Spaceship blog 8
Escort ship
Star nation navies design and deploy escort ships to patrol their borders or screen their fleets. Whatever their mission, those ships are always equipped with a lot of rapid moving point defense turrets, and powerful engines. Most vessels of this type are at least 100m long and 40m wide. Escorts are not designed to go toe to toe with bigger starships and in most cases will retreat when facing their nemesis - the bigger and better-armed Corvette. In any case, bigger and slow-moving capital ships are vulnerable to starfighter and strike craft attacks since their point defense batteries can be sometimes overwhelmed by relentless attacks. This is why having plenty of escorts which provide another wall of point defense fire, is often the decisive factor in winning large fleet engagements.
More often than not the fleets of rival star nations rely heavily on their strike craft to cripple their opponent's capital ships. The nimble, yet lightly defended escorts, rush in and try to plug the gaps in the line. There is nothing scarier and more hated by any starfighter or bomber pilot than the sight of an escort ship blocking their way, its battery unleashing barrage after barrage of devastating point defense fire. Because of the nature of spaceship combat and the weapons employed, escort ships are often equipped with one of the best heatsinks that their manufacturer has access to. Having multiple and fast firing beam weapons necessitates this since if the ship lacks heatsinks or they are of an inferior quality, the vessel would fire a couple of bouts only and then stop, or the crew would boil alive in their space suits.
CN employs its few escorts in a different way. Colonists do not view them as a defensive craft, but more like an offensive weapon platform. The Colonial Navy has their own design that not only has a unique gas cooling weapon system installed on top of their best quality heatsinks, but their escort vessels have one starfighter docking port. It is an external port, but that gives their escorts the ability to carry fighter craft. Combined with the rapid firing railguns, equipped with flack shells, and extremely well-cooled lasers, Terrans have one of the most feared escort craft. In most cases, CN commanders rely on their fighters to screen the fleet and deploy the escorts in an offensive role. They are sent to wipe their enemy's own escort vessels, which they have an edge against since Terran escorts have their flack railguns which out-range most beam guns of the same size. Together with the small number of starfighters thy carry, CN escorts wipe their counterparts, enabling then their carrier strike craft to bomb the living shit out of the enemy's capital ships.
"Why are the barbarians moving their escorts out of position? Their fleet is now wide open to strike craft assault! Wait... they are moving into an attack formation, those Terrans. They are coming right at us, the Fools! Disperse the fleet, we will blast them to pieces when those morons come into range of our big guns! What do you mean their escorts have deployed starfighters?!" - Unknown taz'aran border fleet commander.
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Scout Fighters Starfighters Strike Craft Interceptors Space Shuttle Escape Pod Modular Ships Escort ships Corvettes
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