Honorverse
Register
Advertisement
This is the talk page for discussing changes and improvements to the Bastogne class article.
Please add only comments specific to this article here. Broader discussions belong on the Community Portal or the Editing Conventions Discussion. The place for general discussion about the source material is the Forum.

Also, please add new topics at the end and sign your comments with four tildes. (~~~~)

City[]

Is the "aka City" designation correct, or a typo? Nefarious list has them as two seperate classes, 1,000 tons (and 50 m length) difference. The Bastogne also had fewer missile broadside, but more lasers. Jabrwock 17:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Nefarious list is not a canon, however it can be handy with other than RMN and PN navies (where is no Jayne's). City-class was refered once only (HH2), by HH. Jayne's describes it as Bastogne-class (may be City was Manty's codename?).--dotz 19:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Class information[]

Bastogne class DD

Bastogne class DD

Ships in Class
Arlon, Bastogne, Breslau, Bruges, Busko, Charleroi, Gorzow, Jaroslaw, Kessler, Krakow, Leuven, Liege, Lubin, Malbork, Poznan, Suwalki, Torun, Toulon, Tournai

Service Life
1883 to 1946 PD

Specification

Mass: 88,500 tons

Length: 383 m
Beam: 45 m
Draught: 26 m
Acceleration: 519.6 G
Crew: 417 (63 Officers, 354 Enlisted)

Power:

  • 2 RF/6 Dampierre 4 Fusion Reactors

Electronics

  • AG-25 Gravitic Detection Array
  • AR-26 Phased Radar Array
  • AL-26(a) Lidar Array
  • SLCF-19 18x8-channel Distributed Control System
  • ARBB-22 Electronic Countermeasures

Armament:

  • 18 LME-3(c) Missile Tubes
  • 4 L/75 Anti-Ship Lasers
  • 4 L/66 Anti-Ship Lasers
  • 8 LMC-8(g) Counter Missile Tubes
  • 8 P/16x3 Laser Clusters

Magazines

  • 162 E14 Impeller Drive Missiles
  • 216 C2 Counter Missiles
  • 4 LAD-24 Tethered ECM Decoys

Small Craft:

  • 1 D.450 Ouragan-class Pinnace
  • 4 DB.100 Mercure-class Cutters

Design and Development
The Bastogne-class destroyer is the product of a design philosophy prevalent in the pre-war People’s Navy. Faced with a large number of systems to be garrisoned, the Office of Planning needed copious numbers of light combatants for perimeter security forces. The Bastogne is one of those designs.

The Bastogne class has been derided by some within the People’s Navy as a “LAC with a gland condition and hyper capability”. It has neither the magazine space nor the defenses to survive sustained combat operations, but is intended to pack in the maximum possible broadside capability at the expense of a credible energy weapon deterrence, magazine space and defenses. It mounts the quick-firing but unreliable LME-3(c) launchers.

The Bastogne’s defenses are sub-par across the spectrum. The magazine stowage proportions of counter-missiles to ship-killers is very low, especially in light of the ship’s extremely light energy armament, with a corresponding reduction in point defense efficiency. These shortcomings have been exacerbated by the gap between Manticoran and Havenite electronics since the start of the war.

The poor quality of its defenses and short endurance force the Bastogne out of two of the most common roles for a destroyer. With an endurance far shorter than most of its contemporaries and an unbalanced weapons fit heavy on offensive power, it is poorly suited for escort duties and the lack of marines make it unsuited to anti-piracy operations. Most Bastognes are found as advanced screens for the wall of battle, where its role is to get its missiles off quickly before it is destroyed, a fact that does not endear it to its crews.

As a small concession to its reduced energy armament, the Bastogne mounts heavier beam weapons than are normally seen on a ship of its size. The difference is minimal, given the single laser in each broadside.

Doctrinal Notes
With a weapon fit overbalanced towards offense, and an almost suicidal shortage of defenses, the Bastogne-class is used for high speed drive-by passes, salvoing missiles and running as quickly as possible. A secondary use of the Bastognes is as a lure on a raiding mission, their task to pull enemy units into dispersed hunter/seeker patterns to make them vulnerable to defeat in detail.

Its best tactic in combat is to close quickly to optimal missile range, getting the maximum use out of its heavy broadside, then retreat and hope the enemy’s battle damage has rendered it unable or unwilling to pursue. Its missile-heavy design can also be a liability at close ranges, where shorter tracking time and response loops favor ships that are fast on the helm with heavy beam armaments.

One recent (and unorthodox) variant on standard doctrine involves operating Bastognes and Conquerors in divisional strength, stationed right on the hyper limit on a least-time course along the axis of threat. If the timing is right, the missile-heavy ships are well positioned to intercept and severely damage the enemy’s lead units as they come out of hyper. It is a cold, calculated move, balancing the probable loss of the entire division against the damage they can inflict on the opposing force’s screen before they are destroyed.

Notable Units and Battles
Some proposals have been put forth to modernize the remainder of the Bastognes still in service. PNS Bruges was chosen as a test platform, replacing three missile tubes in each broadside with lasers and spreading the existing magazines among the remaining launchers. While a much more survivable design, both in terms of its sustained rate of fire and antimissile defenses, the cost was too high to warrant a complete refit for the remaining units.

- From Ship Book 1

Andrewtheh (talk) 17:41, September 10, 2013 (UTC)

Wow, Andrewtheh!? Are you a freaking mind-reader?! I was just looking for this stuff yesterday! (still couldn't get my hands on a copy of JIR2...) -- SaganamiFan (talk) 23:09, September 10, 2013 (UTC)
Ive got SB 1, 2, and 3, JIR1 (getting JIR2 in the near future) and SITS2.0, and Im rereading all the books. Ship zise, you need it, I gots it. Andrewtheh (talk) 23:24, September 10, 2013 (UTC)
Do you by any chance have anything about the Haven class? It's the only one I can't find any reference to... -- SaganamiFan (talk) 18:11, September 11, 2013 (UTC)
No, dont know that class, but the SITS game covers only up to The Honor of the Queen. I am almost finished with HH10, as Im reading though them Ive been taking note and adding information as I find it.Andrewtheh (talk) 21:36, September 11, 2013 (UTC)
Advertisement