Name: FTLRailgun
Year: 2915
Title: FTL Capable Railgun 
Short: A self-propelled siege grade railgun platform with its own FTL drive to be used in large scale offensive operations on remote star systems. 
Headline: "FTL Capable Railgun, 2915: A ship of the Holy Redemption Campaign"
Post: "2915 FTL Capable Railgun. A self-propelled siege grade railgun platform with its own FTL drive to be used in large scale offensive operations on remote star systems... more: http://jmp1.de/e2915"
Image: en_FTLRailgun.jpg
Postimage: en_FTLRailgun.jpg
Author: Heiner Wolf
Translation: Heiner Wolf
Tags: [_new, _carousel, FTL, Railgun, War, Siege, Frigate, Capital]
Topics: [war]
Text: |
    A self-propelled siege grade railgun platform with its own FTL drive to be used in large scale offensive operations on remote star systems.
    A capital ship's cannon had been adapted to a frigate sized FTL platform and equipped with some point defense to keep the vessel alive while firing. However, sustained action needed a fleet's missile screen because the built-in point defense won't keep the platform in action for long on its own. The FTL shell had to be detached before firing could commence because any damage to the brittle FTL components would effectively immobilize the vessel. What's more, the cannon's counter thrusters needed free range to cancel out the impulse from firing the rail gun. The conventional fusion engines were usually only employed to bring some distance between the dropped FTL shell and the firing position as to protect the FTL components from direct hostile fire and collateral damage typically seen in large fleet actions. After the loss of several sister ships to missile fire thru an aft PDC blind spot an additional autocannon was installed close to the FTL docking ring. The vessel shown also carried several ship killers ever since it had been temporarily assigned to escort duty despite its heavy railgun being just useless ballast in close encounters. 
    The FTL platform had been built as a defensive screen frigate in the late 29th century during the fleet build-up for the 2nd Sol-Kisor war. After conversion into a siege cannon, it saw major action during the siege of the Kisor Twins starting in 2912 as part of the Holy Redemption Campaign. That was after the Sol System had been taken over by Rog-Ozar and declared their Place of Reappearance and after Kisor had attacked the Sol System following the coup of 2899 thereby arousing the wrath of the Rog-Ozar in the first place. 
    The FTL was disabled by a surprise attack on the fleet's staging area in 2915, also known as the Stray-Beam disaster that threw off the entire operation for at least 5 years. The vessel then spent one year in sub-light mode as part of an attempt to maintain at least some pressure on the defenders. During this time, it was changing positions by fusion drive only. The frigate turned siege cannon was finally destroyed by one of the billions of automatic sweeper drones for which it basically was a sitting duck once discovered. Admittedly, the sweeper drone got lucky engaging a vessel that had largely exhausted its point defense ammunition and that was waiting for resupply. On the other hand, once the position was known a long-range stealth creeper missile would probably have finished it off soon anyway. 
    Originally the FTL factor was specced at 2500. Max ever achieved in frigate configuration: 2200. During the siege conversion one of the FTL generators was swapped for an additional reactor core to support the cannon thus dropping the FTL factor to 1100. As of 2910 the virtual speed had further decreased to 800 due to bad tuning and maintenance, meaning a travel time of two months for the 2912 deployment. 
    Four crew: 
    - Command, comm, situational awareness, tactics,
    - Engineering,
    - Targeting, firing solutions, ECM, ECCM
    - Gun operation