ARMAMENT:
6 Turrets of Twin 145 mm (Approx. 6 Inch) Extended Range Stabilized Cannons
6 Turrets of 88 mm Stabilized Cannons with Computer Assisted digital Targeting.
30(Approx.) Dual 55 mm Anti-Aircraft Turrets
12 Rail Accelerated Capital Torpedo Tubes
Undisclosed Combat A.P.U.s
Undisclosed Battle Satellites
Undisclosed Electronic Counter Measures and Warfare Capacity.
COMPLIMENT:
210 Officers, Crew, and Gunnery personnel operating in three shifts, plus 2 full platoons (50 men) of Colonial Marines as ships security.
The Dragoon's interior is what one might expect of a combat vessel - cramped, ugly, noisy, and very grey. The Crew are assigned two in a room, in bunked billets resembling a college dorm room. Each room has a single closet that must be shared, and enough space for each crew member to also have a single foot locker of personal items and belongings. Each room also has a single wash closet which is shared. The overall layout of the State rooms are like dormitory blocks, with a number of rooms in each block sharing public showers and a physical recreation room. A single large cafeteria on each deck serves all of the blocks on a given deck, and doubles as the recreation room or social room when not serving meals. The officers quarters are larger, with independent, private lavatories. There is also a separate Officers mess, recreation room, and small weight room. The billets of the on-board marines is much different, with the marines being housed in large group rooms more reminiscent of a cargo bay lined with double-decker bunks. Each such bay houses 10 men, with each man being allotted a single footlocker of space for personal effects. Each of these bays also has a group lavatory and shower, as well as a weight training space and lockers and equipment racks at the far ends. The marines weapons are stored in Weapons lockers in the bays, with the officers and Non-commissioned Officers having proper clearance codes to access for rapid deployment if necessary. The Vessel also maintains a PX and Commissary on the primary cargo and munitions deck that is accessible to all crew. A Dragoon class frigate maintains a relatively sizable flight bay that services many launches, shuttles, and landing craft (Typically 2 shuttles and 4 to 6 launches/Landing craft) for the purposes of cargo and personnel loading and unloading. These flight bays also service the Dragoon's battle satellites (drones) that can bolster the Dragoon's combat capabilities based on loadout. Exactly how many and what type of Battle Satellites a Dragoon can maintain is undisclosed, and likely varies from mission to mission. On average a Dragoon frigate also maintains a compliment of nearly 2 dozen Utility A.P.U.s for maintenance, repair, and cargo handling. Dragoon frigates are also known to maintain a sizable compliment of combat A.P.U.s for close quarters ship-to-ship fighting and boarding actions, as well as occasional ground support operations - while the exact number is classified, estimates put the count at about 4 dozen.
HISTORY:
The Dragoon Frigate is a Pre-Insurrection vessel circa the late 2100s. As with many of the smaller fleet ships of the time, it was built on modular and standardized hull and engine sections, and so may have some visual similarities with other vessels of this era. Many Vessels of similar size in fact use the same Herkimer reactor and Triple Worchester-V21 Engineering subsection. The Dragoon actually has a second Herkimer reactor. giving it far greater power than the smaller Destroyers or troop ships built up on these engines. At the time the design lineage was conceived the central Earth government was just again beginning to flex it's authority over space and colonies - though at this time the biggest threat was Pirates, Privateers, and mercenaries as there had been only minimal contact with extra-Earthly life. Still, after many harsh defeats at the hands of the Utani and Kro', it became clear that a strong Naval force was needed to protect the core worlds. Unlike many other vessels being designed at the time, the Dragoon series was conceived of as a pure space fairing vessel - and no thought or capacity for atmospheric entry was designed into it. theoretically, the Dragoon could coordinate a ground assault with it's capital Torpedoes, though likely these would be intercepted and destroyed before reaching targets on the ground, and accuracy would be far from desirable. The Design of the Dragoon frigates was always a pure space-borne combat platform intended to replace the aging Earth Operational Coalition fleet of warships retrofitted from cargo liners, war rockets, and civilian craft, as well as ad an intermediary vessel between current generation destroyers and Cruisers. These Warships were designed to have much of the versatility and speed of destroyers, while also having the armament of light cruisers as well as being more independent.
Entering Service in the later stages of the Binary Wars, the Dragoons, and most vessels of this period, saw a complete rethinking of their onboard electronics and computer systems. While previous vessels were heavily reliant on computer coordination and control, with advanced Artificial Intelligence systems to help run everything on the ship from Weapons and Comms down to the mess coffee pot - the Binary Wars destroyed all faith in computers and droids of this sort. With too many A.I. computers, droids, vessels, and even advanced Human-cyborg hybrids falling to the corruption of the signal that caused the Binary Wars, The Dragoon fell back to relying much more heavily on Analog and manual systems for numerous tasks. Computers were still heavily used in many systems, unavoidably, but no longer part of a shipwide network with A.I. oversight or control. While these changes placed higher demands on man power and crew, it did not seem to reduce the effectiveness of the Dragoon series of Frigates. One of the more unique aspects of the Dragoon frigate is the existent of a known 'A' and 'B' variation which has distinctive visual differences but little else in existence. This is the direct result of the ships entering an extended production period during the Corporate Insurrections and the availability of parts and materials at the two main shipyards that produced the vessel. The most notable difference in the two classes is the shape of the foreward turrets housing the dual 88mm cannons. While there are also subtle variations to the interior layout and appearance, there is nothing of note that affects the performance of these two distinct variations. Throughout it's long service record, the Dragoon did see a number of other design variants and experimental upgrades.
CREDITS: Davorama (a.k.a Davo, Beyondbent, Powerfusion3D, PoserFusion3D), All the great Kitbashers who have posted images of assemblies with Davo's sets that inspired me.
