House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (60 page)

The
Katanas
are slightly smaller and substantially more maneuverable than any of the other
Shrike
variants, with improved electronic warfare capabilities as well as the new two-phase “buckler” bow wall. Their multipurpose launchers fire the Viper missile, which can be used in either counter-LAC or counter-missile mode. Used in the second mode, the Viper remains an extremely capable counter-missile, matching the antimissile performance of the cheaper dedicated Mark 31 counter-missile from which it was derived.

In addition to its dogfighting role, the GSN and RMN have recently begun to use the
Katana
to supplement fleet missile defense, especially in the kind of MDM environment Alliance ships have faced against Haven’s new wall of battle post-Operation Thunderbolt.

DESTROYERS (DD)

With the explosive growth of the Grayson economy and the matching growth of naval responsibilities following Grayson’s membership in the Manticoran Alliance, the Grayson Space Navy found itself in desperate need of light units. The fact that none of its officers had ever commanded a warship heavier than a light cruiser and that they had no experience with extended deep-space hyper operations also gave Grayson good reason to begin by increasing the number of smaller ships in its Navy.

Like the rest of Grayson naval doctrine, Grayson destroyer design evolved nearly independently from the rest of the explored galaxy’s conceptions of naval power. Already at war continuously for several hundred years prior to their rediscovery, the first GSN “destroyers” were really just the lower level of two tiers of hyper-capable Grayson warships, used defensively to intercept Masadan raiders in the Yeltsin’s Star system and offensively as support units on Grayson raids into the Endicott System. Unlike most other navies, limited interstellar trade meant that GSN destroyers were not needed in the traditional commerce protection role common across the rest of human explored space.

Grayson’s Alliance membership changed the roles of its destroyers as it changed many other things. For the first time in living memory, the GSN no longer had to worry about an existential threat a handful of light-years away. Instead, it faced the potentially much larger threat of Haven and began concentrating on the development of interstellar combat power. Not content to accept “received wisdom” from their Manticoran partner, the Graysons responded with their hallmark inventiveness and reexamined their naval doctrine across the board. The end result was a concept of operations for their destroyer forces that essentially ignored traditional commerce protection missions. Instead, the forces are designed for three fleet missions: scouting, antiscouting, and screening.

First and foremost, GSN destroyers scout for a deployed battle fleet both while in hyper transit and in normal space. The new doctrine calls for a substantially larger scouting force, spread across multiple hyper sub-bands to maximize sensor performance. This increase in demand, combined with the relative ease in incorporating Manticoran technology in the smaller shipyards and a need for small-ship command billets to train the first generation of capital ship commanding officers (COs), explains the rapid initial buildup in destroyer numbers in the early days of the Alliance.

Second, and closely associated with the scouting mission, is the antiscouting mission. GSN destroyers engage light enemy scouting units as they are found, both to support their own scouting mission and to prevent enemy scouting.

Finally, once the main enemy formation is located and its composition determined, GSN doctrine calls for the destroyer force to fall back to the main body of the fleet and integrate itself into the wall of battle, augmenting the battle fleet with its sensor and antimissile capabilities.

Ararat-class destroyer (pre-Alliance)

Mass: 62,500 tons

Dimensions: 341 × 40 × 23 m

Acceleration: 526.6 G (5.164 kps²)

80% Accel: 421.2 G (4.131 kps²)

Broadside: 3M, 2L, 2CM, 2AC

Chase: 1L, 1PD

Number Built: 1

Service Life: 1874–1903

GNS
Ararat
was the oldest ship in Grayson service at the time of the battles of the final Grayson-Masadan War. As the first vessel built from the keel up to take advantage of the locally developed inertial compensator,
Ararat
could in many ways be considered the first modern GSN warship.

Like all of the pre-Alliance warships,
Ararat
mounted few broadside missile launchers, with even fewer chemical-burning counter-missiles for area defense. On the broadsides she still mounted autocannon for the point defense role but had recently been refitted with crude, but longer-ranged laser clusters to cover her vulnerable hammerheads.
Ararat
was destroyed with all hands during the Masadan War.

Zion-class destroyer (pre-Alliance)

Mass: 65,250 tons

Dimensions: 346 × 41 × 24 m

Acceleration: 525.5 G (5.154 kps²)

80% Accel: 420.4 G (4.123 kps²)

Broadside: 4M, 2L, 2CM, 3AC

Chase: 1L, 2AC

Number Built: 3

Service Life: 1879–1905

The
Zion
class was designed as a follow-on class to GNS
Ararat
. The most significant change was to add a fourth broadside missile launcher. Unfortunately, the lack of room for additional missile storage reduced the number of salvoes per launcher from eight to six. Defenses include dual gravitically driven point defense autocannon as chasers and an additional autocannon on the broadsides. These autocannon were imported ex-Solarian weapons. Grayson industry was as yet unable to construct such weapons, but the GSN was able to acquire them from Solarian reclamation yards as the SLN converted to laser clusters in more recent construction. Although the autocannon were more volume intensive than the cruder, electromagnetically driven Grayson weapons, they required much less volume and a lower energy budget than laser clusters would have, while their higher rate of fire and muzzle velocity remained more than adequate for dealing with then state-of-the-art Masadan shipkillers.

The class was scheduled to receive the same defensive upgrades as
Ararat
, but the onset of the final Masadan War disrupted those plans. GNS
Saul
, the only member of the class to survive the War, was decommissioned in 1905 PD after the first wave of the Alliance Technological Exchange Program ships arrived. Her survival in combat was directly attributed in official reports to an increased volume of defensive antimissile firepower and the dramatic improvement that her autocannon represented over the older electromagnetic guns on
Ararat
.

Jacob-class destroyer

(for specification, see RMN
Noblesse
-class DD)

Number Purchased: 7

Service Life: 1903–1921

These are former RMN
Noblesse
-class destroyers that were shipped to the GSN instead of being scrapped. Initially outdated by RMN standards, their electronics were upgraded before delivery. Complete fits of modern point defense weapons alone made them far superior to any pre-Alliance Grayson-built destroyer.

By the middle of the first war with Haven, they were mostly relegated to training duty or System Defense Command. Few of them saw action, though some were assigned as convoy escorts. They were modernized again in late 1911 with upgraded sensors and electronic warfare (EW) systems. However, given that the youngest was over seventy T-years old when they entered Grayson service, their impellers and compensators in particular were difficult to maintain. Preferring to spend scarce maintenance resources on more modern units, the GSN retired the
Jacob
class with a sense of relief as the first of the
Paul
class were commissioned.

Joseph-class destroyer

(for specification, see RMN Chanson-class DD)

Number Purchased: 3

Service Life: 1903–present

As part of the Technological Exchange Program offered by the Star Kingdom of Manticore that gave them the retired
Nobelesse
-class destroyers, three brand new Flight IV
Chanson
-class destroyers were sold to Grayson between 1903 and 1904 PD. Renamed the Joseph class when they entered
Grayson
service, these destroyers joined with the seven older
Jacob
-class destroyers as the early modern units of the GSN before the first locally built destroyer was commissioned in late 1905.

While GNS
Joseph
was lost in one of the early battles of the war, her sisters,
Manasseh
and
Ephraim
, have served the Navy well in the intervening years. Though not as capable as the newer construction, they are well suited to the picket duties and other tasks to which they are assigned. Many serving GSN flag officers had their first taste of extended deep-space hyper operations onboard one of these ships.

Joshua-class destroyer

Mass: 79,250 tons

Dimensions: 369 x 44 x 25 m

Acceleration: 548.9 G (5.383 kps²)

80% Accel: 439.1 G (4.306 kps²)

Broadside: 3M, 3L, 5CM, 4PD

Chase: 2M, 1G, 2CM, 2PD

Number Built: 44

Service Life: 1905–present

The
Joshua
-class destroyer is the first ship of its type designed specifically with GSN doctrine as its guide. While the original inspiration was the Flight IV
Chanson
-class DD, the Office of Shipbuilding had its own ideas about warship design from the review of operational data received from the RMN. Somewhat to the consternation of their new allies, the Graysons made several significant changes to the
Chanson
design before putting it into production and still managed to complete the first unit over a year before their Manticoran advisers would have believed possible.

The GSN had already begun planning for its transition from a strictly system defense force to a force able to project power outside the Yeltsin’s Star system, and the
Joshua
-class plans reflected the first steps of the evolution of current Grayson doctrine for well-protected light units to provide layered defensive support as part of a screen for the wall of battle. Indeed, the GSN committed to the Joshua-class designs almost immediately after joining the Alliance, well before the completion of their first locally produced capital ship in 1908.

The
Joshua
-class destroyers were constructed at a time when Grayson designers and shipbuilders were still getting themselves up to speed with the technological changes the alliance brought to Grayson shipbuilding. Notionally they were built in two flights, with Flight II units carrying an additional point defense cluster in each broadside, more repair remotes, larger hydroponics bays, improved maintenance capability, and the myriad other upgrades experience had proved necessary to operate on remote stations with a wall of battle. In practice, the design was in a constant state of evolution as the Grayson engineers rapidly gained confidence. These constant changes made for some interesting times for Joshua-class crews. New hardware was frequently the only example of its type in GSN service and the only training to be had was in the simulations and technical manuals installed with the hardware. RMN and builder technical support staff did their best to be everywhere at once but these personnel have always been in short supply in Manticoran service. Any
Joshua
crew member has at least one story about how he caught himself up by “a few hundred years” with only the installed simulations and his own wits to help him.

The GSN never had enough of these hulls to go around, and even while almost every single one of them was assigned to a screening squadron, they were constantly stripped off for independent scouting duties. With the outbreak of the war and the emergency construction programs, the GSN laid down another two squadrons. As screening units, they were quite capable, though most of their additional defenses came at the cost of cruise endurance, offensive capability, and other factors valued in independent command. As good a “first effort” as seen in any navy, construction tapered off as the
Paul
class began coming out of the distributed yards.