USS Kitty Hawk

Ship Name: USS Kitty Hawk 
Brief description of ship:A Trilobite with three Cigars mounted on it's lower rear edge
The USS Kitty Hawk is a Saipan Class assault carrier.  The Ship was obviously hacked from the Ambassador class. The Saipan class used many of the same systems and components.
Unlike the Ambassador class starship, The Kitty Hawk and her sisters were specialized as carriers.  They carried attack shuttles and assault shuttles.  The Kitty Hawk and her sisters were intended to approach problems spots where massed phaser cannon and photon torpedoes are too indescriminate, and deploy more controlled and precise selections of fire power, attack shuttles to reduce weapons and obstacles and assault shuttles with marines to engage opposing troops.
The Kitty Hawk class are also very handy for disaster relief and evacuation missions.
The ships retain some multi-mission capability, since they borrow so much from the Ambassador class systems and components. Any given Saipan class could be a decent medium cruiser.  But they rarely get the chance.  There were never many built, so the ones that are still in service get used a lot for their main mission, Orbit to ground assault. 
The Saipan class are most often seen with Saber-class escorts and Norway class frigates.
The Saipan class are routinely updated and their engines upgraded. Although they appear unweildy, with updated energy management and engine control systems, they can maintain respectable speed. 
Campaign role for the ship:To carry the Banshee Squadron into adveture
Fleet role:Assault Carrier
Age:About 40 years in 2379
Distinguishing Marks (Odd paint job, repair scars etc.)The Saipan class were notable for discarding a lot of asthetics for function. 
Equipment Quirks and Problems:The Kitty Hawk burned through engines and often had her engines rebuilt or replaced.
Equipment Advantages:The Kitty Hawk borrowed from the leading edge of Federation Engine Technology. Her nacelles looked chunky and a little old fashioned, but she was a race car under the hood. 
Shuttles, number, any odd ones?Oodles.  During the City-of-Port-Royal Incident, the Kitty Hawk carried Banshee Squadron, a group of Kestral class attack shuttles (Fighters, colloquially) and Assault Shuttles
Primary Power: The Kitty hawk had a top grade warp core. As technology improved, her warp core was refit or replaced by the most advanced model available.
Secondary Power: The Kitty Hawk used robust and reliable Impulse engines. By the late 24th century this technology is old and well understood. 
Primary Weapons: The Kitty hawk's primary weapon were her shuttle bays.  With these, she could deploy numbers of shuttles to accomplish special missions. 
Secondary Weapons: The Kitty hawk had Standard Class IX Collimated Phaser arrays. These were upgraded as time went on to Standard Federation class X phasers. 
The Kitty hawk also had photon torpedo launchers.  
The Kitty Hawk and her sisters mounted approximately the same broadside as an Ambassador class cruiser. 
Crew:The Kitty Hawk usually carried about 500 enlisted people and officers, this was heavily biased towards support for the shuttle craft the Kitty hawk Carried. 
CO Zang Chong,  Human, Male from Earth.  (2379)
XO
OPS Lieutenant Egeira - Bolian, Female (2379)
SEC
CENG
CMO Doctor Xyaor, Deltan female.
CSc
OtherColonel Tarik, Commander of a detachment of Starfleet marines and their assault shuttles (Tempary 2379)Banshee Squadron  (Tempary 2379)
History:The Kitty Hawk was built using the Ambassador class as a basis, so anyone familiar with an Ambassador class starship would be able to figure out the Kitty Hawk.  They were built in the 2330s and 2340s.
Not many of the Saipan class were built, so the ships were constantly on the move. A small handful were built after the first 16 ships of the kind were finished. 
Because the Saipan class' missions were often critical, they were always moving at high warp from one situation to the next. 
Over time this led to excessive wear and the Saipan class often had their engines rebuilt or replaced. Their main power and engine systems were always being upgraded to allow longer, faster high speed dashes. 
When the Galaxy Class and Nebula Class were built, they included multiple shuttle bays and one large one.  This allowed Galaxy and Nebula class cruisers to do most of the same missions the Saipan class were tasked with. 
These missions could be broken down into two types - Orbit to Ground assault.  These were unusual missions.  Usually Starships could effect rescues by dropping teams using transporters.  However, sometimes hand held weaponry wasn't quite enough but main starship phaser batteries were too much.  Then you'd send in attack shuttles. 
In a contested environment it would possible to block transporter activity. 
So you'd send troops to the target zone in assault shuttles.
And if you needed to do that, you'd use a Saipan Class, assuming one was available and could reach your target zone in a reasonable amount of time. 
The other type mission commonly assigned to the Saipan class were relief missions. On these missions large amounts of relief supplies needed to be delivered to people in need. Then the Kitty hawk would be loaded up with cargo and utility shuttles to ferry supplies to the surface.
Alternatively, the multiple shuttles and transporters of the Kitty Hawk could be used to evacuate injured people or people under threat by an on going event. 
The Kitty Hawk usually flew with escorts and frigates, forming a task force or a battle group.  
Since the Kitty Hawk was usually needed for an armed rescue attempt or a crisis relief mission, she rarely got to go "Where no man has gone before."  It was rare for the Kitty Hawk to encounter strange new worlds or new civilizations. 
Although the ship was often busy and in such situations heavy duty cycles were asked of the crew, many found it an odd mix of boring and traumatizing. It was boring during cruise mode, and could be traumatizing when injured or hostile people were brought aboard.
Some Starfleet people, having suffered from an encounter with a toxicly weird phenomenon or creatures found the routine and reality-based missions of the Kitty Hawk comforting.
In later years, the Saipan class were suplemented by Galaxy and Nebula class starships, and found themselves more often doing space lane patrols trying to be in position to intercept a ship in trouble.
Enterprise-D Scale (Where 1000 is the Enterprise-D in 2364) as of 2379Science capacity - 650Crew Comfort - 800Duration - 600Medical facilities - 1000Tactical maneuvering - 850Strategic Speed - 3000Defense - 1125Offense - 850Versatility - 850Internal Security – 1125
This write up and use in Jay Trek was inpired by this page. http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_saipan.html
Category:Starfleet
Category:Ships
Category:ST-OM