Community Vessel Cruiser

This hybrid helicopter carrier and conventional cruiser is the heaviest surface combattant (i.e., excluding the aircraft carrier which relies primarily on its airplanes and helicopters) built in peacetime for the Community Defence Forces of Sober Thought. Its balanced mix of sensors, weaponry and cargo space make it very suitable for a multitude of purposes.

Roles

When used for area air defence, either alone or with other vessels of equal or lesser size, a hybrid forms part of the fleet or flotilla. Although classic surface-to-surface combat is rarely conducted these days, cruisers can be organised for this purpose into task groups or task forces comprised exclusively of this single vessel class.

When used for amphibious landings, its big guns can first bombard the shore to soften up enemy resistance. Then, either alone or in concert with other cruisers or landing ships, its boats can transport CDF Land Service troops to the beach and its helicopters even further inland.

While it is armed for anti-submarine warfare, its long length and turning radius make it much less suitable for this purpose than the smaller destroyer and the even smaller frigate. It can, however, serve as the flagship of a group of destroyers or frigates operating alone or in concert with other vessels.

The cruiser can even be used as an extra supply or transport ship. Extra room can be created by leaving all or some of the air crew and their CDF aircraft behind, and even stacking shipping containers on the flight deck. At least one additional CDF infantry battalion or unit equipped with CDF tanks can be accommodated using both of these techniques.

Although the ship looks like an ugly duckling because of its hybrid design with fore guns and aft landing deck, it really is a beautiful swan. The basic concept has been tried and proved successful for the French Navy's Jeanne d'Arc type and the Russian Navy's Moskva class.

Naval component

The overall commander is a naval Commander, whose Vice Commander executive officer doubles as the commanding officer of the purely naval component. The Vice Commander is directly responsible for all 450 seafarers on board. The Bridge Section consists of 14 officers and 36 other ranks including both senior officers. Its members operate sensors and communications equipment, navigate and make command decisions.

The Naval Engineering Section, consisting of 100 all ranks under a Chief Lieutenant, keeps the diesel engines humming. The Naval Support Section, consisting of 50 all ranks under a Lieutenant, provides food, administrative and medical support for those aboard. The Naval Weapons Section, consisting of 200 all ranks under a Chief Lieutenant, operates all the ordnance on board. The three functions are anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-ship, and each set of weapon systems will be described in decreasing order of importance.

Fleets and flotillas frequently use cruisers as a mobile air defence shield. Missiles are the most effective weapons against aerial targets, able to intercept other missiles or aircraft up to 10 km from the ship. The cruiser has eight quadruple missile launchers armed with 320 missiles. The missile batteries are spaced evenly around the superstructure amidships, port and starboard. Conventional anti-aircraft artillery is used if the missile system fails or when dealing with technologically inferior threats. The armament is symmetrical on port and starboard, each side having one twin 40 mm rapid-fire guns on the bow side of the super structure and two twin 20 mm high angle gatling guns just fore of the superstructure.

To deal with submarine threats, the cruiser is armed at the aft center portion of the superstructure with one quadruple subsurface missile launcher armed with 56 missiles. Three submarine mortars -- one each near the bow, port and starboard -- fire 90 depth charges and 40 mini-mines. Both portside and starboard near the bow is one twin torpedo tube armed with 20 torpedoes. The four torpedo tubes are also functional against surface targets.

On the rare occasions the cruiser engages in surface-to-surface combat, it relies on four quadruple surface missile launchers with 112 missiles. Both pairs of batteries are mounted on the superstructure, one toward the bow and the other toward the stern. The mid-bow the turret provides conventional artillery with its pair of independently operated 150 mm guns. The rockets and shells are effective against shore targets as well as those on the surface.

Air component

The CDF Air Service component consists of a large flight or small squadron (if all No. 77 airframes) with about 135 all ranks and three to six rotary- or fixed-wing aircraft. A Lieutenant of Chief Lieutenant -- also a qualified pilot -- serves commanding officer and often remains on the ground with the ordnance, maintenance and administration personnel.

The flight deck starts aft of the superstructure and ends at the stern. The helicopter hold has one aircraft elevator each for single- and twin-rotor helicopters, the latter able to accommodate vertical/short take off and landing airplanes as well. The walls of the hold are cut away in the illustration in the infobox to show interior details.

The operational flight(s) consist(s) of helicopters with a total six rotors among them, HT-55 Hatty and HTN-55 Hortense transport helicopters having two rotors and others have but one. Although by definition V/STOL airplanes have no rotors, they count as twin-rotor helicopters for calculations.

The exact number and type of rotary- or fixed-wing aircraft are tailored to the mission; consult the table of equipment for the normal ranges of each aircraft model and variant. As can be deduced by the table, most air components are made of a variety of aircraft and hence are composite units.

Land component

At least one company of marines is embarked on the cruiser at any given time. The marines always provide naval boarding parties and internal security. When the usual complement of one 115 marine under a Lieutenant is on board, it can also provide small naval landing parties for reconnaissance or shore patrol duties.

When augmented or replaced by a full battalion of 565 light infantry, 650 infantry or 450 armoured troops, the parties become large enough to engage in sustained combat. When transporting two battalions, the parties can perform even more effectively. However, if embarking a demi-brigade, the troops must disembark under largely or exclusively friendly circumstances since they lack all of their air support.

Building

The cruisers in the first batch after one hundred million population of Sober Thought is reached are named C-1 through C-6, the second C-7 through C-12, etc. They also bear the names of municipalities throughout Sober Thought and the International Democratic Union.

The first six baches, C-1 through 36, were more conventional gun-and-missile platforms like the real world United States Navy Cleveland class light cruiser of the Second World War and Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser of the Second Cold War. The old cruiser had only the same helicopter power as the smaller destroyer, its ASW effectiveness was greatly reduced and its ability to airlift marines was virtually nonexistent.

The Community Defence Forces decided to make all new construction in the seventh and subsequent batches of the hybrid design. Unlike the other shipbuilding programmes, the hybrid cruisers laid down in the twenty-first wave were actually completed.

Half of the older-design vessels (C-1, C2, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-8 through -12, C-15, C-16, C-19, C-20, C-23, C-25, C-26, C-30) were scrapped and their names recycled for the new vessels. The CDF Coastal Command's CDF artillery mounted their big guns, and the Naval Service stripped their smaller weapons and parts to keep the other half of conventional cruisers in service.