Mjollnir Class Battlecruiser

The flagships of Varangian Guard’s fleets are the Mjöllnir-Class battlecruiser. A truly deadly platform, this vessel has been argued by some to be, in fact, a light battleship. Lending support to this assessment is Varangian’s own use of the Mjöllnir as a heavy-support command-and-control vessel and flagship, serving as the hub of a fleet. Regardless of the grey area in which the vessel sits according to the IATR treaty, those protected by them praise the Mjöllnir almost as much as the thralls of ancient Norway praised its namesake.
The Mjöllnir is one part battle platform, one part ENWO (Electronic and Network Warfare Operations) vessel, one part carrier, and all badass. Sporting tremendous firepower, the Mjöllnir mounts two super-heavy APPC spinals and four heavy AP lancer spinals in the bow, two more heavy AP lancers in the wings near the variable-geometry joints, three heavy APPC spinals aft, two heavy APPC cross-spinals (one port, one starboard), and four heavy AP lancer cross-spinals (two port, two starboard) as its fixed-arc firepower.
Variable-arc firepower is just as impressive, with seven quad-barrel heavy Gungnir-modified AP lancer turrets (three ventral, four dorsal), sixteen triple-barrel medium APPC turrets (six dorsal, four ventral, three port, three starboard), eight medium dual AP lancer turrets (two port-dorsal, two port-ventral, two starboard-dorsal, two starboard-ventral), two medium quad-barrel Gungnir-modified AP lancer turrets (one each port and starboard), dozens of light APPC and AP lancer turrets, and over one hundred point-defense turrets.
Of most concern to national military analysts, however, are the twelve large missile silos amidships, six dorsal and six ventral. While set up to carry clusters of ASMs, it would take only an hour to retrofit each into an APM silo, which is of great concern to signatories of the IATR treaty. Anti-Planetary missiles are a weapon of mass destruction, and therefore restricted for possession by any non-national military or mercenary corporation such as Varangian Guard. To have a vessel that could easily convert to carrying them has raised many eyebrows, to say the least.
The carrier aspect of the Mjöllnir is no less disconcerting. Unlike conventional carriers, the Mjöllnir does not merely carry and deploy fighters. In addition to 24 fighter launch and recovery bays capable of deploying 120 fighters, and four small craft launch bays carrying a mix of shuttles and dropships, the Mjöllnir has two specialized launch bays capable of carrying a total of eight Valkyrie-class corvettes. Not merely launch bays, all of the carrier bays for fighters and small craft have nanovats and other equipment necessary to repair and refit the craft berthed within, making the Mjöllnir a mobile drydock for smaller vessels.
Another unique feature of the Mjöllnir is the variable-geometry T-rad dispersing ailerons. Each of the pair has additional engines and hydrogen ramscoops built into them, and can fold up under the vessel for landing without impinging upon engine performance. When in use to disperse tachyon radiation, the ailerons open up to deploy a sail-like fan of carbon fiber material designed to maximize the surface area through which the tachyon radiation can be vented into normal space. When not in use as such, the ailerons are protected by ten meter thick armour-plating that adds to the protection of the engine nacelles.
Those nacelles- fourteen dual-core gravitic engines- give the Mjöllnir phenomenal speed and maneuverability, more than compensating for her kilometer-long bulk. However, the Mjöllnir generally does not use all of the engines at once, preferring instead to use the triple-stacked nacelles closest to the hull as reserve engines in the event of damage or failure in any of the outer nacelles.
Despite her size and firepower, however, the Mjöllnir has a comparably small crew compliment of only ten officers and one hundred eleven crew, not including pilots of the small craft and marines. This is largely due to AI automation, with the ship carrying not one but three artificial intelligences to handle ship operations, gunnery and flight operations. All of this allows the Mjöllnir to rival Aussie and Ahrugan destroyers in capability, and far surpasses American and European vessels of the same class.



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