SPECIFICATIONS

GOVERNMENT:  Grand Duchy of Ceres (originally developed by the Ceres Regency)
TYPE:  Command Space Battleship/Dreadnought
MODEL: Tirpitz class SBB-82
DATE INTRODUCED: 2182 AD
LENGTH: 3138.8 feet (956.7 meters)
WIDTH: 1174.5 feet (358 meters) wide
HEIGHT: 671.6 feet (204.7 meters) high
MATERIAL: Crystal Composite
POWER PLANT: 70x Ceres Energy CEFR-98.5K (Level III)
OUTPUT: 98,500 megawatts wach(6,895,000 megawatts total)
ARMOR TYPE: Crystal Composite "Stealth" material
ARMOR THICKNESS: 7 inches
DISPLACEMENT: 2,500,000 tons
CREW: 1720 + 200 pilots (1920 total)
CREW ROSTER: 183 GUNNERS, 250 ENGINEER, 250 ELECTRICIAN, 250 TECHNICIAN, 250 OPERATOR, 166 OFFICERS, 91 MEDICAL, 200 PILOTS, 250 SECURITY, 30 SCIENCE

PROPULSION
             FASTER THAN LIGHT DRIVE:
             4x Ceres Drives CD-ID-T3-50000 Intersection Drive
             SPEED: 0.036* Light years per hour (time dilation)/0.144 lt years per hour total
             *Designed for a 500,000-ton ship

             SUBLIGHT PROPULSTION (PRIMARY):
             7x Io Factory #5 EMD-202500
             SPEED: 684,000-mph each (4,788,000-mph total)

             SUBLIGHT PROPULSTION (AUXILLIARY):
             14x Hygiea #3 HYID-135,000
             SPEED: 410.4 mph ea. (6566.4 mph total)
             

WEAPONS:
             PRIMARY (OFFENSIVE):
            15x Mawzer MPC-2002 PHELAC(400-MW total) PHELAC turrets; Effective Range: 1600 miles; Payload: unlimited with nuclear battery clutch system; ROF: 3 blasts every twenty seconds with a cyclic rate of 9 blasts per minute.

             PRIMARY (ASSAULT):
            38x GP-1002 duall 100-megawatt (200-MW total) PHELAC turrets; Effective Range: 800 miles; Payload: unlimited with nuclear battery clutch system; ROF: 3 blasts every twenty seconds with a cyclic rate of 9 blasts per minute.

              SECONDARY (OFFENSIVE):
              10x Io Factory #4 ITL-Mark VI ten-shot ion torpedo cruise missile launcher; Missile Type: IDST-10K ion drive computer-guided space torpedoes armed with one 10,000-pound nuclear warhead; Effective Range: 1056 miles; Payload: 20 space torpedoes each in an autoloading torpedo tube; ROF: 1-10 torpedoes per two seconds with a cyclic rate of 300 torpedoes per minute per torpedo battery.

              TERTIARY (OFFENSIVE):
               3x Lithgear LG-EMPAC-5000 5000-megawatt electromagnetic particle accelerator cannon; Effective Range: 25,000 miles; Payload: unlimited with nuclear battery clutch system; ROF: 1 blast every ten seconds or six blasts per minute each cannon.


ELECTRONICS:
             1x Microwave Radio Communications array with a range of 1000 AU.
             1x Super Luminal Velocity communications array with a range of 10 light years.
             1x LADAR array with a range of 220,000 miles.
             1x Passive EMS sensor array with a range of 1,000,000 miles.
             1x Active EMS sensor array with a range of 100,000 miles.
             1x Super Luminal Velocity sensor array with a range of 20 parsecs (65.2 light years).
             8x Gravitational Control/Antigravity unit. Effect: Provides artificial lift, g-force compensation, and enhanced maneuverability, and warp bubble generation for the triple intersection drives.

DEFENSE SYSTEMS:
             6x Europa Research ER-DF-4000 4000-megawatt LEVEL-1 Gravitonic deflector field generators; Effect: has an output of 720 terajoules and a regeneration rate of 72 terajoules per 10 seconds.

HANGAR BAY:
             1x 750,000-yd3; Bay holds 20 KosmoWalkure (15 tons ea.), and 20 Panzer (50 tons each), 40 JdWM-02 JägerWeirMechs (25 tons each), 20 Kobold (40 tons), 60 JagdPanzers (10 tons each).

SPECIAL SYSTEMS:
              300x Ganymede Industrial  GI-EP-01 emergency escape pods; DETAILS: Escape pods have 24-hour life-support, a speed of Mach 1 (760 mph), 3 weeks of food for six people, full reentry capability, parachutes for free fall, life raft for six people (water landing), and 24 hours of fuel for rocket engines.

Description/Overview:
           With the success of the Bismark class during the 1st Interplanetary War the Ceres Regent, Charles Dalltan, sought to create an even larger and more powerful version of that class of battleship in 2178. This new class would replace the Bizmark as the command ship of the fleets of the Ceres space navy and was also intended to cause a shuffle of the capital ship classes of the Ceres Regency. The Bizmark would become the main space battleship, the Scharnhost would be demoted to cruiser, while the new battleship class would command the armada. This meant that the new class of warship would have to be worthy of the position of “command battleship” within the fleet. Dalltan demanded the new vessel be at least 3-million tons displacement but stressed that he would prefer a ship closer to 4-million tons. The Regent hit a major setback due to the 1st Phobos Treaty of 2179 when the other powers of the Inner Sphere voted to restrict Ceres from building military craft larger than 100,000 tons displacement in order to prevent another massive arms race as was seen during the 1st Interplanetary War.
            This was part of the reason that Dalltan disolved the Ceres Regency in 2182 and formed the Grand Duchy. This new government was not held responsible for the treaties that the Regency had agreed to, and so allowed Dalltan to build his new command battleship class.
              With the 1st Phobos Treaty effectively nullified, the Grand Duchy’s shipwrights got to the task of putting into production a vessel that had been designed during the last years of the 1st Interplanetary War. The Tirpitz class incorporated the same “Dr. Wilmhelmshaven” quad Intersection Drive configuration as that of the Bizmark and Sharnhorst classes. However, the Tirpitz class incorporated four Ceres Drives CD-ID-T3-50000 fifty-thousand megawatt Type-3 Intersection Drives. Each of these third generation FTL-engines could propel the vessel at a maximum speed of 0.036 light years per hour individually or 0.144 light years per hour collectively.
              The main sublight engines of the Tirpitz class consist of seven Io Factory #5 EMD-202500 Two-hundred and two-thousand five-hundred megawatt electromagnetic drives. Individually each of these engines is able to push the ship at a speed of 684,000-mph ea. The collective speed of the eight main sublight drives is 4,788,000-mph. These engines gave this class of vessels the means to travel anywhere in the solar system in a relatively short period of time.
              The command battleship was fitted with fifteen Hygiea #3 HYID-135,000 one-hundred and five-thousand megawatt High Yield Ion Drives for close maneuvers and emergency propulsion. The speed of these engines was a meager 410.4 mph each or 6566.4 mph total. These speeds were the bare minimum of what was considered appropriate for flight around spacestations, moons, planetoids, and planets. The reason for this slow speed was due more to power-saving concerns than utility and was a major flaw in this design of spacecraft.
              The armaments of the Tirpitz class consisted of thirteen Mawzer MPC-2002 twin two-hundred megawatt PHELAC turrets. These weapons were standard on all Ceres Regency warships of the 1st Interplanetary War Era and the design team saw no reason not to extend the beam weapons to the Tirpitz class. As with the Scharnhorst and Bismark classes, the array of PHELAC turrets on the Tirpitz were able to fire as Converging Beam Weapons in the forward, aft, top, port, and starboard arcs of the warship. This gave the ship excellent PHELAC turret coverage for a vessel of its size.
              The broadside guns of the command battleship consisted of thirty-eight Gever GP-1002 dual one-hundred megawatt PHELAC turrets mounted in different battery arrangements. The Tirpitz arrangement consisted of two banks of five turrets each, and one bank of nine turrets each per side (38-total). These cannons were able to fire as Converging Beam Weapons (CBWs) in volleys of eighteen cannons per side against one target. This bombardment of PHELAC turret beam weapons was very effective against warships of the 1st Interplanetary War era, but had minimal effect against the newer military craft built in the post-war years.
              To deal with this deficiency against the more advanced Earth designs, and alien warships, ten Io Factory #4 ITL-Mark VI five-shot Ion torpedo launchers were added. These launchers fire the IDST-10K Ion-Drive computer guided space torpedoes armed with one 10,000 pound nuclear warhead. The cruise missile launchers were originally intended for anti-alien warship bombardment. However, they were also used as a balistic anti-fleet weapon and anti-battleship weapon.
             The Tirpitz mounted three Lithgear LG-EMPAC-5000 five-thousand megawatt electromagnetic particle accelerator cannons. Just like on the Bizmark class, these weapons were intended as a last line of defense when engaging in ship-to-ship combat with other space-battleships and similar Capital Ship vessels of an opposing force. The LG-EMPAC-5000 was a potent beam weapon for its era, but was starting to show its age by the time of the Outer Sphere War.
              Like the Bismark class, the Tirpitz had an impressive layer of armor plating which protected it from nearly all weapons employed by the power fo the Sol system during the 2170s. However, a powerful array of deflector field generators were added to protect these battleships from the beam weapons that were becoming common place during the 2180s. Six Europa Research ER-DF-4000 four-thousand megawatt deflector field generators were mounted to cover each of the six separate arcs of the vessel. These fields did provide modest protection for the command battleship, but just barely.
              Like the other capital ship classes before it, the Tirpitz used emergency escape pods for the crew to abandon ship should the need arise. One-hundred and seven Ganymede Industrial GI-EP-01 escape pods located in strategically positioned launch points long the ventral and dorsal sections of the ship’s hull.
              The Tirpitz class acted in its capacity as command space battleship with some distinction, however, nine of the eleven ships were lost during the 2180s: four during the Ceres Conflict, and five during the Outer Sphere War. The remaining two vessels acted as escorts for the Grand Duke Dalltan’s personal ship which escaped to the Principality of Altair in 2189 AD. After the conclusion of the Outer Sphere War, the Tirpitz class was deemed obsolete.