OBT Forum

TRS Conqueror - improved McKenna Class

Overview:
When the TRS Conqueror was towed back to the Martian dock, where she originally was built, in 2793 it was questionable if the ship would ever fly again. The last desperate jump back to Terra had finally wrecked the badly damaged KF drive and a fatal misjump was only just avoided. The main reactor was down, life-support hadn't worked for weeks, most of the superstructure was an irradiated tangle of metal and corpses, the result of several hits from Combine anti-shipping nukes and a few kamikaze strikes as well. The KF-drive core had, to quote the chief engineer, "...micro fractures you can stick your finger through...". During the months it took the yard-workers to clear away the debris the hull was further scavenged for the remaining Ferro-Carbide armor plating and the always in desperately short supply double heatsinks.
However once the yard got around to making a proper survey of the ship the inspectors found, to their surprise, that several key components were in surprisingly good condition. The KF drive badly, but fortunately only superficially, damaged could be repaired by some skilled patching and a simple re-heating in the drive forge. The keel of the ship wasn't warped as first feared and the main reactor core was essentially intact although most of it's supporting systems were destroyed. In 2794, eight months after the ship had been docked at the Bluenose Clipperships Martian yards the TRN decided to try and repair the Conqueror.
The first step was to disconnect and extract the KF-core from the hull and transfer it to the drive forges for repairs and then reinstall it into the rebuilt hull, a procedure that would take almost two years to complete and required cutting the ship in half. The second step was to repair the engineering section and the third was to rebuild most of the destroyed superstructure. With such extensive and expensive repairs underway it was decided to take the opportunity to refit the Conqueror while she was laid up for years anyway.
The final price-tag for the repair and refit of TRS Conqueror would end up at over 9 billions, almost half of her original construction cost but even so a cheap price to pay for a full sized battleship with TRS Conqueror's capabilities.

Capabilities:
As with so many of the war time refits much of the modifications to the Conqueror was a general technology downgrade while trying to keep up effectiveness. The main improvement on the Conqueror was the strengthening of the hull. This is not normally an operation that would be preformed during a war time refit, but since the ship was so badly shot up that much of the hull needed to be rebuilt anyway an effort was made to reinforce the hull enough to withstand fighter launched penetrating nuclear warheads - weapons which had claimed several of Conqueror's sisters both during the Amaris war and during the struggle to save the Republic. In addition to the reinforced hull the Conqueror also makes use of over 4000 tons of standard grade armor. Despite the fact that the Conqueror's armor is massing almost three times more than her previous Ferro-Carbide armor and the substantial structural reinforcements the Conqueror is only about 25% better protected than her sisters. If the Republic can find enough Ferro-Aluminium to entirely re-armor the Conqueror (as was originally intended) that already extensive protection will vastly improve, even beyond that of the Royal Sovereign and texas classes. Unfortunately because the Conqueror is so well protected despite just using standard armor plating the TRN, so far, seems to consider the protection to be "good enough and available".
The weapons layout of the Conqueror was also slightly altered during the reconstruction. The Advanced AR10 systems had been scavenged when the fate of the ship was in doubt and had to be replaced with twin sets of standard heavy missile tubes. That modification allowed the ship to retain the ability to fire both Killer Whale anti-shipping missiles and the Barracuda anti-fighter missiles and the dual tubes doubled the rate of fire that the ship could produce. In addition a extra set of missile tubes were installed in the nose to improve range and AAS capabilities in what had previously been a weak spot.
The main batteries essentially remained the same, except that the magazine mass for the NAC's being expanded to 50 rounds/gun, with HNPPCs and NAC40'ies providing the heavy hitting power of the ship. However nine of the HNPPC and three of the NAC40'ies were so heavily damaged that they had to be replaced, more weapons should have been replaced but since no spare guns were available several badly irradiated guns remain in use onboard Conqueror and gunners and maintenance crews are forced to take special precautions when working on these weapons. Fortunately both HNPPCs and NAC40'ies were still in production inside the Republic (intended for the still produced Republic class Frigates) so the guns that couldn't be repaired could be replaced. Another system also available was the heavy Capital Lasers used by the McKenna class. The yard took advantage of this to expanded the bow mounted double and triple laser arrays to quadruple mounts, like the one normally mounted in the rear of the McKenna Class, to provide additional long range firepower in order to better support the rather short ranged NAC40'ies.
Rounding off the new weapons layout are the double anti-aerospace laser turrets and the hexagonal anti-missile laser clusters, both of which have now almost become standard on the refitted ships of the TRN.
The first thing that was scavenged from the Conqueror was the over 5,000 double heatsinks still in working order, enough to outfit three mech regiments and their aerospace fighter support with double heatsinks. Once the decision to repair the Conqueror was taken a massive reconstruction of the entire cooling system had to be undertaken. To replace the advanced cooling system with something simpler was not a trivial problem due to it's sheer mass. Keeping the Conqueror's vast energy weapons array cool is now the task of over 14,000! standard heatsinks, the heaviest ship mounted cooling system ever built and it required significant reinforcements for the large radiator fin of the Conqueror to be able to carry the additional mass.
The flight decks of the Conqueror have also been expanded and an extra pair of doors have been added to each bay in order to ease fighter operations. The odd size of the ship's wing (50 ASF) often led to the small craft bays being used for fighter ops as an entire regiment was normally assigned to the ship. With the addition of ten regular fighter bays the ship can now carry an entire regiment of fighters plus a command squadron without having the fighters intruding on it's small craft complement.
Other minor improvements made were extended range fuel tanks, improved escape and life preservation gear and the addition of a hyper pulse generator. The addition of the HPG (salvaged from a destroyed Genesis class ship) allows the Conqueror to operate as a sector flagship and a large number of additional quarters have been installed for an admiral and his staff.

Deployment:
The Conqueror is so far the only refitted McKenna in the TRN, mainly because the Terran navy can't afford to spare the other two surviving ships from front line duty long enough to refit them as well. TRS Conqueror returned to active service in late 2797 and spent the first half of that year training her crew and working up as a part of the Terran Home Fleet. Once that was completed she was assigned to the Rapid Reaction TF at Keid, replacing the damaged TRS Resolution as flagship of the RRTF. Since then the TRS Conqueror have participated in several actions against the FWLN.
The much simplified, yet strengthened, armor protection have ensured that the Conqueror have had a much reduced yard/deployment time ratio compared to her other surviving sisters. In a real echo from the past the Conqueror served as flagship for her two sisters in the "Invader" Fire-support squadron during the 2799 "Martian Case Green" exercise, possibly the last time a whole squadron of McKennas jointly unleashed their awesome heavy PPC firepower.
TRS Conqueror is still serving as flagship of the Keid RRTF along with the Piranhas of the 23'rd Gunboat flotilla (the Red Stream flotilla).



TRS Conqueror - improved McKenna Class

Tech:               Inner Sphere
Introduced:         2797
Manufacturer:       Bluenose Clipperships (Mars /Terran Republic)

Mass:             1,930,000 tons
Length:               1,402 meters
Sail Diameter:        1,560 meters
Fuel:                 6,000 tons (15,000)
Tons/Burn Day:           39.52
Safe Thrust:              3
Maximum Thrust:           5
Sail Integrity:           7
KF Drive Integrity:      37
Heat Sinks:           14196 (single)
Structural Integrity:   105 (4053 max armor)

Armor: tons 4053 (standard type armor - 1684 pts)
   Fore:                260       
   Fore-Sides:          300       
   Aft-Sides:           300       
   Aft:                 224       

Cargo:
   Bay 1: Fighters (30)            6 doors
   Bay 2: Fighters (30)            6 doors
   Bay 3: Cargo (208,389.50)       2 doors
    Small Craft (16)

Dropship Capacity:        6
Grav Decks:               3 (45, 45, 75-meter diameter)
Escape Pods:             50
Lifeboats:               50
Crew:                   613 minimum (102 Officers, 414 Enlisted, 94 Gunners, 200 Bay)
Passenger: (1:class)    200

Weaponry:
Nose (Heat: 692)                   Short  Medium Long   Xtreme
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   4 NL/55                          22     22     22     22
   2 Killer Whale (20 KW)            8      8      8      8
   2 Barracuda (20 Bar)              4      4      4      4
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -
FL/FR (Heat: 1,654)
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   4 NL/55                          22     22     22     22
   2 Killer Whale (20 KW)            8      8      8      8
   2 Barracuda (20 Bar)              4      4      4      4
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -
LBS/RBS (Heat: 5,444)
   4 Hvy NPPC                       60     60     60     60
   4 Hvy NPPC                       60     60     60     60
   4 Hvy NPPC                       60     60     60     60
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -
AL/AR (Heat: 5,444)
   4 Hvy NPPC                       60     60     60     60
   4 Hvy NPPC                       60     60     60     60
   4 Hvy NPPC                       60     60     60     60
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -
Aft (Heat: 962)
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   1 NAC40 (50 rnds)                40     40      -      -
   4 NL/55                          22     22     22     22
   2 Killer Whale (20 KW)            8      8      8      8
   2 Barracuda (20 Bar)              4      4      4      4
   2 Large Laser                     2(16)  2(16)  -      -
   6 small Laser                     2(18)* -      -      -

Ammunition:
   600 rounds of Naval Autocannon/40 ammunition
    80 Killer Whale Missiles
    80 Barracuda Missiles

Other Equipment:
HyperPulse Generator and Lithium-Fusion Battery