HAFS Normandy Class Assault Carrier:

The Normandy class assault carrier was built by the Human Alliance Forces Navy for planetary assaults. Unlike most other military ships, the ship was built to civilian design standard to reduce ships cost. The construction of the ship using civilian components greatly reduced the ships cost but made the ship less durable in combat.This was so the Human Alliance can invest more resources into fleet units. The ship design is basically built on a large transport hull and military systems were added. When the human alliance became part of the Consortium of Civilized Worlds, all of these carriers were decommissioned in favor of the Wolfen Packmaster class ship. While many of the Intrepid class carriers were but in mothballs, few of Normandy Assault Carriers were put in mothballs because the C.C.W. government saw no need to invest money in putting the ships in mothballs. The assault carriers were sold to various navies or were converted into cargo ships, which some hulls serve in the capacity of cargo ships to the present day. The service career of the Normandy class assault carrier does not have all the awards that fleet carriers have received but they were a very important part of the Human Alliance and deserve far more credit than the ship class is normally given. Many ships of this class have found their way into the hands of mercenary companies although some mercenary companies have actually stripped ground attack facilities from the ships, increased the fighter capacity, and use these carriers as fleet carriers. Few Independent Defense Forces fleets use these carriers because for individual planets, there is little need for assault landing and the missions are as easily performed by cargo transports for the most part. A few ships of this class are still serving in the remainder of the Human Alliance Forces Navy but even there, the fleet is considering purchasing the design for the New Coventry Sir Percival assault carrier due to the slow FTL speed and very light armor of the Normandy class.

The ships look for the most part like standard 2000 foot long transports and are even more blocky than the packmaster carrier is. The fighter and shuttle bays are located on the sides of the ship. The ship is designed so if necessary the ship can land itself to make an assault but the danger is that if the ship is crippled and the anti-matter power system is damaged, the planet can be decimated. The other problem is that the ship is exposed to far more fire if the ship lands on a planet.

Many ships of this class that remain have been modified. These modifications include adding more weapon systems, adding additional armor, adding additional shields, increasing the ships FTL speed, and refitting the ship to be a fleet carrier. Fleet carrier versions will carry about three times as many starfighter but will carry no assault equipment and marines will be reduced by 80%. For all other modifications, there are too many variables to allow listing the different variations possible.

The ship is very lightly armed for the ships and the weapon systems primary purposes are to stop fighters and missiles. The ship does have two long range missile batteries and while their main purpose is also to stop missiles, they are capable of destroying frigates and destroyers. For short range point defense, the ship has six point defense rail gun mounts, six point defense laser cannons, and six mini missile launchers. The long range missile batteries have less actual launchers than modern equipment because launchers designed and built then were slightly more cumbersome.

The ship also carries a small number of fighters to support them when they are making the landing assaults but heavy support is usually done by full fleet carriers. In ships in active service with various fleets, the fighters that are carried are modern star fighters but in the ships in the C.A.F. mothball fleet, ancient star fighters can be found in the hangers. The ships do carry quite a large number of troops and carry all support equipment that the units need to operate in the field.

The original names for Normandy class assault are named after famous amphibious assaults from before space travel and planetary assaults from after planetary assaults became practical. Examples include Tarawa, Saipan, and Guam.

This starship design uses modified starship speed and ranges. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World for more details.

Model Type: LCV-214
Vehicle Type: Planetary Assault Carrier.
Crew: 785 (60 Officers and 720 enlisted)
Troops: 2000 marines (1000 in power armor) and 800 fighter pilots

Vehicles: These listing are for modern compliments. Old compliments were similar in number but were of earlier designs. Ship not in the H.F.N. fleets may have totally different types of vehicles as ships compliment but numbers will be about the same for the various classes of vehicles.
Power Armors & Robots:
200Silver Hawk Power Armors
800Ground Pounder Power Armors
75Bombard Infantry Robots
10Battleram Robots
Fighter Compliment:
24SF-69 CAF Scorpion Star Interceptor
12BIF-67 Katana Star fighters
12SF-6 Osprey Starfighters or SF-101 Black Eagle Star fighters 
Assault Shuttles:
20CAF Assault Shuttles
Tanks & Other Vehicles:
80Phalanx Main Battle Tanks
120Maniple IFV

M.D.C By Location:
Point Defense Rail Gun Turrets (6):150 each
Triple Barrel Defense Laser Turrets (6):150 each
Long Range Missile Batteries (2):500 each
Mini-Missile Launchers (6):100 each
Outer Hull (40 ft/ 12.2 m Area):100
Inner Hull (40 ft/ 12.2 m Area):75
[1] Bridge:10,000
Hanger Bays (2):15,000 each
[2] Main Engines (2):5,000 each
[3] Main Body:40,000
[4] Variable Force Field:2,000 a side (12,000 Total)

Notes:
[1] In reality this is how much damage needs to be done for a weapon to hit the bridge through the ships armor. This ship does not have an auxiliary bridge. Even if the bridge is taken out, the ship can still be piloted from engineering but ship is -3 to dodge and all weapon systems will be at local control. Weapon hits near the bridge that do not penetrate the ships integrity can injure crew members on or near the bridge.
[2] Destroying the main engines means that ship FTL systems are destroyed and maximum sublight speed is reduced by half.
[3] Depleting the MDC of the main body will put the carrier out of commission. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck.
[4] Shields positions can be varied and all could be combined in one shield. Shields regenerate at the rate of 5% (600 MDC) per melee

Speed:
Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.
Sublight: Has a special sublight engine that allows the ship to travel up to 60 percent of the speed of light. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.4 percent of light per melee.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is 200 mph (322 kph), can enter an atmosphere and can leave but is not designed for atmospheric flight
Stardrive: Uses a Gravitonic Drive system that allows the ship to reach a maximum of 2 lightyears per hour.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either Drive system. Carries about four years worth of supplies on board.

Statistical Data:
Length: 2,120 feet (646.2 meter)
Height: 760 feet (231.6 meters)
Width: 640 feet (195.1 meters)
Weight: 14 million tons (12.7 million metric tons)
Power System: Anti-Matter with a 25 year life span
Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 3 million tons of Cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition.
Market Cost: Ship would cost about 6 billion credits to manufacture in present time in the Three Galaxies. Ships are no longer being produced. When available, these ships can sell as high as 12 to 18 billion credits.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

  1. Six (6) Rail Guns: Unlike most of the rail guns used on Phase World Starships, these are standard electromagnetic rail guns. They are used as an anti-Starfighter and missile weapon and against targets that are impervious to energy. Each Rail Gun is in a Turret that can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. Projectiles come out of launchers at close to the speed of light. Cannon uses a 15 mm depleted uranium projectiles.
    Range: 16 miles (26 km) through atmosphere and 800 miles (1,290 km) in space.
    Mega-Damage: 80 round burst does 3D6x10 M.D.
    Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the Gunner (usually 4 or 5).
    Payload: 16,000 Rounds (200 Bursts) each cannon.
  2. Six (6) 2 cm Point Defense Lasers in Double Mounts: used as an anti-Starfighter and missile weapon. Each laser turret can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire.
    Range: 2.5 miles (4 km) miles through atmosphere and 250 miles (40.2 km) in space.
    Mega-Damage: 2D6x10 M.D.
    Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the Gunner (usually 4 or 5).
    Payload: Effectively Unlimited
  3. Two (2) Long Range Missile Batteries: Missile has a top speed of Mach 20 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 8% of light per turn (faster than any starship). Since star ships will no longer engage at rock throwing distances, whether weapons can be shot down is calculated from the speed of target, launcher, and missile. When drive goes dead, missile will still cruise unless set to self destruct but has very low odds of hitting star ships (Great for hitting bases and planets because target does not move and missile when dead at -25% to detect.) Long range missiles do not have minuses to hit small targets unlike cruise missiles and are all considered smart missiles. Batteries can launch on multiple targets each. Batteries have a lower number of actual launchers than the modern CAF long range missile batteries and each launcher is slightly larger in size.
    Range: Missile range is 3400 miles (5470 km) in an atmosphere and 1,800,000 miles (2,89700 km/9.7 light seconds) in space.
    Mega-Damage & Properties: See Phase World Missiles (Fusion does 2D4x100 MDC).
    Rate of fire: One at a time or in volleys of 2, 8, 16, or 24 per launcher, per melee attack.
    Payload: 480 total, 240 long range missiles per launcher.
  4. Six (6) Mini-Missile launchers: These are missile turrets used for point defense against enemy fighters and missiles. Missile has a top speed of Mach 10 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 2% of light per turn (slightly faster than any starship except if it is exceeding it maximum safe acceleration).
    Mega-Damage: varies with mini-missile type (See Phase World Missiles).
    Range: Missile range is 2 miles (3.2 km) in an atmosphere and 100 miles (161 km) in space
    Rate of fire: Can fire missiles one at a time or in volleys of 4 or 8 missiles
    Payload: 128 per launcher for a total of 768 mini-missiles. Cargo hold has an additional 1728 mini-missile. Reloading launchers from cargo hold takes 1D6 minutes.


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By Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune ).

Copyright © 1998, Kitsune. All rights reserved.


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