BARD PAPER: SARA5xxx

| Home | Traveller | BARD | SARA |

---

Shambalator-Class Escort

design by Lewis Roberts

The Shambalator class was designed for the Glisten Planetary Navy for merchant escort and piracy suppression duties. As such it did not need to be an exceedingly sophisticated design. However, a battery of high-energy weapons was stipulated by the procurement team.The policy of tradeofffs in the design also led to the unfortunate side effect of the vessel having insufficient power to operate the inertial compensators at acceleration of over 2Gs. It is also dependent on outside fuel purification capability. Despite these flaws, 600 were initially built and performed adequately in the Fifth Frontier War. About 450 remain in active service. Although not an IDP design, the Shambalator's unusual balance of economy, defensive capacity and offensive versatility has made it a common choice for supporting Black War operations.

Designer's Notes: I replaced the MT version's PAW turret with a 420 MJ laser barbette. I could have shoved several additional weapons into the design, but that didn't seem in the flavor of the original version. Comparing it to the Gazelle and Fiery Close Escorts, it is bigger by 200 Tons than either of the two. It uses this space to add sandcasters and extra weapons. It is 50MCr more expensive, most of this cost comes from having three MFDs rather than one. It also is more versitile, it has 30 staterooms and only 18 crew so quite a few troops can be carried. The exact number depends on how cramped everyone gets, but by double bunking the crew, except the officers, 40 troops can be carried. It has a 68 ton hangar which can carry up to 34 tons of small craft, if cramped, and 17 tons, if spacious. This futher increases the mission flexability.

It also has a very unique approach to fuel, instead of including a fuel purification plant, the ship has a very large numbers of G-turns but these same G-turns can be used as jump fuel, allowing upto three jumps in a row.

The ship can peform myriad tasks: scout, merchant escort, patrol craft, troop carrier. It seems that this versitility it would make it popular in the New Era. I see the ship not so much as a fleet escort, such as the Lucifer, but a general purpose warship, its versitility and small crew size make it ideal for a player character ship in a militaristic campaign.

Shambalator-Class Escort

General Data

Engineering Data

Power Plant: 1.02 GW Fusion Power Plant, 1 year duration (102.1 m³ fuel)

Jump Performance: 2 (1,260 m³ fuel)

G-Rating: 3G HEPlaR (210 MW/G), Auxiliary High Efficiency CG (60 MW)

G-Turns: 102 (J1: 126; 150 using all jump fuel), 26.3 m³ fuel each

Maint: 124

Electronics

Computer: 3xTL-15 Fibre-optic computer (1.1 MW)

Commo: Laser (Unlimited; 0.3 MW), Maser (Unlimited; 0.6 MW), Radio (Unlimited; 20 MW)

Avionics: Imaging EMS, IGS positioning, 190 km/h NOE

Sensors: AEMS (16 hex; 25 MW), PEMS Folding array (6 hex; 0.2 MW), Ladar (10 hex; 0.6 MW), Densitometer (0.4 MW), Neutrino Sensor (0.01 MW),

ECM/ECCM: EMS Jammer (4 hex;18 MW), EM Masking (8.4 MW)

Controls: Bridge with 8 bridge workstations, 6 normal workstations

Armament

Offensive: 2x150 MJ Laser Turret (42 MW; No crew) ROF=100
420 MJ Laser Barbette (116.67 MW; No crew) ROF=100
2xMissile Barbette (0.15 MW; 1 crew)

Defensive: 2xSand Turret (1 MW; 1 crew)

Master Fire Directors: 1xTL-15 (6 Diff Mods; 10 hex; 1.56 MW; 1 crew), 2xTL-15 (6 Diff Mods; 10 hex; Msl 10 hex; 1.86 MW; 1 crew)