Broadsword-class Destroyer

The Broadsword-class medium destroyer is the principle warship in the Imperial Tekkelien Navy's space fleet. It is seen as the ideal balance in firepower, size, cost and maneuverability and the most versatile class of ships in the fleet. Large enough to stand in the line of battle and fast enough to hunt down small craft, it is also agile enough to make atmospheric entry and begin surface bombardment. Individual ships may also be tasked with system patrol and anti-piracy efforts. Their highly modular design allows them to be assembled and repaired very quickly. Many thousands of Broadswords participated in the Human-Dominion War, with two being able to reliably destroy a single Aradynic light cruiser.

## General Characteristics

### Armament

8 x 5-inch coilguns, 2 x 40mm flak guns, 3 x 30mm "hummingbird" CIWS, 2 x SAM launchers, 8 x 130cm nuclear torpedoes, 1 x 16 inch mass-driver

## Service History

The Broadswords were an evolution of a nearly 100-year-old design called the Sovnya class, some of which are still in service. The first of the Broadswords were produced in 2830, after combat evaluations of the recently-introduced *Ampere*-class carriers showed that they were less capable of escorting themselves as previously thought. The Broadswords were designed with a priority on anti-ship warfare, with the majority of research and development going to improved gun and torpedo systems in order to improve damage against capital ship belt armor. At the time of their introduction, they had the highest gun kinetic energy output of any destroyer class.

The aging fleet of Sovynas were rapidly replaced by Broadswords in the years leading up to the Sino-Tekkelien War in 2850. Over the course of the war, their improved coilgun systems proved unparalleled assets in ship-to-ship action, and their accuracy and penetrating power were the deciding factors in many fleet engagements. The mass driver was proven to be relatively useless in practice, since it requires aiming the entire ship, and rerouting power from vital systems, costing the ship valuable time for other functions.

During the Human-Dominion War, they played mostly the same role as a defensive force, guarding planets from spaceborne invasion by engaging Aradynic warships with their coilguns.
Their main armament was one of the few destroyer classes capable of penetrating the alloy hulls of Aradynic O-class light cruisers, although not very deeply. Repeated hits were necessary to inflict actual damage to the cruisers' inner workings.

## Design

Broadsword-class destroyers were designed to be rugged and simple in their overall structure. Their load-bearing structures were greatly simplified, at the expense of making them heavier and slightly costlier. Their final design was nearly twice as massive as the Sovnya despite being only a few dozen feet longer, yet it was still considered a "medium" destroyer in preparation for an expected heavy destroyer still in the design process.

The interior structure relies on a series of thick, airtight bulkheads that can contain atmosphere within surviving areas if the hull is breached while in space. The outer hull is reinforced with floor-to-ceiling steel "ribs," connected to perpendicular pillars and other load-bearing structures, distributing the kinetic energy of the shot throughout the entire ship.

The outer hull had a 3 inch thick belt of Eklesian steel wrapped around the circumference from keel to weather deck. Although the majority of exposed surface area was on the decks, the side hulls were expected to take the most damage because the destroyer's gun turrets fired perpendicular to them, so they would always be facing the enemy. The bottom half of the ship is coated in a thin layer of borosilicate glass tiles to absorb the heat of atmospheric entry. A small but vital area on the destroyer's midsection, where the CIC and reactor is housed, is armored with supplemental composite armor. This composite armor is a sandwich of two thinner steel plates spaced apart with a layer of silica aerogel. A layer of ductile protein fiber lines the inner side of the armor plating, absorbing breakaway fragments flying inwards, caused by spalling.

### Amenities

Broadsword class destroyers have a smaller amount of space per crew than capital class ships, but actually slightly more space than other comparably sized destroyers of other nations. Still, life aboard a destroyer class craft is far from luxurious. Water is often in short supply on smaller ships, and destroyers are on the threshold between small and large ships, having a larger crew and smaller storage space. Dry showers are the norm, as are preserved foods such as powdered eggs and milk.

There are decently-sized recreation areas considering a 550-person crew, including a gym and lounge area, however, these places are the bare minimum and unglamorously utilitarian in appearance.

### Weapons

The main weapons of the Broadsword destroyer are four turrets of twin 5-inch magnetic guns. These turrets are separated from traversing more than 180 degrees on their side due to the long housing of the mass driver running the length of the gun deck, but the redundancy allows them to engage targets on both sides of the ship at the same time without having to rotate the turrets all the way around each time.

The mass driver running down the ship's middle is a tremendously powerful weapon in theory, allowing a relatively small ship to cause serious damage to battleships. However, the accuracy is compromised by the fact it is fixed to the ship, and can only be aimed as precisely as the ship itself can be. This makes its effective range shorter than capital ship armaments, and engaging enemy capital ships with the mass driver requires putting the entire destroyer in danger. Charging the capacitors requires much more electricity than the reactor can output, requiring many systems to be temporarily shut down while they are preparing a shot.

Radar-guided point-defense turrets are the primary anti-aircraft weapons as they are much more cost-effective and harder to disable or fool with countermeasures. 40mm flak guns can be highly accurate even at long range. 30mm CIWS, seen as a last-ditch defense against extremely close targets that have gotten past all other defenses, have a series of rotating barrels that can fire massive volumes of armor-piercing tungsten rounds in hopes of shredding the incoming target.