Valiant MKIII class cruiser

## Offensive and defensive specs

### Armament

1 700mm spinal coil gun, 2 70mm spinal mounted side guns, 6 20x102mm CIWS guns, 4 torpedo tubes, additional weapon pods can be equipped per situation

## Overview

Designed to replace the aging mark II valiant the mark III was intended to be faster and more agile and implement some tech advances that had been made in the years since.

## History

### Early concept

Concepts for the mark III started almost immediately after the mark II entered service. Initial designs were intended to be longer range for a better detection craft. This idea would eventually become the Valiant Mk II/B also known as the SWACS type.

### Grey Fleet Crisis

During the Grey Fleet Crisis in 151 DoS the Mass Alliance and the Grand Duchy of Julithar faced of directly for the first time. While no shots were fired between the two super powers this pushed increased funding for military projects and especially navy ships. This saw renewed interest in the mark III project and the eventual creation of its requirements.

### Designing

In 153 DoS the Mass Alliance Office of Design and Requisitions (MAODR) set forth a series or requirements for the Valiant mark III design and sent it to their think tanks to build a design. The mark III needed to be faster then its predecessor, smaller if possible and have greater power output. The design they came up with is the current Valiant mark III design with a twin torodial fusion ractor.

### Building

The first Valiant mark III was laid down in 157 DoS and would be completed in just 9 months, doing her shakedown run in August 158 DoS. Unlike a number of other Mass Alliance Grand Navy projects the design and building went smoothly. This was advertised heavily by the New United Conservative party touted this as the ideal ability for the government to design and build their own military equipment.

### Service life

The mark III was quickly introduced into service and many officers were hastily promoted to captain the new line of ships. This gave the impression that the new line was a trainer ship for new officers. It wouldn't be till significant political pressure for the new mark III's to be given more high caliber missions. It wasn't till 172 that they started to be sent on lone patrols and it was seen that they could be used as it was originally intended.

## Design

### Double toroidal fusion reactors

In order to improve the Valiant MkII's lower then advertised performance, thanks to its smaller fusion reactor, the MkIII needed to up its power and couldn't afford the large amount of space that would be required for a PM core. Instead they used a massive ultra capacitor mounted behind two toroidal fusion reactors. This allowed it to not only double the maximum output of power but in the event that one got disabled or maintenance needs to be preformed they still have a second reactor to draw power from.

### Hangar

Another improvement made over the MkII was a smaller hangar that takes up less space and creates less drag in atmosphere. This does make it more difficult to launch shuttles out of, needing to deploy bellow the ship, but the reduced drag makes the MkIII far more efficient and useful in atmosphere.

### Armor

The MkIII valiant uses B1 graphene armor. This made the Valiant MKIII lighter and almost as durable as the MKII Valiant while also allowing it to survive reentry temperatures. In order to maximize acceleration and manoeuvrability armor size and scale was cut down, the MkII having 400mm-600mm of A1 titanium/tungsten armor where as the MkIII has 200mm-400mm of B1 graphene armor.

## Cost

Construction price: 1,000,000,000 Shards

Armor cost: 14,558,336,000 Shards

Weapon cost: 2,500,000,000 Shards

Internal systems cost: 15,250,000,000 Shards

Total cost: 33,308,336,000 Shards