Tempest Torpedo Ram

**Key Features** | »Mk. II torpedo tube (x2)»Talon Steel armoured bow»Dual screw/thermobaric jet propulsion system»15,000 hp triple expansion steam engine»Replacement naval paint and scratch removal kit

"*RAMMING SPEED!!*

- Tempest Captain

## Tactical Analysis

* **Ship-of-the-line:** The Tempest is the standard Talon medium warship, similar to the Allied Assault Destroyer or Soviet Akula Sub. Tempests are more expensive than either, but more heavily armoured, especially at the bow, and despite the relatively primitive nature of their torpedoes, they can still track and engage even the most modern submarines.

* **Full Steam Ahead:** By engaging their thermobaric jet, the Tempest can dash forward in a massive burst of speed and ram enemy ships. While not quite the guaranteed one-hit-kill of the Imperial battleship, anything smaller than a true capital ship will find that fact little comfort when a surging Tempest tears their ship in half.

* **Don't ram a bigger ram:** Word to the wise: don't try to ram Imperial battleships or Allied Icebreakers, unless sufficiently experienced. Bad idea. And this scribe is sure the reader will be stunned to know that the Tempest is helpless against air attacks.

* **David vs Goliath:** By salvaging the wreckages they sunk, experienced Tempest crew would slowly start to upgrade their ship. From a simple stern-mounted gun (often taken from sunken Assault Destroyers), improved engines (via stolen Soviet parts) for greater maneuverability, plasma cell packets (from empire vessels) that deals additional damage after impact, and finally rewiring their ship so that a large amount of electricity course through the ram that it heats up to ludicrous degree (that the water around it steams), that lets them sink any ship with sufficient speed, taking particular glee when looking at a stunned Shogun admiral when his precious ship is split in half.

## Background

*"What the hell just tried to ram us?"*

- Allied *Alert* captain on patrol off Greenland
In the latter half of the 19th century, the ram was a common feature on many ships. After the successful employment of ramming techniques at the Battle of Lissa, many designers began incorporating rams into the designs of their ships. In theory, the reason for this was that ship armour had advanced so far that one could not hope to seriously damage a ship using guns. In practice, the ram succeeded in sinking more friendly ships than enemy ships.

Another far more significant and lasting innovation of the time was the self propelled torpedo. The self propelled torpedo was a new idea, in which compressed air was used to drive a torpedo through the waters, allowing it to ram a ship and detonate its explosive payload. Though a large ship was needed to carry a large calibre gun, even a small boat could carry and launch a torpedo. The idea of the torpedo boat was soon conceived, a small, fast vessel that would swoop in to strike at cumbersome battleships. Even before that, however, it occurred to somebody to combine the two weapons of torpedo and ram into a single ship; the torpedo ram was born.

The torpedo ram is a low-sitting, fast vessel that would present a limited target for an enemy to fire upon. Early torpedoes of the time were short ranged, so one would need to close in to use them; ideally, it would not be hard to close to ramming range from there. Their forward mounted torpedo tubes would allow them fire off a salvo, and then close in for the kill by ramming the enemy vessels. Unfortunately for the torpedo ram, it was soon rendered obsolete; the development of quick firing guns allowed gunners to take down ships before they could get within ramming range.

The Order of the Talon, however, took a shining to the concept before it fell out of favour. At the time, the Order was trying to build up a navy of its own. Though other navies in the world soon moved on to other ideas, the Talon's shipwrights, seeing the potential damage a torpedo ram could inflict when HMS *Polyphemus* demolished a harbour jetty via ramming, wondered what the result would be if that same ship had a bow of Talon Steel and the Order's own boiler designs.

They eventually got to test the idea. After successfully securing a torpedo ram, the Order set about rebuilding it, replacing the boiler with one of the Order's most powerful designs and reconstructing the ship's hull out of Talon Steel. The result was a ship that would theoretically be so durable and so fast the enemy would be hard pressed to stop it before it got in range to ram. The Order christened it *Tempest*. Testing soon demonstrated the ship's immense destructive potential.

On the other hand, even with its new engines and armour, it was still found that the ship could be sunk before it could get within ramming range. In order to rectify this, the shipwrights added another feature to *Tempest*; a massive themobaric jet installed on the stern of the vessel. Though the entire crew would have to strap down beforehand, and though the sudden burst of acceleration stressed both ship and crew alike, the jet could boost the ram to insane speeds.

At such speeds, even the swiftest of boats would be hard pressed to outrun the ram; at the same time, it had the potential to inflict even more damage. And at such speeds, intercepting the ram before it connected with its target was even more difficult. An entire class of these ships, known as the *Tempest*-class, was built for the Order, whether they were the decommissioned vessels of other navies, or entirely new hulls built by the Talon.

Even after the unprecedented victory off Sittwe against Chinese Tripods, it seems the Talon was not that lucky with the Tempest after all. After a Talon naval force stumbled on an engagement between an Empire scout party's Shogun Battleship and an Alert Icebreaker off the coast of North America, Tempest captains are advised to not engage Shogun Battleships for they will return in kind. The event was recorded by the remnants of the Talon scout party that escaped the rest of the Empire scout fleet.

### Crusader's Log

*"We were steaming towards a reported Cult temple in the North American continent, something which we considered an impossibility, but it was just to be certain. On our way there, we stumbled on an engagement between two ships. A huge ship, which activated some sort of shield on its prow, suddenly accelerated to speeds I would have thought impossible for a ship that size. The other ship was completely obliterated.*

*We shadowed the massive battleship which dwarfed our own Bishop Ironclad, which we rendezvoused with after it had engaged some "Syndicate" naval forces. The massive battleship was alone, with no escorts, nothing. When the battleship seemed to have gotten itself stuck in open water, we took the chance and steamed full speed ahead.*

*As one of our Torpedo Rams closed in on the massive battleship from the back, it fired its thermobaric jet propulsion system and and steamed at high speed at the seemingly stuck battleship. However the massive battleship made a turn that was impossible for something so massive, and activated that shield again. Suddenly it accelerated at such a horrendous speed, ramming **through** the Torpedo Ram* Reckless *and completely obliterating it.*

*We were shocked. Suddenly strange objects flew out of the water and started to fire on us, raining blue light and we saw four ships cutting through the waters, closing in on us rapidly. We swiftly retreated, under fire and taking major casualties, until they stopped pursuing us. We silenced a heretic that dared to claim, "Not even Talon Steel and three thousand tonnes of metal will help, nor defend against something like a battleship, Brother-Crusader."*

## Behind the Scenes

* It's possible that this is partly inspired by the venerable torpedo ram *HMS Thunderchild* from H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds.