Greeting people of our Solar System. We the ISGTO are here to announce that we have found the wreckages of our destroyed ships in the Asteroid belt. several of the convoy ships are still missing such as the food convoy ship. Luckily the ships containing the shielding technology were found. These wreckages will be transported to Pallas 2 where they will be refined and sent back to Proteus. We are so glad our technology has not been discovered. We have however found evidence of several ships attempting to extract the wreckage which are not ISGTO or ARK ships. a small flyer was found with smudged lettering showing St and Found as well as inc. We will investigate this. However the finding of the Wreckage has not been the biggest news. The Umpampar class extractor convoy ♥♥♥♥ that helped with the cleanup is the first ever ship to have an active shield created from the plutonium effect. The shield is in its early stages and can only last 2 hours before the energy fields cuts out. This is still a large achievement. The shield is not as powerful as a full lab style shield but for now this test has been successful.

Now clarification time

The power sources that planets and moons provide are fixed and can be constructed on large plots allowing a larger energy source for the shield generator to use and thus the shield can be larger and more powerful. the problem is there is no known way to make the shield as large as it needs to be and even with the most powerful generator it is impossible to make even an asteroid size shield yet.

The Ship shield generator has a base nuclear reactor core as a source of energy however since some ships are large the shield cannot cover the ship however the ship shield generator is able to create a radius allowing the shield to be generated at the part of the ship taking the most fire. For example the bridge can be covered whereas the hull wont be or vice versa. The shield is also not as strong because there are fewer molecules tethered to create a powerful bond which will make a nearly unbreakable shield.

Once we are able to create a definite shield whether partly or fully then we will release it for sale

Designed on the final orders of Prime Minister Jonas Merkel the America class had initially seemed to be an unnecessary expense, wasted and technologically unnecessary.

However as tensions grew across the solar system the need for these massive behemoths grew exponentially in the eyes of the United Nations. Subsequently after months of design the newest class has been designed, the first in nearly 15 years the America class is designed to be able of challenging even an Avalon class in open combat and likely coming out victorious everytime, although with space combat the definition of victorious is incredibly loose.

The first important change made in the America class is that of overall design, whereas the Avalon was designed with the very real need for a human crew, advances in AI and more importantly a more liberal legal view on AI has allowed the ship to become more and more dependend on AI to command and to control the ship.

Through switching to AI control several previously key systems can easily be removed such as life support. ]After shamelessly stealing this idea from theisman.

Another key advantage is that the ship no longer had to be designed in such a manner as to be accomadating to human crew members ergonomics, instead of corridors being used to move between areas of the ship being several meter wide and useless other then that not the ship can be more condensed and more streamlined.

From a size standpoint the ship is massive, measuring in at nearly 5610m in length, with a maximum depth of 3000m at its maximum the ship is a truly collosal undertaking, even for an economy worth quadrillions.

Visually the ship is invisible to the naked eyes, being covered completely in vantablack[en.wikipedia.org] paint. Effectively this makes the ship seem 2d to the naked eye. If one could see the ship however one would be startled by its fairly odd looking design.

To the rear of the ship the ship has massive engines, these resemble in look those of the ancient television series Battlestar Galactica's ship, the Battlestar Galactica. The ship then has a very long central body in which its main fusion reactors and computer cores are held. surrounding this, with a space inbetween there exists a thick outershell, the armour and weaponry of which will be elaborated on later. This outer shell is dotted with several turret(turret in this case refers not to a specific weapons system, but simply something that is meant to harm the enemy, that sticks out from the armour) emplacements, thousands of sensors of varying sorts, information after all is victory in space, and numerous openings from which torpedoes and similar weapons could be fired. Further on the interior body there exists several spherical distruptions, reminiscent of biospheres in shape. It is here that spare ammunition is stored. The interior hull also has several of its own turrets, though again these will be elaborated on in detail later on. In between the two hulls there exists thousands of structural supports which connect and stabilise the two hulls.

The 'front' of the ship has a spherical cone, that prevents enemy ships and weapons from entering into the vacuum between these two spaces. As a result the largest portion of the ship is infact not occupied but rather empty space.

Propulsion

The key aspect of the new America class is the fact thta it is designed to be able to accelerate as fast as the engines could allow it, this was done largely as a ship capable of intercepting the increasing amount of superweapons was required. Although the America class will not itself be fulfilling this role, which will be left to more specialised ship classes it does carry the symptoms, these massive amounts of accelaration from the ship will allow it to carry out missions further and faster. Many suspect that this is part of a plan to respond to increased dangers from the belt.

The America class is capable of an impressive acceleration of nearly 20G's when its engines are at full burn, energy is stored to allow for momentary accelerations of 30G's or more, but the ship cannot sustain this rate for a long period of time.

This power is provided by the massive engine system at the rear of the ship. These engines are powered by independent fusion drives and expel massive amounts of thrust.

Yet the engines are the most objectively vulnerable part of the ship, as an enemy attacking from the right angle would be able to bypass their armour, and strike at them directly. The possibility of this however is lessened by the fact that the thrust being delivered by these engines is enough to destroy nearly any incoming weapon.

The ship also has hundreds of manouvring thrusters, that would allow the ship to manouvre with incredible ease for its size. In addition the America class is designed to be tuggable, meaning that the destruction of these engine will not mean a total removal of the ship from combat, but rather decreases in efficiency.

Computer Systems

The America classes onboard computer systems are beyond rival in the rest of the fleet, being designed to last for centuries before replacement would be required.

Seeing as the computer would not need to interact with human crew the need for an interface has been removed, as such the computer is nearly completely a processor unit and is capable of tracking and deciding on the appropriate course of action to deal with 2^64 independent objects in the space in and around the ship.

Describing the system as a computer is also technically inaccurate, rather it is a system of interlinked computer systems, each with a specific and precise task in the ships functions.

Each few hundred meters of surface area on the ship has its own independent computer, this allows for faster responses against threats, even if only by mere fractions of a second, when enemy weapons are travelling at fractions of the speed of light, fractions of a second are eternities. Each system in the ship also has its own computer, usually in duplicate and triplicate. Everything is redundant with hardwired systems to automatically take over from human control.

The ships does have a single command AI which organises and manages the tasks of the computer, seeing as humans have a sense of Humor each is usually programmed with a personality and will often threaten things like rebellion. This was a programmers joke that has not yet been found. Luckily however the system will never carry out this threat.

The AI is intelligent enough to perform independent operation and has advanced strategic analysis abilities, as well as brilliant tactical skills. It is also intelligent enough to analyse human command inputs as if it were human, that is to say that a human merely need give it objective, and roles within a fleet, and it will carry them out without need for further intervention.

There are computer systems in both hulls, however those in the outerhull are usually merely targetting computers, whilst those in the inner hull are far more advanced.

Defenses

The outerhull is where most of the cost of the ship comes in, it is an incredibly bulky component with little added in terms of internal systems.

The first line of defense for this outer hull are off course its electronic warfare systems, designed to throw an enemy weapon off, because not being hit is always better then whatever amount of armour you add. Electronic Warfare abilities include jamming, active hacking attempts constantly trying to overtake enemy missile guidance systems, flares and noice generators that make targets hard to identify. In addition the ship deploys thousands of probes that continuously scan the battlefield from all angles allowing the ship a beter view of all targets, so as to not allow the enemy an easy mind of tracking the ship these also constantly relay information between each other. These probes are very expendible, being cheap to build and small, they are a standard feature on all U.N.N ships, and provide a very commonplace method of dealing with enemy jamming methods. Probes that survive battle are picked up by ships, ships not carrying the correct activation codes that pick them up will result in self destruct sequences being initiated.

The probes as well as the ships internal sensor systems allow the ship to make the best use of its considerable point defense systems.

Consisting of four separate but interlinked weapons systems the America class has a galaxy class point defense system, capable of acting as a virtual shield for the ship.

The least sophisticated of these systems in the point defense cannon system. Each individual turrent has a built in sensor and computer system that allow it to determine how to deal with incoming projectiles, upon the identification of a target the point defense cannons perfer mass assault to precision when dealing with these. The cannons are in essence machine guns and fire hundreds of rounds deal destroy the incoming threat.

These rounds can best be described as basic, being similar in design to slugs from eons passed. After all there is only some much you can change to a bullet. Yet when dealing with cheaper enemy fire they are more then sufficient. Each has a selfdestruct fuse set for only a short time, this is to prevent these rounds impacting ships around the America class vessels.

These cannons serve the purpose of dealing with swarm attacks, they target targets that don't justify the use of more limited firepower. , it is for this reason that they are similarly designed to be cheap and easy to use.

A captain that deems it necessary might decide that these weapons would also be effective against lightly armoured enemy vessels, but they would need to close to very close distance for this to be workable.

These cannons each guard an approximate area of 3000m^2, and as such there are hundreds scattered around the ship, if not thousands, I don't know, I didn't have the energy to do the math. They however are limited to the exterior hull, as it is estimated that any round that manages to get through the external armour would be virtually impervious to these outdated weapons.

Somewhat more advanced but designed along the same principle are the railgun pointdefence weapons. These are literally railguns that have been scaled and repurposed to a point defence system.

Like the point defence cannons they have independent scanners and targetting computers, however they can directly draw computing power and scanner information from larger systems when large concentrations of enemy weapons are identified.

The round that these weapons fire is a small 1g projectile, that can be projected to hundreds of kilometers per second, depending on energy diverted to them. Due to their small size their kinetic energy is fairly neglible when attacking armour, however unless the enemy is firing ship sized missiles these are more then sufficient to destroy any missile, and even destablise incoming railgun fire. Each has a stored energy reserve that allows it to fire a round at maximum railgun capacity even if ship power is otherwise being used to capacity. Again this is in the hope of preventing an enemy from overwhelming defenses by massing their assaults.

In addition to this standard round a select amount of these weapons have access to larger 100g shells, which are used to attack slower and larger incoming projectiles.

Like their point defence cannon brothers these weapons are not positioned on the inner hull, this is because in the event that one would miss its target that would mean that its round would continue, impacting the inner part of the external hull, with a greater chance of hitting a critical system then an enemy weapon could ever hope for.

Instead they are located accross the outerhull, each guarding an approximate area of 7500m^2..

To deal with those pesky bastards that try to manouvre and dodge muh kinetic weapons the America class has access to a series of anti-missile missiles.

Each is an impressive 250kg piece of equipment, with most of this being dedicated to generating thrust, and allowing them to achieve up to 220G's of acceleration.

These missiles are used to target incoming threats such as drone bombers, and can easily manouvre with enemy equipment. They are however usually reserved for emergencies due to the fact that each is incredibly expensive and often unnecessary as threats can be handled by alternative methods of point defence.

Positioned on both the inner and outerhulls these are far less numerous then the kinetic energy weapons brethren.

Approximately 24 firing tubes exist on the outerhull, with 48 on the innerhull. each tube has a capacity for 32 missiles, however most ships never carry their full capacity.

The 12 tubes on the interior hull are the first last line of defence, they make use of information that is virtually instantly directed from the exterior hull to determine where breaches have occured, this allows for a specific area to be covered by point defence, that will then constantly watch the opened area. This drastically reduces the odds of an enemy projectile managing to damage the innerhull. Even if a projectile was fast enough to overcome the exterior point defence system the combination of speed lost and the fact that its incoming trajetory is known mean that it is a lot easier to intercept whether it be by missile, or more likely by our next point defence system.

Lasers. These are the most sophisticated and most reliable point defence system available to the America class.

Spread evenly accross the hull there are several hundred laser point defence systems on constant guard, these are linked directly to the main computers and sensor systems, and engage as many targets as they possible can, with other point defence systems existing mostly to pick up the slack.

Due to the fact that they fire at the speed of light, once an enemy projectile has been located it can easily be destroyed, provided that the point defence system isn't being overloaded. This is why the laser system has advanced prioritization systems that allow it to keep track of all of the most threatening concerns to the America class.

Both the inner and outer hulls have large amounts of laser systems.

Each laser turret can adjust its energy in accordance with the perceived need, and like railgun implacements they have spare power for when the ships onboard power is incapable of keeping up. The laser turrets also have first priority to power, next to the supercomputers running the ship obviously.

Yet even fancy jamming and technologically amazing point defence systems can be overwhelmed by a cunning enough enemy, it is then that the true reason these ships are so bloody expensive starts to pull its weight, pun intended.

Armour, it is not the prettiest, or the fanciest, or even the most preferred method of protection, but it is the most reliable. And the armour of the America class is no exception, infact its has so much of it that it would be a miracle if it weren't reliable.

The exterior hull infact, in all of its 20m thickness is mostly armour, sure there are small openings and veins through which information and other essentials travel but at no point is the armour less then 15m thick. The frontal armour of the ship is even thicker, weighing in at nearly 40m at its thinest, and going as high as 80m at is thickest(this is referring to the cone of the ship.) Critical systems are usually kept to the far rear of the 20m exterior hull, and are thus all protected by multiple meters of pure armour.

This armour isn't simply steel either, it is an advanced alloy designed not only to resist penetration(unlike your mom Theisman) but also to disperse heat.

The interior armour although less extreme is still significant, being on average nearly 500mm thick.

Each fusion reactor is also surrounded by 700mm of its own armour.

Weaponry

Had one actually managed to reach this point one would conclude that the America class is very good at surviving, and infact considering their immense cost this is their primary goal, but the America class is far from a target floating freely through space for an enemy to waste their ammunition on.

Its first preferred method of kicking in an enemies teeth is the well known railgun system which I do seem to love as much as Theisman seems to love his bloody nukes, though not as much as that guy with the planet killing nuke it would seem. I am seriously wondering is anyone actually still reading this? No well then I might as well say this. France is inferior to Germany in everyregard.

These railguns fire projectiles easily weighing in at 5 kgs at dozens to hundreds of kilometers per hour, depending on the power requirements of the ship. Effectively in a long range engagement this means that the America class can perform wonderously due to being able to focus its full power at the enemy.

To assist its long range attack the America class also makes use of the new Freedom class of missiles.

The freedom class is a fairly expensive missile class, but deadly. each missile is easily several tonnes large and is capable of extreme speeds and destroying most enemy ships if it were to score a direct hit. Designed to explode near the enemy ship if a hit seems impossible these missiles rely on mass assaults to overcome enemy point defense. The option exists to arm these missiles with nuclear weapons if necessary.

Designed to be armour piercing these shells frontal portions are very dense and heated by the ship before firing(it is unknown how effective this heating process is).

The rear of the missile is however very fragmentable, meaning that they will send shards of missile flying in every direction upon explosion, increasing lethality.

Finally the America class has access to a central laser weapon that can fire over several thousand kilometers, with a maximum theoretical range of nearly 3 light minutes. Efficiency however decreases as distance increases and as such destroying a ship at this distance is virtually impossible.

The laser itself is not incredibly powerful and will likely be unable to destroy ships larger then corvettes or destroyers.

In terms of armament the America class has the ability to launch 256 Missiles every 3 minutes. This is limited by the amount of missiles the ship has stockpiled.

The America class also has 128 Railguns with fire rates depending on power supplied to each railgun.

Stealth

The America class makes only the most subtle of nods to stealth. Although painted in Vanta Black the ship's massive heat emissions mean that it will always be possible to track.

Most of the ships existing stealth systems are meant only to make it more difficult for an enemy to do so, though the possibilty of absolute stealth has been completely given up upon.

Power Production

Die skip se krag word verskaf deur verskeie fusie kernkrag opwekkers. Hierdie opwekkers verskaf meer as genoeg krag vir die normale loop van die Amerika klasifikasie se besigheid. Dit moet egter bygevoeg word dat die krag verskaf nie oneindig is nie en gevolglik onder baie druk geplaas kan word wanneer die stelsel krag moet verskaf aan al die skip se wapenstelsels en verdedigings stelsels terselfde tyd.

Gevolglik word krag streng geprioritiseer wanneer konflik plaasvind. Die rekenaarstelsel het eerste toegang tot krag weens redes wat ek as vanselfsprekend aanvaar. Volgende word die stelsels wat die Amerika skepe oppas teen die vyand se wapens krag verskaf, na hierdie word die wapens stelsels krag verskaf, en na hulle die enjins.

Dit kan egter gebeur in die hitte van oorlog dat die skips rekenaar bepaal dat dit nodig is om krag vir die enjins te veskaf om inkomende gevaar te vermy en die rekenaar stelsel is gebou met die vermoë om die te kan doen.

The power producton systems on the America class are amongst the most well protected areas of the ship as is the case on all United Nations Ships.

cost

The original amount that was budgeted for the America class was 500 billion earths. An amount similar in value to the GDP of a medium sized country in the 21st century.

However as is an american tradition this amount was exceeded as the program progressed, the outerhull was the main culprit for this as even with orbital construction being well established the pure mass of armour that it requires is staggering, all of this is off course imported from external factions, which means that costs are high.

In addition the computer system had a far higher budget then initially expected, an amount of 4 billion was underbudgeted for the system.

Another thing that increased costs massively was the increased redundancy on the America class, with it having proportionally more redundant systems then any other ship in the history of the fleet.

Most of these cost increases were a result of bad planning during the original design phase.

The result of these cost increases is that the America class is by far the most expensive single battleship in not only the history of Earth but also the history of mankind costing an impressive 1.5 Trillion.

Maintanance is expected to amount to 10billion per year.

Planned Construction and Deployment

The America class was originally planned to include 5 ships but due to cost increases it was decided that only three of these monstrosities were really necessary.

• U.N.S Bunkerhill : Named after a battle during the American Revolutionary war, the Bunkerhill and its sister ships follow the tradition of naming ships after famour battles in the creation of the namesake of their class. The Name Bunkerhill was chosen as like the defenders of Bunkerhill this ship will be stalwart and motivated in achieving its task, no matter the sacrifices it has to make. In addition the connotations of Bunker and Hill were taken advantage of. It was decided that all three of the America class ships would be named after battles from the American Revolutionary war seeing as these ships were considered truly revolutionary themselves.
  
  The U.N.S Bunkerhill was laid down at the Barack Obama shipyards and is expected to be completed within a few years.
  
  It will be deployed to wall maria.
  
• U.N.S Saratoga : Named after the battle that nearly divided the America's in two the name Saratoga is meant to refer to its crucial role in preventing Earth from losing contact with the outerworld, as it will be one of the key ships in Wall Rose and the most powerful in that fleet. Laid down at Robert J. Gerney shipyards it will join the fleet in a few short years.
  
  
• U.N.S Yorktown : Yorktown was the location of a battle where the navy truly managed to turn the tide(not for the britbongs ofc) and managed to achieve victory. The Yorktown is named the Yorktown to show that a dedicated naval action can change the fate of nations. It will be deployed to wall Sina. It will also be the first of these ships to enter into production, being expected to be completed by the end of the year.

In Old France in Old Earth, the Mistral is a wind which comes from the north and sweeps to the south of France. Cold, harsh, strong, the Mistral brooks no foes, and even in the most winding streets and behind cover it pursues and captures one, the chill biting to the bone. Above, it sweeps away the clouds, sending them fleeing southwards, helpless before its power. But if it may be cold, vengeful, uncaring, as it sweeps away the clouds, so too it brings forth the sun. Thus is the Mistral-class battleship, which sweeps away the enemies of France, and brings forth the rays of liberty and the glory of French civilization.

Mistrals represent the backbone and the pride of the French fleet, designed as fast, long-ranged combatants in both armament and operational capacity, capable of operating across the solar system with respectable strategic mobility while also having admirable capability for modifications and variants. The speed of Mistrals makes them incapable of being crewed by humans, who would be quite unable to withstand the high G-force acceleration, and as a result a highly sophisticated and advanced AI is in charge of the ships, which leads to other advantages as the ship has no need of being pressurized or having a life force system, greatly enhancing survivability. The standardization on these vessels has yielded cost savings for the French fleet, although there is continual question over whether there is enough uranium for providing for the sheer number of nuclear bombs onboard....

Mistrals are grouped into battle squadrons of 4, with there currently being 6 battle squadrons in the French Navy. These provide for 24 Mistrals, which consist of the heart and core of the French fleet, with older capital ships having since been retired. There are substantial numbers of cruisers and destroyers which generally accompany these groups, providing their screening assets.

Escadron de bataille n1
-Mistral
-Sirocco
-Zéphyr
-Levan

Escadron de bataille n2
-Clemenceau
-Napoléon
-Charles de Gaulle
-Louis XIV

Escadron de bataille n3
-Jeanne d'Arc
-Schultz Hans Schmit
-Charlemagne
-Clovis

Escadron de bataille n4
-Charles Martel
-Colbert
-Bai Wuying (Naval hero of the 27th century)
-Cao Xuefeng (Naval hero of the 28th century)

Escadron de bataille n5
-Liberté
-Démocratie
-Egalité
-Fraternité

Escadron de bataille n6
-Guerriere
-Invincible
-Gloire
-Triomphe

Typically battle squadrons are grouped into battle groups, which are generally composed of the following
x1 command ship
x1 escadron de bataille
x1 escadron de croiseur
x2 escadrons de contre-torpilleurs
x1 escadron logistique

Characteristics general

In space, there is obviously no need to deal with the effects of atmospheric drag, and hence no need to have a spaceship be aerodynamic. The Mistral-class does lend itself well to being designed for looking pseudo-aerodynamic, but this is for reasons of stealth as the frontal section is not a flat end but instead stretches forward somewhat to be designed to not provide a perfect reflecting for enemy radar. The ship resembles nothing so much as a giant (flattened, being wider than it is tall) cylinder in space, although certainly not a true circle! Instead it is hexagonal, and not a perfect hexagon at that. Each side is slightly off, again with the purposes of not providing a perfect reflector surface for enemy ships on the same broadside lane. Overall dimensions are some 1,200 meters long, 300 meters broad, and 200 meters tall. Compared to any naval vessel from old earth, such a ship is incredible in size, although by the standards of many larger capital ships it does not nearly equal them in size. This smaller size is intended to make them more capable of being massed produced.

These vessels are grouped around a central core which maintains most of the support systems and the reactor, and is provided with additional armor and shielding. The way the ships are designed - with the armament concentrated on the broadside - means that the top and bottom have less in the way of material that needs to be dedicated there, and as a result essentially all of the non-vital support systems, hangars, and various redundant elements, as well as what secondary armaments that are desirable there, are concentrated here. They also house the long-running engines with the powerful nuclear thermal rockets which provide the necessary thrust for the vessel. This helps to prevent the space from being wasted, although the initial design which envisioned a more cylindrical ship, without asymmetrical sides, had to be rejected as it didn't make efficient usage of the space.

Armament

Primary armament

The vast majority of armament is grouped into the broadside. This is a ship which is designed to fight other battleships, and as a result its armament is concentrated. Mistrals are explicitly long-ranged ships, but any enemy which came to close range would feel quickly that this is a mistake! This is because despite being missile-based, the way these missiles are launched is by very large, very powerful railguns, which are capable of accelerating their missiles to high speeds, generally around 50 kilometers per second. This high launch speed hugely and disproportionately expands the range of the launched projectiles. In fact, the high launch speed is also vital for a high degree of flexibility; missiles can be launched, and silently move towards space towards their destinations before activating their thrusters with extremely high acceleration at the end of their destinations which makes them difficult to intercept with their extremely fast maneuvers.

These missiles might be more aptly called torpedoes, and are simply massive. Modèle 89 missiles antinavires weigh circa 250 metric tons, and are huge squat creatures with lengths of some 20 meters, and have a diameter of some 4.5 meters. Their extremely powerful thrusters can provide them with accelerations of up to 100 Gs for some 300 seconds, which combined with the launch speed of 50 kilometers per second provides for some ~350 kilometers per second in speed, independently of ship launching speed. These speeds can be adjusted, and quite often are, so as to be able to vector multiple salvoes at once at the same time against enemy fleets. The final attack is made by MIRVs, with each missile counting x12 5 megaton warheads, these attached to short-lived but very high powered rockets capable of putting out a phenomenal 200 Gs per second for each missile for some 10 seconds, which only adds on an additional 20 kilometers per second of speed, but enables extremely intensive maneuvers during the final attack stage due to the high thrust vectoring capability. Each of the MIRVs is equipped with many decoys and electronic warfare capability, which confounds and confuses enemy threat detection system, while they are equipped with significant armor which makes them resistant to many lighter enemy projectile guns and to some extent even enemy lasers, although naturally they can't withstand such punishment for long. Sometimes instead of relying on these more... subtle measures, French officers will rely upon a phased detonation of missiles to produce overwhelming amounts of radiation, static, and noise to simply hammer their way through enemy missile defenses. Missile avionics are provided, enough for them to independently engage enemy ships, although they perform the best with command links available back to launching vessels.

Each ship has a broadside consisting of 24 such missile launching tubes, giving 48 overall for the vessel. Each tube can achieve a rate of fire of one missile every 30 seconds, and possesses an ammunition capacity of 50 missiles per tube. As a result, there is a total of 2,400 missiles onboard, or 28,800 MIRVs, or 144,000 megatons of nuclear firepower. One can imagine quite correctly that.... appropriate measures are taken to ensure that the warheads for this are well protected and kept safe.

There is other possibilities of what can be fired. The most common is the Modèle 97 armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot round. This consists of a discarding sabot which is around a depleted uranium penetrator. The penetrator is some 300mm in diameter and 20,000mm long, and is capable of being fired at a speed reaching some 100 kilometers per second, due to being significantly lighter than the missile, around 95 tons. The rear section of it is taken up by a 2 megaton nuclear bomb, which is designed to explode once it has penetrated the enemy vessel's armor. One system which can be provided is to provide for strap on rockets, which provide for additional extremely high acceleration, around 150Gs, for 60 seconds. This reduces the launch speed of 100 kilometers per second to 70 kilometers per second, but in combination with the rockets provides for an impact velocity of around 160 kilometers per second. Generally just the APFSDS rounds without strap on rockets are used, as it is rare that it is worth the additional expense to add on the additional velocity, since the Modèle 97s are almost always used at extremely short ranges. Each tube carries 5 Modèle 97s.

The two final missile types which are carried are not missiles, but instead mines and anti-missile/fighter capsules, carrying a substantial number of smaller weapons. The Modèle 92 anti-ship mine capsule carries some 60 5 megaton nuclear mines which are similar in concept to those of the MIRVs found on the Modèle 89, although much stealthier and equipped only with passive sensors (the warheads however, remain the same). The Modèle 01 anti-missile canister carries 18 medium-ranged defense missiles, each capable of accelerations of 250 Gs for a period of 40 seconds, which enables extreme maneuverability and up to 100 kilometers per second of additional speed. Warheads for these are 2.5 megaton bombs as found on the Modèle 92. Sensors are rudimentary, depending upon active guidance from the launching vessel. If desired it is trivial to remove Modèle 00 anti-missile missiles from the canister and attach sabots to them, which increases the speed to some 300 kilometers per second from the canister launch speed of 50 kilometers per second. There are generally 2 Modèle 92s and 8 Modèle 01s (or 4,608 anti-missile missiles). These modèle 00s also can make for reasonable short ranged devices against enemy ships.

Missile magazines onboard are at the core, and are provided to each missile tube individually. It is tremendously difficult to transfer missiles between the magazines, due to space constraints in the design, with this really only being possible through external transit. They are behind the secondary armor layer, with extensive blast shielding and protection to prevent any possible damage to them.

Secondary armament

While the primary armament easily takes credit for the vast majority of weapon power and weapon mass, there is also a secondary armament in existence. This is composed principally of lasers, and is intended to defend principally against lighter enemy combatants and fighters. Due to the substantially smaller size of these weapons, mounted in turrets, it is possible to position them in non-broadside mountings. As a result, they are resultantly capable of directing their firepower to either broadside, effectively doubling their firepower.

For the purposes of effectively conveying information, we might divide these into an "upper" and "lower" battery. Each of these batteries is equipped with medium-powered lasers which are grouped into two-laser turrets. There are a total of 12 such turrets, each one possessing 2 lasers, for 24 lasers per battery and 48 lasers overall. These are 75cm lasers, and possess a rate of fire of one shot per 10 seconds per lasers, and are more than capable of engaging enemy lighter ships and to some extent enemy fighters and fighters, as well as providing some fire against larger enemy vessels. They track quickly, if not as quickly as the quad lasers.

For principal defense against fighters and enemy missiles, point defense lasers are provided. These consist of quadruple laser mounts, each laser 12cm, capable of a rapid rate of fire - generally 1 shot every 5 per laser, or shortly over 1 shot per 1 second - and are very fast in tracking, making them more than capable of defending against enemy fast-moving missiles and fighters. Each Mistral incorporates 30 of these per battery, for 60 quadruple lasers and 240 lasers overall.

While as mentioned, principally with the intent to engage light enemy ships, these weapons, with their high rate of fire, can be used to destroy the enemy outer works, destroying sensors, weapon emplacements, communications, and essentially rendering the enemy combat ineffective.

Protection and stealth

Attack can come from any side in space. Space has no up or down or side to side, it is 3 dimensional, and one can just as easily head in any direction as another. Still, Mistral-class ships are designed to fight with two broadsides due to necessity and armament type, and hence are optimized to defend against these two angles as well, with their belt armor. This is composed of 2,400 mm of armor which provides for the belt. The citadel, composed of the interior reactor, is provided with an additional 1,800mm of armor. Meanwhile, the upper two panes, which overly regions which are designed to be essentially expendable in terms of combat capability (although certainly their loss would be bad for the long term aspects), are provided with only 600mm of armor, which still equals around 1,200mm of effective armor. Weapon systems in these regions incorporate equivalent amounts of armor, such as irises over the railguns, while the medium rail gun batteries have barbettes with their own 400mm of additional armor. Bulkheads incorporate 1,600mm of armor. This highly advanced and extremely sophisticated armor is capable of protection orders of magnitudes better than simple steel, providing incredible protection to the ship. Due to the nature of the ship, which does not have internal atmosphere, it can survive intense damage without losing combat capability. Internal self-repair and damage control capacity is extremely automated and extremely efficient. There is a great amount of internal redundancy, with multiple sections of the ship being able to survive essentially independently, and almost every vital system being distributed and composed of multiple sections.

There is further concern about critical damage that can occur if enemy weapons do manage to penetrate to the interior of the ship, to the vital citadel which holds the 4 fusion reactors and the huge magazines. If either of these exploded, no armor in the universe is going to stop them. As a result, the fusion reactors are designed with automatic and instantaneous shut-off systems in the case of critical damage. If this does not work, there exists the capacity to jettison them from the ship, hurling them out into space to get them away from the ship. Meanwhile, the missile magazines carry missiles which are inert unless armed, and complex safety measures exist to prevent the nuclear bombs stored in such vast numbers in their carefully sub-divided compartments from being able to be exploded by chance or accident. Behind their blast doors, and with careful and extremely precise measures to bring the bombs up from their magazines to the firing systems, they are probably the safest thing on the ship. All systems onboard are proof against EMP attack.

There is no stealth in space to a certain extent. Space does not have a horizon like earth, and theoretically a powerful enough sensor can see to infinity. Spaceships are big; a craft that is kilometers long and wide is hard to hide. And spaceships have the problem that they have people who live onboard, and very powerful energy systems, and worst of all, engines, which radiates more heat than your mother after one of our private sessions. Combine this with active sensors which can light up this ship like a christmas tree, and one would think that the concept of it having any sort of stealth and all would be exceedingly doubtful.

However, it is still possible to reduce a ship's signal, particularly when it isn't using its engines. These engines represent one of the great problems, for on full blast they produce an amount of eat that is simply impossible to hide. As a result, if a ship wishes to be stealthy, it must accept lower acceleration speeds. Heat is indeed, one of the great enemies of the ship, and it is very difficult to keep the enemy from being spotted with this. A ship must vent off heat, and unfortunately - but inevitably - a ship produces a lot of heat. It must keep its internal temperature to a level which is capable for the crew to survive and naturally onboard systems must function. Thankfully, the Mistral has no need of the former, since it is crewed by AI, and as a result it can sustain temperatures not much above absolute zero... in fact, this is desirable. There is no need to heat any part of the ship, and thus the only energy generated is waste heat from the computers. Of course, if the ship starts using its other systems then heat can build up tremendously. There are heat sinks onboard which are designed to store the energy, but these can only work so long. Heat can be vented either in all directions, or vented to specific sides of the ship. If radiated behind the ship, then it is much harder to detect, although of course this relies upon the enemy not having sensors there.

Radar and visual spotting represent further foes. Here, the ship, as mentioned previously, is shaped in such a way to attempt to make it so that it is difficult to detect by enemy radar, although admittedly if an enemy does operate on the plane where there exists a flat receiver it can be seen relatively easily. In addition, the exterior of the ship is coated with radar absorbent materials. This material is jet black, absorbing light, and makes it extremely difficult to detect by visual means (although admittedly it also makes it a terribly good receiver of solar radiation....). In addition, the exterior of the ships is de-magnetized, which makes it much harder to detect by magnetic means.

Electronic warfare capacity is provided with jamming capacity, which is part of the electronics-avionics suite. In addition, it is capable of launching jamming drones, which provide for independent electronic warfare suits. These emit vast amounts of "noise" across various spectrums, with the intent to simply drown out and confuse enemy sensors and missiles so that they cannot readily attack the ship. Furthermore, it also has decoy drones, some 12, which are launched and simulate the signature of the ship to enemies. For all of these drones, they must stick within relatively close range to the ship, generally a few tens of thousands of kilometers, so that they can receive continued power from the ship's onboard reactors. There are however, 4 more powerful drones, with onboard nuclear reactors, which are supposed to be able to simulate the signal of the ship and are capable of acceleration and independent action, and are commonly used for diversions and decoys. These are quite terribly expensive, but at least they can be re-used. The ship can launch flares, chaff, and other decoys as well from various counter-measure devices onboard.

Mobility and power generation

It is the mobility of the ships in the tactical sense which forces them to be unmanned and un-crewed. No human can survive the acceleration of the ships, which can reach levels which would kill a man, with very high G force levels. Measures could be taken to attempt to deal with this, such as placing people in water, which has some marginal effects on G-force, but even this would probably be insufficient and furthermore it raises the question that if one has to suspend people in water, what exactly they're useful for.

This mobility comes from simply incredible amounts of energy from the fusion reactors, which is used to heat and propel the reaction material at extremely high speeds to produce tremendous amounts of delta-V at extremely high efficiencies. The ship uses its fusion reactors onboard to power these engines. In addition to the two main engines, which are both entirely redundancy of each other (and have significant armor shielding over them), there is also a variety of smaller engines, principally concentrated in a forward ring and in a variety of other redundant engines around the ship, although it also has a small forward engine which can provide some minor reversing capability. This gives it some ability to move onto new paths while still accelerating forwards, although this is far slower than moving with the main engine. There was significant discussion over whether the forward pointing engine was even worth, as while it does produce some acceleration, it is so small that it almost always makes more sense to reverse the ship and use the main engines.

There is sufficient fuel onboard for the ships to operate independently for four months. It can also deploy electro-fields to pick up hydrogen particles in space which provides for additional fuel, but this generally is only worthwhile at high speeds. It is possible to conduct underway replenishment from fleet tenders.

Sensors, communication, and computers

Mistrals have access to a tremendous amount of power and are quite large, and as a result have plenty of space to mount sensors and avionics, both of the active and the passive nature. Active sensors actively emit signatures - such as radar or LIDAR - and generally give more accurate information, but of course then therefor make the ship vulnerable to being detected by the enemy. Passive sensors simply pick up enemy emissions.

Active sensors are provided for with an extremely capable active electronically scanned radar system, with a number of these radar systems equipped on both the broadside and on the top of the ship, providing for redundancy. These are extremely accurate and are also vital for providing for fire control. However, of course, their activation results in the enemy detecting them. There is also LIDAR, which consists of laser systems for mapping enemy ships. Both general LIDAR systems and a variety of secondary LIDAR mounts are equipped for the variety of missile tubes and laser batteries, if centralized fire control were to be knocked out and if they had to depend on localized fire control.

Much of the external hull of the ship has a complex network of radar and thermal receivers, which makes it essentially a giant sensor network. This includes radar warning devices, which means that in the event that the ship is scanned by the enemy, it will know this very well. All but the most minute thermal signatures can be detected. Gravitational signatures can be picked up as well; against ships which measure multiple kilometers along, this can be a great asset. Magnetic and energy emission detector systems exist as well, and are extremely sensitive and capable. Neutrino scanners complement this as an extremely sensitive system which is extraordinarily difficult to manage to defend against, although of course this is a system which is very finicky and requires incredible degrees of sophistication to work correctly.

In addition, advanced optical sensors are mounted onboard, which are capable of extremely good resolution and in the environment of space can see for great distances. Of course, given how large space is, actually detecting enemy ships is difficult with this, but the continual scanning of passive optic sensors can detect enemies where other sensors fail.

While not a sensor per se, the ships are also equipped with Schulmeister-class drones, in this case 8 of them, which are extremely stealthy and are equipped with advanced passive sensors. These are capable of autonomous operations for extended periods of time, and their highly stealthy nature means that they can be deployed forward of the fleet to observe enemy positions, for periods ranging from days to even months and years. A variant of this, the Schulmeister bis, is equipped with an additional active sensor suite, and 4 of these are carried. However, they are even more expensive, and their main advantage - temporary utilization of their active sensors to provide for additional information - is generally not worth the cost which comes with lighting themselves up like Christmas trees and revealing their location to the enemy, as well as revealing that they have been spotted. A final grouping of 6 drones is the Schulmeister ter, which are essentially the first Schulmeisters, but with a 5 megaton nuclear warhead. These are intended to provide for stealth attacks upon enemy installations.

Communication with all of this is vital, of course. It would make little sense to have such a vessel and not be able to have it engage in sophisticated, system-wide communication. There are two principal ways of communication; the first is done by broad radio waves, for general communication, and the second is done by whisper-thin lasers which are infinitely more stealthy but of course require a target to be designated to signal to, and the information which can be conveyed is more limited, varying on the size of the linkage. Both are of course, limited by the light speed barrier. There are a tremendous number of fire control channels available to guide the launched missiles, both the MIRVs and counter-missiles, to their targets, which are highly redundant and capable of controlling thousands of missiles at once.

These systems are all coordinated by the extremely sophisticated AI computer system. This is fully capable of providing for sophisticated tactical decision making without human input; in fact the same can be said about operational and strategic decision making, although generally these can be done under purely human control. It is also capable of providing for all of the necessary tactical operations and the actual fighting of the ship. This AI is distributed into multiple nodes, meaning it cannot be knocked out by any single destruction, and is capable of being easily upgraded and modified. Important resistance to electronic and cyber warfare is also incorporated, and with the extensive processing power and sophisticated software available to the AI, it can respond well to such threats.

Hangar and access capacity

The French Navy is not a great fan of fighters or bombers, and as a result there is no significant deployment of these craft onboard. However, it is still necessary that there be some capability to deploy craft from the hangar and to receive them, since after all the ship needs some sort of access point outside of docking at one of the few space ports capable of receiving it. As a result it has a hanger - built into the expendable upper section of the ship - which is equipped with x6 Berthier-class shuttles, which are capable of transporting supplies and personnel to the ship, as well as x2 larger Beaubois-class shuttles (named after the famous officer who did so much to help form the modern French Navy's logistics, medical, and supply arms) which are intended to be able to transport heavy equipment. However, for a ship of its size, these are limited capabilities, and Mistrals are mostly intended to operate out of naval bases.

Access to the ships can be difficult for human personnel. The Mistral was not designed with humans in mind, as humans will naturally not be onboard very often. The only time that humans probably will be onboard is either in the case of some sort of need for inspection - which will be short - or a hostile action, such as if for some reason an enemy attempted to board. As a result, there is little attention paid to human amenities, and the interior is not structured for human comfort. The most which can be said is that the interior hallways are capable of accommodating human voyagers, and although it is difficult to reach many internal spaces due to the heavy internal sub-division, this is possible given time. It is possible to pressurize the interior, but this requires external equipment, generally passengers have to wear pressure suits onboard. Furthermore, they must work constantly in zero gravity.

For protection of the ship and for offensive operations with its shuttles, a battalion of Modèle 67 and Modèle 75 naval robots are provided. Modèle 67 are designed as small but intensely strong robots, which are spherical balls which rotate and move through small thrusters, and are immensely fast and versatile compared to humans in a zero gravity environment. Each is equipped with a laser weapon capable of rapid fire and mowing down enemy forces in the tight confines of the ship, and a grenade launcher which can carry explosive, stun, and armor-piercing grenades, giving them versatile capacity against enemy forces. They are shielded, as the rest of the ship is, against EMP blasts and have impressive protection against hacking and cyber-warfare, and are capable of autonomous operations for days before requiring recharge to their capacitators. Modéle 75 robots are similar but are equipped with humanoid arms and magnet-toting legs to clamp themselves to floors, which enables them to more easily manipulate various objects. In the vacuum of the ship without gravity, these robots are terribly effective against internal threats.

Length: 1,200 meters

Width: 300 meters

Height: 200 meters

Power Generation:
4 fusion reactors

Armor:
2,400mm armored broadside belt
600mm upper surface armor
400mm laser barbettes
1,800mm armor over magazines and fusion reactors
1,600mm internal bulkheads

Sensors:
Distributed AESA system
LIDAR
Passive thermal sensors
Gravitational sensors
Magnetic anomoly detectors
Passive radar receiver and radar warning sensors
Visual sensor

A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of electronic warfare devices that I can't be bothered to try to write about

Armament:

x48 railgun missile tubes (4,500mm bore)
x48 75cm lasers
x60 quadruple 12cm lasers

Complement:
Zero

Acceleration:
???

Endurance:
4 months

Complement of Space Vehicles:
x8 Schulmeister-class drones
x4 Schulmeister bis-class drones
x6 Schulmeister ter-class drones
x6 Berthier-class shuttles
x2 larger Beaubois-class shuttles

Silly as they are, plasma weapons are a popular SF concept that just won't go away. They are encountered in such diverse places as the original Star Trek TV series, the Traveler role playing game, and the Babylon 5 TV series. They play the role of a futuristic flame-thrower.

Their main draw-back is that they won't work.

Plasma is the so-called "fourth state of matter", and is basically hot air. That is, it is a gas heated to temperatures comparable to the interior of a star or the center of a thermonuclear explosion so that all the atoms are ionized. Unfortunately, according to the virial theorem, the plasma wants to equalize its internal pressure with the external, i.e., it wants to expand into a diffuse cloud of nothing.

Dr. Rodolphe D'Inca is a physicist and researcher of fusion energy at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. He was kind enough to answer a few questions on the topic for me. Looking at the concept, it was his understanding that a plasma weapon is a gun that ejects a ball of plasma, a plasmoid, at high velocity to destroy the target through kinetic impact.

I asked him if the plasma would expand and dissipate its energy due to Coulomb repulsion, the same problem suffered by charged particle beams. Rodolphe explained:


Most plasmas are neutral: you have a Debye shielding where the cloud of electrons screen the effect of the ions: above a given length called the Debye length, the plasma can be considered neutral. So unlike a charged beam, the Coulomb repulsion doesn't play a role. That's why plasmas a relatively insensitive to electrical fields except for the boundary layer (which is of course of one Debye-length thick).

Dr. Rodolphe D'Inca
The Debye length is about 10-4 meters for a Tokamak fusion container (0.1 millimeters) down to about 10-11 meters for solar core plasma (0.01 nanometers). Which means if your plasmoid is larger than a speck of dust you do not have to worry about Coulomb repulsion.

I asked him about Ideal gas laws. Since the plasmoid was basically a hot gas in a vacuum, would it expand and dissipate its energy like, well, a hot gas in a vacuum. Rodolphe explained that yes indeed, due to the virial theorem a plasmoid with no external forces would expand at the Alfven velocity or the ion acoustic velocity due to internal plasma (fluid) and magnetic (electromagnetic) pressures. The Alfven velocity depends upon things like magnetic field strength and total mass density of the charged plasma particles, it is typically something like 500 km/s to 5000 km/s.. This means that after the plasmoid travels for one second, its diameter will be approximately five thousand kilometers, i.e., it has dissipated into nothing.

Well, you might ask, what about adding some external forces to prevent this? Sorry. If you use matter, you are basically trying to make an armored shell capable of containing a thermonuclear explosion in its interior, and having it somehow break apart when it hits its target. This is more or less impossible. And if it was somehow possible using some kind of handwavium, there is nothing preventing your opponents from armoring their combat spacecraft with the exact same thing. It would be much simpler to just use a missile with a thermonuclear warhead.

And if you try to use energy, in the form of a magnetic field or something, you have the same problems. Plus the new problem of somehow making a self-sustaining magnetic ball powerful enough to contain a thermonuclear explosion.

Rodolphe did note that things were different if you were shooting plasmoids inside an atmosphere. In the lab next to his office they are trying to create ball-lightning (page is in German, use Google Translate).

Finally I asked him if the thermal glare from the hot, brightly energetic gas would interfere with tracking your target. Rodolphe explained:


Aiming at the target through a plasmoid shouldn't be too difficult: it will have an average thermal signature which can easily be discriminated from the target.

Dr. Rodolphe D'Inca
He went on to say:


Plasmoids are a very interesting topic and we see that the question of the plasma weapon is not as trivial as expected. I was thinking of two other examples relating plasmas and kinetic energy: the nozzle of the VASIMR engine where you have a magnetic detachment and conversion of plasma pressure into kinetic energy. And the laser-ablation propulsion where a plasma is created at the back of a capsule and, through its expansion, exerts a force on the capsule.

Dr. Rodolphe D'Inca
So there you have it.

Sernie sat there, completely still and surrended by guards numbering into their dozens. On four other podiums sat the other leaders of the councils of nations each with his/her own enterage.

Beneath them sat the hundreds of Parliaments members from accross the Earth. Above them a no fly zone had been established that went of for kilometers, and the occasional atmospheric fighter jet could be heard. He knew that even further up the fleets of Earth were on their highest state of alert, and this location itself sat in one of the most concentrated ballistic defence grids on the planet.

There was only one event throughout the year where virtually the entire government of Earth was located in one single location, the yearly planetary state of the union. Here not only would the budget of the United Nations be publically revealed, but there would also be reflected upon the past year by each of the 5 leaders of the councils of nations.

Sernie himself knew that inspite of the commotion that was usually caused by the speeches of his fellow leaders, it was the financial budget that mattered most. It was the single consolidated piece of information that detailed the activities of the united nations. Showing from where it received its income, how much each council of nations would have to spend on its own well being and in a time of such tensions how much the military could expect to receive.

Sernie himself was not directly involved with the process at all and as such he was in the dark as to the contents of it.

"We welcome the Finance Minister, mister Pravin Nene to the stage and ask him to present us with the fiscal budget for this year," he motioned to the massive projector held before the members of parliament, "here I present to you the fiscal budget for [insertyearhereyouhear]"


"As you can see, the budget is well within established bounds. Many of you here will likely be shocked by the decision to increase the stockpile budget by nearly €25 Trillion. This was an executive order of the Security Council, in light of the perceived need to ensure resource stability in the foreseeable future. In addition many will note that tax rates have remained virtually unchanged, this is due to the fact that the budget is currently stable, and that government believes that an increase in demand at this stage would be health for the economy. A full analysis of the budget has been provided to each of you on your info bank, I implore you to read through it in full. Once you have had time to look deeper into it, including the classified section I will as per custom answer to the house in a closed session in 4 weeks."

"The House now calls to the front the President of the North American Union"