Sentinel class SDS Drone Gunboat
Overview:
The Sentinel class drone gunboats are the bastard children of the Star League's infamous SDS systems. The proposal to restore the SDS systems came around early in the war in the bleak harsh days of the opening of hostilities. There was however a great reluctance on behalf of the Terran Republic government to resurrect the deeply tainted SDS Drone technology. In addition the vital SLDF remnants serving in the Republic's armed forces, who had lost so many comrades to the Caspars, hated the SDS drone technology with particular passion. However desperation eventually overcame resistance as the Draconis Combine and Free Worlds League spearheads drove towards the heart of the besieged Terran Republic.
When the program restarted the first priority was to examine what, if anything, of the original SDS designs and plans had survived the vicious tech purge of General Kerenski. It turned out that the purge had been surprisingly thorough - outside the SLDF. Fortunately several of the SLDF's specialists on the SDS systems had elected to remain in the Terran Republic and they, along with the data they had salvaged, and what crumbs the electronics industries of the Republic could scrape together managed to revive the advanced SDS control system, although it took them over a decade of hard work to do so. The first new construction SDS control unit went active in 2799.
Once the control systems were available the question became what to mount them in. The obvious answer, a gunboat, was very controversial since no one was particular keen on trusting a drone ship with nuclear ship killer missiles. The first proposal was to revive the M3 drone design since the Pentagon which the M3 was based on was still in production, albeit in a simpler configuration. The M3 would indeed go into limited production later on as the Prowler class Interceptor Drone, but it's limited anti-shipping capabilities made it obviously unsuited to deal with gunboats or warships. It became clear that something more substantial was required and thus the Sentinel class was born.
Capabilities:
Designed by Kresters Ship Constructors to be the ultimate system defense ship the Sentinel is swift, heavily armed and well protected even though in many respects it uses relatively primitive weapon and cooling systems and would be even more formidable if it was fitted with more modern technology. Once the decision had been taken to build a drone gunboat safety was a top priority since the ship would have to carry nuclear missiles in order to carry out it's designated tasks. As a result of this the design incorporates a self destruct system like those of the earlier generation SDS drones even though the squeeze effect of this system significantly drove up the size of the Sentinel.
The Sentinel class Drone Gunboat is in many respects a hybrid of the M3 & M5 drones and is intended to fulfill the tasks of both these systems and fight both full sized warships and clash with lighter units and fighters. The Sentinel carries 4 Killer Whale missile systems intended to take out capital targets or gunboats vectoring for a high speed strike at critical facilities. At 4,5g of thrust the Sentinel is a very fast ship. Although there are manned ships able to pull higher gs they are limited by human endurance in how long they can maintain a thrust that high while the Sentinel can operate at peak power for as long as it have fuel remaining, this makes the Sentinel frighteningly swift in intra-system operations.
Even though drones are essentially disposable units Kresters didn't see any reason to make the job easy for the enemy. The Sentinel is protected by 180 tons of standard armor plating and a solid array of anti-missile laser clusters improves it's survival chances against gunboats and fighters.
The secondary armament consists of a mix or lasers and autocannons. This armament, though solid, lacks long range firepower, a design flaw that particularly fighter pilots have noticed and taken advantage of. The cause of this problem was a late stage change from extended range lasers and gauss rifles to more primitive weapons since the more advanced weapons was deemed to be more useful on manned units. Even so the secondaries combined with the Sentinel's high thrust and thick hide makes it a hard target even for a fighter.
Variants:
The only variants of the Sentinel are the prototypes with their more primitive control systems and the 12 ships of batch 1 with the less capable standard SDS control systems, these ships are being converted to the more capable advanced SDS systems as these become available.
A carrier variant is planned that will remove the heavy missile armament and the self destruct system in favor of a wing of drone fighters and improved defenses. However delays in the development of a practical drone fighter have pushed this design into the distant future.
The final version planned is a command version intended to carry an ATAC drone control system. Unfortunately despite the time and effort spent on the project the scientists and engineers of the Terran Republic have so far been unable to produce a functional ATAC system.
Deployment:
The Sentinel SDS Drones are deployed in relatively large numbers in the Terran system and their primary task is the defense of the pirate points around Terra and Mars as well as the remote and exposed Titan yards. Usually one squadron remains on station at each site at all times maintaining a constant vigil that no crewed ship can match. In addition two squadrons are deployed to the yards at Capolla and New Earth to improve protection at these vital facilities.
SENTINEL CLASS DRONE
Type: Military Spheroid
Tech: Star League
Introduced: 2804
Mass: 12.000 tons
Dimensions
Length: 72.00 meters
Width: 72.00 meters
Height: 146.00 meters
Fuel: 600.00 tons (18000)
Tons/Burn-day: 1.84 tons
Safe Thrust: 6
Max Thrust: 9
Heatsinks: 275
Structural Integrity: 50
Armor: Standard
Nose: 1400 (140)
R/L Sides: 450 (45)
Aft: 780 (78)
Weapons:
Arc (Heat) Type Short Medium Long Xtreme
Nose(102 Heat)
4 KW-tube (40 KW) 16 16 16 16 EDIT: Should be KW tubes...
2 LL 2(16) 2(16) - -
6 sL 2(18)* - - -
LF/RF(74 Heat)
4 AC-10 (50 ea) 4(40) 4(40) - -
2 LL & 2 mL 3(26) 2(16) - -
3 sL 1(9)* - - -
AL/AR(74 Heat)
2 LL & 6 mL 5(46) 2(16) - -
3 sL 1(9)* - - -
Aft(37 Heat)
4 AC-10 (50 ea) 4(40) 4(40) - -
2 LL & 2 mL 3(26) 2(16) - -
3 sL 1(9)* - - -
Cargo:
Bay 1: Cargo ( 15.0 tons ) 1 Door
Crew: None, Droneship
Ammunition:
40 Killer Whale missiles
600 rounds of AC-10 ammunition (60 tons)
Note:
Equipped with 180 tons of standard armor.
SDS Drone control, improved (gun:3, pilot:4)
SDS Selfdestruct system
