Masquerade class

The Masquerade-class was a class of arsenal ships constructed by the Republic of Erewhon and operated by the Maya Sector Detachment of the Solarian League Navy.
== Class Design ==
Based on the Silesian Starhauler-class freighter with a modular cargo pod system, and were built at Erewhon's Carlucci Industrial Group yards. The cargo pods could be loaded with one of two possibile loads: a "ring" of six missile pods or a ring of four.
The six-pod ring was the original design. While offering more missiles per ring, the rings were limited by being loaded with Erewhonese single-drive cruiser-class Mark 17E missiles, and had a very short lifetime after being released, so the Masquerades were unable to dump their missile pods pre-battle and retreat from the area of conflict. While not intentionally designed for single-use, the rings were built to a very light-duty standard, making them practically unsuitable for re-arming.
The improved four-pod rings, on the other hand, were loaded with Erewhonese Mark 19 capital ship MDMs, giving them a vastly superior range, and had onboard power facilities so the fragile Masquerades were not required to actually be present in the middle of the battle, thus greatly reducing the risks to which the ships were subjected. These rings were also better designed for reuse.
Masquerades carried 96 cargo pods, giving them a total of either 576 or 384 missile pods, depending on which type of ring the cargo pods were loaded with.
A ship of this class was strictly a non-combat vessel, with no armor, point defense, fire control, integral electronic warfare capability, core hull, life support redundancy and military-grade lifepods.
To counter this, "combat pods" were designed to boost their combat abilities, but were not available as of the Second Battle of Congo, where the Masquerades first saw action. A "combat pods" were planned to contain counter missile tubes, point defense lasers, sidewall generators, additional life support, fire control, electronic warfare systems and other additional systems. Unfortunately, even with combat pods, the Masquerade was still built on a civilian hull design, without armor, reinforced bulkheads or redundant systems, so even light damage would tear the ships apart. ()
== History ==
The Masquerades were built for the Maya Sector Detachment by the Erewhonese government. In October 1921 PD, the first three ships fought in the Second Battle of Congo, and though they proved extremely powerful, SLNS Masqueade and SLNS Kabuki were destroyed by the People's Navy in Exile. ()
== References ==
Category:Ship Classes
Category:Solarian Ship Classes