Spaceship blog 11
The Frigate
While Corvettes are arguably the cheapest and most numerous vessels, frigates are the main warship employed in all galactic navies.
Much larger starships or between one and one-and-a-half kilometers long and at least five hundred meters wide, they carry their navy’s main offensive firepower. Where a corvette could only hope to fill in the gap in the formation, the frigate creates that gap or enlarges it.
Frigates have multiple big cannons, housed in heavily armored emplacements. Designed and built by the best starship engineers of their Star state, those heavily armored turrets provide the craft with excellent firing arcs, making the Frigate one of the best and well-protected warships on the battlefield.
Well shielded and covered with plenty of armor-plating, the frigate’s hull is heavily reinforced since according to most naval doctrines, the craft has to be able to survive plenty of hits and then return fire.
Captains who are given command of a frigate can also count on plenty of point defense and small, fast target tracking turrets. Although the ship is big, its point defense capabilities are probably on par with that of the much smaller corvette.
Frigates also have more spacious hangars than corvettes. They carry and service one full starfighter wing consisting of three individual squadrons. Most captains choose to have only two fighter squadrons and use the hangar space to accommodate star marine dropships.
Frigate crews are numerous and can defend their ship from small infantry attacks. This frees their star marine detachments to perform various boarding and other special ops missions in outer space. More often than not the frigates carry dedicated ground or space infantry troops. These are expected to capture planetary or orbital bases and installations and hold them until reinforcements arrive.
In large fleet engagements, frigates are tasked with punching through an enemy’s outer screen ships, dealing with their Corvettes and, of course, other frigates.
The most balanced warship considering cost, production time, and maintenance, most navies have their main shipyards constructing any and all frigate designs that they have developed.
Captains of a higher rank, Commodores and even rear Admirals are often given a command frigate to use as their flagship. Slightly larger, the command frigate is often fitted with the very best internal ship systems and crewed by experienced personnel. Such vessels are, of course, tasked with more and important duties that simple border patrols.
Star navies have their own variations of the widely accepted frigate designs, but the overall strategic and tactical usage of these ships remains basically unchanged. That too was challenged by the Terrans, whose few frigates are not only of a widely different design, but their tactics too are highly innovative.
The Terran Minarchy has fewer starships and that rings especially true for larger craft.
Vessels like frigates are considered incredibly valuable and most often than not, they all are of the command design. Terran engineers outdid themselves and had far surpassed any of the existing frigate designs.
In the aftermath of the invasion of pirate lord Mahimm and the loss of humanity’s first three battle cruisers, Terran commanders decided against following any of the existing already established, and widely used galactic fleet doctrines. They focused all of their time, energy, and resources in producing a small number capital ships, but of far superior quality.
That core principle was implemented to the letter when Terran frigates were first designed and built in the later decades after the invasion. Compared to similar alien starships, the Terran frigate can outperform them in every way.
Instead of normal armor, it is covered with extra thick, reinforced armor-plating forged from the best energy absorbing materials. Its outer hull is made from the same alloys that are ordinarily used for armor on smaller craft, like the Corvette for example. Where most frigates have single particle-beam turrets, the Terran craft have a quad, rapid firing, eighty-eight millimeter railguns.
In addition to this, the craft is equipped with heavy laser cannon emplacements on its bow, port, starboard, and aft. This is a tried and tested in battle design feature, which all Terran frigates and corvettes share. Although those weapons can hit enemies from a much closer range, and their arcs are not as wide as those of its railgun turrets, nevertheless, the pulse beams proved to be just as deadly.
The frigate’s heavily shielded torpedo tubes can launch big, anti-capital ship torpedoes. These are torpedoes of advanced design and not only armored, but equipped with automatic point defense turrets.
Terran frigates carry a total of three elite interceptor and/or strike craft squadrons which are piloted by the much-feared Minarchy’s “Top Guns.”
Being slightly larger, they can also carry and supply in the field more star marines than what their enemy counterparts. As such, the Minarchy’s frigate is often called a “Pocket cruiser” and very much so acts like one during battle.
In stark contrast with most well established naval doctrines, the Minarchy’s frigates engage the enemy fleet screening vessels first. With its long range, powerful railguns, it can lock, track, and fire upon multiple escorts, quickly wiping them out. This in turn creates gaping holes in the enemy lines, severely diminishing their anti-strike craft capabilities.
The opportunities forged by Terran frigates are then quickly and mercilessly exploited by its heavy starfighters and bombers, crewed exclusively by aces.
Instead of outright concentrating fire at one enemy frigate at a time, the Minarchy’s “Pocket cruiser” aims to heavily damage the main armaments of its counterparts, leaving them for others to finish. Frigates use the same gas cooling system which all Terran escort craft have equipped and can therefore maintain a constant, higher rate of fire with its main railguns.
On many occasions, one single “Pocket cruiser” in command of a Terran strike force was able to defeat multiple enemy frigates. Most notably, this occurred during an engagement above Sirius prime. One Terran battle group faced off the combined forces of four pirate Clan frigates, a dozen Taz’aran corvettes, and other enemy support craft.
Two months of desperate fighting later, in just three minutes, the Terran starships were able to punch through the enemy blockade and reinforce their besieged colony. Despite the unfavorable odds, the Terran battle group managed to destroy or cripple virtually all enemy starships. Only a couple of escorts and transports were able to run away, temporarily escaping the colonists’ wrath.
Please check @Mister_Brushface and his channel. He gives voice to my words and has recorded many of my spaceship blogs:
Scout Fighters Starfighters Strike Craft Interceptors Space Shuttle Escape Pod Modular Ships Escort ships Raid ships Corvettes Frigates
If you liked this blog and crave more, check out my books published on Amazon here:
Twin Suns Of Carrola - Starshatter book 2
Treads Of Vengeance - Starshatter book 3
Von Braun's Gambit - Starshatter book 4
Secrets Of Lothoria - Starshatter book 5
Final Liberation - Starshatter book 6
Princes Of The Stars - Starshatter book 7
A Mandate Of Sword And Railgun - Starshatter story anthology 1
The Blood Of Tyrants - Starshatter story anthology 2
Spaceship blog 1 Spaceship blog 2 Spaceship blog 3 Spaceship blog 4
Spaceship blog 5 Spaceship blog 6 Spaceship blog 7 Spaceship blog 8