Gladius-class heavy corvette

"We had four corvettes go up against a lone cruiser once, which caught us in a raid near Green Hills. But they clearly chose the wrong fish to catch - we ran rings around them, taking pot shots at every opportunity. And the best part is, they couldn't hit us at all."

- Anonymous Insurrectionist captain.

The Gladius-class heavy corvette is a line of heavy patrol ship used by the UNSC Navy. An adaptation of an unarmed science vessel, the Gladius is notable as it possesses an unusually-large MAC, powerful engines and a small crew with no Marine complement. These qualities mean that the corvette, while not engaging in as many roles as more traditional models, is an exceptional combat ship, inflicting a disproportionate level of damage against larger opponents. This sees the Gladius deployed in low-priority escorts, patrols and interdiction missions. The only flaw of these vessels is their lightly-reinforced frame left them susceptible to more powerful weapons.

Development
With the Covenant's invasion already diverting a number of UNSC Navy fleets as early as 2526, it became clear to everyone that even with new orders placed for SinoViet's standard frigates, fleets will be overstretched to cover larger areas due to a lack of ships. With many of the larger drydocks preoccupied with military orders, the Navy instead turned to smaller planetside facilities to manufacture corvettes, convoy escorts, and small frigates. As a result, the UNSC Navy authorized the Wartime Emergency Ship Program, which involved the stop-gap construction of existing military vessels as well as the development of a cheap, quick-to-build patrol ship that could better stand up against both stolen military craft and Covenant escorts.

Interested in procuring a military contract, TanSec AB of the Atlas Moons entered the crowded competition with their own design. Taking the basis of the Muller-class survey ship, a swift science vessel designed for mapping star systems, they turned to their liason, Commander Martin Szép, to convert it to military needs. Viewports were closed up with armor plating, open spaces previously allocated to crew comfort or specimen collection were reused for ammunition and fuel storage. In fact, the biggest issues they faced was how to fit the light MAC without drastically changing most of the frame, all while keeping crew requirements to an absolute minimum. There was so much pressure that the design's development was completed within four months, and was quickly accepted into the UNSC Navy. The lead ship of the class, the UNSC Gladius, was laid down in March 2529, launched in May, and commissioned in June.

The hasty development meant that the UNSC Gladius had numerous problems that needed to be rectified post-commissioning. The MAC could not be fired at full power due to weak structural support, the engines had unusual resonance vibrations when operating at high thrust, and the underpowered reactor was frequently overtaxed. All these problems were eventually solved and even surpassed, and the Gladius-class was the only one of the four original WESP ship classes to see production throughout the entire length of the war.

Layout
Unlike most smaller warships like its predecessor, the Mako-class light corvette, the Gladius does not appear encased within a large armored shell; instead, the hull follows a basic, almost skeletal profile around the ship's MAC, reactor and engines. This design is inspired from modern frigates constructed by SinoViet Heavy Machinery, although it followed this trend to minimize construction time and materials. Indeed, unlike those vessels, the armored prow is not split in half but instead one large block, with the MAC running down the center of this structure rather than at the top or bottom.

At the very top of the prow is the corvette's small bridge, which is only just wide enough to have the pilot and navigation officer sit side-by-side at the front. The captain sits behind them in a command chair, where they have the best view in front and to their sides. Because the bridge is so small compared to other UNSC vessels, there are only three display screens that are designed to fold up when given the order from the captain's neural interface. Instead, the command chair connects with the captain's neural interface and beams the information directly onto their eyes, allowing the captain to see statistics without a holographic projector. Behind him on the sides are the weapons and the sensors/communications officers, which sit in dedicated stations in the back corner of the bridge. Unlike most UNSC ships, there is no holotable to plan the next course of action - instead, that's housed in the room right behind the bridge, before the main armory. There are two three-man escape pods located right behind the bridge for emergencies.

Extending below the MAC barrel is the corvette's primary communications array, which uses long-distance antenna and a high-powered Microwave receiver for receiving and decoding long and short-range communications, respectively. At the bottom is the main sensor array, a Mark-XXIV combined infrared/RADAR arrays with a FORESIGHT telescope, which are attached to the lower 'spine' that runs more than half of the ship's length. Both of these sensors are much more sensitive than the norm, as they do not need to filter out much radiation coming from the Gladius itself. Further down on the main body are the protrusions for the ship's Archer missile launchers, one on each side, which are outfitted to be effective against fighters, bombers and other ships at long- to mid-range. Above these is where the main shuttle bay is located. This isn't always here, as some owners rather turn the space into a games room or a cargo-bay, and instead place a massive sheet of armor over the door. Right behind this at the top are the crew quarters, which include zero-G hammocks, a basic kitchen and the cryotubes, and it is here where the crew not assigned to any jobs can be found eating, sleeping or relaxing. A direct staircase leads to four Class-I bumblebee escape pods, two on each side, allowing for quick and easy evacuation. Further below this is the Gladius ' modest cargo-bay, with an elevator and retractable stairs for the crew and passengers. This often holds satellites and parts for navigation buoys, as well as the fission fuel to keep them powered. The rest of the forward section is made up of the life-support system and capacitors for firing the main cannon, and as a result, there isn't much room for the crew to move around on board.

After the four escape pods is the technical aft section, which is where most of the engineers work. A smooth protrusion begin starts it off, and it is in this forward part where the fuel is kept. Further back are where two of the M870 point defense guns are located, in prime position to offer defensive all but below the corvette. However, the overlapping fire leaves a massive blind spot towards the aft that can allow enemy fighters to close in on the corvette with minimal possible damage. Attached to the upper engines are also the two afterburner drives, with the back, smaller nozzle increasing the velocity of the corvette with a combined fusion-chemical mix, and a dedicated emergency chemical thruster occupying the larger front cone. The engine configuration leaves one at the bottom and a pair along the middle of the corvette, with the bottom exhaust extending the furthest. These are built around the corvette's large fusion reactor, powered by a deuterium-helium 3 fuel mix. Resting on top of the reactor and forward of the upper fusion drives is the corvette's primary cloaking system - a PREY electronic warfare suite. This bland box can jam all nearby communications channels, issue RADAR and microwave jamming fields to fight sensor systems and if close enough, launch a cyber-warfare campaign on nearby ships, ensuring that the Gladius can only be detected by the most powerful of enemy warships. Further back from this are where the ship's consumables - food, fuel, and ammunition - are stored. A dedicated pod for ammunition exists are the very bottom of the corvette, and is protected by two M870 point defense guns to prevent it from being easily targeted. Should it ignite, the pod is designed to funnel the explosion away from the corvette, and the heaviest armor is mounted above it as well, ensuring minimal damage.

Role
The Gladius-class corvette is designed as a workhorse of colonial defense fleets, and frequently operates alongside the Stalwart-class light frigate. In battle, its primary role is to screen larger UNSC ships, such as cruisers and carriers, and keep them free of hostile strikecraft, missiles and other corvettes. To help with this, most of its Archer missiles have cluster-missile warheads designed to target and clear a large number of fighters at once, along with six M870 Ramparts to shoot down missiles and strikecraft that get too close. Of course, it lacks many dedicated anti-fighter missile defenses and so can be easily out-performed in this role by larger frigates. Instead, it would act in a corvette hunter role, using its oversized MAC while sitting on the edge of its effective range taking shots of opportunity at the smaller Covenant warships. Often-times, it will act like a heavy bomber, making strafing runs on Covenant ships and firing everything it has. However, because of its size, these are considered suicidal affairs and are discouraged by the UNSC Admiralty.

Outside of battle, the Gladius ' usefulness only increases. Because of their stealth-qualities and high-sensitivity sensors, these corvettes are used to patrol the fringes of Human space searching for Insurrectionist and Covenant targets, acting as yet another early-warning system. Their frequent use in counter-insurgent patrols means that they act as an emergency response unit, responding to hails for help and escorting damaged civilian ships back to the nearest colony. Despite their pitiful cargo-bays for a ship of its size, the Gladius can still fulfill the role of buoy tending, ferrying supplies to isolated stations and maintaining the UNSC's Universal Navigation Array network.

Propulsion
The Gladius-class corvette is an astonishingly fast craft, capable of easily keeping up with some models of gunships and bombers. This is specifically thanks to the corvette's extremely-light mass and powerful set of engines, each which are made from different manufacturers.

The main drives are both variations of fusion drives, which work by using the heat and pressure of the main reactor to fire off their highly-combustible propellant; in layman's terms, the ship is pushed by activating nuclear devices on its aft. The first is an V5/L directed fusion rocket, manufactured by Naoto Technologies. The V5/L is a complete fusion suite that consists of both the reactor and the propulsion drives. This expels the raw output of the reactor, making it much quicker than it would have been otherwise but also much less efficient. The engine has been modified with extra thrust-manipulation equipment to increase agility, such as magnetic field plates and 24 low-output fusion drives that surround the main engine. The latter array can be fired without the main engine being activated, which allows the Gladius to still maneuver even under stealth conditions.

Two secondary Triumph-VI 461D fusion drives built by Boglin Fields flank the directed fusion rocket. A fairly well-attuned system, Triumph-VIs are much more efficient and burn at a lower temperature than the V5/L, and are well-suited to burning for extremely long periods of time.

Armament
Unlike most ships around its size range, the Gladius-class corvette's weapon systems are powerful enough to threaten ships as large as destroyers. This is partially because the corvette is entirely built for combat and endurance, however, the main reason lies solely in its 20DA1C2 Magnetic Accelerator Cannon. The smallest axial coilgun that is classified as a MAC, the 20DA1C2 is a compact yet cheap weapon system that acts as the Gladius ' main gun. At 120 meters long, the 20DA1C2 uses a dense concentration of electromagnetic coils to launch a 200-ton slug. The damage inflicted is low by MAC standards, but makes up for this with a much faster rate of fire, which can fire three times as fast as that mounted on a frigate.

Supporting this are two pods of M58 Archer missile pods, two on each side. A general-purpose missile equally effective against both strikecraft and warships, the M58 is not as large as the earlier M42 Archer, but is much more compact and easier to field in swarm tactics. However, the two pods on the Gladius are only capable of launching salvos of ten missiles at most, hardly comparable to the swarms of hundreds even frigates can dish out. Generally, they are divided on a 3:2 ratio of high explosive vacuum-enhanced warheads, and multiple independently targeted vehicles for defeating both other missiles and fighters. A small handful of decoy missiles are also carried, for distracting enemy ships that the Gladius cannot afford to engage.

The only other weapons the Gladius has are six quad M870 Rampart point defense guns, each with four 50mm barrels per turret. Covering most of the blind-spots on the corvette's aft, these are well-suited to destroying enemy fighters and missiles, especially since their barrels are designed to traverse more than 180 degrees before requiring the turret to turn around. However, these turrets are intended to also weaken incoming plasma torpedoes by firing magnetized slugs, potentially dissipating them before they can hit the corvette. They can fire up to 360 rounds per minute.

Defenses and countermeasures
Owing to its civilian origins, the Gladius-class corvette is not built to military construction standards, but rather to a modified set outlined for merchant ships. This involved minimal reinforcement to ensure it could absorb the recoil of its MAC and high-G maneuvers, keeping it light and quick to build. Unfortunately, between it and its minimal 350 millimeter titanium-A1 plates, it can only resist the lightest of anti-ship weapons.

Instead, the Gladius must rely on its extensive suite of countermeasures and stealth-enhanced design to avoid fights it cannot win. Its small, thin hull already provides a minimal signature on sensors, which can be enhanced with RADAR-resistant paint. An AN/SLQ-9 Haltija electronic warfare pod is installed on its dorsal side to release jamming emissions to further obscure it, although the Covenant have been known to trace the signal back to its source. If discovered, the Haltija pod has a cyberwarfare component to interfere with targeting systems and incoming munitions. Numerous AN/SLQ-371 Bastille countermeasure launchers can throw out multispectrum flares, smoke generators, and active decoys to disrupt further attacks, but it is highly recommended for the Gladius to use its speed to quickly escape any danger it encounters.

Cutlass-class attack corvette
The Cutlass-class attack corvette is a heavily-armed, better-armored version of the Gladius-class corvette. Packing two twin M74 Sentry 330mm naval autocannons and four M910 Rampart 105mm point defense guns in the place of the M870s, and a modernized MAC, the Cutlass is specifically kitted out as a corvette and frigate hunter. Armour has been upgraded across certain parts of the hull, although it is still too fragile to reliably take hits. As it is more vulnerable to strikecraft, the corvette retains the external fighter docking claws below the forward section, which are capable of holding a single GA-TL1 Longsword or equivalent for defense.

The Cutlass did not see much use from the UNSC Navy, as they preferred to use the older Gladius for both corvette-hunting and anti-fighter roles. As a result, these corvettes are more popular in planetary defense fleets, who use them as a counter to increased frequency of salvaged frigates being encountered in raids. While heavier destroyers would force them to flee, they needed a high-speed pursuit vessel to disable or destroy them - a role which the Cutlass excels at.