Scylla-class heavy destroyer

The Scylla-class heavy destroyer was a heavily-armed warship commissioned for use by the CMA.

Role
The Scylla-class is first and foremost a hunter-killer of ships, designed to aggressively pursue and destroy enemy ships as wolfpacks. The Scylla-class was especially optimized for anti-piracy operations, using its powerful sensor suite to seek out hidden bases or cold-running pirate ships.

It has enough active countermeasures and point defense guns to competently act as an escort ship for larger slower cruisers. Though often this does not manifest by sticking close to their larger ships and defending them against anything that approaches, but striking out and preemptively destroying targets before they can enter range to target their charges.

Armaments
Even in the later days of their service, the Scylla-class destroyers were considered fearsomely armed for offensive roles. In instead of an axial MAC, their primary armament consisted of four Mark 14 Redoubt 1,143mm (45")/65 cal heavy naval coilguns, the largest and most powerful turreted weapon in the CMA Navy's entire arsenal throughout the Insurrection.

The Redoubt was a heavily-modified and simplified variant of the older 7D4C3 model used on the, ironically a UNSC ship. Dunkirk & Omdahl designed and manufactured the 7D4C3 until the UNSC phased it out in favor of their competitors' models. To recoup their losses, Dunkirk & Amdahl simplified the design to be more rugged and reliable, labeling it the Redoubt series, which attracted the attention of the CMA. After decades of investing heavily in missile technology, the CMA had fallen behind the UNSC in coilguns during the Cold War and the Redoubt offered a very safe option for the CMA to experiment with naval coilguns.

While not as heavy as the UNSC’s Breakwater coilguns which would be introduced some years later in 2515, the Redoubt was a daunting threat to opposing ships, capable of firing 1,143mm ferric-tungsten hypervelocity kill slugs at several kilometers per second.

A single one of its barrels could disable any escort-grade warship in service, while breaching the armour on both cruisers and larger battlecruisers. Such weapons were almost universally reserved for and heavy carriers; The Scylla mounted four of these in fixed forward firing positions, causing most naval experts to consider it massively overgunned for a ship of it’s size.

Charybdis-class
The Charybdis-class is a cheaper, slower, but more heavily armored version of the Scylla-class destroyer. The inclusion of the cold fusion reactor had significantly added to the Scyllas price tag, so to encourage orders Kuushan Shipyards replaced the expensive cold fusion reactors with more conventional and less costly hot fusion models. This significantly lowered its price, but also reduced its top speed and the power of the weapons it could carry. The massive Redoubt cannons were simply too power-hungry to be fed by these downgraded power plants so two were removed and were instead replaced with four smaller twin M119 Viper coilguns.

While this combination vastly diminished its capability as a destroyer, it did have the unintended effect of making for an excellent convoy escort. It was further fitted with several more capacitor banks as well as increased armor across the hull. While the Scylla-class could hunt down any ship that threatened their capital ships before they got too close, the Charybdis-class could destroy anything that got too close.

Project RAZORBACK
Originally codenamed as Project Razorback by Kuushan Shipyards, it was intended to be their submission for Project JUNO, the CMA's new far reaching initiative to radically modernize their fleet. Initiated in 2478, JUNO was principly responsible for developing potential concepts for a wide range of capital ships, from destroyers to carriers as well as investigating the maturing field of naval coilguns. One of these would be a fast and heavily armed light cruiser, relying on multiple massive caliber coilguns to deal rapid damage at range without having to line up for a MAC shot.

Project Razorback was originally designed to meet these requirements. It would have a principal armament of one MAC and four Mark 14 Redoubt naval coilguns, a bold choice as they were weapons only found on fortified defense installations and battleships. They would be housed within four dorsal pods on each cardinal point of the ship’s aft, able to selectively aim and fire each coilgun independently. This idea was later revised in a follow up design by moving the dorsal weapons pods to the fore of the ship, allowing it to focus all its fire on a single target without the ship’s own hull obstructing their arcs of fire. This design reminded the designers of the Terceiran carnivorous sea worms which was what inspired them to rename Project Razorback to the Scylla-class.

The Scylla was submitted alongside dozens of others, but ultimately lost out to what would become Great White Spaceworks'. This was because at the time the ship was deemed simply too unconventional: It was deemed far too experimental, too small for the intended role, and more importantly would've required them to change their logistics up to accommodate it. Disappointed, Kuushan Shipyards would shelve the design.

Destroyer Revision
"Today's destroyer is -almost literally- yesterday's cruiser."

- A lead engineer on the Scylla-class' design team

The concept was revised soon after the turn of the century, as the concept of the heavy destroyer began to gain support in the CMA admiralty. One that could hold its own against multiple enemy frigates and provide a deterrence against older cruisers fielded by the Secessionist Union, offsetting the CMA's own comparative lack of modern escorts. Such an idea was already being explored with the Hillsborough-class, but already there were problems identified with their ability to sustain operations with only fifty-six Ares missiles. Heavy naval coilguns would up the perceived threat value and also allow for a far greater ammunition capacity.

In response the designers radically redesigned the Scylla from a pocket cruiser into a destroyer while keeping the core concepts intact. It would now be an aggressively deployed high-endurance hunter-killer with flag capabilities for leading flotillas. The revised design removed the MAC to save weight and keep the ship below cruiser tonnage, but the four Redoubt coilguns were retained. Arguably this “downgrade” was a blessing in disguise as the ship made for an impressive destroyer rather than an underperforming cruiser.

Around this time the Scylla attracted the attention of Commodore-Admiral Rosario Ortega, a lifelong proponent of the destroyer class, who gave the ship the vocal and political support of her bloc of likeminded Admirals who wanted a fleet of them for their anti-piracy operations. Her involvement prevented the mission creep which plagued previous classes which kept the design pure and focused. She repeatedly resisted external pressure and rejected suggestions that in her mind would dilute its purity and effectiveness as a hunter-killer. Suggestions such as adding a MAC were rejected because the Scylla had no room for one without compromising its survivability and its power grid.

The first flight of Scyllas were sent to Ortega’s 14th Offensive Fleet to conduct field trials. After reviewing their combat performance, Ortega gave the Scylla- class her enthusiastic approval and the CMA immediately placed an order for more. Many if not most served with Admiral Ortega's fleet where they were put through their paces. The consensus was that they were effective in their intended role, but suffered from issues with power supply. Its Liao-Marquez 31K ZAM-3600 reactor was barely enough to power all its systems at once, to use its main weapons at full capacity it would have to draw power away from nonessential systems. The first-generation Scyllas rectified the power issues by installing several additional, smaller reactors to supplement the primary powerplant. This added to the ship's overall weight, but was deemed sufficient for now.

A key turning point in the development of the Scylla-class would be breakthroughs in cold fusion technology. In 2514 new techniques used to construct 'cold' fusion reactors meant a reduction in cost and size, allowing them to finally enter mainstream use. Thanks to the pressure of Admiral Ortega, new Scylla-class would be the first to be fitted with new Liao-Marquez 31K cold fusion reactors along with brand new capacitors. Now the class truly came into its own, able to take advantage of these new advancements to operate its heavy weaponry at full capacity even whilst moving at maximum engine output. Though it would take years to refit the older vessels to new specs, eventually the Scylla would be regarded as fiercely effective warship and the bane of pirates in the Outer Colonies