www.ditl.org

I've been playing around with another family of ship designs, intended to be separate from the Coalition universe stuff. The premise is a much smaller scale, and though the details aren't really set yet, it's broadly the idea that in the final couple of decades of this century an FTL drive technology was discovered and Earth planted several colonies on nearby star systems, ranging out to about 50 light years or so. Fifty years later the colonies declared independence, which annoyed Earth no end, but with nobody having any interstellar forces at the time there was really not much to be done about it then. This is set in the 2170s, when something of a cold war is going on - Earth is building naval and ground forces up with the aim of recapturing the rebel colonies, the colonies are doing the same to deter Earth.

There are no alien species, and I'm going for a relatively low tech feel. Many details of the technology remain to be worked out.


The Hill Class Corvette :

Type : Corvette
Power system : Single zero point reactor, output 1.21 GW
Engine : 1 x Propulsor; Sublight 200 g, FTL 900 x c
Range : 40 Light years at 600 x c
Dimensions : Length 44.25 m; Beam 8.5 m; Height 10.05 m (hull) 22.9 m (o/a)
Mass : 960 metric tons
Complement : 95
Armament : 1 x 100 mm (4 GJ) Pulse Graser Cannon
2 x 150 MW Maser CIWS
3 x 75 cm Torpedo Tubes

Sensors : 1 x Matador Radar
1 x Tambor Passive FTL sensor
1 x Mark 201 Gun Director
2 x Mark 29 Gun Director

Notes :

The Hill-class corvette is a Kappan class of 267 corvettes currently in use with several of the cloud powers. The bulk - some 185 - are in use with the Kappa Ceti Navy itself, whilst the remainder are employed by the Ursae Majoris (44), Zeta Reticuli (18), Capellan (12) and Alshain (8) Navies. Most of these were given under the emergency lease program, intended to bolster the forces of those Navies and provide training platforms whilst homegrown shipyards were constructed.

The 2210's were a period of rising tension amongst the cloud. Successive Earth governments spent the decade building both naval and surface warfare capabilities, and although there were few open threats of war with the former colony worlds in the cloud, it was clear that the Earth forces were not defensive in nature. With the invasion and conquest of the Alpha Centauri system in 2219, Earth's true intentions became apparent.

It was clear that the worlds of the cloud were unprepared; many had no military forces at all, and amongst those that did most were simple planetary patrol forces. Only the Kappa Ceti government took the looking threat from Earth seriously. With their worst fears confirmed, the Kappan government launched a major shipbuilding program as soon as news of the Centauran invasion reached them. Of particular concern was the need to protect shipping between the worlds of the cloud. Most of the cloud worlds were economically dependent on interstellar trade, which was extremely vulnerable to attack by Earth raiders. The Kappans wanted something small and cheap enough to be built in large numbers, preferably at small merchant shipyards, as larger yards were already busy. To meet this requirement, the Algoth Kaitain Company, a specialist in the design and build of transport vessels, offered a development of its 800 ton, 900 c personnel/cargo ship Cetan Pride. They were intended as small convoy escort ships that could be produced quickly and cheaply in large numbers.

The Hill-class have become an essential resource for the Kappan Navy, and is their single most numerous class to date. Their simple design uses parts and techniques common to merchant shipping, which allows them to be built in more than nineteen shipyards in Kappan orbit, many of which could not handle larger or more sophisticated vessels. Additionally, the use of commercial machinery means that merchant crewmen who come into service are already familiar with their operation.

The Hill class ships are slow, with a maximum speed of under 1,000 c. They are also lightly armed with a single low power pulse Graser cannon and a pair of Maser CIWS. Their heaviest weapon is the triple 75 cm torpedo launcher, although the ships are not capable of carrying reloads for this weapon.

In service the Hills are not popular with their crews. The cramped quarters make life difficult for crews, with junior ratings living eight to a 4m² room and hotbunking besides. The ambient noise level is high, and the ships tend to suffer from poor atmospheric quality. Their handling is poor, and they are regarded as difficult ships to pilot. Crews are also well aware that the ships are not built to military specifications in terms of damage resistance and control, and they are often referred to disparagingly as "one hit wonders" since they are not expected to survive a hit from even a modest weapon. These issues are compounded by the fact that the Hill class has a total evacuation capacity of 52 using all escape pods and shuttles, yet has a crew of 95. Indeed, there have even been suggestions to produce a version of the Hill class with the escape pods removed to create space for torpedo reloads to be carried. As yet this modification has not seen service.

The ship :

(Click image for full scale)



Deck plans :



Parts Sheet :

I had a very similar idea I have been kicking around, but the colonies are founded by several large companies that almost become mini empires.

Nice detail, as usual, GK.

It really grew out of the idea of doing detailed deck plans. There's some really good high res deck plans of the NX-01 floating around and I thought it would be cool to do some for my Coalition ships. But the Coalition universe is one where even a Frigate is a mile long, and the idea of deck plans for that is just silly. I'd still be doing it when I was 90.

Then there was the thread where I kicked around the idea of scale in sci fi and the kinds of issues that throws up, which are mostly ignored in the works that have them. It started me thinking about designing ships that weren't "big and badass" but as small and weak as I could practically make them. The Hill is based on the UK's Flower class corvettes from World War II, which is a class of ships I've long been fascinated with. Whilst the idea of going out to fight wars in basass warp speed killing machines is fun, the UK military has quite often had to have a "make do and bull through" attitude with less than stellar equipment or numbers. I find that kind of interesting.

Five view orthographic :


Forward laser cannon and bridge behind, with high resolution sensor on top :


Bow shot :


Triple torpedo launcher, with torpedo shown and lifeboat hatches above :


Shuttle and airlock visible with a crewman beginning EVA.


Close up of torpedo launcher and torpedo :


"Dalek" Cannon :


Bridge windows :


Main engine unit. In this universe, a single engine does both FTL and STL flight :


Sensor arrays, dorsal and ventral :


Crewmember in airlock. Blender really badly distorts things as seen through curved glass... probably no bad thing given that the face on my guy is quite crude!

I really like this design. At first I thought it looked a bit truncated toward the stern... then I decided I liked that about it, as it showed a triumph of (presumably) functionality over simple aesthetics. I also appreicate the fact of everything being mounted externally: the shuttles/lifeboats, the torpedo tubes, the cannon mount, etc. There is often a trend in SF to think that a simple forward advancement in technology has to mean a complete rethought of our design principles, and this idea nicely bucks that trend. It's also a more pragmatic, militaristic point of view; build the thing as simply as possible, then tag on the parts that don't need to be installed internally at greater expense. In other words, precisely as one would expect for a ship designated as a corvette.

Thanks!

Much like the Flower class on which it's based, the idea of this is that it was a civilian design originally. Hence the weapons are not integrated within the hull but literally just bolted on to the exterior. The real-life inspiration is also why the shuttles are exterior - most real ships have their boats sitting on the deck, not inside the hull. I've come to really like the design - miles-long ships like the Kororra feel kind of impersonal to me. On the Kororra no one person could ever know the entire crew (200,000 strong), or the workings of the entire ship. Hell, you could spend a lifetime aboard and never visit every compartment. The smallness of the Hill gives it a kind of intimate feel, I think. It's only 145 feet long, crew is only 46. After a week on board this thing you'd know every inch and every person on it.

In fact, I am sort of reminded of an Age of Sail two-master or the like. Obviously, such a vessel's complement of auxiliary craft were simply lashed down or suspended off the stern from davits; but in addition, such a vessel's crew tended to be ridiculously small compared to our modern conception of the manpower needed to operate such a vessel. The intimacy you mention, along with the probable lack of strict military formality and the resultant generalization of ship's duties (as opposed to the strict specialization present on a larger ship) remind of this, as well as of modern tin can sailors.

Nice - I'm not sure why I don't remember spotting this when it first went up. I'm not too sure about the idea of windows on the bridge - surely everything would be too far away and/or too dark to make the worthwhile?

As for the power output:

Power system : Single zero point reactor, output 1.21 GW

Looks far too low. We'll be able to put a reactor that powerful into the back of a car before the year's out.

Well the idea of this universe is to make things a lot more "scaled down" from most. A minimalist approach.

That said, 1.21 GW is enough power to send a DeLorean back in time! What more could you ask for?!

Seriously, it's also triple the power output of a US supercarrier, and they are upwards of a hundred times the size of this thing. It does pretty well, considering.

As for windows... very few of my ships have had them, but this is a civilian design. And besides, it looks cool!