NationStates Jolt Archive

Faustus class
Destroyer

Displacement: 5,067 tons full load.

Dimensions: Length overall 456.0ft (139.0m); beam 45.9ft (14.0m); draught 13.5ft (4.1m).

Aircraft: One Lynx ASW helicopter.

Armament: Four Exocet SSM launchers; four 3.9in (100mm) Model DP guns; two 0.8in (20mm) AA cannon; four fixed torpedo tubes for standard 18 ECAN L5 Mod 3 torpedoes.

Propulsion: Two sets Parsons geared-turbines (126,000shp); two shafts; 32kts.

Armour: 6.0 inches across hull, reinforced steel with Kevlar banding. Bridge, engine and magazine areas have an additional 3 inches of steel armour around the outer sides, with both Kelvar and concrete reinforcings, with titanium in use for particularly vulnerable spots, with kevlar reinforcement.

Crew size: 200 crew average. 50 officers, including captain.

General uses: Mostly an anti-ship role, with its Exorcet SSMs and DP guns. It can also provide some limited ASW support with its Lynx helicopter, but has insufficiant weaponry to excell. Primarily used as part of a group to spearhead naval assaults, or as a reserve flottillia to ambush enemy naval strikes.

Comments and critique well accepted.

OOC: This ship is based in shap on the D'Estienne D'Orves (Type A 69) Class Patrol Frigates, but heavier and slightly different armamemnt.

OOC: Also, this ship is also good as part of a rapid response group, providing a heavy arm for the front line vessels.

While the new state of Rojo Quisqueya begins slowly to think about developing its navy, the Faustus Class has been briefly examined, and questions have as such resulted. Firstly, the admiralty wonders, is it not rather slow for a modern warship of the sort? And secondly, has it no missile defences against air assault? Four heavy and two light guns are unlikely to provide significant defence against modern threats, even if air defence is not a primary role it seems to make sense to incorporate some worth-while self-defence measures, does it not?

The Empire of MelekTaus understands your concerns, but would like to point out that the Exocet missles and torpedoes are more than capable of performing the cuty of Anti-Ship alone. The DP guns are designed to provide a back up against those vessles that an exocet would be wasted upon, such as hydrofoils, or other light ships that can be taken out more cost effectively. As for the 'light guns', you've obviously read them wrong. Thes are AA cannons, designed specifically to fire into the air with flak ammunition against aircraft. Althought this ship is also slow, understand this is made up for with large numbers of torpedoes that can be reloaded into the tubes, allowing for some serious full front firepower when combined with front DP guns and Exocets. Anti-Aircraft defence, as said, is provided by AA (Anti-Aircraft) cannon, but that is why you aught to include specific guided missile cruisers armed with Sea Wolf SAMs, which is a tactic employed by the MelekTaus navy.

OOC: Well, considering the fact of what this thing needs to do, I've decided to give the engines a bit of a wizz over. I'm going for Two sets Parsons geared-turbines (126,000shp); two shafts as normal, which gives me overall 32kts speed. As for air defence, I 'aint' budging over replacing AA cannon with SAMs. I'm keeping this boat 'cost effective' since my military budget isn't overly big.

OOC: Well, the speed looks more like it, now, although at a glance I'd be inclined to say that you don't need nearly so much power to achieve that speed, but I could be wrong.
As to the guns, well, I read DP as an indication of Dual-Purpose, since that's what it usually, you know, means, which is to say that they'd be used against both surface and airborne targets. That makes sense, of course, but in this day and age a few 100mm guns are unlikely to hit most of the threats to be faced, and a couple of 20mm guns are unlikely to do much damage. I don't see that I/my nation read them wrong. 20mm close-in guns are fine, but they'd be expected to appear as a minor back-up to better CIWS guns or missiles.
It is to be expected that support will be available with air defence destroyers (I note that your nomenclature is a little unusual, but entirely within your rights, as many nations would probably call this a frigate and classify destroyers as primary air-defence vessels, but like I say, that's up to you), but I would still be nervous about putting extra hulls into a fleet with virtually no ability to provide self protection against aircraft and missile threats. A hole in your air defence screen might quickly spell disaster.
Oh well, I'm not the one designing it, so I'll leave it up to you, I hope you didn't mind my chipping in, though.