The Arcturus Class Colonial Destroyers are a new class of French warships designed with the lessons of the Kafer War foremost in mind. The Arcturus Class is intended to provide the backbone of system defence duties on the French Arm, replacing the outclassed and greatly depleted Aconits and other frigates whilst freeing more capable ships for offensive action..

Artwork is by Laurent Esmiol.

Narrative

Antares waited with her customary patience on the edge of the BCB system, this week she was covering the approach vector from Dunkelheim. Her only other company on the outskirts of the system was the veteran privateer Le Roi David covering the other vector coming in from Grosshiddenhafen. The human defenders of BCB had long learned the value of early warning. Especially now that the multinational squadron had only a converted merchant as an operating base high in orbit above the shattered world of Nous Voila, slowing reaction times dramatically.

Antares often shared this duty with her sister the Arcturus and sometimes patrolled to the two main neighbouring systems. However the main threat were Kafer raiders who could appear almost without warning and alarming randomness. No one quite knew if they were ships left over from Triumphant Destiny’s deep penetration into the system or if they were new ships slipping past the fleet at Aurore though the route into devastated Hochbaden.

In the last major invasion the ESA’s small picket ships like the Aconit Class frigates had been smashed aside like so many children’s toys, laying the way open for the Kafers to ravage the human colonies. Now ships like the Antares were being brought into service, hoping to put up a much greater fight.

Development History
Design Characteristics
Service History
Statistics

Above: Antares closed down for action with spin habitats fully retracted. (MSIF Media Ops.)

The Arcturus Class was developed from a conceptual design developed as a commercial proposal by the team that developed the Soldat Class destroyers in the light of the casualty rate incurred by light frigates such as the Aconit Class in the early years of the Kafer War. The use of this type of frigate as colonial guardships was financially prudent and adequate for use as customs ships, piracy deterrence, flag showing and search and rescue duties. Unfortunately when facing Kafer heavy warships or fighter swarms they became easy casualties.

The original design TD-115 was rejected by the MSIF who did not see the requirement for an expensive new guardship design. The Invasion however saw another massive round of casualties which fell heaviest on the frigates. In response the MSIF launched a crash program of ship building, and amongst this found the funding for an initial four TD-115s which were relatively easy and resource light to build. This was followed later by a further funding tranche.

The TD-115s were designed to be operated in colonial systems with less than adequate resources allowing a long time between overhauls and using older technology to ease the difficulty of repair. The TD-115 is designed for a maximum of a three month deployment, this is much less than one of the longer ranged destroyers such as the Soldats or Paris Class but is more than adequate for its role.

As a combatant the TD-115 matches the capability of the older generation of dedicated line of battle destroyers such as the CESAD, or ships like the American Cayuga-C and is significantly more capable than the lightweight Aconits.

The ship is designed to operate in a three ship squadron based in a specific system, with two ships on patrol or stand-by and another preparing for operations. The initial concept was that this squadron would also regularly patrol nearby systems however tensions on the French Arm have meant that these ships have so far been concentrated on important chokepoint system. The ships train to fight independently in pairs making best use of their captain’s in-system knowledge to harass the enemy. If involved in a general fleet action they would act either as a flanking system utilising their missile armament, or in extremis, as a ‘goalkeeper’ for a larger ship.

The ships are also fully capable of fulfilling all of the duties of the older Aconits, although are not capable of planetary landings and must carry a separate slung shuttle should they wish to undertake interface operations.

Design Characteristics

A combination of sensors and a respectable stand-off missile armament.

A secondary close combat and point defence armament capable of self defence or defence of escorted ships.

Combat speed to match the average human destroyer speed and exceed known Kafer battleship speeds .

Sustainability to allow for extended operations within a solar system.

Hull design

The hull has three main components and is armoured with RSC 10 advanced composite and with stealth masking: