The superdreadnought (SD) was a type of warship employed by most major space forces of the Post Diaspora era. They were the largest warships to be built by humans as of the 20th Century PD, with tonnage ranging between seven and nine million tons, and were grouped with dreadnoughts and battleships as "ships of the wall".
History[]
HMS Manticore was the first Royal Manticoran Navy superdreadnought. (HH1)
The Republic of Haven's LAC carriers were superdreadnought-sized as they were designed to serve as the screening element for the wall of battle. This allowed Havenite carriers to field more LACs for a given number of hulls. (HH10)
Pod-layer[]
The pod-laying variant (called superdreadnought pod-layer, SD(P), or "podnought") was a superdreadnought hull that had been modified to have a hollow core where it could store racks of missile pods, thus protecting them from proximity or "soft" kills. This also allowed a greater number or pods to be carried into battle, and podnoughts could "hand off" pods to other ships in the same formation to tow, although fire-control was still provided by the podnought itself.
Jointly developed between Manticore's BuShips and Grayson's Office of Shipbuilding, the Medusa class (known and operated by the Grayson Space Navy as the Honor Harrington class) was the first design of pod-laying warship developed from the keel for that purpose, capable of carrying up to five hundred pods. During combat, the pods would be flushed out of the ship through a stern-mounted bay door. While massively enhancing the ships' first strike capabilities, the hollow-core design reduced the ships hull strength compared to pre-pod superdreadnoughts, and the need to mount doors through which to flush the pods forced the designers to sacrifice the aft chase mounts. (HH9)
A few years later, both the Andermani Empire and the Republic of Haven developed podnoughts as well. (HH11)
Known SD classes[]
Andermani Empire[]
Protectorate of Grayson[]
Republic of Haven[]
Solarian League[]
Star Kingdom / Star Empire of Manticore[]
- Anduril class
- Gryphon class
- King William class
- Manticore class
- Samothrace class
- Sphinx class
- Victory class
Known SD(P) classes[]
Andermani Empire[]
Protectorate of Grayson[]
Republic of Haven[]
Star Kingdom / Star Empire of Manticore[]
References[]
Warship Classification | |||
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