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(covers information from Vanguard universe)
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this article was thought of and created by Maximus1925


Achilles-class
Achilles V side
Side view

Class:

Achilles

Type:

Battle Cruiser

Affiliation:

Federation, Starfleet

Career

Yard:

Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards

Launched:

2372 (standard)
2384 (Vanguard)

Commissioned:

2373 (standard)
2385 (Vanguard)

Dimensions

Length:

612 meters

Beam:

313 meters

Draft:

84 meters

Mass:

3,800,000 metric tons

Specifications

Decks:

18

Complement:

900 total:
- 180 officers
- 720 enlisted

Speed:

Via enhanced warp drive:
- Warp 8.5 (normal cruising)
- Warp 9.5 (top sustained)
- Warp 9.99 (max; 12 hrs.)
Slipstream velocities

Armament:

Phasers:
- 16 collimated Type-XII phaser arrays
- 8 Mark-XII forward pulse phaser cannons
Torpedo launchers:
- 10 variable-use torpedo launchers
- 10 mini-torpedo phalanx arrays (5 port, 5 starboard)
Torpedo payload:
- 50 transphasic torpedoes
- 150 quantum torpedoes
- 300 high-yield photon torpedoes
- 1,200 quantum mini-torpedoes

Defenses:

- Enhanced, regenerative, redundant, reinforced, multiphasic, multispectrum, unimatrix defensive shields
- Ablative hull armor
- Ablative armor plating
- Microdiffracted carbon hull coating
- Sensor stealth system
- External holographic emitters

Shuttlecraft:

Defense:
- 1 Valiant-class Tactical Corvette
- 36 Valkyrie-class advanced tactical flyers
Auxiliary:
- 1 Venture-class scout ship
- 2 Yellowstone-class runabouts
- 2 Flyer-class heavy shuttlecrafts
- 4 Type-11 medium shuttlecrafts
- 6 Type-9 light shuttlecrafts
- 1 Admiral's Yacht

Achilles V top
Top view
 

The Achilles-class was a Federation Starfleet starship active in the 24th century.

Achilles ortho

The Achilles class Battle Cruiser.







Its prototype was launched in 2373 and was designated as a Battle Cruiser developed during the Dominion War in response to the massive warships used by the Dominion, including the Cardassian warships and the Jem'Hadar supercruisers, as well as to the massive cubes used by the Borg.

Ships of the class that were built more recently and launched by 2385 featured the techological advancements found on the Sovereign-class, the Vesta-class, Prometheus-class, and the Defiant-class starships.

Though not as popular as the Prometheus-class Assault Cruiser as a tactical vessel, the Achilles-class was equally known as among the most powerful combat-oriented starship classes ever developed by Starfleet.

Background[]

The Federation needed a hard-hitting cruiser-type starship that was easier to make than the Katana-class. Starfleet specified a long-range, multi-purpose, battle cruiser that could penetrate enemy defenses and strike strategic installations with little or no escort. It was realized that the Federation and it's allies lacked many ships heavy enough to stand toe to toe against dreadnought-sized starships, being limited to the Galaxy-class, the Sovereign-class, the Vesta-class, and the Klingon Negh’Var-class attack cruisers.

The exceptional low profile, quickness, and armament of the Achilles-class could pit it against fighter class vessels, dreadnoughts, and defended installations.

Ship achilles01

A view of the Achilles class Battle Cruiser

Achilles angle 2

Another view of the Achilles class Battle Cruiser

Appearance[]

The Achilles-class measured 612 meters in length, 313 meters across, 84 meters high, and had 18 decks. The ship was slightly shorter than either the Sovereign-class and the Vesta-class Command Cruisers, but it had more bulk and internal hull space.

The Achilles followed the design lineage of the Intrepid-class and Sovereign-class. Slightly smaller in overall size than a Galaxy-class, the Achilles was a far cry from the size of the Dominion heavy ships, but was of a sleeker design, and armed with the advanced weapons used for the Defiant-class armored Tactical Frigates for fighting the Borg. The saucer and engineering hull were directly connected with no neck as on most of the previous Starfleet designs. The nacelles were connected to the aft of the engineering section by struts at the top of the section that curve downwards, this placed the nacelles in line with the saucer section, which helped to keep the ship streamlined.

In addition, compared to almost all frontline capital starships, the Achilles-class featured a long and wide secondary hull, providing the ship with more internal capacity to carry additional manpower, engineering systems and equipment, offensive and defensive systems, and auxiliary craft capacity than even a Sovereign-class and Vesta-class starship could embark.

Offensive Capabilities[]

The class’s state-of-the-art weapons systems made it one of the few ships in Starfleet able to mount an effective defense against the Borg.

Phasers[]

The primary weapons on the Achilles-class were 16 collimated Type-XII phaser arrays scattered all over the ship's hull and 8 experimental forward Type-XII pulse phaser cannons. With the successful deployment of the pulse phaser cannon on the Defiant-class, Starfleet wished to replicate this into a larger more powerful vessel.

Variable-use torpedo launchers[]

The Achilles-class boasts 10 variable-use torpedo launchers with the capacity to fire quantum torpedoes and transphasic torpedoes. It had a larger torpedo payload than the Sovereign-class and Vesta-class Command Cruisers, with 50 transphasic torpedoes, 150 quantum torpedoes, and 300 high-yield photon torpedoes.

Mini-torpedo phalanx array[]

Though original variants of this class were installed with microtorpedoes, those that were constructed for attachment to Vanguard Command were instead installed with a superior prototype weapon system - the Mini-torpedo Phalanx Array. It had 10 mini-torpedo launchers arranged in a broadside array mounted midway down the 'spine' or dorsal side of the secondary hull of the ship, at 5 port and 5 starboard, covering the entire upper hemisphere. The array allowed the ship to combat multiple vessels to cause massive destruction while still keeping its forward firepower focused on a single target. With the introduction of the Mini-Torpedo Phalanx Array, the Achilles could cripple warships while maintaining target on an enemy objective. It had a payload of 1,200 quantum mini-torpedoes.

Flight deck and tactical flyers[]

Another tactical capability of the Achilles-class was the large main fighter and shuttle bay on decks 10 and 11 of its long secondary hull. The flight deck ran from the midline between the primary hull and secondary hall of the vessel to the stern of the ship. This allows ships of the class to act as a tactical flyer carrier for 36 Valkyrie-class advanced tactical flyers to exponentially increase the ship's firepower when needed. Several special operations pilots to crew them were assigned aboard. Its tactical flyer complements exit and return through the 2 aft bay doors.

Defensive capabilities[]

The shield system of the Achilles-class was equal to that of the larger Katana-class Command Battleship and was therefore among the most powerful found on any Starfleet starship. It was outfitted with regenerative, multiphasic shield systems, and secondary shields. The regenerative features increase effectiveness against both high energy tractor beams and phased anti-muon (polaron) particles, measures clearly aimed at the Borg and Dominion respectively.

Under normal operations, the shield modulation frequencies were controlled by the ship's computer system, which continually evaluates incoming weapons fire and automatically re-modulates the shields to provide the most effective possible defense. It was thought that this system can also prevent beam-through by Borg transporter technology.

The Achilles-class boasts of a hull that was made of overlapping and regenerative ablative hull armor that allows it to take many direct hits from enemy fire even with minimal shields. In addition, the class had been equipped with two separate armor generators that can deploy a thick layer made of ablative armor plating along the contours of the entire ship when activated. This can be done through the numerous armor plating emitters that were installed at different points on the ship's hulls. This coating covers the ship's phaser mounts, but torpedo launchers were not affected by it.

This triple redundancy feature of shields and armor on the Achilles-class allows it to effectively counter Borg and Dominion firepower. Though requiring huge energy to deploy both the shields and the generated armor coating at the same time, the Achilles had enough redundant power sources onboard to utilize these simultaneously for several hours.

The Achilles' hull was coated in microdiffracted carbon to absorb all visible radiation that fell upon it, making it as black as the space it moved through.

Standard auxiliary craft complement[]

Aside from the large main fighter and shuttle bay where most of the smaller auxiliary crafts were deployed, the Achilles-class had one runabout bay and one secondary shuttle bay for the larger auxiliary crafts.

The Achilles features a complement of 20 auxiliary crafts of varying types with support facilities for all, namely:

Propulsion systems[]

The propulsion system onboard ships of this class were state-of-the-art. The class boasts of the best navigational sensors, and among the highest rated top speed of any Starfleet vessel. Main Engineering itself was located on Deck 14 and was an open-plan facility, directly accessible from the corridor. Consisting of two levels, it provided direct access to the vessel's warp core and primary engineering support systems. The corridor bulkhead housed the Master Situation Monitor. Inside the main section, the master systems display was the operational focus of the room. Beyond this, heading towards the warp core, the chief engineer's office and several support consoles were located on the left, and the assistant chief engineer's console on the right. These formed part of the bulkhead protecting the main part of engineering from the warp core. Access to the upper level, a circular area surrounding the warp core, was provided by a ladder to the left of the warp core or an elevator on the right. The upper level had access to other warp core maintenance systems.

Impulse drive[]

The impulse drive system of the Achilles-class was among the most sophisticated models in production. Its oversized impulse engines were equipped with impulse thrusters that provide superb sub-light maneuvering speed, especially considering her size. This design, along with the new retro-thrusters and uprated structural integrity fields, gives the ship maneuverability equal to the size of a Saber-class vessel.

Warp drive[]

The warp drive of the Achilles was among the most powerful in Starfleet. The matter-antimatter reaction assembly warp core spanned 10 decks of the Engineering Section. Its warp drive featured a tri-cyclic input manifold and was designed to operate for up to 5 years before refueling. The ship's warp engines were based on a new concept in warp drive design, one that eliminates the subspace distortion effects inherent to standard warp drives. The reaction chamber was equipped with a compositor, which allowed the recrystallization of dilithium. The deuterium tanks were above the core, while antimatter storage pods surrounded the base of the core.

A secondary class 7 warp core was located aft of the primary warp core, spans 4 decks, and was brought online when the primary warp core was offline. This allows the ship to travel at a cruising speed of Warp 6 while the primary warp core was offline.

Equipped with the enhanced warp drive of the Khronnians, the Achilles can now easily attain and indefinitely sustain a normal cruise speed of Warp 8.5, a maximum cruise speed of Warp 9.5 and a top speed of Warp 9.99 sustainable for up to twelve (12) hours.

Quantum slipstream drive[]

The ships of this class were installed with the latest quantum slipstream drive, located adjacent to the warp drive section. This allows them to travel 300 light years in an hour. The systems installed as part of the slipstream drive included a quantum field focus controller at the front of the ship's main deflector and a chroniton integrator; the latter of which could be used to take sensor readings several seconds into the future when the ship was using its slipstream drive.

Computer systems[]

The Achilles-class starship was equipped with some of the most advanced computer systems of the time. The computer system on board the Achilles-class was bio-neural based. Computer systems were concentrated in a computer core, which was accessible through a maintenance room. Each Achilles-class vessel carried two independent computer cores, one located in the saucer section and one in the engineering section. The main computer processor was capable of simultaneous access to 47 million data channels, transluminal processing at 575 trillion calculations per nanosecond, and operational temperature margins from 10° to 1790° Kelvin. The bio-neural circuitry sped up the computer's data functions and improved overall performance.

Transporter systems[]

Achilles-class starships had 20 transporter rooms located throughout the vessel.

Emergency holographic complement[]

This class was equipped with holo-emitters on every deck to allow emergency holographic programs a higher level of access and free movement around the ship. The ship’s computer systems can simultaneously bring online a full Long-term Holographic Program Package of advanced holograms, with the capacity to duplicate themselves and perform more than one task at a time, composed of:

Science systems[]

Though primarily designed for combat, the Achilles-class was equipped with enough science facilities to go for extensive periods on deep space exploratory duties, with cutting-edge scientific equipment. However, because of the ship's designation as a Battle Cruiser, these were utilized more for tactical purposes than scientific.

Astrometrics & stellar cartography[]

The Achilles-class boasts one large Astrometrics lab and a Stellar Cartography Department, which was not only dedicated to the science and practice of charting space, but could also be used for long-range communications purposes or even, as a workplace for easy access to sensor information. It features a holotank which allows a person to gain a 360° panoramic view of an area using holographic technology. There were a series of control panels to manipulate the screen. The area below the screen and in front of the control panels could be used as a stage during presentations. Astrometrics also include 8 additional workstations on the side walls.

Science laboratories[]

There were only 10 non-specific science labs on the Achilles-class that were easily modified for various scientific endeavors, but they were among the largest and most advanced onboard a Federation starship.

Medical facilities[]

There were three sickbays onboard this ship class. All were equipped with 8 standard biobeds and 2 surgical biobeds covered by large overhead sensor clusters and capable of hook-up to a surgical support frame. Sickbay 1, located on the portside of the ship, was home to the Chief Medical Officer's office, while Sickbay 2, located on the starboard side of the ship, was where the second-most senior medical officer’s office was located. Sickbay 3, located on the secondary hull of the ship, was where the third-most senior medical officer’s office was located. A small lab used for routine analysis of patients was attached to each medical officer’s office. The room itself was considered to be general purpose and was often the location of regular crew physicals, appointments, and various medical emergencies; it could effectively handle the majority of situations that a crew would face.

Crew facilities[]

The Achilles-class featured standard crew quarters and recreation facilities for its 900 crew complement.

Accommodations[]

This class did not have families or non-Starfleet personnel aboard. Most crew quarters located in the ship's saucer section. However, the Engineering Hull also contained crew quarters, generally containing engineering personnel and flight crew.

As was common on Starfleet vessels, the living accommodations for senior officers and VIPs were larger than standard crew quarters and lined the edge of the saucer section. They were generally reserved for lieutenant commanders and above. Captain's quarters were similar to the officers' quarters but slightly larger. The captain had a large desk area and work terminal. VIP and diplomatic guest quarters shared the same layout.

Officers' quarters usually included a living area in the center of the dwelling, which held a personal workstation, couch, replicator, and a small dining area. Connected to this was a bedroom that featured a double-sized bed and room for personal belongings. The bedroom would be connected by a half-bathroom with wash basin, mirror, toilet, several drawers, and a sonic shower.

Junior officers' quarters were small-unit quarters located on the interior of the ship and lacked windows. They were comprised of a living area, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Crew members of lieutenant junior grade were given their own quarters; ensigns and non-commissioned officers were required to share quarters. The living area contained a replicator terminal and was customizable with a variety of furniture and decorations.

Mess lounges[]

There were 2 large mess halls and 2 smaller mess lounges onboard that were equipped with full bar and kitchen facilities each managed by a Mess officer, with a private captain's dining room just behind the mess lounge located at the forward section, all served by windows that offered a spectacular view of space outside. Eating accommodations were provided by a slew of tables and chairs. The larger mess halls can occupy 100 diners at a time, while the mess lounges can occupy 32 diners at a time. Each mess area had a very relaxed and congenial air about it. At the head of the hall were open slots that served as dispensers for the replicators. The mass-use replicators were able to produce other foods and non-alcoholic beverages with an extensive recipe listing from over two hundred worlds for the crew to enjoy in this relaxed social setting. The most notable accessory to the lounge was a modest-sized bar area, offering a wide selection of synthetic and alcoholic beverages. To conserve replicator rations, the mess hall’ menu was supplemented with food stocks of vegetables cooked by the mess officers from the aeroponics bay and hydroponics bay, along with food obtained from trading and scouting missions. In addition, the mess lounges can double as large meeting areas that could be used to conduct crew briefings and mission profiles. A tall screen panel located on one of the walls can be used as a visual aid to display graphics.

Recreational facilities[]

The Achilles-class featured 12 holodecks scattered all over the ship. The ship’s two gyms contained a variety of recreational equipment for a variety of sports. They were not overly spacious, but they were well outfitted. The facilities included variable-weight machines, isometric machines, calisthenic machines, and a sparring ring configured for Anbo-Jytsu but easily modified and/or expanded for other practices. All equipment have the ability to vary gravity for those species that were physically biased toward higher or lower than standard gravity.

Command and senior staff[]

Achilles-class starships have Commanding Officers that hold the rank of Captain, while Executive Officers and Second Officers hold the rank of Commander.

Vanguard Command[]

There was only one Achilles-class Battle Cruiser assigned to Vanguard Command, the USS Resilient, the personal flagship of Fleet Admiral Maximus Hunter.

Another Achilles-class, the USS Balder, was the personal flagship of Starfleet Commander-in-Chief Fleet Admiral Leonard James Akaar.

Related links[]

External links[]

 ↑ ↓ 
Achilles-class starships
 ↑ ↓ 
Federation:
Alternate reality:
Vanguard universe: USS ResilientUSS Balder
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