In the aftermath of the battle of Freeport Nine, a serious need for additional warships has arisen for the Corsair Empire's fleet. With the Fes, Minorca, Majorca, and others turned space debris, the Deterrence Conclave has recognized the need for new ships to enter service quickly. Thus "Project Aegean Dagger" has been conceived. Three older Hel class cruisers, going by the names "Sturmvogell", "Raufbold" and "Fledschlange", now wait in dry docks on Rhodes Shipyard for their respective retrofits. Outdated weapons and computer systems, sub-par damage control facilities, haphazard designs, certain minor damages, and general rough edges continue to plague these vessels.
After the tragedy around Freeport nine, there is a serious need for new warships. The Empire is managing fronts in Omicron Theta, Sigma-15, Omega-5, Omega-48, Dresden, Cambridge, and Dublin, and we are still feeling the wounds left by the thousands of warriors who gave their lives in defense of Freeport Nine. For now, most of these fronts are relatively stable, and we have some breathing room, but this situation is still precarious, and more major losses could force us to make serious concessions we do not want to make. More ships will buy us the time we need to reinforce our various fronts. In short; We need new ships and we need them quickly. While a new Praefect could take months to even over 2 years to be completed, retrofitting all 3 Hels could take only weeks to complete in full whilst still being capable vessels.
Military scholars and generals on Crete have been careful to study the tactics and outcomes of the battles in Theta and not only those, but also skirmishes with the Sirius Coalition and Rheinland. Though the competence of the Praefect can not be called into question even after a century of service, there is evidence that having some lighter vessels that can better round-out a task force and cover each-others weaknesses will be beneficial to our fleet compositions. The hope is that these Hels can fill this role. In particular the Hessians usage of both the Hel, and their heavier variant of the Hel known as the Vidar have proven to work well together. When the Hels enter service, their performance will be extensively monitored to see if in the future the Corsairs should employ lighter cruisers. Indeed, the Unioners in their continual struggle against the Hessians, Coalition, and Rheinland Military, have proven that the Hel is a formidable cruiser. The Hel has seen deployment by many different groups in Sirius, and it is only fitting that such a venerable warship should serve under us.
Leading the project is Sergeant Alfonso Cornelius, a member of the influential Cornelius family, and the person who first proposed the idea of modernizing these cruisers. Alfonso has been given the authority to allocate whatever resources are necessary to this project. He has both a military and organizational background. Working along side him are Colonel Razzario and Dr. Bautista, who will be directly managing and controlling the project. Colonel Razziro has served directly on several cruisers and battlecruisers for the past 11 years, and his knowledge of weapons systems and doctrine will be critical to refurbishing these ships. Dr. Baustia is a some-what recent graduate of an engineering school, finishing with extremely high marks, and already having worked on minor repair operations for damaged ships on Tripoli drydock B. This will be his first major task, and his progress here will be watched closely to see if he will be fit for future operations of the sort. It is the Conclave's hope that these 3 people will be able to bring this project across the finish line.
We began the Project by throwing out almost all of the old fire-control systems on the Hels. Not only were many labels and messages in a different language, but we also found them to be imprecise, and some not capable of working with the new developments made in weapons technology. The systems in modern Praefect designs were found to be sufficient, with some slight modifications. We also put newer scanners on Sturmvogell and Fledschlange, and integrated them too into our new fire-control.
We also began to work on fixing the Heavy Weapon mounts. We managed to mount light cruiser turrets with relatively little effort. The Heavier weapon mounts were more challenging. We have to fix up a lot of the wiring especially going towards the mount on the bows of the vessels. We still are not finished with this process, and will give a further update on this matter soon.
Finally, Colonel Razzairo has begun collecting a list of safety measures that can help make the ships safer. The ship is devoid of Guard Rails, proper labels, symbols, and other such things. By the next report, the process of adding those should be finished.
Following up on our previous report, we are near to finishing the weapons on the 3 Hels. After we struggled with the front Heavy Weapon mount, we replaced large portions of the sections between the bridge and the aforementioned Mounts but we got it properly working, and connected it to the Fire Control systems of the ships. All other turrets on the ship have also been connected to the fire control systems using super conductors. Upon our testing we found the accuracy of the weapons to be satisfactory, and the responsiveness of the weapons was perfect for what we were looking for. Targeting interfaces were installed in the bridges of the ships, and await their programming when the armaments of the Hels are ordered and finalized.
We are currently thinking on 2 LTP-121 turrets mounted on the bottom, and one of our Anti-Matter Projectors on the top-forward slot for each of the Hels, but this has yet to be finalized, if one thing is certain we will have to experiment with what works and what doesnt for these vessels, they do indeed open up newer possibilities for our fleets, and perhaps the doctrine difference will not be as severe as we are expecting, yet I feel we cannot afford to shoot blindly in the dark with these ships. We will have to use them, monitor them, and improve them.
We finished off the implementing of our Xiphos turrets by giving them their own tracking systems and sensors distinct from the heavier anti-capital weapons and located more locally to the weapons themselves, the Xiphos turrets being operated in 4 inter-connected groups. The Xiphos turrets can still be operated directly from the bridge, and can be told to focus specific targets capital targets, while still acting more autonomously as anti-light and anti-projectile weapons. We have learned from our skirmishes with the Core and Bounty Hunters guild that effective anti-fighter is not an area we can afford to take short-cuts on.
Some areas where the main protection were titanium alloys were replaced, or covered in additional protection using an ablative armor plating. These areas include the areas around all turrets, the bridge, and the engines.
Dr. Bautista alongside working on the front weapons mount, has also done some minor work on the life support systems on the ship, using xeno-biotic filters to make them more efficient, and require supplies less often. We also made a choice to add additional blast-doors and in ship armor to help protect the interior from as much damage as we can. The addition of safty measures was finished extremely quick after all areas that needed work on that front were cataloged, and organized.
As per a suggestion from Bautista, the shield generators for the Hels was harmonically reinforced. We deemed any extra armor additions to the Hels to be un-needed as the goal was to have a lighter-cruiser as opposed to having a slightly different Praefect, so we instead checked up on all of the interior damage control systems, of which in a welcome surprise almost all were found to be in great working order. We copied Nav-Map data from a Database on Crete, and uploaded it to the systems on the Hels. There are not many more additions we can make for the ships until we get the new heavy weapons from Planet Crete.
A specific group was formed by Razzairo to determine what weapons would be suitable for the Sturmvogell. After consulting certain cruiser captains, engineers, strategists and others, a decision was reached, and the weapons were ordered. Currently they are being produced on Planet Crete and will be ready soon enough. Due to the recent logistical delays regarding Samura, it might be weeks until the weapons are finished. We are in need of certain mechanical parts they usually help supply for us and of munitions for the weapons. Either way, these Heavy Weapons stand as the last part of this project we have to complete before the Hels are ready for service.
The main thing left to do apart from the weapons would be to assign the ships crews and to name the ships, as their current names do not fit the ships current circumstances. I have reached out to various scholars on Planet Crete, and after careful consideration the ships now bear new names;
The Sturmvogell is now the Kantara
The Fledschlange is now the Kolossi
The Raufbold is now the Kyrenia
As for the commanders and crews assigned for the ships, those are currently being determined by the military High-Command, and will be decided upon the completion of this project.
To supply parts for the weapons needed for the Hels, we reached out to the Junkers in the hopes that they could provide us with weapon parts, salvaged from cruisers found in the various graveyards scattered around Sirius. Unfortunately, the Junkers went radio silent, and we were forced to abandon that course of action. Instead, we will get what we need ourselves. We will buy what we can, and take the rest.
For now, we have cataloged what these weapons will require; - 10,000 units of Energy Field Equiment - 12,500 units of Munitions - 8,000 units of Nano-Capacitors and Nano-Tubes - 9,000 units of Gold - 9,000 units of Platinum
For now, we have enough Copper and Silver on Planet Crete for the weapons. Hopefully this is our last delay before we are ready to deploy these vessels.
We acquired the materials needed for the weapons, and set the Yucatan Industrial Sector to work on them on Planet Crete. I was not involved in the construction process of the 9 weapons, and I cannot provide much information on that. However the weapons were finished, delivered to Rhodes, and have been installed as of 3 hours ago. All that is left now is to assign crews and train them. I have no authority over this process either, so it appears my role is fulfilled.
This concludes Aegean Dagger, the Hels stand fully equipped and ready to receive their crews, with redone electronics, updated weapons, and improved armor plating.
The imperio is stronger and more resilient now then ever, and someday our foes will bow beneath our feet. Ravenna Vult!
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Raufbold and Fledschlange in the drydock and Rhodes![[Image: AVJhWU9.png]](https://i.imgur.com/AVJhWU9.png)
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