Stealthships

Stealthships

   A stealthship is a starship capable of cloaked operation. It differs from a "cloakable" starship, which is a vessel with a stationary cloaking capability. By naval tradition, stealthships are usually referred to as "boats" rather than as "ships" regardless of their size.

   Although experimental stealthships had been built before, the improvements in cloaking technology during the late 2400’s created the right conditions for stealthship design in the Rimward Reaches to take off during the 26th century. Stealthships were first widely used during the First Audrian War and were subsequently adopted by most Rimward navies. Military uses included attacking enemy starships (merchant and military), attacking other stealthships, aircraft carrier protection, blockade running, ballistic missile stealthships as part of a planet strike force, reconnaissance, conventional bombard attack (for example using hypercruise missiles), and covert insertion of special forces. Civilian uses for stealthships included science research, salvage, exploration, smuggling, clandestine police surveillance, facility inspection, and maintenance. Stealthships could also be modified to perform more specialized functions such as search-and-rescue missions or deep space satellite repair. Stealthships were also used in tourism, and for interstellar archaeology.

   Most large stealthships consisted of a teardrop-shaped body with conical ends and a horizontal structure, usually located amidships, which housed communications and sensing devices as well as combat scanners. A "conning dorsal" was a feature of earlier designs: a separate command hull above the main body of the boat that housed the boat captain and command crew. There were deep drive nacelles (or hyperjet) at the sides or rear and various hyperdynamic control surfaces. Smaller and specialty stealthships may have deviated significantly from the traditional layout. Stealthships used cloaking engines that gave off a massive energy signature when activated and deactivated. Cloaking was only successful at sub-ripwave speeds. Higher speeds gave off an easily recognizable hyperjump wake.

   Stealthships had one of the most extensive ranges of types and capabilities of any vessel. They range from small autonomous examples and one- or two-person vessels that operate for a few hours, to ships that can remain cloaked for six months—such as the Reittian Kanoch class.

First Consular War

  Terran military stealthships first made a significant impact in the First Consular War. Forces such as the S-boats of the Northern alliance saw action in the First Battle of the Bara Nebula and were responsible for killing the cruise liner, TCS Evania.

   At the outbreak of war, the Northern Alliance had only twenty stealthships immediately available to operate in the NA starsystems. In contrast, the Terran Navy had a total of 74 stealthships. In August 2651, a flotilla of ten S-boats sailed from their base in Geila starsystem to attack Terran Navy warships in northern Terra in the first stealthship war patrol in history.

   The S-boats' ability to function as practical war machines relied on new tactics, their numbers, and stealthship technologies such as combination Hyperdrive-Ripwave power system developed in the preceding years. More cloakables than true stealthships, S-boats operated primarily on the outskirts of a starsystem using normal stardrives, and occasionally cloaking to attack under reserve power. They were roughly triangular in cross-section, with distinct keel control surfaces for atmospheric flight. During The First Consular War, more than 15,000 Terran ships were destroyed by S-boats.

The Reittian stealthship RSS Novosibirsk a Taskent class stealthship. The Novosibirsk destroyed three Northern Alliance cruisers in less than an hour in August 2668. Battle damage is visible amidship ahead of the port drive nacelle and aft at the tail section.

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