Belenus-class Battleship

The Belenus-class Battleship was an experimental battleship built by the collaboration between Raggrin Shipyards and Felix Weapon Technologies to try and replicate the Covenant's plasma projector onto a human vessel. The project behind the ship was first proposed by elements within ONI's who had studied the Covenant's pulse laser and plasma projector weaponry as far back as 2542.
==Operational History==
===Origin and development===
The Belenus was originally proposed by members within REAP-X who had seen great progress in improving upon the already existing, yet limited, laser weaponry of humanity with scavenged Covenant technology. The breakthrough came in late 2547 when REAP-X successfully produced a high powered energy canon. ONI then used Felix Weapon technologies, an ONI front company, to find ship construction companies that could design a ship that could utilize the new technology. Several companies partitioned to be allowed to work with the new technology. Many designs were put forward, but most of them seemed to simply relay on too old designs.
It was first when Dr. Armed Sharif, an old ship designer who was about to retire, from the small Raggrin Shipyards company, that ONI chose a winner. Raggrin was contacted and ONI funded the development of the first prototype with over a dozen false backers to pump money into the project. Dr. Sharif made the Belenus his top priority as he saw it as his last job before his retirement and his legacy to the human military.
While Sharif was known as a brilliant designer and had a good team behind him it wasn't long before problems arose. Firstly there a problem with the amount of energy the CEZ56 Nonlinear Beam Cannon consumed with each shot but this was only the first step of the long list of problems that had to be dealt with as the prototype was being constructed. ONI, while still primarily focusing on the construction of the UNSC Infinity, wanted the best of the best added to the Belenus as they had plans for the class to enter mass production at some point and lead the way for a new series of warships to fight back the Covenant. ONI, through Felix Weapons Technologies, also wanted to outfit the ship with energy shielding as well as top-of-the-line armor plating. The shield generators, however, would place an even bigger strain on the Belenus' reactors that were already running at maximum capacity. To this end, was Dr. Sharif forced to rethink the power problem and his solution was simply to add more reactors to the ship at the cost of cargo hold, hanger bays and troop quarters. This solved the problem with the power output to power the ship's various systems and weapons but severely limited the amount of materials and troops that the ship could carry.
The prototype of the ship had been pushed into construction in early 2548 and was already finished by December 29th, 2552. The speed at which the prototype was build was an impressive display of coordination of the different shipyards owned by Raggrin. Each shipyard was tasked with constructing a specific part of the ship which would then be assembled at Raggrin's biggest shipyard above Jörmungandr. During the construction of the separate parts of the prototype, it became clear that the cost of the ship would greatly exceed the maximum cost limit. While the prototype was being assembled was Dr. Sharif and several other members from Raggrin meeting with Felix Weapon Technologies and UNSC Navy representatives to discuss what cause of actions to take considering the cost. Some of the Navy representatives voiced their opinion of terminating the project, letting the sole prototype be the only one of its class to ever sail through the vacuum of space. Dr. Sharif would have none of that and instead suggested that they lowered the cost by downgrading the armor of the ship to a lower grade to save money. Many were skeptical about this but the graphs showed that the less expensive and durable armor would keep the ship's expenses just within acceptable limits. The changes were accepted by all members in the project and the finalized specifics and design was pushed into construction with the planned construction of the UNSC Redfield.
==Post Human-Covenant War==
==Layout==
The Belenus 
==Armament==
==Propulsion==
==Reactors==
==UNSC and ONI remarks==
==Ships of the Line==
Name 	Hull Classification Symbol	Commissioned 	Destroyed	Notes
UNSC Belenus 	BB-15 	 	N/A 	Lead ship of the class.
UNSC Redfield	BB-17 	December 21st, 2558	 	
Category:Battleship classes
Category:UNSC Ship Classes
Category:UNSC