UNSC Dreadnought

The UNSC Dreadnought (hull number BB-51) is a Thanatos-class heavy battleship currently in service in the . Commissioned in 2550 as part of Project: OUROBOROS, the Dreadnought would be the third Thanatos commissioned of the four that would see combat in the . Built at the SinoViet Heavy Machinery shipyards above Reach, she would see combat in the last battles of the Human-Covenant War, at grueling Inner Colony sieges such as the Greydowns, Ballast, Reach and Earth. Surviving all this at brutal cost to her crew, the Dreadnought would be repaired and refitted to post-war standards, re-entering frontline service in 2554. She would then serve as the flagship of the UNSC's Sigma Octanus Fleet, now known as Task Force Buccaneer as they fight against Cortana's Created across formerly UNSC-controlled space.
== Operational History==
===Construction, 2545-2550===
Laid down at the Hades Special Assembly Plant around Reach, the UNSC Dreadnought was the third ship to be laid down to the Thanatos-class design. With its stablemate at the Poseidon Special Assembly Plant, the two ships were expected to be commissioned in 2550, in a five-year construction timetable. Work progressed quickly on the two ships, as the preceding battleships Thanatos and Mars were launched to clear their plants for the next two battleships. The ships would be launched in 2547, making way for yet another two of the Thanatos-class. The almost unending budget of the program ensured there were no delays in shipments of materials, weapons and systems to the Dreadnought, thanks to the direct supervision of Vice Admiral Hieronymus Stanforth.
In 2548, the Dreadnought would begin its fitting out process, as the hull was completed. Finished by April 2550, the ship would undergo a quiet, unremembered commissioning ceremony above Reach. Attended by Stanforth, Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and several other officials, the ship would be ushered into service, rushed immediately to frontline service at the Battle of Saratov, under the command of Captain Martin Winsbury and equipped with the 'smart' AI Ekaterina.
===Early Service, 2550===
Arriving at the Saratov System in May 2550, it would encounter a battered, shallow remnant of the UNSC's defence fleet, regrouped at the outer edge of the system. The Covenant had landed upon the planet, with the UNSC forces on the ground fighting a desperate battle against the Covenant invaders. The Dreadnought would arrive with a relief force detached from the Epsilon Eridani Fleet. The battlecruiser Atlas, the cruisers Mondale, Appalachia, Damocles and I Am The Danger, nine destroyers and eighteen frigates would join the remaining five ships from the Saratov Defence Squadron, replenishing arms before the Dreadnought would go on the offensive. 
The ad-hoc fleet would encounter the Covenant force near the planet. Some twenty Covenant ships, led by a CAS-class assault carrier, would quickly spot the threat and move to engage. The Dreadnought would fire first, followed by the Atlas, with their combined salvo destroying the CAS-class assault carrier. The Covenant fleet seemed to lose much cohesion afterwards, becoming much easier to deal with for the UNSC battlegroup. The Dreadnought's extremely powerful 40C1R2 SMACs proved their worth, securing five confirmed kills for the battleship in its first engagement, giving it ace status in just forty minutes.
With the space around Saratov secured, the UNSC fleet would withdraw as a defensive fleet, containing the mighty supercarrier UNSC Jutland, would move to aid in the ground battle. The Dreadnought and her squadron would then return to Reach, only to be dispatched to yet another battle, this time at Meridian.
The ongoing siege at Meridian had lulled recently, however fighting began to pick up in a much more intense manner, when a Covenant fleet, led by two DDS-class carriers, jumped into the system to reinforce the Covenant gains. The Dreadnought would arrive in-system on the 12th July 2550, where they would immediately be engaged by Covenant picket ships. Quickly destroying them, the UNSC task force moved to engage the larger Covenant fleet and push them away from the UEG colony. Mauling each other from long-range with MACs and plasma torpedoes, the two fleets would withdraw after heavy casualties on both sides. Whilst the Covenant fleet had lost one of the DDS-class carriers and a dozen escort vessels, the Dreadnought's battlegroup lost the cruisers Mondale and Appalachia, and the twenty-seven escorting destroyers and frigates had dropped to just eight.
The two fleets would remain in Meridian's system for a time, not engaging as they repaired battle damage and awaited for further reinforcements. For the UNSC, these desperately-needed reinforcements would arrive on the 30th of July, with the eighty-nine ship fleet of Battlegroup Alpha, led by the Vanguard-class battleship UNSC Thunderer. This fleet would then move to destroy the remaining Covenant vessels before their reinforcements arrived, engaging the squadron in a short twenty minute engagement that destroyed the last 19 Covenant vessels, in exchange for five UNSC ships: A great propaganda coup for the UNSC, which was used to losing three times as much as the Covenant in battles they would consider victories.
For the remainder of 2550, the Dreadnought would stay in the Epsilon Eridani System, repairing battle damage and waiting for the call to arms the crew craved. In this time the Dreadnought would receive a non-regulations paint job, with the addition of a long red stripe around the lower half of the hull, symbolising the red hulls of 20th Century battleships and the Dreadnought's successful service career.
===Inner Colony Defence, 2551-2552===
In January of 2551, the Dreadnought would be dispatched to the Concord System along with several other UNSC vessels, to act as planetary defence due to ONI reports stating that Concord was soon to be discovered by the Covenant. The Concord Defence Fleet, led by the Dreadnought, was alerted to the possibility, and soon the entire system was under military governance in adherence to the WINTER CONTINGENCY. 
The reports were proven correct in March, as a Covenant fleet would exit slipspace on the 27th. Consisting of ninety-three ships, the fleet far outnumbered the Concord Defence Fleet of just forty-four vessels. However after retreating to the edge of the system, the fleet would be reinforced on the 29th by a further 103 ships from various defence fleets in the Inner Colonies. Buoyed by the newfound strength, the Dreadnought would lead a counterattack on the Covenant fleet. Despite having landed forces on the planet, the troops on Concord fought on, supplemented by the deployment of two Spartan teams. In a seventy minute engagement, the entire Covenant fleet would be destroyed, with just thirty-five UNSC ships remaining. The Dreadnought herself would survive albeit with heavy damage, though had claimed three CCS-class battlecruisers, four CPV-class heavy destroyers and a CAS-class assault carrier to her kill tally. 
The Dreadnought would remain around Concord for a further three weeks, assisting in the efforts on the ground to wipe out any remaining Covenant landing forces. In this role she would use her SMACs to devastating affect, as their raw power led to an small, concentrated earthquake occurring around the impact area of her projectiles. This single salvo would lead to the Dreadnought being withdrawn from the role of orbital bombardment, due to fears that the 'Trojan' SMACs could cause greater damage to the planet's surface. She would later leave the system to head for Reach, to receive repairs for her battle damage.
The remainder of the year for the Dreadnought would prove uneventful, transferring to the Epsilon Eridani Fleet to replace the UNSC Thanatos herself in July after several months of repairs. In this time she would donate several Rampart point defence guns to the Anchor-9 starbase in Reach's orbit, and receive a refit that would increase the size of her hangars, allowing her to take a larger complement of Longsword fighter-bombers and dropships. The Dreadnought would remain around Reach until the 3rd of April 2552, when she would be dispatched as part of an emergency flotilla to the Fumirole System, where a large Covenant force had gathered.
Arriving in-system on the 22nd, Task Force Dreadnought, containing thirty-five vessels, would arrive above Fumirole in the midst of a fierce naval battle. Fifty-nine Covenant ships were on the cusp of victory against the remaining thirteen UNSC warships, however the arrival of the Dreadnought and her task force would swiftly throw the battle up in the air. The arrival of Task Force Dreadnought, and a further battlegroup from the Carthage Defence Fleet would allow UNSC forces to open an evacuation corridor to Fumriole, aided by the deployment of Spartan NOBLE Team to destroy a CCS-class battlecruiser anchored above Fumirole's capital city of Valencia. This pocket would only be open for nine hours, however would allow over 300,000 civilians and military personnel to evacuate Fumirole, as the Covenant forces regrouped before their second attack.
At 0102 local time, the Covenant would renew their attack, forcing back Task Force Dreadnought and the remainder of UNSC vessels from Fumirole. The fleet would retreat, leaving the colony to its fate. The Dreadnought and other UNSC vessels would arrive at Reach on the 12th of May, dispensing her cargo of refugees before once more entering the repair yards, this time leaving the docks in late July. Assigned to the Epsilon Eridani Fleet once more, she would join 1st Battle Squadron, containing some of the UNSC's few remaining battleships and battlecruisers.
===Reach & Earth, 2552===
The Dreadnought's service with the 1st Battle Squadron would not be a peaceful affair. Almost immediately after leaving drydock, she would assist the mobilised units of the UNSC's Unified Ground Command in combatting the Covenant's presence on Reach, having arrived several days prior. Upon the discovery of the supercarrier after the failure of the UNSC's Operation: ROUNDHOUSE in the Battle of Viery, consideration was made to use the Dreadnought and the Thanatos to intercept the supercarrier, in an attempt to destroy the gigantic command ship. However, this plan was quickly ditched due to the immense combat capabilities of the Long Night of Solace that, in simulations ran by the UNSC, would destroy the battleships in 78% of engagements.
The Dreadnought would remain with 1st Battle Squadron in orbit near Reach's concentration of twenty Erod-class orbital defence platforms until the 30th of August, when the single-largest Covenant fleet ever encountered would materialise in the Epsilon Eridani System. The 1st Battle Squadron would be used as a martial point for the rest of the Epsilon Eridani Fleet, as the Covenant force organised itself on the edge of the system, just outside the range of the Dreadnought and ODPs. Some 152 ships would arrive at Rally Point Zulu, as the Covenant forces advanced.
In the brutal and violent engagement that would occur, the Dreadnought was mauled and almost succumbed to damage multiple times, if not for the brave efforts of her damage control crew. engaging in two separate close-quarters brawls with a CAS-class assault carrier and an ORS-class heavy cruiser that would see her MAC systems rendered inoperable and two metres of her port-side Titanium-A1 armour plating boiled away by plasma torpedoes and plasma lances. In exchange, the CAS and ORS would be destroyed, with the Dreadnought claiming a total of fifteen Covenant vessels in the first engagement. However, by the time the Covenant withdrew to reinforce and reorganise, 1st Battle Squadron was all but destroyed, with only three ships remaining: the Dreadnought, the Thanatos, and the Valiant-class large cruiser Kosciuszko. The three ships would be ordered to disengage from the fight and withdraw to Earth, in the hopes that they could assist in the defence of the Sol System when the Covenant inevitably moved on the cradle of humanity. Jumping to slipspace at 1110, carrying the decimated remains of the UNSC Army's 11th Armoured Division and the remaining members of SPARTAN-III Bourbon Team, the Dreadnought, Thanatos and Kosciuszko would reach Earth on the 15th of September, greeted with the news of Reach's destruction.
Rushed into the drydocks almost immediately, dockworkers would work twenty-four hours a day to repair the damage done to the three capital ships in as short a time as possible. Whilst they would succeed in repairing the Thanatos by the time of the Covenant incursion, the Dreadnought was still receiving repairs to her SMAC systems and her hull, which would not be finished until the 27th of October, well into the Siege of the Sol System. The Dreadnought would be essentially rushed out of the orbital drydocks above Mars, with many of her technical and mechanical issues unfixed. However, by this point Covenant battlegroups had almost entirely secured Earth's orbit, with all UNSC forces concentrated around Mars and the Sol System's Oort Cloud.
===Postwar Service, 2553-2558===
===Task Force Buccaneer, 2558-2560===
==Notable Locations==
==Awards & Battle Honours==
===Awards===
*UNSC Unit Citation (Awarded 2552)
*Warspite Capital Ship Award (Awarded 2552)
*Meritorious Service Conduct Medal (Awarded 2553)
*Royal Navy Society Medallion (Awarded 2556)
===Battle Honours===
*Saratov (2550)
*Second Meridian (2550)
*Concord (2551)
*Fumirole (2552)
*Reach (2552)
*Earth (2552)
*Euryalus V (2555)
*Second Sigma Octanus (2558)
===Campaign Ribbons===
*Siege of Meridian (2548-2551)
*Defence of the Inner Colonies (2543-2552)
*Human Covenant War (2525-2553)
*Created Crisis (2558-2560)
==Notes==