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Though already decades into its service, the Leonidas Class Battleship remains one of the
newest designs in the United Nations Navy, introduced as part of a poorly funded and
largely unsuccessful attempt to modernise the fleet, before it began to fall into complete
stagnancy. At a length of 270 Meters, the Leonidas is
very compact for a Battleship, presenting a smaller target for hostile weapons during
long-range engagements. Much of this advantage is lost however, as a result of the ship’s
extremely slow rate of acceleration, this is a product of the vessel’s outmoded S-250
Series Epstein Drives, a famously unreliable drive unit that was considered outdated even
before the Leonidas was commissioned. The Leonidas Class carries a standard crew complement
of 920, in addition to an unusually large contingent of United Nations Marines.
On paper, the weapons complement of the Leonidas Class seems incredibly formidable, carrying
a staggering 32 Torpedo Launchers, supported by a pair of Dawson-Pattern Medium Railguns
and a huge grid of 25 PDCs, only ten fewer than the defence grid of the far larger Truman
Class Dreadnought. In reality, this arsenal is the result of low quality targeting suites,
both for the ship’s torpedoes and PDCs, with the system’s unreliable accuracy demanding
a larger number of weapons to improve torpedo hit probability and point defence. In regard
to the PDC’s at least, this was something of an overcompensation, and the result is
an extremely effective defence grid that makes the ship essentially unassailable by torpedoes.
The huge number of weapons equipped on the Leonidas drastically increase the ship’s
overall mass, and when combined with the vessel’s low-quality drive units, they result in an
extremely unfavourable thrust-to-weight ratio and manoeuvrability rating. This lack of agility
has inspired certain naval personnel to mockingly nickname the vessels ‘Brick Buckets’ or
‘Lead Leo’s’. Like many ships of its era, the Leonidas Class
carries turreted railguns that cannot be rotated or otherwise articulated while the ship is
under thrust. For this reason, the ship is often used to slowly strafe across an engagement
zone on a single vector, before adjusting to perform another run. Some captains also
chose to disregard evasive tactics entirely, and instead bring their vessels to a relative
halt upon entering weapons range, using the ship’s huge point defence grid to protect
themselves as they adjust and fire their railguns. While the Battleship’s defence grid provides
a highly reliable shield against missile weapons, the ship remains extremely vulnerable to railguns
as a result of its poor manoeuvrability, and is essentially incapable of engaging any railgun-equipped
warship without firing from far beyond effective range.
Though the vessel was not designed as an assault ship, the unusually large cargo and shuttle
bays of the Leonidas Class have resulted in the vessel often being selected to serve as
a troop deployment craft, with a number of additional modular barracks and mission operation
centres being installed on a mission-specific basis. The 8 M-Type APC Skiffs carried aboard
the vessel are substantially larger than conventional L-Type Dropships, and are able to deploy sizeable
boarding parties and ground excursion teams in short order. When pushed to maximum capacity,
a Leonidas Class Vessel can be loaded to carry hundreds of marines, often exceeding the troop
complement of certain purpose-built assault vessels.
Though certainly an effective and reliable warship, the Leonidas Class Battleship is
perhaps the greatest symbol of the UN Navy’s decline into stagnancy. When compared to the
cutting edge Donnager Class Battleships of the Martian Congressional Republic, the Leonidas
Class is outmatched in almost every measurable sense, and serves to underline the UN’s
desperate need for a drastic modernisation of their entire fleet.