile launchers, so they went for larger magazines. The acceleration was good, but not spectacular. Only in armor, point defense, and shields did this class succeed in what the Imperium wanted.

Based around the Battle Fleet exclusively until the Hegemony-era fleet reforms, the Resolute was average in the opinions of most Imperial officers. It did a lot of the general work of the Navy, serving as a fleet flagship and core of task forces in the Empire. The class did well, but it was never quite right and the Imperial Navy would build a successor (the Bismark-class) which did everything they wanted.

It wasn’t a bad ship, just…not quite right. It was also the largest possible ship you could find in a Ghost Fleet cache, after being retrofitted with fusion reactors and secondary improvements.