Difference between revisions of "Community Vessel Destroyer"

Latest revision as of 02:49, 16 April 2006

The second most powerful class of surface ship of the Naval Service of the Community Defence Forces is the destroyer. It is reasonably well armed against subsurface, surface and aerial threats. Its general purpose nature can adapt to interdiction duty; as the flagship of a task group of frigates or other destroyers operating in a long range, long term mission; part of a defence screen for a flotilla or larger task force; an escort and bombardment platform for a small amphibious task group; or on its own for ASW or attacks on unescorted merchant ships.

The destroyer is like a large frigate from which it takes its superstructure in its entirety. However, it is like a small cruiser by size, armament and air complement. The wider beam allows it to carry two naval helicopters: an HUBR-77 Hubert in an ASW configuration with a winched sensor and 2 mini-mine launchers, and an HUS-77 Hudson in a search and rescue configuration.

It performs very well in anti-submarine warfare (ASW), often serving as the flagship of an ASW task group including several frigates. For ASW, it has two twin torpedo tubes with 16 torpedoes on either side of the bow turret, one quad subsurface missile launcher with 56 missiles, three submarine mortars with 90 depth charges and 40 mini-mines.

Destroyers can also act solo as a surface raider because they are adequately armed against surface ships. Traditional gunpowder is represented by twin 100 mm radar controlled guns in a bow turret, and is also used for shore bombardment in support of an amphibious assault by landing ships. With a wider beam to accommodate them, two quad surface missile launchers with 48 missiles are placed above the dual helicopter hangar towards the aft.

Unlike the smaller frigate, the destroyer is heavily armed against air attack. Most obvious are the two quad missile launchers with 252 missiles located aft located between the anti-ship missile launchers and the radar superstructure. Less obvious are the two twin 20 mm guns located between the radar and main superstructures.

A Vice Commander is the overall and naval commanding officer of the total crew of 330 all ranks. The captain is assisted by a Chief Lieutenant as executive officer, several Lieutenants as section officers and more Vice Lieutenants for the 265 purely naval crew members. There are only 30 air crew in the flight of two helicopters because the ASW and SAR crews do not need to be repeat since each helicopter is devoted a single task. Flight officers include the Lieutenant as commanding officer and three Vice Lieutenants flight crew. The final group of personnel are contained in the marine light infantry platoon of 35 all ranks commanded by a Vice Lieutenant.

The dozen destroyers in the first batch after one hundred million population of Sober Thought is reached are named D-1 through D-12, the second D-13 through D-24, etc. They also the bear names beginning with the letter D.