Kagemusha-Class Prowler

With its origins in Project SHADOW FURY, the Kagemusha-Class Prowler was a Prowler class designed in 2536, developed to supplement and gradually phase out the older class. Originally, it was intended as a series of fast and lightly armed corvettes for colonial defence, but when the Covenant began its campaign among the Inner Colonies the UNSC reappropriated the class for conversion into Prowlers, and as a testbed for metamaterials being developed.
==History==
With competition from Misriah Armouries and Bellum Aerospace, Sierra Space Systems was under significant pressure to produce a successful design that could be mass-produced, providing them with a foothold in the military market. At the same time, the UNSC Navy had begun Project SHADOW FURY in 2529, an effort to develop enhanced stealt capabilities for the UNSCDF for deployment against the Covenant, ranging from optical camouflage to radar reflection/deflection/absorption, and so on. As part of this, Sierra submitted plans for the IX-990, a single-production test spacecraft featuring the most advanced metamaterials in development by the UNSC Naval Special Weapons research teams. Though the Shadow-class corvette submitted by Misriah would be selected, ultimately nothing would come of it, the navy instead opting to refit the existing fleet of Prowlers as advancements were made.
Somewhat coincidentally, the UNSC began retiring the old Mako-class corvettes in 2531, and asked for replacements to be submitted. Seeing an opportunity, Sierra made modifications to the IX-990 and resubmitted it as the IX-991, intended as a mass-production craft to be distributed among the newly established Naval Reserve units being set up by the Navy to free up combat units for response/strike operations. When they began production in 2534, the series was planned to be designated the "Thresher-class corvette," equipped with four 50mm CIWS autocannons and a pair of Archer missile pods, intended for interception and interdiction operations against piracy, smuggling and other suspicious activities.
The fall of the last Outer Colony changed many things, and the fate of the "Threshers" was one of them. With the older classes of Prowler proving only barely adequate against Covenant sensory equipment, ONI appropriated most of the ships produced for use as technological testbeds for stealth metamaterials. Over the next three years, the seven Thresher-class hulls would recieve a number of modifications. Rotating sections were replaced with conventional decks fitted with artificial gravity generators, and a superior fusion reactor and an improved Hall Effect Thruster were installed. The ships made the transition into fully-fledged Prowlers with the installation of a prototype metamaterial, the Tarnhelm, with a negative refractive index, a feature that improved stealth features significantly. By 2540, the seven prototypes underwent field testing, performing far in excess of projected performance.
Given the security level that surrounds most ONI projects at almost a paranoid level, little is known about the first engagements, between 2541 and 2550. The entire line was requisitioned by the UNSC 30th Fleet for Operation: HOT GATES, where they assisted in the orbital defence of the planet, laying HORNET nuclear mines at choke points, ferrying captured Covenant prisoners back to Reach for interrogation, and providing orbital image and thermal intelligence to ground forces. The Hunter's Arrow in particular played a key part in the defence of the Sierra Grande Space Elevator. After most of its crew were dosed to near-lethal levels of radiation, most were forced to be admitted to the Hospital Ship Herald, leaving the XO, Commander Keith Landers, in command.
As with the rest of 30th Fleet, the Prowlers returned to Earth prior to its invasion by the Covenant. The Hunter's Arrow, along with the Herald-class Orbital Support Ship Aeneas, were drawn through slipspace in the wake of a Covenant Assault Carrier, their coordinates unknown. A joint Sangheili-UNSC taskforce was dispatched after the Battle of Installation 00 to ascertain their status.
==Design==
The Kagemusha-class has a radically improved series of stealth features, with innovations in the development, manufacture, and installation of Radar- and MASER-resistant materials. However, the most important innovation is the use of metamaterials with a negative refractive index, allowing the Prowler superior optical camouflage over its predecessors. These materials do not require power input from the ships reactors, and are not compromised by physical contact with debris, like the photoreactive panels standard on other Prowlers, and maximise power efficiency as well is magnifying its stealth capacity. Rather than just turning opaque, the craft is rendered truly invisible. Structurally, the ship follows a conventional layout, with the bridge at the bow of the ship, and the engineering section at the stern, and crew quarters and storage midship. Externally, the hull is an angular shape, designed to maximise the reflection of enemy Radar. LIDAR is rendered useless by the metamaterials, and sensor bouys are capable of jamming MASER sensors.
Other innovations include the realspace and slipspace propulsion drives. The ships fusion reactor powers an efficient Hall Effect Thruster, using accelerated ionised gases to provide thrust through space - waste coolant can also be used propellant, simultaneously disposing of a dangerous radioactive material without needing to dock. Conventional chemical rockets are set into the outer hull at intervals, used to control pitch, yaw and roll. These thrusters and rockets are shrouded in the same Tarnhelm metamaterial, preventing enemy sensors from tracking the ion trail. The slipspace drive also used the 2549 revised slipstream calculations for the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, allowing a 0.535 lightyear-per-day increase in speed for interstellar jumps.
As with all Prowlers, the Kagemusha's do not carry standard combat armaments, relying on its stealth features being uncompromised to maintain its invisibility. For limited engagements, such as point-defence and the destruction of enemy drones or satellites, the ships are equipped with three dueterium-fluoride chemical lasers, the new DEW-99 Pulse Laser Turrets. They also carry a single Archer missile pod, though they lack any form of CIWS turret or MAC. Their missions mean that use of any weapon systems compromise their stealth temporarily, but they are also able to launch strikes from extremely close to an enemy fleet, sometimes within its midst. Kagemusha-class Prowlers normally carry twenty four HORNET nuclear mines, contained in radiation masking layers of , capable of laying these without compromising their stealth, setting traps for enemy ships.
== Ships of the Line ==
*IX-990/IX-991 Prototype Testbed Ship
*UNSC Hunter's Arrow  (IX-992)
*UNSC Huginn  (IX-993)
*UNSC Muninn (IX-994)
*UNSC One-Eyed Wanderer (IX-995)
*UNSC Raven (IX-996)
*UNSC Orion (IX-997)
*UNSC Nighthawk (IX-998)
==Quotes==
*"I served aboard the Orion at Delta Pavonis. We hid under the noses of the Covenant for fifteen hours, within kilometers of their main formation, and the only hint thehy had we were there was when we detonated our HORNET mines. By that time, though, it was far too late."
*"Rather than rely on crude photoreactive panels, the IX-991 stealth uses metamaterials with a negative refractive index - they're not just transparent, they're truely invisible!"
*"As far as I know, there's only seven of them in service. There's rumours of an eighth, sent into Covenant territory with a NOVA, but they're probably just rumours."
*"I know a guy, who has a brother, who'se girlfriend dated someone who served aboard the Hunter's Arrow. How's that for Prowler Corps security?"
*"The Hunter's Arrow was at Minorca. It and the One-Eyed Wanderer laid the HORNET minefield in orbital formation before the Juno Corridor. That single-handedly took out half the Covenant ships during the second wave!"
Category:Prowler classes
Category:UNSC Ship Classes