Arcamat-class battlecruiser

The Arcamat-class was the large class of battlecruiser introduced by the CMA Navy as a counter to the.

Development
As the UNSC-CMA Cold War escalated into a full-blown arms race during the 2470s, the CMA initiated a number of projects aimed at radically modernising their fleet, with Project JUNO being perhaps the most flawed of these. Initiated in 2478, JUNO was principly responsible for investigating the maturing field of naval coilguns and developing potential concepts for a wide range of capital ships, from destroyers to carriers and everything in-between. One of these focused on the idea of a large commerce-raiding cruiser, able to catch smaller warships and ambush high-value targets, a promordial for the Arcamat-class.

While no doubt ambitious, and in hindsight pointed the way forward for warship design, JUNO's key failing was its lack of political support and internal mismanagement. Discussions with shipwrights had produced almost fifty different designs throughout just the 2480s, all varying in shape, size, and doctrine. Many of these would be dropped or allowed to mature further in response to developments in Cold War capital ship design, much of which was encouraged by many of the directionless project heads. More importantly, JUNO struggled to receive the necessary resources and priority that would've brought their ships to life. Missiles were still considered cheaper and proven, and the arms race with the UNSC now saw a tic-for-tac escalation in cruiser construction, something that the CMA High Command could not justify putting on hold without risking the opening of a gap between the two rival navies.

All this finally changed when in 2493, the UNSC Navy unveiled the after its own long and troubled development. Although the entire class would swiftly be brought back into dock due to construction problems, its very existence exposed a glaring weakness in the CMA Navy. It was a ship that could outfight any warship it couldn't outrun, and outrun the battleships that it couldn't outfight. With the CMA's own next-generation heavy cruiser unable to be effectively upgunned to counter it, JUNO stepped in to finally earn support from the CMA admiralty. Vice Admiral Odom Falkner was dispatched to take charge of JUNO, and he swiftly narrowed the dozens of potential designs, to fifteen, and then finally the single winning design. Multiple of the losing shipbuilding corporations subsequently lodged complaints in order to reverse the decision; in the end, Falkner had to amend ties by awarding construction contracts to a number of these firms.<!--

Gotta make an article for the shipwright who designed this, since he apparently had stuck with the project and went on to design other ships.

The design of the Arcamat-class Strike Cruiser dates back to Project JUNO in 2478, a plan proposed by the naval leadership of the CMA to refurbish the Navy in light of advancing UNSC Navy ships and new technologies being employed by them like the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon (MAC) which were uninterceptable. The proposals of Project JUNO were wide and sweeping, covering ships from corvettes and frigates to supercarriers and battleships. The Arcamat-class in particular can be traced back to early proposals for new large cruisers designs as hunter-killers to attack supply lines and ambush high value warships. However before any of the proposals of Project JUNO could be implemented, it immediately ran into problems.

While Project JUNO was theoretically sweeping in its application, this also led to significant conflict within and between CMA leaderships, shipyards, designers, and engineers as to the final designs. Between 2480 and 2490, no less than 4 dozen design proposals were suggested for a variety of ships with each iteration varying in design, doctrine, and technological sophistication. The raiding cruiser proposal had since evolved into a larger design geared towards defeating smaller enemy cruisers but was seen as impractical due to its niche role and the prospective ships it was meant to counter only being rumored rather than being built or in service.

However, there was a paradigm shift in 2490 with the reveal of the Valiant-class superheavy cruiser being built for the UNSC. The Valiant's represented a significant jump in warship design, weaponry, and tonnage which the CMA had no way of matching in an efficient way. Furthermore, the advanced point defense systems aboard the Valiant directly threatened the missile reliant battle doctrine of CMA warships. With the Valiant being seen as a template which subsequent UNSC cruisers would follow, the committee behind Project JUNO reevaluated their priorities. Till this point they had only approved the construction of a handful of supply and recon vessels as the difficulties surrounding large warships continued with infighting between increasingly radical and secessionist individuals who called for a full arms race and others accused of being UNSC or insurrectionist supporters by advocating for drastically scaled down designs. Vice Admiral Odom Falkner, the new head of the committee, decided to break these deadlocks by narrowing each ship to a final set of 2 designs and by offering any companies or shipyards who lost the contracts to support the final designs by producing other components of the ships.

The progress afforded by the new design and contract awarding procedures allowed some ship classes to begin their construction such as smaller destroyers and corvettes, but a major focus was to begin full rate production of the Advanced Anti-Capital Cruiser Project (AACCP). The AACCP emphasized the construction of a large cruiser with a MAC battery to rival the Valiant, a powerful secondary and tertiary battery to aid the main guns and tackle smaller ships, and an advanced defense and countermeasure system. The construction of the first block of 6 ships ships began in 2493 with them being completed in 2498. -->

Role
The Arcamat-class battlecruisers, unlike the preceding Brandt-class and the rival Valiant-class, was strictly built as a deep-space raider, and made no sacrifices to add in fleet support elements. They were intended to operate in groups of two or three, and penetrate deep behind enemy lines to raid enemy shipping and launch surprise attacks on targets of opportunity, which could range from underprotected warships to naval infrastructure.

When operating within a fleet, the Arcamat-class were instructed to back stop the CMA's screening forces in order to prevent break-through attempts by enemy cruisers, or to cut off an enemy armada's line of retreat.

Specifications
The Arcamat-class battlecruiser, even by CMA standards, was a very long-ranged vessel. Using appropriate power-management and supply-rationing techniques, the ship's stores were rated to allow for continuous operation for almost eight months when fully-loaded for operations. Indeed, its use of naval coilguns meant that the Arcamat had the ammunition to fight more battles on a single mission than any other ship in the CMA Navy, at least when not accounting for the strike capacity of a carrier. As a result, it should not be a surprise that the lack of a flag deck, large spaces to carry troops, and the independent mindset of their captains and crew meant that these battlecruisers made poor fleet flagships or even fleet support ships.

Armament
The Arcamat-class' armament diverged from usual CMA preference with large numbers of heavy missiles, instead substituting it for heavy mid-ranged naval coilguns. Their two MACs were identical to the guns found on the, but being paired with a far more powerful reactor allowed them to recharge somewhat faster. This was backed up by four twin Mark 14 Redoubt 1,143mm (45")/45 cal naval coilgun turrets, weapons typically found on battleship and were excellent at punching through even thick armor plating. These were placed in such a way that all four turrets had uninterrupted firing arcs forward, however as two of these were wing turrets mounted aside the reactor, they could only bring three of these to bear per side. Backing these up on all Flight II ships and later were ten twin Mark 29 Spitfire naval coilguns mounted to cover most of the battlecruiser's flanks. Although powerful enough to sweep aside frigates and destroyers, the Spitfire did most of its damage through the "hail of fire" theory, by firing much faster in order to smash up unprotected portions of the enemy's hull. Because the Arcamat-class was introduced before the introduction of the far more efficient cold fusion reactors, all these weapons fired significantly lighter projectiles than their later descendants. There were also problems with supplying enough power to fire all coilguns, which was mitigated by the shipwright's decision to incorporate much larger capacitor banks and batteries to maintain optimal performance during the first twenty minutes of a space battle. After this point, rate of fire slowed dramatically, forcing the captain to decide whenever to disengage or finish off the opponent.

Heavy missiles were still present, but generally these only consisted of 56 M48 Ares silos, each with two reloads as was standard for CMA cruiser construction at this time. Very large for anti-shipping missiles, the new M48 missiles were capable of causing significant damage to even other capital ships if one slipped through, and their armored construction was resistant to point defence fire, which somewhat negated the low number they had aboard. Still, the per-salvo intensity was no greater than that of the CMA's heavy destroyers, requiring the CMA to either close the range or rely on some other means to suppress enemy counter-munition solutions.

Point defense was provided with 32 quad M800 Rampart 40mm/70 cal point defense guns. Although somewhat obsolescent by the time of the Insurrection, their numbers and high barrel count compared to other point defense systems still made them a formidable anti-fighter and anti-missile defense system, with very good coverage over all areas of the battlecruiser. This was just the last in a multi-layered active defense system, and were supplemented by M311 Zawra MITV missile pods. Although as large as an anti-shipping missile, the Zawra's purpose was to act as a long-ranged vehicle for almost a dozen smaller missiles that could track fighters, intercept other munitions if necessary, and more importantly strike at poorly-protected systems critical to a warship's combat performance. These, however, weren't enough as it turned out to truly protect the battlecruiser, and as a result a small complement of older Streak-I missile pods were gradually refitted onto battlecruisers to defeat enemy fighters.

Protection
The Arcamat 's physical protection was considered decent for its time. Although it was protected by relatively-thick 2.2 meter plates of titanium-A1 battleplate with a wide double-hull spacing that provided plenty of coverage over the hull, the battlecruiser declined to incorporate features such as a protective shroud around its reactor. This saved weight and reduced its silhouette, but also meant that vital areas lacked a "doubled up" protective system. In theory this made it considerably more vulnerable to MACs and possibly fusion missiles, although experience during the Insurrection showed that the extra coverage was more effective with resisting the lighter weapons fire that Insurgents generally used. In addition to this, the Arcamat-class battlecruisers had the same multiple redundancies given over to their electronics, although they sacrificed some of the CMA's infamous ruggedness for the sake of maintaining performance.

Laid over this was a sophisticated network of active defense systems, with a greater supply of flares, smoke launchers, and jammers necessary to combat the greater numbers of Archer missiles the UNSC had now equipped on its ships, which were coordinated with its engines by a Rakshak defense computer. This had mixed success, as the targeting computers routinely had problems accommodating for manoeuvres conducted by the Rakshak. It also carried a variety of systems designed to blind enemy RADARs and sensor equipment and jam tranmissions, which made it an effective electronic warfare vessel as well.

Block I
The initial production group, the Block I battlecruisers were notable for their somewhat complicated frame construction, and featured Scorpio-class fusion missiles instead of Spitfires due to the CMA admiralty's concerns that they lacked sufficient firepower. This was swiftly replaced during the Insurrection, as it was found that the greater flexibility and more importantly larger ammunition capacity offered by naval coilguns vastly overshadowed the greater payload of a fusion missile.

Six ships were ultimately built, all at different shipyards. They were commissioned around 2498.
 * CMA Arcamat

Block II
Laid down following the launching of their predecessors in 2496, the second group formally replaced the fusion missile silos with Mark 29 Spitfire, and implemented several frame changes to make the ships quicker to build.

Again, six ships were laid down. They were commissioned around late 2500.

Block III
The Block III were the first to run into funding troubles, and so only had three battlecruiser built. These ships were the first to take into account both the lessons of the Insurrection and address the problems with the class. Naval coilgun turrets were upgraded to provide greater tracking and reduce the chance of malfunctions, and more point defence guns were added to better protect them against fast-moving rebel craft. There were also new developments made in RADAR technology and computer uplinks, which was incorporated to improve their performance.

Block-III ships were commissioned around 2503.

Block IV
Again intended to be a six-ship group, the Block IVs were largely repeat Flight IIIs, however by this time the CMA wanted to implement more measures to make them cheaper to build. Some of the framework was simplified, and the armor coverage was shrunk with the thickness being improved to 2.5 meters.

Three ships were built, all entering service around 2506.