Stalwart-class Light Frigate

The **Stalwart-class Light Frigate** is one of the UNSC Navy's principle workhorses throughout the Human-Covenant War. The Stalwart class are used primarily in fleet escort duties, providing screens for larger capital ships. Designed with planetary defence in mind, Stalwart frigates have proven successful due to their superb balance between fleet support and troop transportation.

## Class History

### Human-Covenant War

A Stalwart-class Light Frigate named Endless Horizon entered Lumoria after escaping the Battle of Reach via a random Slipspace jump. The Frigate remained to support UNSC forces with supplies and reinforcements throughout the campaign.

## Design

### Characteristics

The Stalwart-class light frigate is one of the smaller classes of frigate in service with the UNSC Navy, at 478 meters in length with a mass of 0.93 million metric tons. Stalwart-class frigates are protected by a sixty centimeter-thick hull of titanium-A armor. These warships are equipped with an active phased sensor array built into the ship's hull. The bridge of the Stalwart frigate has its own life support that will function even if the rest of the ship is crippled. Extremely mobile, the Stalwart class is outfitted with two OKB Karman 56K fusion drives for sublight travel. The Stalwart is equipped with a Starwerx FTL-290C, a slipspace drive featuring a Series IV CODEN field generator.

A Stalwart-class light frigate is crewed by 250 sailors. In addition, these frigates also carry a complement of two hundred Marines and sixty-four Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. However, the frigate only carries twenty-four Single Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicles. The ODSTs that are deployed from the frigate via an SOEIV drop pod are launched from the ship by a magazine-fed coilgun accelerator.

While Stalwart frigates lack the larger hangar bays seen on the Charon-class light frigate, the class is outfitted with six hangar modules, each capable of launching or recovering only a single dropship at a time. These frigates typically carry six D77-TC Pelicans as well as their associated support equipment, with some Stalwarts also carrying D96-TCE Albatrosses. The class also carries twelve M12 Warthogs and six M808 Scorpion tanks.

### Armament

The Stalwart-class light frigate like most UNSC warships, is equipped with a single 56A2D4 Mark II light Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, serving as the primary armament of the class. The upper boom of the frigate contains the fire control systems and pulsed power storage for the MAC, which is fitted in the lower boom.

For secondary armaments, Stalwart frigates are fitted with sixteen anti-ship M58 Archer missile pods, as well as seventy-six long-range anti-fighter M340A4 Streak missile pods. These frigates are armed with a point defence gun network mounted along the hull for tertiary armaments, consisting of six M870 Rampart point defence guns and fifty-two M710 Bulwark point defence guns.

## Ships of the Line

* Endless Horizon (UNSC Frigate in Lumoria)

## Trivia

* Despite both the Frigate and the ORS-class Heavy Cruiser appearing right next to each other in Lumoria's final battle, for some reason, they never fire upon one another.