Ajax Assault Transport (Dropship) Katherine-verse AU

==Description==
Designed jointly by Free Worlds League and Capellan Confederation, the Ajax Assault Transport is a DropShip which design to support warships and troop transports to their targets. Additionally, they serve as well protected orbital storage for troops on the ground to call upon.The design was conceived by fan writer AlphaMirage for his Katherine-verse AU.
==Background History==
Post-Tukayyid the League Central Coordination and Command put out a tender for a support vessel that might be marketable to other powers and support a growing FWLM. Many warship yeads submitted a design mimicking the Kyushu or Fox Frigate as that was the dominant design theory at the time. 
All those proposals were rejected after Brigadier Incorporated and Rashpur-Owns Incorporated (ROI) submitted similar proposals for a dropship based on the Behemoth fuselage that could do the mission. 
Unwilling to tie up their expanding and full warship and jumpships yards the LCCC gave these manufacturers the option to combine their proposals. Upon inking the contract, the LCCC added ROI to their foreign tech transfer program and a prototype design submitted. This design was first applied to a mothballed CCNS Behemoth around Capella. CCDS Yue Fei was constructed for evaluation using the revised schematics for evaluation. In 3060 the first dropship constructed from the ground up the FWLDS Ajax was completed over McKenzie.
Brigadier Aerospace of MacKenzie has built the Ajax and its Capellan equivalent Yue Fei Heavy Armored Transports. Built on a similar fuselage as the Behemoth-Class Cargo DropShip's it is clad in heavy Ferro-Aluminum armor mounted on a sturdier frame, and propelled by more powerful thrusters. This vessel maintains its originator's five quad small craft hangers alongside a dozen Battlemech repair bays supported by 50-kilotons of cargo and 1.6-kilotons of fuel bunkerage.
Almost two hundred total crew split between the shuttles, gunnery, and ship's crew they and 84 passengers are protected by reinforced platoon of Marines. Numerous anti-fighter weapons protect them from attack while light sub-capital cannons and lasers along with a dozen White Shark missile launchers are mostly mounted aft to provide orbital fire support.
The Ajax/Yue Fei uses its twenty small craft to deliver cargo to the surface and its nose collar can transfer supplies directly typically to low endurance combat transports such as the Union Class DropShip.
==Armament and Capabilities==
The Ajax is a unique type of support vessel; no other Behemoth can land on a surface or provide the services, protection, and firepower it can. In the present (3080s) there are lesser clones in every Successor State army and among the Clans, typically based on the smaller Mammoth fuselage. 
As capable but far less expensive than a comparable warship five decks each support ten kilotons worth of cargo linked to five hanger bays with four shuttles apiece. Above them are a dozen mech bays surrounding the circumference of the vessel. Scattered about are sufficient spare parts and consumable stores to operate the vessel for almost two months.
However, one of the weaknesses of the design are the limitations of its shuttlecraft which are incapable of carrying more than sixty tons of cargo in containers or one complete mech/vehicle. This was not seen as such a terrible weakness for the FWLM, CCAF, MAF, or TDF who are medium weight formations. Any mech or vehicle larger than 60 tons needs to be transferred to another dropship via a space transfer or disembarked on the ground, something the expensive dropship is understandably loath to consider. These shuttles provide regular service to their ground elements picking up and dropping off cargo, passengers, and equipment planetwide at varying efficiency.
Another useful feature of the Ajax is its internal Mech depot and fabrication facilities. An Ajax can pick up a mech from the battlefield, return it to the maintenance depot whose techs issue guidance to its internal fabrication facilities. These facilities can then fabricate spare parts and structural members from carried feedstock while the technicians fix what they can until they are complete. 
The turnover for this operation is impressive with the normal crew of depot personnel being capable of fully repairing and returning a Battlemech to the battlefield the following day. Replacement parts are also made to order for vehicles or mechs then transferred to groundside technical teams increases their own productivity. Additionally these techs and fabrication facilities are useful in speeding the reassembly of disarticulated mechs carried in containers to replace any losses. Nearly five mechs can be returned to service every day and if additional technical staff are utilized a full fourteen mechs can be assembled every day to be taken to the ground by shuttles.
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Built from a civilian cargo dropship, the original specs were redesigned and repurposed for military operations. The Behemoth's engines were expanded giving it a slight boost in speed while its hull is reinforced with Heavy Ferro-Aluminum armor, giving it a quantum jump in protection from hostile forces. 
The ship armed with large array of Capital / Sub Capital Weaponry, backed up with array lasers for anti-aircraft defense.
;Capital Weapons:Its offensive Capital weaponry is found in the following sections: Nose: Houses single Tele-operated Kraken-T Capital Missile Launcher (10 Missiles). Front Right & Left Sides: four Sub-Capital Cannons (40 rounds) Aft Left & Right Sides: four Sub-Capital Lasers & four White Shark Capital Missile Launchers (40 Rounds). Aft: has a pair of Light Sub-Capital Lasers
;Standard Weapons Weapons: Ajax & it's Yue Fei copy has a strong array of conventional weapons and defense equipment; Nose (Front): Which houses five PPC, Four ER Large Lasers and pair of Screen Launchers (20 Rounds) Front Fight & Left Sides: Four ER Large Lasers, 2 Medium Pulse Lasers, and two Anti-Missile Systems (567 rounds). Aft Left & Right Sides: Four Large Pulse Lasers Aft: four Large Pulse Lasers, two Screen Launchers, and four Anti-Missile Systems (567 rounds).
;Ammunition: 144 rounds of Anti-Missile System [IS] ammunition (12 tons)80 rounds of Light SCC ammunition (80 tons) 80 rounds of White Shark ammunition (3,200 tons)10 rounds of Kraken (Tele-Operated) ammunition (1,000 tons)40 rounds of Screen Launcher ammunition (400 tons)
==Cargo==
Bay 1:     Small Craft (20)   4 Doors
Bay 2:     Mech (12)     0 Door
Bay 3:     Ship’s Cargo (463.0 tons)  0 Door
Bay 4-8    Cargo (10,000.0 tons ea.)   5 Door
==Game Stats Breakdown==
Tech Rating: F/X-X-F-E
Total Cost: 1,617,011,200 C-bills
Battle Value 2: 19,177
Escape Pods / Life Boats 15 / 10
Structural Integrity: 50
==Notes==
*Only Record Sheet was provide for this vehicle, no additional information was provided other than it's brief mentioning in Fleet Admiral's Guide to the Inner Sphere (Katherine-verse)
==External Links==
*Record Sheet for the Ajax Assault Transport DropShip (Ammunition missing, Cargo Bays not update)
==References==
Ajax / Yue Fei
Ajax / Yue Fei DropShip
Ajax / Yue Fei DropShip