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Designation:
Thuverl Salan Mar-class Heavy Cruiser
Note: While Marduk ships have been assigned Terran naval/space type
designators, it must be stressed that their size and armaments placed them in a
class of their own, matched only by contemporary construction of like
designations. As such, their designations must be viewed as indicators of intent
and use rather than absolute strength.
Names and disposition:
These ships were built at numerous locations throughout the Marduk Empire for
several thousand years. There has only been one version of the design; though
subsystems such as the fold system were upgraded over time, the impacts were not
major enough to warrant a new version number.
The exact number of constructed units cannot be given due to the loss of
records. However, an estimated guess puts their number at approx. 6 million units.
Of this number, approx. 1 million were destroyed prior to 2063. Approx. 4.8
million
of the remaining units were destroyed during the 4th Robotech War
(2063-2070). Estimates place the total units remaining at approx. 200,000
dispersed throughout the galaxy.
Ship's complement:
- Ships' crew (800 men)
- Zentran troops (9500 combat ready)
- Meltran troops (2000 combat ready)
- Marduk troops (1000 combat ready)
- Emulators (3)
- Life support limits are for a full combat complement and about 19,200
supernumaries (20,000 men total).
Note: The given numbers are approximations; the exact number varied
somewhat due to operational realities and different ships.
Dimensions:
- Length: 3000 meters overall
- Height: 750 meters overall
- Width: 680 meters overall
- Fuel Mass:
22,000,000 metric tons
- Operational mass (typical):
84,000,000
metric tons
Propulsion systems:
-
Main power system(1): Anti-matter reflex furnace cluster.
The powerplant of a Thuverl Salan Mar-class vessel can nominally deliver up to
200 Petawatts of power, and can operate for 120 minutes at maximum power
before overheat initiates auto-shutdown.
- Maneuvering Thrusters(74): fusion-plasma reaction
thruster clusters with steerable nozzles. Fifteen thrusters are mounted on the
dorsal circumference of each engine blister, four are mounted in the dorsal
hull inboard of each engine blisters, four are mounted to the sides of the aft
superstructure, twelve in the forward part of the hangar doors, and eight on
each side of the nose, four on the dorsal and four on the ventral.
-
Reaction-mass thrusters (3) : All are fusion-plasma reaction
thrusters with anti-matter energizer. Mounted in either of the sponsoons and
one in the center main hull. There are no
forward thrusters; breaking maneuvers are made with the aft main thrusters
using exhaust deflectors opening in the engine pods and through ports in the
upper aft hull.
- Anti-gravity system (1): 340 anti-gravity pods.
- Gravitic displacement drive (1): local monopolar-induced
gravitic space-time distortion drive.
- Space fold (1): Spacefold Drive. This system generates a
hull-conformal fold.
- Planetary capabilities: The Thuverl Salan-Mar class has
atmospheric capabilities through its reaction engines and anti-gravity
systems. The hull has sufficient structural strength to make a cold landing,
but the lower sensor antenna will need to fold inside the hull first to avoid
crushing them. The ship will float in an ocean, but only the upper
ingress/egress ports will open above the waterline, which greatly hampers
access to the ship.
Endurance and mobility limits:
(all estimated based on storage space, fuel capacity
and similarities to Local Group designed ships)
- The dry stores endurance is 17 months maximum; after that, the ships of
this class need to restock. Water stores are recycled almost totally. If fewer
or no auxiliary vessels are carried, the freed hangar space can be used to
store additional consumables.
- The mecha consumables supplies (mainly
missiles) are plentiful due to the volume of the ship; the Thuverl Salan
Mar-class is able to sustain continuous combat operations for more than 20
days.
The missile magazines for the ship's own launchers are typically empty after
three major space battles. - At full power, the main propulsion systems can
nominally produce up to 1.4 Teranewtons of thrust at a minimal reaction mass efficiency profile, or as
little as 27 Giganewtons of thrust at a maximum efficiency setting. At lower
power levels, these thrusts are commensurately smaller.
- At full power, the Thuverl Salan-Mar can nominally achieve a maximum delta-v
of 408 kps at the cruising acceleration of 0.7G, a maximum delta-v of 81.6 kps
at the battle acceleration of 2.5G, and a delta-v of at most 25.5 kps at the
flank acceleration of 4.8G. At lower power levels, these
ranges are commensurately smaller.
- The fold systems were not navigationally guaranteed for any single jump
beyond 10 kiloparsecs. If longer voyages were required, the ship had to
conduct multiple fold jumps.
- The maximum sustained atmospheric speed is Mach 2. The maximum hover time
on the anti-gravity systems is limited only by maintenance requirements.
- The hull has a designed life-time (including regular refits) of
approximately 12000 years.
Weapon systems
-
Tachyon cannon(4): The main anti-ship weapons are four tachyon
cannons mounted forward on the ventral and dorsal hull. The tachyon beam has an
effective range of 50,000 km. and a full power discharge of 200.1 GJ. Although
the cannon could be fired at lower power settings (and commensurate increases
in the rate of fire) the highest power setting was typical in combat. The rate
of fire at this setting was approximately five salvos per minute.
- Reaper cannon(35) : This the Marduk variation on the
Zentraedi combination cannon. Two different beam weapons (variable
frequency laser and reaper cannon) are provided on one mount so that the
discharge medium can be chosen as the optimum for the local target and
environment conditions. Both weapons have the same yield at the muzzle. The
laser can be fired in a low power mode directly before the particle beam
fires, this setting is typically used to burn a vacuum path for the particles
through an atmosphere. Because of the slow recharge time of the larger
weapons, and the flexibility inherent in the double mount, this cannon turret
is the weapon system most often utilized on board Marduk vessels. For ground
support, it is the only effective weapon as the other systems are to heavy to
be used around own troops. The cannon has an effective range of 70,000 km. Each full-intensity shot has a yield of
2.3 GJ, and the cannons can cycle through their firing sequence once every
three seconds. Although these cannons are mounted to provide fire on all
bearings, the highest concentration is in the nose and on the sides of the
nose.
- Torpedo tubes(30): A reloadable Silo Launch System (RSLS),
or as it is better known, a torpedo tube, capable of firing large anti-ship
and ground bombardment torpedoes. The tubes can reload in 10 seconds, and
have a 15 round magazine close-by. The missiles used are the ASZM-1 Asteroth,
ASZM-2
Basilisk,
ASZM-3 Serephis. The former is a nuclear missile with a 450
kT reaction warhead, the second is a conventional tipped missile with a
warhead of 1 metric ton. The third is an interesting weapon which is only used
to disrupt enemy communications and radar. It sends off a massive EM pulse and
acts after that as a jammer station. All missiles are
optimized for anti-ship strikes in deep space, but can be used in orbital
bombardment modes or in an atmosphere.
- Missile launchers(70): A missile launcher mounted in a
pop-up turret, firing anti-mecha/missile missiles, though the projectiles
can guide on point-blank enemy ships. The turret run by an AI system which
selects the best missile for the target. The most common missile
system used is the
SAZM-1 Lucifer, a weapon with a conventional blast
fragmentation warhead of 60 kg and an atmospheric range of 40 km. at a
speed of Mach 12.5. If heavier targets are present, then often it will be
the SAZM-2 Cain, a weapon with a
180 kg blast fragmentation warhead and a
range of 15 km. If faster targets are present then the missile of
choice is the SAZM-3
Lilith which has a 30 kg fragmentation warhead, but has a top speed of
Mach 15 and a range of 20 km. When the missiles are released they
are already on their intercept vectors, or very close to them. Each turret
has a reload time of 6 seconds and a magazine with a 800 round capacity.
They are mounted for spherical coverage.
Air group and mecha complement:
Note: The given numbers are approximations; the exact number and
type of mecha varied somewhat due to operational realities and different ships.
Design notes:
History:
Unknown. Sketchy details exist but nothing concrete. Most information has
been classified top secret by the RDF and UNT Government.
Return to
Marduk Imperial
Naval Vessel Index
Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. This document is in no way
intended to infringe upon their rights.
Layout adapted from Robotech
Reference Guide
Content by Jeffrey R. Spillner
Copyright © 1998-2002 Jeffrey R. Spillner
Page Last Updated on January 21, 2002 @ 14:00 GMT
