Von der Tann-class battlecruiser

The Von der Tann-class battlecruiser (: CB) is a model of in service with the . Originally laid down as the Wyvern-class super-cruiser by SinoViet Heavy Machinery for the CMA Navy, budget constraints brought on by the discovery of the Colonial Military Authorities ties to the United Rebel Front would see construction of the vessels being at postponed, with their half-built hulls being place into long term storage.
However, following the outbreak of and the reactivation of UNSC Navy's the incomplete ships would be transferred to the UNSC with the UNSC Navy's Bureau of Naval Architecture taking over control of the project, redesigning the by now nameless hulls to carry a single Super-Magnetic Accelerator Cannon in place of the ships original armament, with construction being transferred to Martian Metals Shipyards, who were already experienced with this weapons system due to the Vanguard-class.
In spite their troubled history, the Von der Tann's would become one of the UNSC's early efforts to produce cruisers that were capable of directly challenging their Covenant opponents, with the class as a whole achieving a respectable opinion amongst senior UNSC officers. However, despite this and owing to the ships origins as a heavily up gunned cruiser from the CMA, the ships would often be overlooked in favour of the more familiar which were better suited to act as command ships, and the later which would learn many the lessons learned in the Von der Tann's to deliver a far more deadly combatant.
Despite being overshadowed by other vessels of their type, the class as a whole would achieve an impressive service career, with many of the ships amassing respectable kill records during their service lives. Despite these performances, whilst the ships carried battleship levels of firepower, they lacked the protection needed to stand up to the ferocity of the alien attackers, with the class being whittled down to only a few remaining ships by the wars end. Following which the few remaining hulls were withdrawn from active service within a few years of the end of hostilities due to a combination of excessive wear from decades of hard service, and their replacement by newer and more capable designs such as the and the Block-III Artemis-class.
However, having learned of the need for a available force of powerful UNSC vessels in the event of hostilities against another powerful enemy, the UNSC would not scrap the Von der Tann's instead placing them into long term storage alongside a number of older, yet still capable vessels should a need for them arise in the future.
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==Overview==
===Inception===
During the 2480's the interservice rivalry between the and the UNSC with some on both sides fearing that the increasing tensions between the two military organisations could erupt into full scale conflict if one side was sufficiently provoked. As a result of this situation, both the CMA and the UNSC had begun construction of a series of advanced warship classes in an effort to demonstrate their own superiority and the inferiority of their opposite numbers, a process that would reach its climax in the CMA's development of the gigantic , which was the largest warship class constructed by humanity up to that point. This was then responded to by UNSC with the commissioning of the heavily armed , which carried the heaviest armament placed onto a human warship at that time, centred around a pair of the newly developed Super Heavy Magnetic Accelerator Cannons.
However, whilst the public focus of this arms race had become fixed upon both parties flagship projects, work was underway on both sides into the development of a new generation of cruiser designs to replace both navies rapidly aging designs, many of which had entered service prior to the development of the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon.
===Development===
In 2490, shortly ater learning of the Vanguard's the UNSC would escalate the situation by authorising the construction of the new Valiant-class super-heavy cruiser's, which upon gaining access to the specifications of the new ships showed to the CMA that the new vessels would vast outclass all existing CMA cruiser's currently in service.
As a result the CMA would authorise the development of a next-generation cruiser design, both to compete with the new Valiant's but to also address the fleets firepower disadvantage in the wake of the emergence of the Vanguard's. Fortunately, the CMA was able to take advantage of the existing close relationship that they had fostered with SinoViet as not only were they able to secure the complete plans of the Valiant-class, but were able to utilise both the same design team as the Valiant, but were able to learn from the research conducted in the ships development to accelerate the process of designing a counter them.
With the official support of SinoViet, the CMA would base their new ship on one of the larger preliminary designs that had been rejected on cost grounds by the UNSC, but which now would incorporate a number of CMA standard systems along with the stipulation for an increased armament over the already well armed Valiant's.
One key issue with the development of the ship would be in the chose of main armament, as the introduction of Super-MAC guns on the Vanguard's had caused some senior members of the the CMA leadership team to campaign for a similar weapon system to be fitted to the new ships in response. However, this view received stiff opposition from both the majority of the CMA Navy's staff due to a mixture of the high development and operating cost of this system, underscored by SinoViet's designers raising concerns over the feasibility of the company developing their own version of the new weapon for the CMA within the allotted time frame, along with highlighting the companies lack of experience in the either the design, or construction of ships with this armament.
In the end the a compromise would be struck with the new vessels being ordered with a main battery of two of the existing 50GE1A Series 5 Magnetic Accelerator Cannons, but with the caveat that the ships could be rearmed to carry a single SMAC gun if the choice of armament was reconsidered, along with the request for SinoViet to begin the development of their own Super-MAC gun system.
===Construction===
With the decision over the choice of armament made, construction of the first of the first of the ships would begin in 2494 with the intention for the first four ships to enter service in 2498 and for all 16 to be in service by 2501, with the ships being built in public yards rather than at the CMA's secretive Assembly Plant Zeus like the larger Punic-class. Publicly this decision was seen by many as an overt statement of Colonial Military Authority challenge the UNSC's hegemony across Human space, with some commentators stating that the coming century would see hostilities break out between the two supposedly allied groups.
However, issues would rapidly begin to affect construction, primarily these being in efforts by the UNSC Navy to ensure that priority was given to UNSC ships under construction in SinoViet yards including the redirection of construction materials to these ships over the still as of yet unnamed CMA cruisers. Further to this the CMA would further be hindered by sabotage efforts against the Punic's being conducted by ONI agents in cooperation with the UNSC Navy, forcing the redirection of critical CMA spec parts being sent to be fitted to the carriers, further slowing down construction with the first four ships now being expected to be entering service in 2502, four years later than had originally been expected. It was during this period that the CMA would finally allocate names to the new class, emphasising their combat prowess and superiority over their UNSC counterparts by naming each of the ships after a mythical creature with some suggesting dubbing them as the Mythic-class, however the it was instead decided to name entire the class after the lead ship, thus the class would be officially named as the Wyvern-class super-cruiser.
===Cancelation===
However, in 2500 all construction efforts would be further hampered in the wake of Operation: STURGEON which had resulted in both the loss of the Colonial Military Authority top secret Assembly Plant Zeus, along with the three Punic's that had still been under construction during its seizure. Further to this, owing to the intelligence reports gathered by ONI that had resulted in Operation: STURGEON a massive investigation into collusion between members of the Colonial Military Authority and the Insurrection being launched, resulting in a number of officers who had campaigned for the vessels construction being removed due loyalty to the UEG being placed into question following the discovery of links to the rebels. 
As a result of this multiple blows, the CMA was forced to reallocate their now reduced budget into constructing four more Punic's that had been ordered in response to the loss of the ships in Operation: STURGEON that like the Wyvern's had been laid down in SinoViet yards within public sight in the hope that their public construction could not be as easily disrupted. Abet this would come at the cost of work being slowed on the Wyvern's to free up the needed personnel to help construct the larger vessels, at least until SinoViet could recover the personnel that were currently being detained in the now UNSC controlled Assembly Plant Zeus.
Unfortunately for the CMA, in 2502 events would now overtake the Wyvern-class as whilst the CMA had rescinded the requirement for the ability to refit the ships with Super-MAC guns in the wake of reports into the issues plaguing the Vanguard's, the Gravel's Ridge Incident would prove to be the death knell to both the once powerful organisation, and in turn any future with the CMA. With both the UEG and the public now aware of the 'infestation' of the Colonial Military Authority by Insurrectionist agents, the CMA would have both its budget and fleet being gutted by both the UEG and UNSC, with the latter taking in all bar one of the completed already Punic's. Worse still, CMA was prohibited from the construction or completion of additional vessels larger than the which were vitally needed to replace the CMA's majority pre-MAC fleet, with the existing ships that were already in service being forced into either storage due to a lack of funds to operate them. With construction now being cancelled indefinitely, the sixteen incomplete Wyvern's would languish in varying states of completion in SinoViet yards being steadily picked for parts to sustain existing ships that were still in service with the CMA.
Despite SinoViet's wishes the company was unable to dispose of the hulks due to the drop of scrap value in the wake of the mass scrapping of obsolete ships by both sides during the UNSC-CMA cold war, along with the cancelation of the last twenty nine ships of the Valiant-class meaning that the company would make a substantial financial loss on the ships. Further to this, despite not having taking possession of the ships from SinoViet, the CMA Navy still retained a final say over the ships fates, and thus any sale to the UNSC could not be completed due to the CMA's demand for exorbitant payments for their sale, made worse by SinoViet's already hefty estimate for how much it would cost to finish the incomplete vessels. As a result of this situation, the incomplete skeletons of the Wyvern's would become a familiar sight across human space, with a common joke remarking how the they had imitated their mythical namesakes. 
===Completion===
Despite having been left untouched for nearly twenty-three years, the outbreak of the Human-Covenant war would see a change in fate for the class as with the need for large and powerful vessels to counter the greatly superior ships of the Covenant Navy. As a result in 2526 the UNSC would immediately take possession of all remaining powerful CMA assets that the organisation still retained in return for transferring of a number of cheaper and easier to maintain vessels from the UNSC reserves.
However, efforts to secure the incomplete Wyvern's would be nearly undone by the interference of senior CMA officials, who demanded that as the ships that the UNSC would receive would technically be 'brand new' they should in-turn receive ships in a similar state, much to the consternation of members of both parties. Fortunately, the UNSC was eventually able to secure the ships through the transfer of the entirety of the second production run of the , under the assumption that they could eventually reacquire the ships at a later date. With their new ships secured, the ships would be formally transferred to the UNSC in January of 2527, although not before the vessels had been stripped of their CMA names for reallocation to their new frigates leaving the class once again as nameless skeletons of incomplete warships, now only designated by their new hull codes of CB-31 through CB-46.
Despite the UNSC now being in control of the ships, work would not recommence on the vessels as discussions were undertaken to determine in what form the ships should be completed, with the most likely options being to complete the ships to their intended specifications using existing materials, or to incorporate developments made in the intervening decades to give the UNSC a more powerful vessel than had been originally intended. In the end the decision was made for the ships through the combat debut of the refitted and modernised Vanguard-class battleships with their now working SMAC-guns against Covenant forces such as at the Battle of XI Boötis A, which had finally vindicated the class and their infamous armament when a single Vanguard had mortally wounded the Syfon-pattern assault carrier Piety's Reward with her opening salvo. In response to these reports the UNSC would order that the incomplete ships were to be completed to a heavily revised design centred around the fitting with a single CR-01D SMAC gun, the same model of SMAC in service with the Vanguard's and that was in the process of being retro fitted in to the Punic's in place of the twin heavy coil MAC's that had been the ships intended armament for much of its development.
Owing to a lack of experience with the working with these weapons and already encountering issues with the refitting of the Punic's, the UNSC elected to transfer completion of the ships from SinoViet to their pre-war market rivals Martian Metals Shipyards who had already worked with these weapons during the construction of the Vanguard's. Additionally, having learned from the issues encountered with the SMAC guns of the battleships, the UNSC Navy assigned the Bureau of Naval Architecture's Dr Daniel Boone who had both designed and oversaw the refitting of the Vanguard's, and was thus the leading expert in the requirements that came with these powerful weapons.
Shortly after construction of the ships had been transferred to the supervision of Martian Metals Shipyards, discussions began regarding the classification of the ships due to the increase in armament from a cruiser grade armament to one that had up to this point only been present on a battleship, thus leading to the vessels from being Super-cruiser's to being Battlecruiser's. An unexpected side-effect of this change would be the decision by the UNSC Navy, taking inspiration from Vanguard's by assigning the new vessels names drawn from historic 20th century battlecruisers, with the ships being now referred to as the Von der Tann-class after the first battlecruiser of the Imperial German Navy.
==Specifications==
===Propulsion and Powerplant===
===Armament===
===Armour and Superstructure===
===Countermeasures===
==Service History==
==Operational Practice==
===Strengths===
===Weaknesses===
===Tactics===
==Ships of the Line==
Name 	HullClassificationSymbol	Commissioned	Destroyed	Notes
UNSC Von derr Tann(ex-CMA Wyvern) 	CB-31 	2530 	 	Lead ship of the class.
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Unicorn)Free slot for anyone to take. Just remember that these were initially laid down as CMA vessels which had their original names transferred to Frigates in 2525.	CB-32 	2530 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Hodag) 	CB-33 	2530 	 	
UNSC Moltke(ex-CMA Phoenix)Submitted by . 	CB-34 	2530 	2552 	Destroyed at the Fall of Reach.
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Amarok) 	CB-35 	2531 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Minotaur) 	CB-36 	2531 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Yacumama) 	CB-37 	2531 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Fenrir) 	CB-38 	2531 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Griffin) 	CB-39 	2532 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Sphinx) 	CB-40 	2532 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Kraken) 	CB-41 	2532 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Basilisk) 	CB-42 	2532 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Tarantasio) 	CB-43 	2533 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Chimera) 	CB-44 	2533 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Otso) 	CB-45 	2533 	 	
UNSC ???(ex-CMA Lindworm) 	CB-46 	2533 	 	
==UNSC Remarks==
==Gallery==
===Ship pictures===
===Ship badges===
CB-31 UNSC Von der Tann.png|Badge for the UNSC Von derr Tann.
CB-34 UNSC Moltke.png|Badge for the UNSC Moltke.
==Notes==
Category:Falkeno
Category:Battlecruiser classes