Mainline: Star Overlords - the development history of the frigate

Since the outbreak of large-scale interstellar conflicts, the frigate has been recognized as the interstellar overlord in Knight Galaxy, and it plays a huge military and political role as the support platform for interstellar mobile aviation operations. The Alliance Fleet is undoubtedly the fleet equipped with the frigates the most so far.

When Loth-Wolf Starfleet stepped up the construction of first-class frigates such as "Honest" and "Wisdom", some people who love new technologies among the alliance peers in another star area tens of millions of light-years away keenly discovered the new value of the frigate. They asked the Alliance Equipment Department to build frigates, but the group army and the Alliance Equipment Department were not very interested in it. After all, at this time, the Knight Galaxy was too far across the galaxy, which was still dominated by interdictor. At this time, the funds of the group army are tight, and there is no extra manpower and material resources to design and build a brand-new dedicated the frigate.

In the 150th year of the alliance calendar, the alliance fleet selected the transport ship "Northern Hunter" with a displacement of 450,000 tons to refit the frigate. "Northern Hunter" is an interstellar military cargo carrier, which served in the 190,000 th year of the Alliance calendar. It is equipped with an all-pass flight deck and a series of interstellar support facilities. The ship was originally an auxiliary ship that was not taken seriously, so converting it into the frigate can be regarded as "waste utilization". It is worth mentioning that the ship's power system adopted the most advanced particle scattering power propulsion system at that time. And its name "Northern Hunter" comes from the strongest commander of the alliance, Dr. Duolun, the Northern Hunter.

At this stage, the tactics of the frigate are not very clear, and the shipborne interdictor has been conducting experiments. At first, these works were not smooth. At that time, the deck of the Northern Hunter was full of scratches and scattered energy cores left by interdictors who failed to land and landed hard, and the hangar under the deck was full of all kinds of experimental interdictors' wreckage and parts. In the 190th year of the Alliance calendar, “the Northern Hunter” sank.

Although the performance of "the Northern Hunter" is not outstanding, and there is no remarkable record, it provided a large number of early warship talents for the Alliance Fleet, trained a large number of navigators, and made great contributions to the tactical research of the frigate in the future. The skilled application of catapult arresting cable laid the foundation for the future development of the frigate.

In the 220th year of the Alliance calendar, all civilized forces signed a group army treaty, which limited the tonnage of the capital ships of the main group armies, but allowed all civilized forces to convert cruisers and large destroyers under construction into the frigates.

Aliguardian modified the "Star Whirlwind" class battleship, while AI-shells modified the "Princess" class battle cruiser. So the frigate named "Black Hole" and "Hurricane",was born, and the 4.3-million-ton full-load displacement was not broken until 400,000 years later when the Cosmic Shark class served.

"Black Hole" class has the same level of protective armor as cruisers, and also has the same level of 45M laser main gun as heavy cruisers, even when the arms race of the group army is fierce to the peak, it is undoubtly still the top star.At this time, however, the tactics of the frigate are still limited to the action of the interdictor, which is one of the reasons why "Black Hole" installed the main gun of the heavy cruiser class—the frigate can only be used as a reconnaissance platform to cooperate with the interdictor, and does not strongly highlight the operational advantages of galaxies. Until the 410,000 th year of the Alliance calendar, the cloud of war was gradually approaching, and the Alliance Fleet felt deeply behind in tactics, so it conducted a series of exercises of "Galactic War".

In the 250,000-year "Ten Galaxies War Preview" exercise of the Alliance calendar, "Black Hole" class used the interdictors to" destroy "important targets such as the port lock, which made some" giant ship cannon "theorists look at each other with new eyes and made more people see the future development potential of the frigate. Although "the frigate and Cruiser Gun Battle" seems absurd today, the light of the frigate has been lit up.

"Black Hole" was sunk in the Ursa MajorIdwarf, and "Hurricane" was sunk by X-energy bomb in the Mice Koninbf meteorite belt in "Operation Rat Tail-cutting". The two ships have left important symbols in the history of the development of the frigate. In the 420th year of the Alliance calendar, in that military exercise, they proved to Knight Galaxy the terrible power of the frigate's long-distance cross-galaxy raid, which played a positive role in promoting the frigate to replace the interdictor as the core of the fleet in the future.

After serving in the "Black Hole" class, the group army proposed to build a new the frigate, but they argued about the size. Due to the limitation of the total displacement of warships in 《Knight Galaxy Army Group Treaty》, whether to build more light-duty the frigate or less large-scale the frigate in the displacement has become a major issue in the group army.

Most of the officials who support the small Frigate put the frigate in the auxiliary position of the fleet, thinking that it doesn't need too much aircraft carrying capacity, while those who support the big Frigate think that expanding the volume and carrying capacity can exert its greater power. The two factions argued endlessly until the 430th year of the Alliance calendar, when the Alliance Equipment Department approved the light-duty the frigate plan of "Victory Minotaur", which aims to gain more aircraft carrying capacity with smaller displacement.

With a displacement of 800,000 tons, the maximum aircraft carrying capacity can actually reach 86 aircraft. But also in the 250,000 th year of the Alliance calendar, the "Ten Galaxies War Preview" exercise fully proved the value of the large-scale the frigate, so the "Lisa" class stepped onto the stage of history. "Victory Minotaur" only took on some minor tasks such as escort in future wars.

Over the years, the military has finally determined that two medium-sized the frigate and one light-weight the frigate will be built in the future. However, due to the economic crisis, the Union House of Representatives did not allocate funds, so the plan had to be shelved. Until the 320th year of the alliance calendar, President Colby asked to start work to promote the employment of the unemployed warship manufacturers and staff, and finally built two "Lisa" classes and one "Cade" class (it can be said that it is a little "Lisa").In the 340,000 year of the Alliance calendar, the Alliance Fleet deeply felt that the Great War was coming, and expanded and built a "Lisa" class. At the same time, there are two important ideas in the development of the frigate. One is "Armor the frigate" with more armor in the limited single ship displacement, and the famous Loth-Wolf "Richard" class was born. There is also the maximum number of aircraft carriers, and this idea gave birth to the "Lisa" class.

"Lisa" class and "Cade" class started from the harsh treaty provisions of the Knight Galaxy equipment competition era, and they both grew up in the war. Maybe they were only forced to act as the main force in the early days of the war when the interdictor was in short supply, but they did become the mainstay. They not only proved the correctness of the frigate as the core of the fleet, but also proved the great power of the interdictor. They symbolize the end of the interdictor era and the coming of the frigate era, and also provide valuable experience for the future development of the frigate.

In the 500th year of the alliance calendar, the Knight Galaxy Group Army Treaty is about to expire and be abolished, and the Alliance Fleet has gained more and more experience in using the frigate through constant exercises. More and more people of insight in the army realized the great power of the frigate, so in the 510,000 year of the alliance calendar, the Alliance Fleet began to plan and build a new type of the frigate. The construction plan of the new the frigate is also full of twists and turns. At first, it is required to have a displacement of 2 million tons, and it needs to achieve the goal of high capacity and high protection.

After the last several rounds of design, the design standard displacement of the Benjamin-class No.1 ship "Benjamin" has reached 3.6 million tons. The underwater defense of this design is obviously strengthened, but the defense of the deck is weak. In the 560th year of the Alliance calendar, with the strong support of President Colby, this class of ships received funding from the Alliance Equipment Department, and Benjamin class officially started construction in the 560th year of the Alliance calendar.In the 580,000 th year of the Alliance Calendar, after the Alice Bay incident broke out, the main force of the interdictor of the Eastern Galaxy Fleet suffered heavy casualties and its combat effectiveness dropped sharply. At this time, the frigate became the savior against Loth-Wolf. It seems that overnight, the frigate went from behind the scenes to the front desk, from supporting role to leading role.

However, at this time, among the Alliance Fleets of the Eastern Galaxy, the frigate only has Lisa class, Black Hole class and Kaide class. Facing the Alien Guardian group army with a strong lineup and rich experience, it still looks a little old, and it is in urgent need of a new type of the frigate to supplement it. Benjamin Class plans to build 7,951 ships, but 3,451 ships have actually been built, which is the epitome of the alliance's powerful industrial power and the strongest signal of the arrival of the Alliance Fleet the frigate Center era.

In wartime, 351 Benjamin-class ships were the backbone of the alliance fleet against Loth-Wolf. From the 560th to the 850th year of the alliance calendar, Benjamin-class ships were active in the scene of almost every battle in the eastern galaxy, and almost every one of them came home with a good reputation.During wartime, frigate of this class gained great survivability due to its good vacuum sealing design. Although some of the 3,451 warships were damaged, none of them sank.

In wartime, the frigate of this class, like other frigates of the Allies, was equipped with small-caliber anti-aircraft guns to strengthen anti-aircraft firepower. With all the industrial forces of the Alliance mobilized, some of the frigate could be completed in 30 -50 years. At that time, the Mankind Army sent visitors to participate in the supervision of the Cyclops. The tall hull, 145M laser weapon and huge number of formations made Benjamin's most impressive impression on Knight Galaxy War.

n the Eastern War, the Alliance Fleet concentrated on building Benjamin Class, but the problems exposed in the use of Benjamin Class also made the Alliance Fleet start thinking about the next generation of Benjamin Class successors.

In the era of arms race, there are two main development ideas of the frigate on Knight Galaxy: the first one is "Armored frigate" ("Richard" class) advocated by Loth-Wolf, which advocates adding more armor to the frigate within a limited displacement to achieve higher protection and survivability; The second is the "winning theory of aircraft carrying capacity" ("Lisa" level) advocated by the alliance, which aims to carry the interdictor as much as possible within a limited displacement to improve combat effectiveness, but at the expense of some of its protection. Actual combat proves that armored frigate does have better survivability, but it is not as good as the frigate with high aircraft capacity in combat effectiveness.

As the Knight Galaxy Group Army Treaty has been abolished, the Alliance Fleet plans to build the frigate, which combines high armor and high protection, and can also keep high aircraft carrying capacity.However, on the basis of having enough protection, we have to pursue high aircraft carrying capacity, and the natural consequence is that the frigate is getting bigger and bigger-so the standard displacement of Benjamin's successor "Cosmic Shark" has reached 6.8 million tons, and the full-load displacement can even reach nearly 12 million tons, surpassing the "black hole" class and becoming the largest Frigate in the history of the Alliance Fleet, with only Alien Guardian's "Star Dream".

In the 720th year of the alliance calendar, the No.1 ship "Cosmic Shark" of the "Cosmic Shark" class started construction and started its service in the 750th year of the alliance calendar.The frigate of this class originally planned to build 300 ships, but actually built 150 ships. As the war in the eastern star area is coming to an end, the "Cosmic Shark" class only cruised around the major star areas after its completion until the northern star area broke out.The "Cosmic Shark" class warship, which was dubbed the ship number in the Northern Star Wars, also took part in the Witch Galaxy War after the war.This class ship is also the first type of the frigate in the Alliance Fleet with an oblique flight deck modified and 345 super-large laser transmitters installed.This class the frigate has a large displacement in design, and has rich potential for modification. Although the problems caused by the design of low freeboard restrict the modification and upgrading, thanks to the huge body plate and wide deck, the "Cosmic Shark" class can still continue to serve in the following era.The retired "Cosmic Shark" was handed over to the folk organization of Knight Galaxy as a memorial ship, and now it is on display in the museum as the frigate.