OBT Forum

I was struck by a bit more refitting inspiration for the TRN.


Revenant (Avatar) class Gunboat Cruiser

Overview:
The Revenant project came about as a result of the steadily declining warship construction in the Inner Sphere. Unlike most of the Inner Sphere in the Terran Republic the decline was mainly due to shortage of resources rather than shortage of yards capable of building warships. Having these priceless assets standing idle between the rare upgrade and odd repair job was not acceptable despite the Republic's inability to support an extended warship production program. Several ships of the reserve fleets had been laid up because they were not deemed worth the effort to repair them - at that time. However as the war ground on and casualties steadily increased the Admiralty and the Republic's Shipyards both felt that perhaps it was time for a re-evaluation of the condemned old derelicts, this "grave robbing" idea also gave the program it's name - the Revenant program.
The prime candidates for the re-evaluation were the Avatar Class cruisers, of which almost a dozen had survived the war so far. They had been placed back in reserve because of various structural and other technical issues that would have taken too long time to sort out for the busy yards a decade ago but they had six docking collars and that made them very valuable for gunboat operations. It was hoped that half of those ships might be restorable given enough yard time, but in the end only five ships were selected for the rebuild. The Lowell and O'Niel yards were to do two rebuilds each with the Lowell KF-drive forges repairing the KF-drives of all four ships. The final ship was to be rebuilt at Nicolas Yards at New Earth where it was currently serving as a receiving ship for the Fifth Fleet.
However once work started at the O'Niel yards it was noticed that the fire that had gutted SLS Terrible had warped the entire hull structure far worse than the initial estimates had suggested so Kresters was forced to abandon that rebuild early on. Fortunately both Terrible's reactor and her KF-core were in better shape than those of her sister, the former SLS/TRN Restoration (Restoration had been stricken from the lists and her name given to a new Republic class frigate), so it was decided to switch those components during the rebuild to cut costs and time.
The rebuilding of the hulls - old, worn, scavenged, frequently damaged and, worse, patched up with emergency procedures (such as filling leaking sections with foam or concrete) was a lengthy process averaging five years from start to finish. The TRS Revenant was renamed since she had been stricken from the fleet lists and her old name was used by a new ship. The TRS Tonnant and the TRS Defence kept their original names while TRS New Earth was renamed for other reasons.

Capabilities:
The Revenant rebuilding project had to work on a tight budget and with an even tighter component availability. Particularly the capital weaponry selection was very limited, indeed most of the hulls had been crudely scavenged for much of their main weaponry. NL55s, HNPPCs and NAC/30'ies had been used either for new ship construction or to replace weapons destroyed in battle on active ships. The missile tubes had been removed for use in the massive Republican gunboat program and the advanced targeting systems for the LRM racks had been ripped out long ago for use in fighters or mechs. There was little, or no, new production heavy weaponry available for the Revenant project with which to simply restore the old weapons layout.
To replace everything that had been removed from the Avatar hulls the yards only had access to old stockpiles of surplus weaponry from past refits, and what could be scavenged of other hulks in the reserve fleet. One weapon that was relatively plentiful in the caches was the old NAC/10, which had been replaced in large numbers once the more capable NAC types had entered service. The light Naval laser was also fairly common in the stockpiles, for the same reason as the NAC/10 - there had been better options available. Now however there were no options left.
On the Revenant class six NL35s replaced the much more capable NL55 battery as bow chasers, giving the Revenant a uniform naval laser layout since the Avatar design originally made extensive use of the NL35. The aft NAC/20s stern chasers were downgraded to NAC/10s because the NAC/20'ies were needed to bolster the side batteries. Those replaced the double mounted HNPPCs by adding a single NAC/20 to the pair already located there and compensating for about two thirds of the firepower removed with the HNPPCs.
Almost the entire main broadside battery on the Revenant had to be rebuilt from the bottom up, only the six NL35s remained on most of the ships with both the HNPPCs and the NAC/30'ies missing. These weapons were replaced with a six gun battery of NAC/10s which, despite numbering the same, only have about half the firepower of the weapons they replaced.
Even the heavy missile tubes had in many cases been removed from the ships for use in gunboat production. Despite the Killer Whale missile tube being just about the only capital weapon system that is still being mass produced everywhere the TRN was unwilling to divert new production to the Revenant project at the expense of gunboat production. Instead surplus White Shark tubes had to be used to replace the old Killer Whale tubes.
Rounding off the new weapons configuration was a set of anti-aerospace turrets and anti-missile laser clusters.
The Revenant class also features enlarged fighter bays, both fighter bays were expanded during the refit to each hold an additional fighter squadron thus giving the Revenant two whole fighter wings. In addition the armor protection was slightly improved as was the ship's cooling system and the previously very limited magazine space for the NACs and LRMs was greatly expanded.
One of the main ideas behind the Revenant project was to use the Avatar's large number of docking collars to provide the fleet with gunboat transports that were capable of defending themselves from stray raiders, a more modern take on the old Space control ship. The extensive use of civilian transport for moving gunboat squadrons into action had caused, and continued to cause massive losses to the jumpships conscripted to preform those tasks. The Revenant class have large cargo and fuel capacities which allows them to service gunboat flotillas during long deployments. To support the crew of an attached Gunboat squadron for extended periods of time in space the Revenant have added some 600 passenger cabins, a shuttle bay large enough for ten small crafts and an additional grav-deck.

Deployment:
TRS Revenant (completed 2805) is currently serving with Fifth Fleet as a patrol ship on the Lyran border and have yet to see action although her gunboat squadron (nicknamed "Frankenstein's Folly" since it have six different gunboat types in the same squadron) have clashed with Combine raiders on several occasions.
TRS Tonnant (completed 2806) & TRS Defense (completed 2807) are currently serving with the Fourth Fleet, mostly as guard-ships at the Capolla yards but they are also doing the occasional patrol mission with a squadron of gunboats along the Capellan border.
TRS New Earth (completed 2807), the only one of the Revenants to keep her original Lithium Fusion battery system, is serving with the Rapid Reaction Taskforce of the Third Fleet at Dieron. She is the only Revenant that serves in a front line formation and she carries a squadron of Dauntless gunboats. The rebuilding of TRS New Earth was funded by a global collection on New Earth and she was the people's gift to the Republic - and the TRN renamed the ship TRS New Earth in gratitude.
Although the Revenants can hardly be considered front line combatants they have relieved several, more capable and modern, ships for more active duties in the defense of the Republic. The rebuilding of the four Revenants was only slightly more expensive than the cost of building a single Republic Class frigate from the keel up, a fact that has the TRN looking at other ship-classes among the reserve fleet for more potential rebuilding candidates.

Revenant (Avatar) class Gunboat Cruiser

Tech:               Inner Sphere
Introduced:         2805

Mass:               830,000 tons
Length:                 855 meters
Sail Diameter:        1,250 meters
Fuel:                40,000 tons (100,000)
Tons/Burn Day:           39.52
Safe Thrust:              3
Maximum Thrust:           5
Sail Integrity:           5
KF Drive Integrity:      17
Heat Sinks:           3,630
Structural Integrity:    85 (max 1411 standard)

Armor: tons           1,411 (615 Standard)
   Fore:                     115       
   Fore-Sides:               100       
   Aft-Sides:                100       
   Aft:                      100       

Cargo:
   Bay 1: Fighters (18)            4 Doors
   Bay 2: Fighters (18)            4 Doors
   Bay 2: Small Crafts (10)        2 Doors
          Cargo (69,850 tons)(61,550 tons for TRS New Earth)     

Dropship Capacity:        6
Grav Decks:               3 (145, 165 & 185-meter diameter)
Escape Pods:             60
Lifeboats:               90
Crew:                    55 Off, 156 Enl, 96 Gun, 25 Mar, 122 Bay
Passenger:              100 first class, 500 second class

Weaponry:
Nose (Heat: 454)                    Short  Medium Long   Xtreme
   6 NL35                           21     21     21      -
   4 NAC/10 (50 Rounds ea)          40     40     40      -
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -     
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -     
FL/FR (Heat: 842)
   3 NAC/20 (50 Rounds ea)          60     60     60      -
   3 WS (10 Missiles ea)             9      9      9      9
   3 NL35                           11     11     11      -
   3 LRM20(30 Rounds ea)             4(36)  4(36)  4(36)  -             
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -     
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -     
LBS/RBS (Heat: 1,080)
   6 NAC/10 (50 Rounds ea)          60     60     60      -
   3 WS (10 Missiles ea)             9      9      9      9
   6 NL35                           21     21     21      -
   3 small Laser                     1(9)*  -      -      -     
AL/AR (Heat: 842)
   3 NAC/20 (50 Rounds ea)          60     60     60      -
   3 WS (10 Missiles ea)             9      9      9      9
   3 NL35                           11     11     11      -
   3 LRM20(30 Rounds ea)             4(36)  4(36)  4(36)  -             
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -     
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -     
Aft (Heat: 412)
   2 NAC/10 (50 Rounds ea)          20     20     20      -
   6 NL35                           21     21     21      -
   3 LRM20(30 Rounds ea)             4(36)  4(36)  4(36)  -             
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -     
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -     
* anti-missile system

Ammunition:
   180 WS (7,200 tons)
   600 NAC/20 (240 tons)
   800 NAC/10 (160 tons)
   150 LRM20 (75 tons)

Other Equipment:
Lithium-Fusion Battery (TRS New Earth only)


Original Avatar for comparison.

Tech:               Inner Sphere
Introduced:         2531

Mass:               830,000 tons
Length:                 855 meters
Sail Diameter:        1,250 meters
Fuel:                 4,500 tons (11,250)
Tons/Burn Day:           39.52
Safe Thrust:              3
Maximum Thrust:           5
Sail Integrity:           5
KF Drive Integrity:      17
Heat Sinks:           2,399
Structural Integrity:    85 (max 1411 standard)

Armor: tons           1,259 (Standard)
   Fore:                       103       
   Fore-Sides:                  93       
   Aft-Sides:                   93       
   Aft:                         83       

Cargo:
   Bay 1: Fighters (12)            4 Doors
   Bay 2: Fighters (12)            4 Doors
   Bay 2: Cargo (60,886 tons)      1 Door

Dropship Capacity:        6
Grav Decks:               2 (145 & 185-meter diameter)
Escape Pods:             40
Lifeboats:               60
Crew:                    55 Off, 156 Enl, 96 Gun, 25 Mar, 48 Bay

Weaponry:
Nose (Heat: 1,410)                  Short  Medium Long   Xtreme
   6 NL/55                          33     33     33     33
   4 HNPPC                          60     60     60     60
FL/FR (Heat: 804)
   2 NAC/20 (40 Rounds)             40     40     40      -
   2 HNPPC                          30     30     30     30
   3 KW (50 Missiles)               12     12     12     12
   3 NL35                           11     11     11      -
   3 LRM20(30 Rounds)+Artemis        5(48)  5(48)  5(48)  -             
LBS/RBS (Heat: 1,472)
   2 NAC/30 (60 Rounds)             60     60     60      -
   4 HNPPC                          60     60     60     60
   3 KW (50 Missiles)               12     12     12     12
   6 NL35                           21     21     21      -
AL/AR (Heat: 804)
   2 NAC/20 (40 Rounds)             40     40     40      -
   2 HNPPC                          30     30     30     30
   3 KW (50 Missiles)               12     12     12     12
   3 NL35                           11     11     11      -
   3 LRM20(30 Rounds)+Artemis        5(48)  5(48)  5(48)  -             
Aft (Heat: 450)
   2 NAC/20 (40 Rounds)             40     40     40      -
   6 NL35                           21     21     21      -
   3 LRM20(30 Rounds)+Artemis        5(48)  5(48)  5(48)  -             

Ammunition:
   300 KW (15000)
   480 NAC20 (160)
   120 NAC30 (96)
   150 LRM20 (25)

Other Equipment:
Lithium-Fusion Battery