Guide:Baton Rouge/Nordenskiöld
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| Baton Rouge / Nordenskiöld | |
|---|---|
| Class Overview | |
| Category | heavy cruiser / light cruiser |
| Operational | |
| Constructed | 23 total: |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 245.0 m |
| Beam | 153.0 m |
| Height |
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| Mass |
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| Performance | |
| Cruise Speed | w 4 |
| Max Speed |
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| Endurance |
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| Complement | |
| Officers |
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| Enlisted |
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| Tactical Systems | |
| Beam Weapons | Baton Rouge (2222):
Dilithium refit (2238):
Refit (2246):
Nordenskiöld (2253):
Nordenskiöld refit (2278):
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| Missile Weapons | Dilithium refit (2238):
Refit (2246):
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| Shields |
|
| Laboratories | Original:
Dilithium refit (2238):
Nordenskiöld refit:
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| Transporters | Original:
Dilithium refit (2238):
2246 refit, Nordenskiöld refit:
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| Auxiliary Craft | Original:
Dilithium refit (2238):
Nordenskiöld refit:
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| Historical | |
| Ships of Note |
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| Canonicity | |
| Design | SFC, FSRC |
| Name | SFC, FSRC, SotSF |
| History | SFC, John M. Ford: The Final Reflection, FSRC, SotSF, own
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In the early decades of the 23rd century, it was no foregone conclusion who would get to give Star Fleet’s large cruisers the performance edge they needed against Klingon aggressions. The supreme performance of the single-piece tritanium saucer hull spawned many follow-on projects and involved several shipbuilding companies. To successfully compete on this considerable market, Chiokis made grandiose promises on heavy cruiser modernization. Geering in turn exploited its seniority and continued the development of its saucer variant for new-build frontline applications.
The new school of warp dynamics had easily convinced Star Fleet that the only possible future for the cruiser fleet lay in saucer-shaped hulls. Refitting of Caracals or other older monohull designs with saucers was of course impossible, and a refit of Mann cruisers would likewise leave nothing of the original spaceframe. The Rangers in turn offered virtually no margin for propulsive or tactical improvements. And since Star Fleet already had designs on the future of the Horizon class, dependent on Chiokis, meddling in the production of the type now would be poor investment. Riding on these arguments, Geering in the 2210s actively marketed the construction of an all-new cruiser class, utilizing the so-called third generation warp propulsion technology yet unrelated to the still secret Project Starship. Initial Fleet reluctance changed into desperate interest after 2218, and in 2219 a deal was signed for no fewer than 25 Baton Rouge class cruisers, with an option for an equal number of additional units.
By mid-2220, the internal configuration for the first saucer hull was fixed. This structure was the largest of saucers offered so far by Geering – a diameter of 153 m was chosen for the cruiser application. Accommodation would be provided for some 350 crew, as well as extensive facilities for their needs, including galleys and synthesizers for the mess halls, two gymnasiums and saunas, a versatile sickbay, and a separate life support system for protection in the event of emergency hull separation. Also housed inside the saucer would be four gigawatt-strength accelerated lasers, a selection of sensors, and four well-equipped laboratories for research use.
The topmost deck of the seven-deck assembly was a small dome consisting of the bridge and its life support machinery. The second, much wider deck housed laser systems and their control rooms, officers’ quarters, plus a small airlock and armory aft of the bridge. Deck three originally carried more laser-related hardware as well as some sensors, but was always intended to provide room for upgrades. Below this deck, the saucer rapidly flared into its full width, which allowed the next two decks to house the entire crew and all the required support functions. Decks six and seven were dedicated almost completely to machinery, including short-range sensors and a powerful 1.2 TW twin phased particle cannon, the intended main weapon of the heavy cruiser. Two 0.9 TW cannon were fitted to most production models, however. Aft of Deck 5 was the impulse engine assembly with twin auxiliary fission reactors and a wide, forcefield-vectored nozzle.
A new type of connecting structure was created to join the saucer to the engineering section, as the Daedalus and Horizon solutions did not scale up very well. Five decks high, the connector was much broader and more angular than the modern Chiokis fin. To give sufficient strength but minimal extra mass, construction techniques very similar to those of the saucer were employed, including load-bearing duranium skin and deck structures.
Below and aft of the connecting structure sat a six-deck engineering hull, an oblong, angular block housing the four main total-conversion reactors, fuel tanks and a power distribution system. The stern area of these decks was dedicated to workshops, monitoring rooms and a fair-sized shuttle hangar that some Fleet R&D directors considered unnecessary in view of the increasing capabilities of teleportation technology. The navigational sensor and deflector dish was housed at the bow on a pivoting arm, a feature soon to be introduced to destroyers and frigates as well.
Most importantly, all-new nacelles of PB-24 model were introduced. The engine was similar in dimensions to the pathfinding PB-20, merely a tad larger in diameter. Yet the vast, ribbed radiator panels on the aft segments, used instead of podded intercoolers, revealed the far higher power levels the newer engines were designed for. Endless testing allowed Geering experts to coax a cruise speed of warp four out of the design, using far less complex power arrangements than what the warp-dynamically inferior Manns and Rangers needed to reach similar speeds. Still, some creative PR work was needed to declare the result a breakthrough. True quantum leaps in warp performance would have to wait for future innovations.
Minding the vast scale and central role of the vessels, Geering took a design approach opposite to Chiokis’ gapfiller cruisers. Each deck was built with possible future upgrades in mind, their corridors, dataways and tunnels for free-flying turbolifts being the only real constants in the internal configuration. Room was left for possible engine uprating, especially in the mid-section and upper levels of the secondary hull. Modularity in interior design helped with maintenance and later refits. The interior layout was standardized, with clean panels and straight angles replacing the earlier maze of protruding spars and exposed pipes and conduits. Light blue, green and brown were selected as the psychologically most beneficial interior colors.
The impulse systems of the Baton Rouges were fitted on the saucer, allowing for a fully controlled atmospheric entry, with deorbit burns performed by the impulse engines, and atmospheric maneuvering controlled by RCS rockets and the aerodynamically stable spaceframe itself. Alternate means for crew evacuation included a series of lifepods on Decks 4 and 6. Propellant for the impulse engine was provided by a single fusion reactor, the helium exhausts of which were also looped into the primary plasma system for drive plasma replenishment. An auxiliary fission system was in use aboard the saucer hull for the sustained power needs of separated operations.
The first completed ship was commissioned in 2222, and given a consecutive registry in the deep space cruiser scheme, following the last of the projected Pytheas light cruisers. Yet at 192,500 tons plus nacelles, the Baton Rouge (NCC-1411) definitely was a heavy cruiser in size, and no slouch in frontline combat, either. At first, Star Fleet still considered a more modest designation based on relative capabilities – it was not yet known that Project Starship would be delayed by two decades, leaving the Baton Rouge the highest-performing type in the Fleet. After six months of operational trials, the inaugural ship was pulled back to drydock and her engine pylons slightly lengthened for better warp field matching. At this point, six dockyards across the Federation were already busy completing six more Baton Rouges. Although a total of twenty-five vessels was specified under the initial contract, five fell under the budgetary axe, in a somewhat premature shifting of resources to Project Starship. Three of those five would be added back again shortly later.
The cruisers soon became the fastest vessels in Star Fleet as the engines were tested and fine-tuned. Ten of the Baton Rouge cruisers were fielded for multi-purpose instead of purely defensive missions, their speed ensuring that they would be available to counter any and all attacks across the Klingon frontier or the Romulan neutral zone. Two ships of Baton Rouge class were also fitted with wholly new teleportation hardware. The Mk II transporter exceeded the performance of the original Erickson technology in several key respects. In 2226, USS Moscow (NCC-1423) became the first ship to transmit and USS Tehran (NCC-1419) the first one to receive a living human being intact through a warp-to-warp transport – an impressive achievement considering that only fifteen years earlier, the very concept had been deemed impossible by the Vulcan Science Council.
But secretly, Star Fleet was preparing for an upgrade of wholly different scope. In all innocence, the sleepy little former freight hubworld Deneva had recently reported on peculiarities in recent gemstone shipments. It appeared that a lithium-iron compound found in so-called red coral crystals had subatomic bonds strong enough to withstand energies in the petaelectronvolt class, plus a curious crystalline structure that was in effect ‘porous’ to antimatter up to antihelium scale: in effect, a naturally occurring dilithium crystal was being prospected from within UFP borders. An ultra-secret project was begun under Doublet Regal seals to exploit this new and fascinating possibility of harnessing m/am energies. Tentative engine designs were created for the Baton Rouge class, as well as for other concurrent spaceships.
Natural dilithium engine tests were at first performed on drones converted, e.g., from long-retired but not yet scrapped Daedalus class survey ships. Then followed the Bonaventure. The first series-production dilithium regulation engine was installed on USS Sawyer, a scout design created specifically with this type of antimatter power in mind, and was considered moderately successful. But the first operational refit was performed on USS Glasgow (NCC-1414) of Baton Rouge class in 2238, and proved an instant success. Further Baton Rouges received the ‘dilithium drive’ upgrade after 2239, and fourteen of the twenty ships ultimately re-entered active frontline service in 2243 with dilithium-regulated engines. All ships were also given the new warp transporters; their starboard shuttle hangars were converted to extended engineering facilities in the process. Docking ports for courier vessels were added aft of the bridge and in place of the former shuttlebay doors in partial compensation.
Non-refitted ships, six in all, were retired and mothballed by 2250. Great strides in construction techniques, weaponry and propulsion had already largely outdated the design, and further upgrading let alone major new-building was considered superfluous after the first Constitution class starships had entered service. There was still quite a bit of fight in the older heavy cruisers, however. Their primary hulls were some 25% larger than those of most Geering vessels from the 2220s, and this could be put to good use by doubling the number of main lasers and by fitting an array of warp torpedo launchers onto Decks 2-3. An initial two-tube arrangement proved insufficient, and four tubes were ultimately carried on all vessels. The preferred ammunition mix consisted of 10 regular and 40 forced-intermix antimatter warheads, the latter reflecting growing Star Fleet faith in the quirky weapon after more than 25 years of disaster-ridden development. Officer accommodation was moved out of the way of the ordnance to Deck 5. The combat effectiveness of the uprated variant was deemed almost doubly that of the original Baton Rouge design, and the deployment of these units to frontier starbases allowed Star Fleet to retire large numbers of older designs or to reassign them to internal protection and local defense duties.
Even the mothballed six units of the original Baton Rouge class, from USS Philadelphia (NCC-1425) to USS Astrakhan (NCC-1430), got a new lease of life through a major refit initiated in 2251. Their connector necks were stretched by almost ten meters in order to provide clear field of view for the huge Zenith sensor array, housed in a bulged ventral extension of the primary hull. Minor modifications in the dorsal superstructures and lower secondary hull further altered the height of the ships, yet other dimensions remained unchanged. Armament was drastically reduced, though, with the ventral laser emitters on primary hull, and any hope of fitting torpedo armament aboard, lost to the Zenith system. The limited combat potential no longer justified a heavy cruiser designation, even if hull mass (at more than 220,000 tons the highest in the entire cruiser fleet) somewhat conflicted with Star Fleet’s decision to assign a light cruiser identity to this subclass. The vessels were also all renamed thematically for post-Columbian, pre-Carterian Earth explorers: relaunched in 2253, the Nordenskiölds were the last cruisers to be armed with laser weaponry, at a time when the rest of the fleet was already making a transition to pure phaser armament.
Old-fashioned weaponry was no real operational shortcoming for the mission profile of the ships. The Nordenskiölds initially performed sensor picket duties in support of major fleet movements, but soon found themselves out of work due to the lack of activity on the Klingon side. However, the Zenith array had its uses in scientific survey and charting work as well, and the Nordenskiölds adapted well to this type of deep space duty. In the fifties, they logged more star hours than any of the regular units.
By 2255, a number of operational losses had decisively deprived the Baton Rouge of the role it had fruitlessly aspired to: the type had never become a true mainstay of the fleet, even when the Horizons, the Archons and all older ships in the heavy cruiser category were decommissioned. Project Starship had redefined Star Fleet’s expectations on ships of that category, and not even the most modern Baton Rouge variants fully met them. After Axanar, the ships rarely saw military action, save for endless anti-piracy operations in the Rigel region. In 2262, USS Atlanta (NCC-1440) fought against Orion forces in a mission of apprehending suspected as well as known and convicted pirates. Although the mission was a complete success from the military point of view, hitting hard on the Orion piracy and slave trade with zero casualties and with all of the suspects located and detained, the provocation apparently prompted the Orion cartels to launch their infamous and unscrupulous attack at the dilithium-rich world of Ghioghe. After a rapid escalation, the conflict resulted in the loss of another Baton Rouge, USS Levant (NCC-1442), as well as the light cruiser Sutherland (NCC-967), in what was later known as the Battle of Ghioghe. The late Commodore Sieren of the Levant was freed of charges concerning the destructive outcome, but the Orion political situation was further complicated. Ultimately the UFP was forced to recognize Orion neutrality and sovereignty on issues that had formerly been considered criminal activity and automatically fallen under Star Fleet jurisdiction.
In missions of colony support, the veteran ships attained more positive publicity, serving as the main Federation representatives for the large number of cooperative colonies founded at the time. Settlements long kept isolated by poor communications were effectively brought back to the Federal fold by visits of the elderly yet readily available heavy cruisers, followed by establishing of steady supply lines.
A final upgrade planned for all the Baton Rouges in 2263 would have removed the field guide rods in favor of more efficient fully encapsulated ramscoops, introduced a new navigational deflector, and reopened the starboard hangars. The ships were also to be given new survey gear and research facilities for extended exploration missions, but no space could be found in the hulls for the equipment. In the absence of a now desperately needed complete engine and weapon modernization, the changes could be considered cosmetic at best. Rather than waste resources on the elderly cruisers, in 2265 Star Fleet ordered all Baton Rouges stricken from its strength by 2277.
Although the orders initially also encompassed the Nordenskiölds, four of the explorers were saved from dismantling, paradoxically because Star Fleet no longer needed their services. Faster and more modern vessels were surveying the galaxy now – yet trouble was again brewing on the Klingon front, and the sensing abilities of a deep space explorer were sorely needed on the potential battlefields, not at the far fringes of the exploration zones where much of the Constitution fleet served. The very weaknesses and shortcomings of the Nordenskiölds made them available to Defense Command at the crucial hour; partial C3I system upgrades were effected, and the cruisers were sent to help coordinate fleet maneuvers along the Eridani Gap.
Even though the Klingon confrontation proved short-lived, the stay on dismantling orders for the converted Nordenskiölds remained in force. Even in the environment of lessened tensions, all four continued service, ostensibly as exploration vessels, in practice as Fleet pickets. Yet their equipment and technology was rapidly becoming antiquated, hindering both types of mission. Two units were retired in 2274, and remaining resources concentrated on USS Barents (NCC-1427) and USS Diaz (NCC-1430). In an attempt to offer a lower-cost alternative to the purpose-built Balson class, they in 2278-79 underwent an extensive internal furbishing into command ships, taking advantage of the existing sensor berths and connections if not of the outdated sensors themselves. The conversion was not a success, and the two vessels retained their light cruiser designation and ‘quayside queen’ mission profile until their March 2290 retirement.
Due to Star Fleet’s desire to artificially keep up heavy cruiser numbers for better bargaining positions in the Organian treaty negotiations, the remaining Baton Rouges also enjoyed the hospitality of nearspace starbase piers between the mid-sixties and mid-seventies. As they had even less to offer to the Fleet than the Nordenskiölds, they were among the first to be scrapped when the UFP began to withdraw from its commitments to the treaty. A single vessel, the San Diego (NCC-1441), was preserved for posterity. She features a permanent exhibit of her odyssey to the heart of the Romulan Star Empire in 2276, first unveiled in the early 2350s.
Gallery
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Baton Rouge sub-class, original configuration -
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Baton Rouge sub-class, post-dilithium refit -
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Nordenskiöld sub-class -
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Baton Rouge sub-class (original) conducting an asteroid survey -
"Light flare" -
Baton Rouge class evolution -
Baton Rouge 2-view -
Nordenskiöld 2-view
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External Sources
- Vintage Starships: "2225 - Baton Rouge": includes 3D viewer
- Vintage Starships: "2253 - Baton Rouge Refit": includes 3D views
Notes
- The number for Constructed in the sidebar has been raised to 23 (from 20) to match the decrease from 25 by 2, from the text.
- The last three Baton Rouges are separated on the NCC table, due to their orders being first cut and then re-added at a later time.
- The text indicates 14 Baton Rouges re-entered service in 2243 with the dilithium refit, while six unmodified ones were retired. Because of some apparent miscalculations regarding the 23 contracted vessels, that leaves 3 additional ones that would, presumably, re-enter service after 2243.
- The sidebar date of re-activation for the Nordenskiöld sub-class has been changed from 2252 to 2253, to match the text. The refitting date in the sidebar was changed from 2252 to 2251, per the text.
- To clarify: a majority of Baton Rouge vessels underwent the dilithium refit in 2243, but six others were chosen to be retired and mothballed before 2250. These six vessels were re-activated and refitted to Nordenskiöld standards in 2253.
- The sidebar's 2276 date for the two Nordenskiölds' weapons upgrade is re-set for the text's 2278 date.
- Due to some decommissioning schedule mismatches within the text, the intent of the 2265 Baton Rouge decommission order is changed to an intended completion of 2277.
- The USS Los Angeles was provided a random NCC.
- The Baton Rouge NCC series should extend only to -1433, but their textual examples go all the way to -1442. In-game canon has some of these slots opened for possible use by other classes.
- USS Sutherland's NCC was changed from -997 to -967, to fit within the understood range for the Texas (refit) class.
References