The most recent eighth-generation warship to come off the New Perth shipyards is the Wahaika-class battleship. Named for a particular type of Maori war club, the Wahaika is the most heavily-armed vessel in its tonnage class ever created. Designed to replace the Gillard-class battleship that has been the main battlewagon of the Aussie fleet for thirty years, it utilizes many of the same technologies first tested by the Rapanui-class destroyer.
The most astounding thing about the Wahaika is the sheer firepower it can unleash, all packed into a kilometer-and-a-half long frame. Its armaments include four 12 meter AP lancer spinal mounts, three 16 meter APPC spinal mounts, four Pulsar Cannon spinal mounts, eight 16 meter APPC cross-spinals (four port, four starboard) fifteen heavy APPC turrets (six dorsal, five ventral, two dorsal on the port recovery bay nacelle, and two dorsal on the starboard recovery bay nacelle), eighty medium AP lancer turrets (forty port, forty starboard), six medium APPC turrets (three port, three starboard), six aft-mounted light pulsed gravitic field emitters, three 120-port Hornet missile bays carrying a combined payload of 2,400 LRMs designed to intercept small craft and frigates, 130 point defense turrets and sixteen fighter launch tubes able to deploy its compliment of ninety-six Mako fighters (divided into twenty-four four-fighter squadrons) in under thirty seconds.
All of this firepower comes at tremendous power costs, making the entire forward third of the ship a massive reactor bank. Dozens of Halcyon 875 petawatt antimatter reactors and their attendant capacitors and support systems (not to mention extra armour) fill the innards of the forward hull. Like the other two eighth-generation Aussie warships, the forwards hull has a “safety gap” between it and the rear section, which houses engineering and crew areas. Additionally, due to the huge amount of anti-protons needed for both the reactors and fueling the anti-proton weaponry, the forward section has independent hydrogen ramscoops to fuel the polarity inverters and manufacture anti-hydrogen.
While the Wahaika does not sport the experimental align crystalline fracture plating that both the Rapanui destroyer and Donnelley frigate carry, it is sheathed in up to fifty meters of conventional atomically-bonded metallic hydrogen armour plating with carbon interweave and tenser field supports. In fact, the hull is effectively a solid block of armour with living quarters and other areas shaped in it. The Wahaika uses the same next-generation shields as the Rapanui, and is reputed to also carry gravitic weapon countermeasures able to defend against PSPs. This, in turn, implies that the Wahaika might carry a PSP itself, but the Australio-Pacifica Coalition has never confirmed this.
The current number of active Wahaika-class battleships is unknown, but intelligence suggests that the APC has fielded almost as many of these as they have Donnelly-class frigates. A recent engagement between Aussie forces and a Garoudan raiding fleet from the Garouja was ended quickly with the annihilation of the entire invading fleet in minutes by “new ships, including one that wiped out three battlecruisers simultaneously”, according to leaked intelligence reports.



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