Islands of Steel Lost in a Sea of Time
The Ships of the Composite Testing Force / TF 11 (BOAT LORE)
Fleet Problem XXXVI was to be the largest US naval maneuver since the end of the Second Sino-American War two years prior and would’ve been the largest American naval of the 21st Century. Its start was less than auspicious, having been drummed up by Washington and foisted on the United States First Fleet—the CONUS Pacific coast “port fleet”—with almost no notice. It was ostensibly an exercise to proof-of-concept several capabilities that had been under development at the tail end of the war and after it. It would’ve included a massive joint corps-sized Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations wargame on the Aleutians, several battle group-sized wargames across the Northern Pacific, and a FONOP off Kamchatka. The operation was put together at wartime speed, just two months, and was so rushed that it required reserve call-ups (including legendary Rear Admiral Jonny Kim) and the deployment of one of the nation’s most prized assets, the Ronald Reagan Seabase.
On paper, beyond just testing the various “finish-line clincher” experimental ships, it was intended to show that the United States was turning its focus to Polar Affairs and the resurgent Russian Federation. Russia’s status has not completely recovered since its defeat in the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022-2025. The once-ailing nation has had its economic decline (at least temporarily) reversed by serving as “the untouchable factory” for the People’s Republic of China during Second Sino and the massive influx of Chinese emigrants to an ecologically transformed Siberia. In its desperation to reclaim its status and fill the PRC’s shoes, the “Last Frontier” has become a Tower of Cyberpunk Babel. It is ground zero for the bleeding edge of banned, unorthodox, or otherwise unsavory technologies—combat cybernetics, neural augmentation, third generation weaponized AI. It is the terrifying playground of aspiring corporate and national powers—supported by the Russian Federation and managed by the infamous all-powerful OboronProm, usually just called Oberon, the Russian Defense Concern.
In short, the United States wishes to remind the Russian Federation that it has not gone complacent since the end of Second Sino.
Big Navy wants a show. It’s gonna be great. We’ll test some new old toys, let the Marines freeze their balls off fighting the Army for some C-Ring buzzwords, and we’ll go do donuts in Ivan’s backyard and see who comes a-knocking. It’ll be fun.
— Vice Admiral Kimberly Josiah Scott (Commander, US First Fleet), c. 2042
The Composite Testing Force (Task Force 11) is the formation assembled for FleetPro 36-1 and is comprised of seven task groups: Carrier Battle Group Nine, Carrier Battle Group One, Surface Action Group Seven, Amphibious Landing Group Four, Advance Seabasing Group Two, and Submarine Flottila Nine. In addition, the 6th Marine All-Domain Force is embarked aboard the amphibious task group.
The 75 vessels include two fleet carriers, one landing platform carrier, one strike cruiser, one guided missile test ship, five guided missile cruisers, nineteen guided missile destroyers, nine guided missile frigates, nine guided missile destroyer escorts, four landing transport bases, two forward staging bases, one forward cargo base, four forward cargo vessels, four fast transports, one seabase, four fleet support ships, one submarine tender, one transport submarine, one guided missile submarine, three attack submarines, one hunter-killer submarine, one chartered support vessel.1
The Capitals
Flt II William D. Leahy class (United States subclass) Nuclear Command Fleet Carrier
USS Harriet Tubman (CVCN-84)
Dimensions: 1,316 ft (length) x 168 ft (beam at waterline), 312 ft (beam at the flight deck)
Displacement: 171,000 tons
Complement: 7300
Missile Armament: 4x8 - Mark 61 VLS Cells, 4x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close-in-Gun System, 2 x 2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 2x8 - 30mm/76 Mark 115 Close-in-Weapon System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 4 - Mark 13 Direct Energy Weapon Mount, 4 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 8x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x8 - Mark 36 Surface Vessel Defensive Torpedo Tubes
Aircraft: ~120 aircraft on deck, ~80 unmanned aircraft on LASH
Other: 2 - Mark 3 Fleet Support Fabricator
The Harriet Tubman, lovingly referred to by its crew as “the Tub” or “the Big Tub,” is a unique “superheavy” variant of the Navy’s current generation of supercarrier—the William D. Leahy-class. Like her William D. Leahy sisters, she is set apart from their Ford cousins by their modest increase in beam and an entirely new power plant, the USN’s new standard N3D (common surface ship reactor, model three, Department of Energy) plasma molten salt reactor.2
As a command carrier, the Harriet Tubman is built around its Fleet Operation Center, an oversized command center that operates in addition to a normal combat direction center.3 This allows the ship to coordinate between battlegroups while underway, hosting the flag staffs of its carrier battlegroup and the CBG’s fleet. The Tub, put another way, is a sailing Pineapple Pentagon (though 250 Makalapa Drive would be more fitting), hard to hit and packing a massive Sunday Punch.
Her scale also affords her a massive deck park. She does not have an embarked Carrier Air Wing; she has an entire Carrier Air Division. A key component that allows this feat of capacity is dozens of LASH—Light Air System Handling—racks. The ‘garage door’ system allows smaller aircraft (generally drones) to be affixed to frames, which are then lifted up out of the way. Once on the ceiling rails, the frames can be shifted around—moving drones, spare parts, or even maintainers through the hangar on the “Ceiling Ouija Board.” The ship also has additional fabrication, repair, and support facilities fitting her size and role and is also equipped with a Zetascale supercomputer ostensibly so she can compute theater-wide logistics on the fly. Tubman was also built after the start of the FIRESHIP Program and, therefore, extremely well-armed for self-defense.4
Tubman is the largest actively serving warship in the world and the largest warship built by the United States Navy.5 She was originally ordered as “USS United States” in response to the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Type 005 aircraft carrier, a nuclear-powered semi-trimaran design displacing well over 275,000 tons, which would become known as the Zhōnghuá-class superheavy carrier. When the superheavy carrier was announced—and it was revealed that it had already begun construction at a purpose-built mega-yard in Shanghai—Washington was caught off guard. The US Intelligence Community believed that the moves to build Type 005 were merely noise. The carrier panic that followed would see Congress pass the Second Naval Infrastructure Act and the Navy laydown a superheavy carrier down—with plans for two more—just months after the announcements of the Type 005.
United States and her planned sisters, Constitution and Independence, were smaller than Zhōnghuá, displacing “only” 175,000 tons. The ships’ names were notably unpopular; many felt it was wrong to have two Constitutions and that having a United States and an America in the fleet was bad luck. The ‘CVBX’ program was also a complete disaster as it was moved to construction before most work was completed. Mercifully, it would be almost entirely based on the William D. Leahy-class supercarrier. Thus, despite cost overruns and a lack of a core concept with any more depth than “moar flattop,” the design was unworkable. OPNAV and Congress had bought something they did not know how to actually use. In 2030, the program would fall under the “arbitration” of the National Security Resources Board and its famed (or infamous) Office of Critical Procurement. The NSRB would focus the program on the idea of a mobile command post and support carrier. The Type 005 CVN suffered similar issues and was hated by senior PLAN officers, earning the nickname “dumpster.” Despite being substantially smaller than the Type 005, the size of the CVCN restricted the ports it could visit, though the rise of ultra-heavy nanocomposite steel-hulled semi-autonomous freighters ameliorated this over time.
In 2034, USS United States (CVN-84) would be renamed USS Harriet Tubman (CVCN-84) after the 19th Century heroine and the recently lost USNS Harriet Tubman (T-AO-213). The previous ship earned renown equal to the tin cans of Samar during the Fifth Gulf War, saving an estimated 47,000 kafala slaves across 19 trips before being sunk. She was the last ship to leave Dubai before the nuclear exchange with 5,423 souls aboard, forty times her complement. En route to Iraq, she was attacked by Emirati F-16s and the final dregs of the Royal Saudi Navy. After her escorts saw off all comers, three CAPTOR-type mines would strike Tubman, breaking her back. Her crew would fight for twenty-six hours, losing a quarter of their number before the ship was evacuated and sank in shallow waters in Kuwait Bay. Despite the immense loss of life among her own crew, Moses would not lose a single passenger.
Harriet Tubman would be a one-of, as OCP reordered Constitution and Independence as conventional Leahy-class carriers with the names Yorktown and Hornet. The pair would be renamed again while under construction in honor of USS Zumwalt (CG-1000) and USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) after those ships were lost early in Second Sino.
The issues caused by the more—transformational—ideas NAVSEA had for the class (e.g. the zetascale supercomputer) taxed New Mare Island Naval Shipyard to the very limit.6 Even with an experienced corps of shipwrights from Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Newport News, the new shipyard struggled to handle the superheavy carrier. Zhōnghuá would have an even more tortured construction and was temporarily canceled but reinstated in a bid to protect national prestige. It would take the China State Shipbuilding Corporation’s Jiangian Yard No. 7 (built for just the Type 005) more than eleven years to construct the carrier. Zhōnghuá would only go on its shakedown cruise during Exercise 010149-37. Over that same time, Dalian Yard No. 1A alone finished work on the Type 003A carrier Hainan, completed both Type 003B and Type 003D carriers Guizhou and Shānxī, and began work on the Type 007 CV Jiangnan
She’s not a carrier, Kay. She’s a Pineapple Raven Rock with a whole-ass airport and two of the most powerful nukes ever built for Naval Reactors that can crank it at 35-and-a-half knots. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?
— Rear Admiral Marie Coriander (Commander, Task Force 34) to Captain Kimberly J. Scott (Director, Office of Critical Procurement), c. 2036
“Moses” is considered the de-facto flagship of the United States Navy, a point that is even begrudgingly accepted by the Corpo Navy faction. She is an enduring symbol of American naval superiority, war-time hardship, and victory. She was damaged at the First Battle of Mariana Trench but was quickly repaired and became the flagship of the Allied Fleet under Admiral Marie Coriander.
As the flagship of the CTF, Tubman is the headquarters for Rear Admiral Jonathan Granger (Commander, Carrier Battle Group Nine) and Vice Admiral Kimberly Scott (Commander, United States First Fleet). The two are long-time friends, having met at OCS. They are an incredibly unlikely pairing. Scott is a small, fiery black woman from Detroit and Groton, the daughter of a sonarman. Granger is a seven-foot tall pallid-skinned, grey-eyed Lurch from Belleville, Pennsylvania, the son of Amish cobblers.
“The Grim Granger” is a methodical and steadfast leader, sometimes described as “a mountain that moves but does not flinch.” His calm during First Trench is generally credited as preventing a total defeat. Granger (the ship’s captain) and Coriander (the battle group commander) took Battle Force Zulu into the heart of danger, against the express orders of the Commander, Combined Naval Force-Pacific, back in Pearl. Four supercarriers—Harriet Tubman (CVCN-84), Franklin (CVN-83), William D. Leahy (CVN-82), and Nimitz (CVN-68)—and their escorts willingly revealed their position in a desperate rearguard action. They faced the full might of the PLAN after a decade-long naval arms race—eighteen PLAN carriers in five battle groups—to cover the retreat of the battered Battle Forces Midway and Quebec toward Hawaii. The Admirals took a leap of faith, trusting their crews and their ships. It would pay off. Battle Force Zulu would stop the PLAN and exhaust their remaining munitions—at the cost of the thrice-overhauled USS Nimitz. The Battle of Wake Island would give enough time for Vice Admiral Chris “Chowda” Hill to arrive with Battle Force Leyte—the four Gerald R. Ford-class sisters—with a surge of Active and Guard-Reserve Aerospace Force strike assets scrambled from CONUS to force the assembled might of the PLAN back past the Marianas. First Trench, a fleet action that lasted an entire week, ended as a PLA tactical victory—but a strategic stalemate—in large part due to the time bought by Battle Force Zulu.
“Kill Something Scott” is a politico-bureaucratic lioness, a fusion of Zumwalt and Rickover, who began her rise after the largest surface action of the 21st Century, the Second Battle of Paracel. In command, she is a Grant-on-the-Tide, an aggressive leader willing to use the mass of her force to win a war of maneuver, dip her hands in blood if necessary, and trust her subordinates to carry out their missions within her vision of victory. She would become the standard-bearer for the famed “Revolt of Commanders” and their Sailor First Reform Program. After her political death in the wake of the Anzio Incident, she would be reborn as the mistress of intrigue and master of the Office of Critical Procurement. After the failure of First Trench, she would be brought forward as Commander, Battle Force, Allied Fleet at the insistence of Admiral Corriander, eventually leading the planning for the Second Battle of the Mariana Trench—the largest naval action in history. A war hero in her own right for her service as a tin-can driver in First Sino and Fourth Gulf, she was rapidly promoted in her early career, but it would take until she was given COMBAT-ALTFLT for her to be promoted to flag officer and her promotion to Vice Admiral would be delayed until after the war had ended.
Queen of the Seas, Conductor of Fleets.
Flight II Gerald R. Ford class Nuclear Fleet Carrier
USS Doris Miller (CVN-81)
Dimensions: 1,096 ft (length) x 134 ft (beam at waterline), 252 ft (beam at the flight deck)
Displacement: 115,000 tons
Complement: 4800
Missile Armament: 3x4 - Mark 145 Adaptable Deck Launcher, 3x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116F)
Kinetic Armament: 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close-in-Gun System, 2x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close-in-Gun System, 3x8 - 30mm/76 Mark 115 Close-in-Weapon System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close-in-Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 3 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 6x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x8 - Mark 36 Surface Vessel Defensive Torpedo Tube
Aircraft: ~90 aircraft on deck, ~48 unmanned aircraft on LASH
Other: 1 - Mark 3 Fleet Support Fabricator
The Doris Miller is the last ship of the Gerald R. Ford-class and is neither hated nor loved. She was not present for Fifth Persian Gulf, but she served honorably during Second Sino. She, however, never built up a legend like the USS Enterprise (CVN-80) or USS Lawrence Chambers (CVN-74, ex-John C. Stennis). A part of Battle Force Leyte with her sisters, she missed most of First Trench but would be there to turn the tied from total defeat to bitter stalemate. She lacks the power reserves, firepower, and mass of the current-generation William D. Leahy-class carriers—but she is a reliable and effective naval aviation asset and the first ship to be built with the LASH Rack concept. Doris Miller gets it done—without pomp or frills.
Doris Miller’s inclusion in FleetPro 36 was a last-minute change ordered by the CNO, Fleet Admiral Coriander. Originally, the second carrier group was to be USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) under Rear Admiral Analise Solae. This was deemed provocative, as it meant that all senior officers present for the exercise would be noted Slate Navy partisans: VADM Scott of US1F, RADM Granger of CBG-9, RADM MacGregor of SAG-7, RADM Izikawa of ALG-4, RADM Jones of SUBFLOT9, and RADM Solae of CBG-11. To balance out the internal fleet politics, Doris Miller replaced Kennedy. As Miller’s battle group commander, Rear Admiral Jennifer Kaine, is the Deputy President of the Professional Naval Officers’ Society (PRONOS), and considered the likely successor to the de-facto leader of the Corpo Navy, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Matt Henwright.
The simplest appraisal of “Knock Out” is that she is considered a lucky ship that no one in their right mind would want to be assigned to. She is wonderful to look at and dependable in any situation but terrible to have to work on—a ship run like it was straight out of the 2020s (derogatory).
Fuck off! *sounds of violence*
— Commander Jennifer Kaylyn Sahaquiel Kaine, c. 2033
“Kaine the Terrible,” the former skipper of the Dorie (a diminutive she detests), is a highly competent officer. She is stern, unliked, uncompromising, and a deadly strict disciplinarian, effectively the embodiment of the Corpo reaction to the Slate Navy’s Sailor First and Fleet Architecture 2040. It was Kaine’s leadership that ensured that Miller never suffered damage in the war nor participated in a defeat, but also would see Miller skipped over by command. Part of her notoriety comes from the infamous “Furry Convention Incident.” Kaine, only an O-5, got into a fistfight with a red fox fursuit in the double-booked hotel convention hall. The fight ended when she kicked the furry down a flight of stairs. She would avoid assault charges but forever hold a grudge against the Slate Navy, who were assumed to have been behind the snafu. Regardless, Kaine is a steady hand and a good officer, but neither trusted nor liked, even by fellow Corpo partisans. Put simply, she is feared by some, respected by most, and loved by few.
Tightest Ship in the Fleet
Okinawa class Nuclear Landing Platform Carrier
USS Okinawa (LPVN-29)
Dimensions: 978 ft (length) x 213 ft (beam at waterline), 314 ft (beam at the flight deck)
Displacement: 87,000 tons
Complement: 1500 (without embarkees or air element)
Missile Armament: 4x16 - Mark 61 VLS Cells, 2x4 - Mark 145 Adaptable Deck Launcher, 4x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 4x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System, 8x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher in Gun System,
Direct Energy Armament: 3 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 8x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 4x8 - Mark 36 Surface Vessel Defensive Torpedo Tube
Aircraft: ~72 aircraft on deck, ~16 unmanned aircraft on LASH
Other: 1 x Mark 3 Fleet Support Fabricator, 6 x LCAC-100 Ship-to-Shore Connectors
Okinawa, or Oki, is the newest carrier in the United States Navy and the culmination of the Navy’s “LPV” program. The LPV was originally billed as “LPH for V-22 and V-28,” but in reality, the two LPV classes (Guadalcanal and Da Nang) were CVV-pattern medium conventional carriers. Okinawa is a departure from the CVV-LPV concept and a return to something akin to a classic amphibious assault ship. She is a Forrestal-sized, nuclear, well-deck, and angled flight deck-equipped CATOBAR amphibious warfare vessel. She is wide, not particularly swift, and extraordinarily heavily armed for a carrier. She is the centerpiece of an amphibious landing group and command center for both at-sea and on-land operations to reduce friction during the CLF-CATF transition.
Work began on Okinawa in late 2036, but it was suspended to concentrate on the four remaining Da Nang-class LPVs under construction (Da Nang-class saw incremental improvements and an extra catapult over the prior Guadalcanal-class). Work would resume late war and would continue into the peace. She was commissioned six days before New Year’s Day 2042, christened by the First Gentleman Riley Roberts.
“Iceberg” is considered something between an affront to God and an ugly duckling. Much of her crew are old hands, with experience going back to First Sino and who have served on LHDs, LHAs, and LPVs. Yet, none of them is quite sure what to make of a ship that is all of those classes at once. One of the ships that the Fleet Problem was intending to trial, she has been put in the hands of the Navy’s most experienced amphibious warfare commander, Rear Admiral Henry Izikawa—the Father of the Andersen Express—which kept the Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, and Aeros trapped on Guam and Saipan alive and in the fight during the Mariana Sieges.
How in the Hell did Gulfport-Biloxi manage to build a gator with vibes more cursed than the fucking Swede.
— Rear Admiral Henry Masaru Izikawa (Commander, Amphibious Landing Group Four) referring to Major General Nils Tuomas Nilsen (Commanding General, 6th Marine All-Domain Force), c. 2042
Hank Izikawa is a kindly, bookish officer whose demeanor belies his capabilities as a leader and inter-service manager. He is known for having exceptionally cordial and effective relationships with the Marine units attached to his command and terrible relationships with fellow Naval officers. His kindly manner is often misinterpreted as passiveness. However, attempts to bypass or undermine his command, especially bypassing him to contact his landing force, turn the Mythbusters-esque STEM dad into a malevolent counterforce with a long memory. No one crosses Hank Izikawa, least of all someone on Team Blue. Izikawa not only spearheaded the execution of the Andersen Express but also was the key forward commander for landings of Operation TROPIC FREEDOM, the liberation of Luzon. In the opening phase of the landing operation, USS America (LHA-6) was struck by a DF-21, killing the Commander, Landing Force, and his deputy. This twist of fate would ignite a chain of events that would see Commodore Izikawa have the unique honor of being the only Naval Officer in history to come ashore and personally oversee an armored thrust, in what would become known as the “Rice Paddy Thunder Run” during the Battle of the Bitulok Valley.
The First Battle-Gator.
Long Beach class Nuclear Guided Missile Strike Cruiser
USS Long Beach (CSGN-42)
Dimensions: 853 ft (length) x 91 ft (beam)
Displacement: 31,000 tons
Complement: 750
Missile Armament: 24x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 24x4 - Mark 67 C-VLS Cells, 4x2 - Mark 148 Box Launchers, 6x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 2x2 - 305mm/50 Mark 9 Lightweight Strategic Gun Systems, 6x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 4 x 2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 6x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 6 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 12x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x8 - Mark 36 Surface Vessel Defensive Torpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 2 x hangars with space for 2 x large or 4 x medium VTOL aircraft
Long Beach, known by the nicknames the Long Obituary or Long Bitch, represents the pinnacle of the US Navy’s surface warfare development in the wake of First Sino and Gulf IV. She and her five sisters are the largest combatants commissioned by the US since USS Guam (CB-2) in 1944 and the largest in-service combatants since the Iowa-class was decommissioned in 1992. In fact, they are the largest and most powerful surface combatant in the world, larger than the Russian Navy’s legendary Kirov-class battlecruisers and the PLAN’s Type 059 Taipei-class strike cruisers (built in response to the Saratoga and Long Beach classes).
The class holds the honor of being the first ship to be armed with a combined electro-magnetic assisted electrothermal chemical gun system, a hybrid system that allows for the benefits of both railgun and ETC technology. USS Long Beach and her first two sisters were originally armed with six 8-inch Mark 72 guns in two triple turrets, but they were up-gunned with the 12-inch Mark 9 gun—a navalized, long barrel variant of the Army’s M1865 “Appomattox Annie” Strategic Long Range Cannon. The Mark 72 can fire 6” sub-caliber projectiles at speeds up to 5.5 km/s—the Mark 9 can fire 8” sub-caliber projectiles at speeds up to 4 km/s; both can fire full-bore shells at speeds of 1.5-2.5 km/s.7
USS Las Vegas (CSGN-78), using her Mk 9s, is responsible for the longest surface-to-air gun kill in history, destroying a pair of J-15C STOBAR strike-fighters at a range of 152 nautical miles with a single AHEAD-pattern shell.
Famously described in the Office of Critical Procurement’s first public Congressional hearing as “eight-hundred-and-fifty-three-feet of fuck off and fuck you,” Long Beach has become a legend. In her career, she has earned twenty-two battle stars, more than the Big E of WW2. However, her beginnings are much less auspicious, starting out as a budget charade. OCP argued that the contract for CSGN-42 had failed to properly be canceled due to a clerical error (a point that is debated), a failure that was grounds for OCP to take over the program.
As the first ship of what would become Fleet Architecture 2040, the Long Beach is a ship of many firsts. She was the first ship built with a plasma molten salt reactor (the N2D, rated for 300 MWe) and the first to be built with EM-ETC guns. Though, much of the technologies in her design had spent years being tested aboard the USS Norton Sound (AVM-2) and USS Salisbury Sound (AVM-3).
She made her combat debut in the Fifth Gulf War in Operation DESERT TYPHOON. Her six eight-inch EM-ETC rifles proved to be as devastating as her missile battery cells. She alone could have cleared the Persian Gulf. During the nuclear exchange, a tactical nuclear weapon detonated off her bow, but the ship still continued to fight. The nuclear battle damage forced a major refit, which saw her N2D reactors replaced by the standardized, more powerful N3D reactors and much more powerful 12” guns like her latter sisters. Her old reactors would be repurposed and used in Nimitz’s third RCOH as a test to see if the Navy could re-reactor the Nimitzes. During Second Sino, the PLA claimed they had sunk Long Beach no less than eight times. While formally the flagship for COMBAT-ALFLT, Rear Admiral Scott would often detach Long Beach for critical missions and hoist her flag from USS San Francisco (CSGN-93) or USS Las Vegas (CSGN-78).
“Voltron” gained her callsign from an off-hand joke in a meeting about her networked fleet defense-cooperative engagement management system and was promptly chosen as the program’s codeword. Long Beach is a ship of legends. However, the very hot-cold friendship between her former captain (her current SAG commander) and former XO (her current captain) is the stuff of legends—for decidedly other reasons.
No sailor of mine will poast such cringe as that man has done. Yer poasts reflect not only on yerselves and yer kin but the Navy as ‘er whole.
— Captain Jeduthun Ezequiel MacGregor (Commanding Officer, USS LONG BEACH, CSGN-42) during his infamous social media responsibility and information operations defense seminar, c. 2034
Jeduthun MacGregor, the Commander of Surface Action Group Seven and former skipper of the Long Beach is an interesting officer and an extremely odd man. He is a hipster of such immense intensity that he mostly speaks in late-19th century New England vernacular (he is from suburban Colorado) punctuated by zoomer slang and an abiding love for ABBA. Despite being in his early 50s, his hair is bone white. He always wears a slightly out-of-regulation length beard and peacoat, no matter the weather. No one is sure if it is a bit or straight-up psychosis at this point.
However, what he lacks in approachability, he makes up in capability. Jed MacGregor is one of the most skilled surface snipes in living memory. He is a flexible leader with immense will and a voracious intellectual who knows how to spot and develop talent. He is abrasive and baroque—but he never gives up and does not act in bad faith.
His style is crystalized during the Anzio Incident. His study of PLAN builders’ plans allowed Anzio to put a single 5” HE-VT shell, with an expertly delayed fuse, into the amidship VLS battery of the Type 055 Cruiser Dalian, destroying the entire ship with a single shot. MacGregor followed up this nautical headshot by wringing every drop of firepower that could be availed from his haggard cruiser, including two Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes from a jury-rigged launching system set by three press-ganged bubblehead torpedomen who had been lightly kidnapped from Subic by MacGregor. Anzio disabled six and sank four PLAN vessels in that action, only stopping after running out of missiles and losing most of her other weapons. Jed MacGregor is odd—no way around it—but he is a decent man and a trusted, tested war leader.
If We Can’t Kill It, It Can’t Die.
Flight I Yellowstone class (Redwood subclass) Guided Missile Ship (ex-Ballistic Missile Defense Cruiser)
USS Redwood (AVM-4)
Dimensions: 774 ft (length) x 105 ft (beam)
Displacement: 48,000 tons
Complement: 800
Missile Armament: 32x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 12x8 - Mark 61 C-VLS Cells, 2x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116),6 - Mark 77 Extremely Large Diameter Payload Silos (Janus II/LGM-182)
Kinetic Armament: 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 1 - Mark 13 Direct Energy Weapon Mount, 2 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 12x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x8 - Mark 36 Surface Vessel Defensive Torpedo Tubes
Crew Complement: 800 [350 AVM + 450 OXW]
Launch vehicle Complement: ~30 - Janus II Medium Lift Launch Vehicle (6 in Mark 77 Silos, 12 dissembled, material for 12 more)
Aircraft: no hangars with space for 1 x large or 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
Other: 4 x Mark 4 Mod 3 Special Purpose Fabricators
Formerly a Yellowstone-class ballistic missile defense cruiser, Redwood is quite the controversy. As a token of faith in support of the Comprehensive Reduction Treaty, the Young Administration deactivated the missile defense station in Rota, Spain. This left the Navy with three surplus-to-requirements Yellowstone-class CBMs, ballistic missile defense variants of the San Antonio-class LPD. With the Bernard Sanders National Defense Appropriation-Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2035, Congress mandated that at least one Yellowstone-class be modified into an experimental launch ship, “the NRO Launch Combatant,” over the objections of OPNAV and NSRB. The procurement agencies would lose the fight and follow the NDAAA but would strive to keep the ship’s original capability intact.
Redwood was the obvious choice as it had already been modified to deploy high-altitude balloons and had spent much of its career as the choice ship for the at-sea recovery of crewed NASA missions, meaning she was in the best condition. She was passed over repeatedly for deployment to the main BMD duty stations in Rota and Guam in a string of comical extenuating circumstances. This earned her the nickname “The Gulf Golfer.” She was taken into hand in late-2034 for a refit at Gulfport-Biloxi Naval Shipyard.
This refit lengthened the ship by 90 feet and maintained her original complement of 256 Mark 61 VLS cells. Though most cells, save for the centrally mounted 96 in the bow, received a total overhaul to allow them to help vent rocket exhaust alongside two main exhaust channels cut through to the aft of the ship.
Second Sino would see the refit paused so that the ship could rejoin the fleet. She would remain stationed in San Francisco Bay as a regional IAMD network in and of herself for most of the war. However, she would see us as an impromptu arsenal ship at the Second Battle of the Mariana Trench, where she has a kill assist to the sinking of the Type 006 CVN Xizang.
After the war, she was once again taken back to complete her refit. The entire hull was gutted, and a turtleback silo structure was erected on the previously flush aft of the ship, leaving only a modest landing pad quarterdeck. The ship’s structure was reinforced with high-end “Natick Plate” high entropy alloy to allow for the increased weight and strain. The structure is dominated by partially compartmentalized vehicle assembly spaces, including two clean rooms, a modular refinery for liquid propellants, bespoke printer-fabricators rated for solid propellants, fabricators for advanced matrix composites, a small modular molten salt reactor as an industrial power plant, storage for precursor components, vehicle payloads, and disassembled launch vehicles. There is also, of course, the very heart of the ship—six large silos for orbital launch vehicles.
The silo complex was built to deploy Janus II, a derivative of the Aerospace Force’s LGM-182 Peacekeeper II, formerly LGM-35B Ground Based Strategic Deterrent-Heavy, a high throw-weight ICBM ordered in response to the PRC’s nuclear build-up in the mid-’20s. In fact, the LGM-182 is why Congress was interested in a conversion scheme in the first place, as the post-Reduction Treaty nuclear draw dawn left the USAF with its entire inventory of PKs lying around. Once converted to non-nuclear use, the “Super Minotaur” is capable of carrying 7.5 metric tons to a low-earth orbit. This allows Redwood to maintain a wide spectrum of launch capability, and the final hybrid stage gives the rockets more reach/usability than most converted designs. In total, Redwood can carry approximately thirty launch vehicles—six in her tubes, a dozen ready for assembly, and the key components (pressure vessels, engines) for another dozen that can be completed at sea.
THEY WANT TO DO WHAT?
— Captain Kimberly J. Scott (Director, Office of Critical Procurement) reacting to the Congressional mandate for “an NRO launch combatant,” c. 2034
The Navy’s interest in the program skyrocketed after Second Sino came to a close, and the raw value forward attritable C4ISR had been learned the hard way. Redwood is, by and large, the most important test ship of the Fleet Problem, as the Big Navy is not yet sure what combination of HABs and satellites would be optimal. Therefore, the ship is filled with an eclectic mixture of micro-satellite constellations, a handful of larger satellites, and a bevy of high-altitude balloons. The hope is that “Skeleton Key” multi-role small-sat constellations and HABs could provide an at-sea theatre-level capability to restore C4 and ISR infrastructure, Flexseal for JADC2. The Navy learned the hard way that NASA/USAF’s launch barges and pads were hot commodities, and if they didn’t have their own lift capacity, they could easily find themselves holding the short end of the stick.
Satan’s Cruise Ship.
The Combatants
Saratoga class Nuclear Guided Missile Fleet Cruiser
USS Bunker Hill (CGN-76), USS Khasham (CGN-79), USS Normandy (CGN-81), USS Missionary Ridge (CGN-87), USS Paracel Islands (CGN-91)
Dimensions: 664 ft (length) x 70 ft (beam)
Displacement: 18,000 tons
Complement: 400
Missile Armament: 16x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 16x4 - Mark 67 C-VLS Cells, 2x2 - Mark 148 Box Launcher, 4x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 2x1 - 155mm/55 Mark 53 Lightweight Intermediate Caliber Gun System, 4x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 4 - Mark 13 Direct Energy Weapon Mount, 4 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 6x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x2 - Mark 34 Surface Vessel Integral Torpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 1 x large or 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
The Saratoga-class is the United States Navy’s definitive air defense vessel and a true successor to the Ticonderoga-class cruiser. One of the five new classes of surface combatants authorized under FAX2040, they are built on a lengthened Samuel B. Roberts-class hull with two N4D reactors, smaller derivatives of the N3D PMSR. Each N4D produces 250 MWe (330 MWth) for a total of 500 MWe. This power is used for the class’s massive multi-band SPY-10 X/S band AESA radar, an array of point defense weapons, and an incredibly powerful AN/SLQ-37 electronic warfare array.
Nicknamed “Barad-dûr” or simply “Barad” for the “all-seeing eye” of their integrated air defense suite and dark grey color. These air defense ships can sync the search and fire-control radars of an entire battle group, turning the formation into a ‘Voltron’ of integrated air-missile defense, making the job of a battle group air defense coordinate considerably easier. An individual Saratoga possesses more than double the firepower of her predecessor, and her expanded electronic warfare suite is orders of magnitude more lethal. They are well-liked by everyone save the Nuclear Power School faculty who have had to train the new generation of surface nukes. They are dependable and highly capable, though not invincible. They can be overwhelmed as their various AD systems overheat from extended, high-intensity use.
I was on the bridge when it happened. A dozen Screamers hit the water all at once. I have never witnessed something like it. If not for PHILIPPINE SEA, we all would have died that day. Wherever God goes, a SARATOGA must guard him.
— Vice Admiral Nakada Hisashi (Commander, Fleet Escort Force), Captain of the ballistic missile defense destroyer JS Musashi (DDB-185) during LIBERTY BANDIT, c. 2041
Though the class missed out on defining moments of the Fifth Gulf War, they were some of the first ships to see combat during Second Sino. USS Philippine Sea (CGN-75), assigned to Exercise LIBERTY BANDIT, immediately proved the worth of her clan. Her skipper, acting on his feet as CJ-200 Satyr high-hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles screamed toward the battle group, overloaded the ship’s electronic warfare suite. In a fraction of a second, a single ship fried the primary, secondary, and tertiary guidance systems of ten incoming sea skimmers. The class proved to be matchless, irreplaceable assets for OSATO. The Navy has begun production of the follow-on Concord-class cruisers—an incremental improvement akin to a Flight II Saratoga.
The Watchtower of the Free World.
Samuel B. Roberts class Guided Missile Destroyer
USS Samuel B. Roberts (DDG-157), USS Johnston (DDG-161), USS Hoel (DDG-162), USS Heerman (DDG-163), USS Lisa M. Franchetti (DDG-170), USS Jesse L. Brown (DDG-173), USS Peter M. Mitchell (DDG-174), USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-176), USS Paul X. Rinn (DDG-180), USS William D. Porter (DDG-186), USS Willis A. Lee (DDG-193), USS James V. Forrestal (DDG-199) USS Ashton B. Carter (DDG-200)
Dimensions: 548 ft (length) x 70 ft (beam)
Displacement: 10,500 tons
Complement: 300
Missile Armament: 12x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 12x4 - Mark 67 C-VLS Cells, 2x2 - Mark 148 Box Launcher, 2x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 1x1 - 155mm/55 Mark 53 Lightweight Intermediate Caliber Gun System, 4x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 2x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 2 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 4x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x2 - Mark 34 Surface Vessel Integral Torpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 1 x large or 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
The directive behind the Samuel B. Roberts was simple: build an Arleigh Burke from the ground up with contemporary technology and practices. OCP achieved that goal, in the process aborting the Evans-class, formerly DDG(X). It is still sometimes called the “Flight X Burke,” stemming from a meme leaked from the program office, despite the fact that the class has no design lineage linking it to DDG-51. The class is beloved for its spacious quarters and the creature comforts provided by a slightly smaller crew on a somewhat larger boat.
Like all FAX2040 ships, the new destroyers were the product of advances in material science—Nanoc Steel, advanced non-polymer composites, and the Navy’s Slate Haze Grey anti-corrosion radar absorbing paint—and thoroughly tested, but still advanced technology—electrothermal chemical guns and multi-band radars. The class was an across-the-board improvement from the Burke, increased survivability, firepower, endurance, and concealment, at a lower cost than DDG(X). Designed for production by, or assisted by, printer-fabricators, the class was produced at greater volumes than possible with pre-pri-fab designs like Flight III Burke, Evans, or Flight I Constellation. This also allowed the class to be repaired much faster than anticipated, surprising both the USN and PLAN.
In 2032, when Samuel B. Roberts was launched, the class was not the deadliest or most advanced combatant. Several PLAN cruisers and some of their newer destroyers could carry more missiles on larger hulls, but none of the PLAN’s latest and greatest could match the reliability and dependability of the Sammy B. It is a class that a fleet, and a nation, can trust—the new gold standard. In the wake of Second Sino, the class has become the core of the USN battle force with rapid wartime production, loss of older combatants, and drawdown of Flight I/IR Burkes into the reserves during the peace dividend. Production is not planned to end until the mid-2070s.
Tough. Fast. Mean. Need More. Fast. Delays unacceptable. Substitution unacceptable.
— Description of the class in a dispatch from Rear Admiral Jonathan Granger (Commander, Carrier Battle Nine), c. 2037
Of note, the USS Peter M. Mitchell (DDG-174) is named after Petty Officer Second Class Peter Maverick Mitchell—named after Tom Cruise’s Top Gun character—who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor during the Fourth Persian Gulf War. As an MH-60R Seahawk crewman, he rescued seventy-three service members under fire during the war in thirty-three different CSAR missions. He was mortally wounded during his final rescue. Mitchell’s Seahawk “Danger Four-One” had been tasked with rescuing downed Marine Raiders on the Iranian Coast. P02 Mitchell incurred sixteen wounds during the operation but was able to bring aboard the final Raider before he collapsed from blood loss.
The Anchor of the Free World.
Evans class Guided Missile Destroyer Leader
USS Reuben James (DLG-159), USS Stark (DLG-160)
Dimensions: 581 ft (length) x 76 ft (beam)
Displacement: 14,750 tons
Complement: 300
Missile Armament: 10x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 16x4 - Mark 67 C-VLS Cells, 2x2 - Mark 148 Box Launcher, 2x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 1x1 - 127mm/62 Mark 46 Lightweight Gun System, 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 2 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 4x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x3 - Mark 30 Surface VesselTorpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 1 x large or 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
The Samar Skippers—otherwise known as DDG(X)—are an ill-fated clan of warships, born just before the advances that would define FAX 2040. Originally intended as the replacement for the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the ships were accelerated into production four years before originally planned. The first ship, USS Evans (DDG-151), would be effectively a Flight IIIA Burke on a new hull. Each succeeding ship would see major changes—effectively creating an entire run of test ships. Along with purpose-built test ships—USS Norton Sound (AVM-2) and USS Salisbury Sound (AVM-3)—the Evans-class would test and develop the propulsion and weapon systems which would become standard by the mid-2030s. They would not be another LCS or DD(X). The class would undergo a comprehensive refit and modernization starting in 2034.
If we’re dying, we’re dying in style, and we’re bringing those bastards with us. RELEASE ALL BATTERIES. LET THEM NEVER FORGET THE NAME STARK.
— Captain Sarah Taylor (Commanding Officer, USS STARK, DLG-160) at the First Naval Battle of Wake Island, Taylor would later serve as COM/DESRON1 attached to CBG-1 during Fleet Problem XXXVI, c. 2037
The planned construction run of fifty was cut to nine simply because the class was built for a world that no longer existed. Though good ships, they were simply too expensive and too slow to produce—OCP’s DDG(Y), being roughly half the cost of the $3 billion pseudo-cruiser, was simply too hard to resist. The Evans-class ships would all be redesignated “Destroyer Leaders” in a move to accelerate DDG(Y) production by creating a “destroyer gap.” The blood feud between the DDG(Y) and DDG(X) program offices exists to this very day.
The class would earn their spurs—and battle stars—during Gulf V and Second Sino. Copeland (DLG-152), for example, achieved the highest interception rate for ballistic missile defense during the nuclear exchange, saving millions of lives, and USS Guadalcanal (LPV-17). USS Stark’s almost-last stand at the First Naval Battle of Wake Island during First Trench is also of note. Three ships were lost in Second Sino, and one more damaged beyond economical repair. Though oft considered a boondoggle—the butt of jokes and a source of frustration at OPNAV and NAVSEA—in the end, they were sorted out into dependable warships, overshadowed by their predecessor and successors.
The Lost and Forgotten.
Flight IIIA Arleigh Burke class Guided Missile Destroyer
Flight IIIR Arleigh Burke class Guided Missile Destroyer
USS Telesforo Trinidad (DDG-139), USS Vincent R. Capodanno (DDG-143), USS Samuel Paparo (DDG-146), USS Mitt Romney (DDG-150)
Dimensions: 510 ft (length) x 66 ft (beam)
Displacement: 9,750 tons
Complement: 325
Missile Armament: 8x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 4x4 - Mark 67 C-VLS Cells, 4x4 - Mark 145 Adaptable Box Launcher, 1x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 1x1 - 127mm/62 Mark 46 Lightweight Gun System, 3x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 6x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 1 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 6x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x3 - Mark 30 Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 1 x large or 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
The Arleigh Burke-class needs no introduction. They are the Fletcher-class of the 21st Century and the workhouse of the United States Navy. Many expect them to never cease production, and for several congressional hearings, it seemed like DDG(Y) and DDG(X) would be canceled in favor of more Burkes. However, the fact that DDG(Y) had been built with the Fifth Industrial Revolution in mind would ensure that the Burke line would not last forever.
The Flight IIIA and Flight IIIR ships are, in some ways, nearly separate classes from their preceding brothers and sisters. Flight IIIA was authorized after First Sino and notably is armed with the much larger “Growth VLS” that permits quad-packing of usually up to 25” missiles. Flight IIIR (Refit) is a modernization program in the vein of FRAM or NTU, intended for every Burke-class destroyer. It includes modified Mark 67 Mod 4 G-VLS forward (shortened to allow the otherwise longer system to fit the ship’s hull), new engines, new radars, new sensors, and an upgrade from AEGIS to OLYMPUS battle management hardware. The list of upgrades is exceptionally long and includes a minor reduction in point defense armament as Burkes became rather infamous for being absolutely strapped down with CIWS/SeaRAM type mounts. For example, pre-refit, Telesforo Trinidad was armed with no less than fifteen PD mounts of various makes and models.
The “Fighting Teletubby” is the second to last Flight III Burke built and was intended to be the second to last Burke period. That was before the flailing DDG(X) program forced the Navy to procure Flight IIIA Burkes. Trinidad is the third oldest ship in the Composite Testing Force. She has gone through multiple refits, including two after battle damage. She is considered one of the best fighting ships in the Navy; a lucky ship for her crew but a blight for her captain. Bad things happen to her skippers. Such bad luck includes eleven divorces, one murder-suicide, and four deaths in the line of duty in little more than a decade. Her current captain, the ship’s former XO, was field promoted after his skipper was decapitated by errant fragmentation from a 152mm howitzer shell on the last day of Second Sino. He died only thirty-six minutes before the war-ending ceasefire came into effect, the seventh to last person to die in Second Sino.
Despite the localized bad luck, the ship has earned eighteen battle stars, surviving the Burning ‘30s in better shape than many of her contemporaries. She recently returned to the fleet after a deep refit, giving her a new lease on life and proving the venerable Arleigh Burkes are far from out of the fight.
Howitzers? At this range? They couldn’t hit uuuuhh fucking eleph—
— The final words of Captain Everett Simmerton (Commanding Officer, TELESFORO TRINIDAD, DDG-139), c. 2040.
While the Composite Testing Force has more SBR-class destroyers than Burkes, those Burkes unfortunate enough to undergo the Departure are all rather esteemed ships. USS Vincent R. Capodanno is named after two Medal of Honor recipients, one from the Vietnam War and one from First Sino—both chaplains killed attempting to save wounded Marines. Samuel Paparo is named after the head of INDOPACOM during First Sino, who would also briefly serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before dying in a plane crash in 2027. USS Mitt Romney is the last Burke, though technically, USS Susan Collins (DDG-149) would be the last to be finished after a fire at Bath Iron Works.
The Arleigh Burke is the defining symbol of American naval power for the early 21st Century. It is a beloved workhorse and able combatant, though its era has passed but it remains the gold standard for prime surface combatants.
B-52-upon-Sea
Flight II Constellation class (Monitor subclass) Guided Missile Frigate
USS Monitor (FFG-75), USS Passaic (FFG-76), USS Kearsarge (FFG-94), USS Randolph (FFG-95), USS Congress (FFG-100), USS Macedonian (FFG-107), USS President (FFG-114)
Dimensions: 496 ft (length) x 65 ft (beam)
Displacement: 8,000 tons
Complement: 200
Missile Armament: 6x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 4x4 - Mark 67 C-VLS Cells, 4x4 - Mark 148 Box Launcher, 1x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 1x1 - 127mm/62 Mark 46 Lightweight Gun System, 4x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 2x2 -
50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 2x8 - 30mm/76 Mark 115 Close in Weapon System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 1 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 4x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x2 - Mark 34 Surface Vessel Integral Torpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 1 x large or 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
Flight II Constellation-class is a misnomer—they are de-facto a new class of warship, and the second class for the USN designed with printer-fabricator technology and new material science breakthroughs in mind. Like the CSGN-42 class, the class was started as a budget charade to circumvent NAVSEA. The class uses many elements from Flight I Constellation-class Frigates but is built with contemporary industrial practices and then-standard technology in mind, for a major increase in increase combat capability. Notably, it would be redesigned to accommodate Mark 61 peripheral vertical launch system cells along its flight deck to match the firepower an Arleigh Burke.
The name of the class is a point of contention as media often refer to them as Monitor-class frigates (the first ship of the Flight), while crews almost universally refer to them as Flight II or Super Constellation-class frigates.
The ships have fallen out of favor with USN, having been superseded by the easier-to-crew and less expensive Ellington-class. They still ably hold the ground between high-end combatants like the Saratoga-class cruisers or the Roberts-class destroyers and low-end combatants like the Ellington-class destroyer escorts or the Senator-class patrol corvettes (ex-LUSVs turned into sub-chasers and missile barges). Though out of favor for the USN, Flight IIs have been licensed to Australian and Canadian shipyards to replace vessels lost during Second Sino.
Three to one? Should’ve PLAN’ed for more. *post-pun grin*
— Captain Charles E. Jeung, (Acting Commander, Escort Squadron 8) at the start of the Battle of Convoy SKJ/12, c. 2038
An example of the class is USS Passaic (FFG-103), the flagship Escort Squadron Eight under Commodore Charles Entertainment Jeung. Jeung is a protégé of Admiral Scott, serving as a gunner’s mate aboard her first command, USS Canberra (FF-30), during First Sino, before going through OCS. He was with Scott as a surface snipe aboard USS Constellation at the Anzio Incident and was recruited into the Office of Critical Procurement. Jeung, an Olympic sharpshooter (two golds at the 2024 Summer Games), put his expertise to use leading the team for the Mark 72 EM-ETC gun. Passaic and Jeung also have the claim to fame for spending the most time west of the Marianas prior to Second Trench, proving to be a nasty surface raider. Jeung, in some respects, is the embodiment of Flight II—relatively small, quite often annoying, and highly proficient.
The Gremlins of the Free World: The Stealth Murder Hobos.
Flight IR Constellation class Guided Missile Frigate
USS Guerriere (FFG-66), USS Serapis (FFG-70)
Dimensions: 496 ft (length) x 65 ft (beam)
Displacement: 7,500 tons
Complement: 200
Missile Armament: 4x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 6x8 - Mark 61 C-VLS Cells, 4x4 - Mark 148 Box Launcher, 4x2 - Mark 146 Adaptable Deck Launcher, 1x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 1x1 - 127mm/62 Mark 46 Lightweight Gun System, 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 8x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 2 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 4x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x2 - Mark 30 Surface VesselTorpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 1 x large or 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
The USN produced thirteen Flight I Constellation-class frigates, but now, there are only two. The class has earned renown as effective and dependable—good ships put into hard fights. The development cycle for the class was uncharacteristically smooth for the 2020s Navy. The class has served in every conflict since the Fourth Gulf War in 2026 and has been a participant in numerous undeclared skirmishes throughout the Roiling ‘20s and Burning ‘30s. Though outclassed by their successors, they remain a reliable platform thanks to continuous refits.
The first ship, USS Constellation (FFG-63), was commanded by Kimberly Scott. Constellation served from 2025 to her loss in 2027, the second-shortest career of the class. USS Boxer (FFG-72) holds the distinction of being the short-serving combat ship in the 21st Century. The ship was shredded by an errant “bouquet trap” of First Sino-era PLAN CAPTOR mines just four months after her commissioning in 2031.
Yeah, when that Type 54 opened fire, that’s the moment when I knew I fucked up.
— Vice Admiral Kimberly J. Scott (Commander, US First Fleet) reflecting on the ANZIO Incident, c. 2041
Of the two remaining Flight Is, Guerriere and Serapis, both have sunk, recovered, and refitted at least once (thus, Flight I-Refit). Serapis has been sunk and recovered three separate times, earning a total of twenty-six battle stars in her career, along with four Presidential Unit Citations. Guerriere is more famous than her surviving sister, but for a slightly different reason; when her name was announced in early 2024, it caused a mini-diplomatic crisis between the US and the UK. Boris Johnson, in his second tenure as Prime Minister, summoned the US Ambassador to Downing Street for an in-person demarche. President Biden’s infamous response to a reporter’s question, “I’m Irish, Whaddya expect!” while eating a donut at a Scranton bakery, led to a botched censure attempt in the House of Commons. The motion was never brought before the House due to the Second Burning of Parliament, caused by a lightning strike forty-six minutes before the censure vote. As a response, the Second Johnson Government ordered the fifth Type 83 destroyer as HMS President (D40). However, the ship would not be completed, as the last three Type 83 destroyers were canceled in the wave of deep cuts during Dehenna Davison’s brief minority government in 2035 (aka the Three Weeks Ministry or the Great British Fire Sale).
The Sailing Dead: The Fightingest Murder Hobos.
Ellington class Guided Missile Destroyer Escort
USS Puller (DEG-1111), USS Riley (DEG-1138), USS Gee (DEG-1145), USS Daly (DEG-1149), USS Munro (DEG-1168), USS Taijeron (DEG-1175), USS Alvarez (DEG-1181), USS Walker (DEG-1185) USS Manoukian (DEG-1200)
Dimensions: 460 ft (length) x 55 ft (beam)
Displacement: 5,750 tons
Complement: 100
Missile Armament: 6x8 - Mark 61 P-VLS Cells, 1x4 - Mark 67 C-VLS Cells, 2x4 - Mark 148 Box Launcher, 1x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 1x1 - 127mm/62 Mark 46 Lightweight Gun System, 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 2x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 1 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 4x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x2 - Mark 34 Surface Vessel Integral Torpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 1 x large or 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
The class is named after Captain James Ellington, the first Navy ship’s captain to be killed in actions since Lieutenant Junior Grade Warren R. Person, skipper of the USS Magpie (AMS-25) in 1950. Ellington was killed during the legendary Second Battle of Paracel, where he led a force of six damaged Independence-class light frigates against a superior PLAN surface force at night and within visual range, thereby saving the US Marines stranded on Woody Island. The ships are derived from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s Mogami-class FFM, modified for US requirements. This includes a larger power plant, American radars, and Mark 61 peripheral vertical launch system cells along its flight deck.
The ships are also ribbed as “Three Fiddy Benjamins,” as an Ellington costs 350M USD (FY 2032 USD in a pri-fab yard) and has a crew of one hundred. They are seen as the “true tin cans,” a point of pride for their crews, which are generally drawn from those who served on the ill-fated LCS classes. The DEG class is the most numerous surface combatant of the United States Navy since the Fletcher-class destroyers of WW2 fame, with one-hundred-and-thirty-three hulls produced by 2042, mostly in new yards along the Great Lakes and an additional seventy-three hulls produced for the Allied Powers and/or member nations of the Osaka Treaty Organization.
Fighting an ELLINGTON is like fighting a goose. Sure, you can beat it on paper—but the cost is much greater than it appears—and God help you if you pick a fight with a gaggle.
— Rear Admiral Tony G. Hullbrook (Commander, Australian Fleet), a former ANZAC-class destroyer escort captain reflecting on the class, c. 2042
Despite being small and cheap compared to the rest of FAX2040, the Ellington-class is not to be underestimated. USS Gee (DEG-1145), named after USMC Sergeant Nicole Gee, killed at Abbey Gate during the Kabul Airlift, shows just how tough the tin cans can be.
Gee was escorting a convoy of Andersen Express APDs, but before they reached the line of departure, the convoy was hit by the Type 099 SSN 444, the PLAN’s best nuke boat (a one-off, high-stealth, high-speed design). The first shot by 444 destroyed the escorting submarine RANS Waller (SSN 84). Gee counter-launched with three RUM-139F, 444 dumped its torps and VLS cells. The APDAs broke into their sprint toward Guam as Gee hauled toward the attacking “Super Papa.” The DEG proceeded to light off her air defense magazine at the blind-fired YJ-18C anti-ship missile as 444 turned to flee—having mistaken Gee for a much less capable Arafura-class OPV. Gee’s third ENG-ASROC would hit and cripple 444 just as the SSN’s second torpedo detonated under her bow. The front of the escort tore free as Gee engaged the remaining errant cruise missiles. All of the hull forward of the superstructure was ripped down like a distended jaw and would snap off under the force of water. Gee would finish off the SSN with a Mark 60 LAST lightweight torpedo from one of her SVITTs.
The crippled escort would then reverse to the David M. Shoup (a forward staging base at Chuuk Lagoon) to install a carbon-composite coffer dam to permit ahead travel before making a run back to Naval Advance Base Majuro. After additional repairs, the ships would make a long and solitary sprint for Brisbane, firing off the last of her armament to answer a call for fire from the 2/23 Battalion Interdiction Team on New Georgia, who had engaged a depleted PLANMC brigade. Gee would be repaired using the bow from an under-construction Anzac-class destroyer escort, one of many Ellington-Mogami-class derivatives, HMNZ Moa (FF 112).
Kill Something’s Tin Cans.
The Gators
Chosin class Landing Transport Base (LKBN)
USS Chosin (LKBN-118), USS Inchon (LKBN-119), USS Khe Sanh (LKBN-120), USS Korengal (LKBN-121)
Dimensions: 1,170 ft (length) x 190 ft (beam at waterline), 230 ft (beam at flight deck)
Displacement: 117,000 tons
Complement: 400 (without embarkees)
Missile Armament: 4x8 - Mark 61 C-VLS Cells, 3x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 4x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 6x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 8x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 3 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 4x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 2x8 - Mark 36 Surface Vessel Defensive Torpedo Tube
Aircraft: 1 x hangar complex with space for 30 x large VTOL aircraft
Other: 1 x Mk 3 Fleet Support Fabricator, 2 x LSM-600 Landing Ship Medium, 4 LCM-9 Maneuver Support Vehicles. And either 2 x LCU-1700 Ship-to-Shore Connectors or 6 x Patrol Boat, Littoral, 24 x Landing Craft Littoral (w/ Littoral Combatant Squadron), 6 x LCAC-100 Ship-to-Shore Connectors
The Landing Transport Base is an abomination, born of the fickle whispering wills of the Good Idea Fairy and a pre-war mindset in NAVSEA, hoping to outdo the NSRB-imposed Fleet Architecture 2040. The class began as a high-speed transport, a mere replacement for the Algol-class fast vehicle cargo ships. The original design was an N3D PMSR-powered “sprinter RO/RO” capable of high speeds for swift trips and repeated brief runs into contested environments to significantly increase logistical throughput in austere environs via a small well deck.
However, this “simple” design would become something profoundly different, known ubiquitously as “Drowners” by the Marines destined to sail in them. The first step in this journey was NAVSEA uprating the ship’s structure from conventional naval steel to Nanoc Steel, the global standard for nanocomposite steel. After re-examining the design, NAVSEA realized that the strength of the ship was now astronomical. This allowed them to walk backward into a revision of the infamous MPF (2010) “mega-amphib.” They would embrace the coincidence and redesign the ship class into the largest amphibious assault vessels ever built. Congress jumped at the idea, thinking they could save money, happily accepting a class of monsters that could carry the same load as fourteen of the Navy’s MPF(X) designs in just four hulls, plus the LKBN had enough strength to operate the V-30 ultra-lift VTOL transports and the F-35G, full SVTOL derivatives of the F-35B.
The National Security Resources Board came incredibly close to overriding NAVSEA and ordering the completion of the ships as simple high-speed cargo ships; however, the start of Second Sino pushed the newly reorganized Defense Production Board to keep the hulls under construction since issues over yard space and money evaporated.
Oh God, fuck, the CHOSIN too. *points at the ship engulfed by fire and smoke* She’s gon—wait. *the ship sails out* No. She’s still sailing and doesn’t appear to be listing or down in the water—Jesus, look at the hole. Just what the fuck is that thing, sir.
— Captain J. Francis Menendez (Chief of Staff, Amphibious Landing Group 6) off the coast of Taiwan during the Hailstorm, c. 2040
The ship’s berthing is located in their huge sponsons, this and the the number of embarkees led to rather ascetic accommodations. Those baseline conditions led to the ships being dubbed “Drowners” by the Marine embarkees. To tackle this discontent, OPNAV authorized the ships’ galleys to operate under licensed brands (crewed by US Sailors)—including KFC, Taco Bell, Burger King, Five Guys, McDonald’s, Popeyes, and Randy’s BBQ (a local chain owned by the program manager’s wife’s brother’s husband’s sister’s husband, who is currently in prison for wire fraud and smuggling marmosets in the United States).
USS Chosin (LKBN-119) would be delivered in time to see service in Second Sino, bringing reinforcements to Operation LIBERTY, the Liberation of Taiwan, in 2040. The ship’s time at the front was truly unremarkable, right up to the moment when it was hit directly by a DF-21. Chosin shrugged off the blow as USS Fallujah (LHA-8) was nearly lost by similar damage in the same attack. Even with that feat, their reputation has not recovered from their first impressions, and the Navy has still yet to develop a doctrine of how to handle a set of four titanic assault ships that can carry a division-sized MAGTF while keeping pace with a sprinting carrier group.
The Pascagoula Frankengator.
Battle Mountain class Advance Forward Transport
USNS Atlanta (T-AFK-7), USNS Sioux City (T-AFK-14), USNS Milwaukee (T-AFK-17), USNS Ceritos (T-AFK-25)
Dimensions: 973 ft (length) x 128 ft (beam)
Displacement: 65,000 tons
Complement: 250 (without embarkees)
Missile Armament: 4x4 - Mark 61 C-VLS Cells, 2x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 2x8 - 30mm/76 Mark 115 Close in Weapon System, 6x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 2 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 2x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher
Aircraft: 1 x multi-mission hangar complex with space for 12 x medium VTOL aircraft
Other: 2 x LCU-1700 Ship-to-Shore Connectors
The Military Sealift Command would finally receive new ships to replenish the aging stock of the Maritime Prepositioning Force and supplant the civ-spec purchases from First Sino in the form of the Battle Mountain-class Advance Forward Transport ships. Based on NASSCO’s Kanaloa-class CONRO cargo ships, the design has a little bit of everything. It has a well-deck designed to accommodate a pair of LCU-1700 landing craft, a landing deck/hangar area sufficient for 12 medium-sized vertical lift aircraft, roll-on/roll-off capacity for ~300 large vehicles, and space for 1200 TEUs. The class has become the backbone of the Military Sealift Command.
Beginning production in the late 2020s, they would be some of the first warships to be built with printer-fabricator components in mind, allowing them to be built quickly and for less than their competitors. A single Battle Mountain, though less survivable than a mil-spec San Antonio-class LPD, delivers more capability at about 40% of the cost. Later, San Antonio-class derivatives would integrate the techniques pioneered with the Battle Mountain-class to drastically decrease costs. Like all modern ships of the USN, the class can be armed with VLS cells—in this case, a pair of Mark 148 Box Launchers bolted to the deck. Curiously, this allows a ship without fire control equipment to fire up to four medium-range ballistic missiles.
Black ‘n White Taxi
Alexander A. Vandegrift class Advance Forward Staging Base
USS Alice M. Hanlon (AFSB-22), USS David H. Berger (AFSB-29)
Dimensions: 904 ft (length) x 164 ft (beam)
Displacement: 160,000 tons
Complement: 300 (without embarkees)
Missile Armament: 4x4 - Mark 61 C-VLS Cells, 1x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Mod 9 Close in Gun System, 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 2x8 - 30mm/76 Mark 115 Close in Weapon System, 6x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 1 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 4x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher
Aircraft: 1 x deck for 10 x large VTOL aircraft
Other: 1 x Mk 2 Mod 4 Fleet Support Fabricator, 2 x LCU-1700 Ship-to-Shore Connector, 4 x LCM-9 Maneuver Support Vehicle, 3 x LCT-10 High Endurance Connectors
Vandegrift-class is the follow-on to the Lewis B. Puller-class forward (ex-expeditionary) staging bases. The ships of the “Vandy” class have a much greater beam—the same as the Alaska class both designs are based on. The class also has a substantially reworked below-flight deck multi-mission area and a ballast system like the Montford Point-class expeditionary transfer dock. The multi-mission deck in the Vandegrift-class is subdivided into seven separate well decks. Combined with the ballast system, it allows the ship to carry a huge number of landing craft or other vessels. Its nanocomposite steel reinforced construction permits the ballast system and flight deck combo and allows the class to operate much larger and hotter VTOLs. So, the ships can operate as F-35G lily pads. With these capabilities in mind, the class is designed to serve as command-and-control vessels, as seabase logistics hubs, and ferries for extra ship-to-shore connectors (or unmanned surface/subsurface craft), not as primary assault ships.
Generally, the ships operate in “gator packs” of three, with two AFSBs and one AFKB. This force (usually with one FFG and two DEG) can deploy and sustain a battalion across a distributed littoral environment or have each AFSB operate as the command ship for two regimental task forces operating from separate (neighbor or in-theatre) amphibious landing groups. The Vandegrift-class are unrivaled workhouses of the Navy’s amphibious and littoral operations.
The Unsinking Tip of the Spear.
Albert J. Herberger class Advance Forward Cargo Base
USS Ann C. Phillips (AFKB-34)
Dimensions: 1,004 ft (length) x 164 ft (beam)
Displacement: 230,000 tons
Complement: 400 (without embarkees)
Missile Armament: 4x4 - Mark 61 C-VLS Cells, 1x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 2x8 - 30mm/76 Mark 115 Close in Weapon System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 1 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Aircraft: 1 x deck for one medium VTOL aircraft, 1 x improvised deck for 6 large VTOL aircraft
Other: 2 x Mk 2 Mod 4 Fleet Support Fabricator, 4 x LCM-10 Maneuver Support Vehicle
A derivative of the Vandegrift-class Forward Staging Base, utilizing the same hull form stretched for further cargo capacity. The class’s concept is simple, but the execution is impressive. They are floating depots. A sustainment nexus for forces deployed in expeditionary advanced base operations. Their near-unrivaled cargo capacity is paired with medium speed, thanks to a high-density integrated electric propulsion system. A lone AFKB can support a division-sized element, usually alongside a gator pack. The ship’s ten ultra-heavy deployment davits and UNREP stabilization system allow it to conduct loading and unloading operations from up to ten SSCs simultaneously.
Aboard the USS Paul Jaenichen, known as the Big Chip, nearly 1,000 Sailors from all 54 states work to deliver food, munitions, and other vital necessities to an undisclosed number of “stand-in forces” along the breadth and depth of the Central Pacific Front in Micronesia. The ship is vast, but one of the unique spaces provides a simple luxury to the troops fighting on what are often desolate islands and atolls—ice cream. The special purpose manufactory, which the Sailors have dubbed “Chip’n Dots” is a point of pride for the crew and a source of relief for thousands of Marines and Soldiers. The space, roughly the size of four standard containers, can produce 15 gallons of ice cream every five minutes—more than twice as much as the WW2 ice cream barge, USS Quartz.
— 60 Minutes Special at the Central Pacific front, c. 2038
The class is a product of lessons learned during First Sino. The USMC learned the hard way in the Paracel Campaign that EABO fights could last longer than expected. They were not the brief but decisive actions of World War Two but grinding slugfests demanding more munitions than expected. The need for persistent direct sustainment became one of the USMC’s biggest asks—but it would take until the Naval Act of 2030 for the need to be filled with a purpose-built class.
America’s Sailing Costco: Killer Deals for Killer Fights.
Argent class Oceanic Research, Survey, and Support Vessel
MV Argent Zephyr
Dimensions: 827 ft (length) x 103 ft (beam)
Displacement: 47,000 tons
Complement: 400 (without embarkees)
Missile Armament: 4x4 - Mark 67 P-VLS Cells, 1x21 Mark 15 SeaRAM Close-in-Weapon System (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 1 - Mark 21 Mod 3 Special Purpose Large Diameter Multi-Role Electromagnetic Accelerator, 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Mod 4 Close in Gun System, 1x8 - 30mm/76 Mark 115 Close in Weapon System
Direct Energy Armament: 4 - Mark 13 Direct Energy Weapon Mount
Other Armament: 10x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher, 4 - 673mm Torpedo Tubes
Aircraft: 1 x multi-mission hangar complex with space for 12 x large VTOL aircraft
Other: 2 x Mk 2 Mod 5 Blk II Fleet Support Fabricator, 4 x Mark IX Special Purpose Observation Craft, 8 x Mark VIII Special Medium Assault Craft, various drones
Project SHALLOW PRAYER is one of the world’s best, worst-kept secrets. Argent Zephyr is the eighth hull of Pan Pacific’s line of seven exploration cruise ships, “Argent Cruises.” Pan Pacific Seaways, PanPac, was formed in 2026 and chartered under the Pacific Community in the wake of First Sino, along with the Pacific Shipbuilding Corporation. The United States hoped to use PanPac to rebuild the Merchant Marine by bypassing the dregs of the Jones Act and to provide cover for new “oceanographic research” ships. Expectations were that PanPac was a temporary institution that would fizzle out, but it would rapidly grow and become the third largest shipping in the world, with over 600 vessels, within a decade.
Key to this success was that PanPac signed several sweetheart deals with PacShip—and ended up cornering the market on ultra-heavy Nanoc Steel-hulled high-speed container ships; its ties with the Hyundai Group and HMM would ensure its accelerated rise in the world of maritime shipping and help rebuild the strength of American commercial shipyards. PanPac also would become the critical cash flow (though less than hoped) for the development of the Pacific Community—a key pillar of OSATO support in the region.
Part of this indirect infrastructure program was the construction of three covered docks and a massive expansion of the Port of Alaska in Anchorage. This was paired with the launch of PanPac’s new exploration cruises. Argent Cruises would eschew most traditional ports of call, instead anchoring off-shore to allow curated exploration of unique or endangered environs.
Argent Cruises would have four of their new ships built in Korea and the rest built in Alaska. Argent Cruises has seven names: Argent Vigil, Argent Sentinel, Argent Observer, Argent Zephyr, Argent Monsoon, Argent Kaiāulu, Argent Katabatia—there are eight hulls. Painstaking effort was put into the ships to make them outwardly identical—when Argent Katabatia collided with a cargo ship in 2032, requiring the replacement of nineteen external composite hull panels, the other ships would also have the exact same panels replaced. Crews rotated between the ships regularly, often with little warning. The line was known for changing its decorative themes while underway.
Thousands of happy customers are certain that they have been aboard Argent Zephyr. They are mistaken. The ship is no mere cruise ship, as she was intended to be the replacement for MV Ocean Trader II, the Joint Special Operation’s Command at-sea staging base (though Ocean Trader would not actually be retired). It is a floating Batcave and a whisper on the wind. China Coast Guard was certain that one of the Argent Cruises line was an intelligence ship but were never been able to confirm their suspicions—despite dozens of searches over half a decade. Documents would later reveal that the Ministry of State Security would reach the conclusion that all Argent-class ships were spy ships.
The ruse de guerre was never supposed to last more than a few years, but because the ship had access to all of PanPac’s AIS codes (along with codes illicitly procured by the Hyundai Group), it would last much longer—until 2039. The ship trades skin often, and with the semi-autonomous nature of much of PanPac’s fleet, it is easy to be able to schedule hand-offs while mixing in rotations of the Argent ship name. The ruse is designed to allow the ship to blend into civilian traffic and deceive interlopers at first or second glance. Even after having its cover blown by a Bellingcat story, officially, the US has only confirmed that the ship has “undergone modifications necessary to support oceanic and environmental research.” Since then, she has remained a contract vessel operating under the Military Sealift Command.
A polar cruise ship? At this time of year? In our territorial waters? Over a key undersea cable node? What, do you think I am some kind of joke? Of course, it isn’t a spy ship; if it was a spy ship, I’d be a fool—and am I a fool? *incomprehensible* You’re the fool, boy.
— Hot mic radio conversation between a China Coast Guard flag officer and one of his captains intercepted and recorded by the MV Argent Zephyr, c. 2035.
Despite looking outwardly identical to her sisters, she is a totally different beast. Her windows—many of which are not windows—are aluminum oxynitride composites as strong as steel that, along with a composite-plated hull, is a part of the ship’s Active Detection Minimization System (ADMS). The panels can be ‘charged’ (a simplification of an otherwise complicated process) to allow the ship to change its radar returns and thermal emissions at will. When paired with the ship’s dazzling array of jamming and spoofing equipment, it allows the ship to appear as if normal, then disappear with ease. Despite every outward indication that she is conventionally powered—she is powered by two N4D plasma molten salt reactors, the same as a Saratoga-class cruiser.
Four vessels of the Zephyr-class would be commandeered during the war and fitted with defensive armaments—a SeaRAM launcher and a CIWS gun mount. However, SHALLOW PRAYER is much more heavily armed, with her other weapons concealed like a WW1 Q-ship. Her flight deck (notionally built for the next generation of civilian VTOLs that fizzled commercially) is equipped with a huge elevator down to a multi-mission hangar that extends nearly the entire length of the ship. She is the only USN surface vessel armed with heavyweight torpedo tubes. She has a large moonpool and the ability to fabricate uncrewed systems at sea. The crowning jewel of this weapon complement is her “spinal launcher” (hidden in her false exhaust), which is capable of accelerating UAS, loitering munitions, or 18-inch sabot guide-glide projectiles with up to 175 MJs of force (five times more powerful than the Navy’s first railgun) which is from the USN’s carrier catapults, EMALS.
Argent Zephyr is a work of art and an indicator of the sheer scale of resources given to JSOC. She is not solely a special warfare support ship; she is also equipped with every instrument and tool the National Underwater Reconnaissance Office has available.
Thus, the ship is, in effect, a surface-dwelling sister to Parche, Jimmy Carter, Halibut, and Narwhal and the Navy’s other ‘oceanographic research’ ships that also happens to be an arctic capable stealth nuclear expeditionary/forward staging base for JSOC’s super squirrel activities. This included at least three raids on the Chinese mainland that had not been disclosed, even in 2042. Thanks to her advanced composites and advanced Nanoc steel hull, she is Polar Class 3—capable of year-round operation in second-year ice, which may include multi-year ice inclusions.
In her primary role as a JSOC’s advance forward staging base, she is known as “Point Blank.” She is functionally the at-sea home for “the Center,” USMC’s SMU known as the Fleet Force Operational Examination Center. Officially, she is attached to provide a real-time environmental assessment for the hastily readied Fleet Problem (as the class was built with substantial laboratory infrastructure) and provide transport for the attached JSOC elements as JSOC’s main covered AFSB, MV Ocean Trader III, was in scheduled maintenance availability.
You Didn’t See Anything
Brooklyn class Fast Transport
USNS San Juan (T-APD-30), USNS Anaheim (T-APD-30), USNS Rahm Emanuel (T-APD-37), USNS Honiara (T-APD-42)
Dimensions: 447 ft (length) x 94 ft (beam)
Displacement: 2,500 tons
Complement: 45 (without embarkees)
Missile Armament: 4x4 - Mark 145 Adaptable Deck Launcher, 1x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 1x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Close in Gun System, 2x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 2x8 - 30mm/76 Mark 115 Close in Weapon System, 6x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 1 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 12x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher
Aircraft: 1 x multi-mission hangar complex with space for 12 x small VTOL aircraft, flight deck with space for 8 x medium VTOL aircraft
Other: 2 x Mk 7 Expeditionary Support Fabricator, 4 x Super Orca Automounous Underwater Vehicle, 4 x Roadrunner Fast Infiltration Combatant Craft, 2 x Medellín Self-Propelled Semi-Submersible
America welcomed the APD back into the world after nearly a century of absence in 2031. The first ship, USS Brooklyn (T-APD-25), was originally ordered as a Flight III Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF), but her contract was modified so that the ship could serve as a dedicated test-bed for combat infiltration and resupply of Stand-in Forces. She was designed for one purpose—to run blockades.
Shaped by the experiences—the successes and the failures of First Sino—dedicated “Combat Resupply and Infiltration” vessels were highly sought after by some in the USMC, but budgetary constraints (and the Navy’s unwillingness to engage with the concept or give up yard capacity) would prevent those desires from being realized. Their chance would come in late 2028 when the Navy decided to cut its orders for Flight III Spearheads down to eight from an originally planned twelve. Hoping to keep the line hot at Austal USA, the Navy would ascent to the APD program. Congress was more than willing to accept the reprogramming. Four ships would be delivered relatively slowly over the next several years to keep the workforce in gear.
The line would be thrown into overdrive after the start of Second Sino in 2037, as the demand for high-speed shipping skyrocketed. A total of 87 APD-pattern ships would be produced, most of which were general purposes deriatives—not specialized CRINF platforms. APDs of all sorts would provide critical speed to the logistical backbone of the Allied Powers’ fleets and forces. The Brooklyns would play an especially pivotal role in keeping the American garrisons on Guam and Saipan alive and fighting during 2037 and 2038 until the Mariana Sieges were lifted.
They made the Andersen Express, Operation TOKYO SUNRISE, possible.
The class would be used in the Solomons Campaign as raiding vessels. Famously, they would allow a battalion task force formed from the USMC’s 2nd Raider Battalion and the Australian Army’s 2nd Commando Regiment to destroy nearly four dozen PLAAF aircraft on Bougainville’s infamous Airfield No. 7—built with slave labor from Allied POWs. The No. 7 raid would see nearly eighteen hundred, mostly Australian and French POWs, recused from a base of about 5,000 PLA by an Allied force of about 800 moved by four APDs, escorted by four destroyers (one Japanese, one British, two Australian), two frigates (one American, one Aotearoan), and two cruisers (one French, one American).
We stay. We hold until we get every one of our people out of this hellhole. No matter the cost. We’re going to get it done. We’re getting them out.
— Captain Henry M. Izikawa, then-Commander, Transport Group, Combined Task Force LIBERTÉ, during Operation PERCIVAL, the raid on Airfield No. 7.
The Brooklyn-class has four major design changes from the Spearhead-class. First, the class was lengthened substantially by 110 feet (over 30%). The class was built with an integrated electric propulsion system that more than doubles their range, increases speed to 45 knots, and allows them to cut their acoustic signature massively. The superstructure is extended aft, allowing for much greater dedicated hangar facilities and a substantially larger flight deck on top of the new hangar deck; however, this comes at the cost that air ops are throttled by the ship’s twin elevators. The ship is also fitted with a large aft boat ramp and two forward moonpools to allow the deployment of its seaborn CRINF equipment.
That CRINF equipment is managed by a company of 100 Marines from a Marine Combat Resupply and Infiltration Battalion—the MCRIB. They operate the ship’s dedicated complement of a dozen Kamen KARGO-II UAVs to permit aerial resupply, though the KARGO-II has been used as a jury-rigged CAS platform on occasion, generally by air-launching Airborne Loitering Tactical Munitions. The ship’s launches generally include four Super Orca Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, four Roadrunner Fast Infiltration Combatant Craft, and two Medellín Low Profile Infiltration Vessels.
The Super Orca is a venerable multi-mission platform that allows APDs to be used as mine warfare platforms or to resupply the most exposed Stand-in Forces. Roadrunners are a general-purpose infiltration craft, based on NAVSOC’s SEALION-II “stealth boats.” They can be used for combat resupply, as they can be armed with up to a dozen medium machine guns and even a 50-millimeter autocannon, but are generally used to make the bulk of the “milk runs.” Often, all of one APD’s Roadrunners will be used as escorts, while the other ships’ FICCs are used as cargo haulers. The Medellín LPIVs, named in dubious honor of Pablo Escobar’s drug empire, allow for high-speed, high-mass, low observability resupply missions. It was designed by examining USCG’s massive inventory of seized cartel submarines and semi-submersibles. There are even stories that HQMC secured asylum for five cartel engineers if they helped design the system.
The APDs, in practice, traditionally operate as the “touching arm” of an AFSB-AFKB forward staging group. With the large amphibs serving as motherships for APDs, who then operate as CRINF motherships in their own right. This massively increases the reach and throughput of the Fleet Force’s logistics apparatus while still protecting its largest amphibious forces from direct danger. They keep the Marines fed and fighting, no matter how bad things got—no matter how many Js in the air or Types on the surf.
Speed, Silence, and Smuggling
The Loggie
Liberty class Nuclear Advance Seabase
USS Ronald Reagan (ABN-4)
Dimensions: 1572 ft (length) x 577 ft (beam)
Displacement: 657,000 tons
Complement: 7000
Missile Armament: 16x4 - Mark 67 C-VLS, 8x21 - Mark 149 Mod 4 Integrated Point Defense Weapons (RIM-116)Kinetic Armament: 12x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Close in Gun System, 12x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 24x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 8 - Mark 13 Direct Energy Weapon Mount, 8 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapons (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 12x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher
Aircraft: ~40 aircraft on deck (space in hangars for ~20 at one time, only vertical lift)
Other: 12 x Mk 9 Advance Fleet Support Fabricator, 4 x Mark 3 Mod 4 Methanol-to-Jet Synthesizer-Dehydrator Units (10,000 bbl per day), 75,000 tons of hard storage, 25,000 tons of ordnance storage, 13,000,000 gallons of JP-13
The Advance Seabase Concept started out as a pipe dream in the mid-2020s. The hope was that with advances in power generation and forward sustainment, the USN could procure a “mobile Ulithi.” Instead of the offshore airstrip envisioned by the Mobile Offshore Base of the 2000s, this seabase would synthesize fuel from seawater, spin polymers from the glycerol of lab-grown meat, and host forward manufactories to repair and produce nearly anything. They would provide a mobile supply base that could radically shorten Allied supply lines and defend itself by using the vastness of the Pacific as a shield.
More serious consideration for such a design would be given after satellites detected the construction of the Type 05 CVN superheavy in Shanghai at a specially built yard (such a large yard had, in fact, driven the first American interest). In the shipbuilding panic that followed, the United States launched a domestic program, the United States-subclass superheavy, while Japan ordered the Akagi-class Aviation Destroyers (DDV, a domestically built derivative of the USN’s LPV program). However, there was a belief in many corners that such programs were merely reactive. Thus, PACSHIP, the Pacific Shipbuilding Corporation, would commission the Special Research Group to devise a rational counter to the Type 005. The conglomerate of OSATO members’ shipbuilding interests and concerns would be aided by the US’s Office of Critical Procurement. The study would controversially endorse a plan for a massive logistics ship.
The Koreans would assemble and commission a test ship-based Reno-class Auxiliary Repair Dock Medium (ARDM-6 class)—self-propelled drydocks built to replace the WW2-vintage Oakland-class non-self-propelled ARDM. The ship, USSN Artisan (AB-2), would include forward support facilities in its massive sponsons and storage and ballast under the dry-dock and be operated by a joint OSATO crew. The experiment would last sixteen months and have its final test during FleetEx 31-2. It would be a complete success, exceeding expectations.
Artisan was a success—but it became clear that to build the project seabases would be something akin to the Manhattan Project. Artisan would remain in service but would simply be too small—the true seabases would need to be massive. They would have to be the largest vessels in human history. The program would be nothing short of the Manhattan Project or the Moon Landing. However, the potential benefits, just barely seen with the diminutive AB, made the project worthwhile. An agreement would be struck wherein the US would shoulder the bulk of the cost of the program, but other OSATO states would provide supplementary funding and technical assistance. The Daewoo Shipyard in Geoje, ROK, would build the massive trimaran hull—comprised of two Baltimax hulls and a 160-foot wide drydock. Most technical components would be built in the United States or Japan. And since the US would shoulder the majority of the cost, they would maintain ownership of the vessels.
They were originally named USNS Liberty (ABN-3), USNS Victory (ABN-4), and USNS Endeavor (ABN-5). The program would narrowly avoid cancellation in the wake of the Fifth Gulf War. The hulls would be completed between 2035 and 2037 and cross the Pacific for outfitting at New Mare Island Naval Shipyard.
At the beginning of Second Sino, with ROK maintaining de jure neutrality while de facto assisting OSATO under its ‘defensive non-belligerency,’ the vessels would be ‘seized’ by the United States and commissioned into the US Navy. Originally, the Ocasio-Cortez Administration planned to rename the vessels to USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, USS Harry L. Hopkins, and USS Frederick M. Vinson; however, after the loss of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) and USS George Washington (CVN-73) in the opening phase of the war, it was decided that the latter two would be named in honor the presidents and lost carriers, in a show of national unity and bipartisanship.
The scariest day for me was when a pair of Type 097 SSNs jumped the WASHINGTON Seabase. Percs put a lot of effort in to pull it off. I saw that she’d been hit by nine torpedoes. Nine! I nearly fainted. But it didn’t even stop her. You know what was the next flash? “Scratch two Panthers.” It was like hearing that someone shot down a missile with a school bus.
— Admiral of the Navy Chris “Chowda” Hill (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), former Commander, Combined Pacific Command, discussing the Battle of Kiribati.
The Liberty-class remains the largest commissioned naval vessel in human history and amongst the largest vessels to sail—period. The seabases’ core mission is remarkably simple: replenish the replenishers—sustain the sustainers. To this end, they are built 1550-foot long and 160-foot wide drydock. One seabase can replenish a max of four AO, AKE, AOE, or AOF simultaneously alongside. Internally, they can notionally host and repair six DDG-51 size destroyers—however limited personnel aboard the ship mean that generally fewer ships are usually embarked. The “outriggers” on either side of the drydock contain vast arrays of workshops and storage compartments; under the dock is a mix of ballast and fuel storage. The ship is powered by six N5D 1000 MWe super-reactors—three per outrigger. The ships are horribly overbuilt—a price of the relative novelty of bulk nanocomposite steel in naval construction—which allows them to sustain twenty-six knots.
A Naval Construction Regiment is embarked aboard each seabase to operate its fabrication facilities. The seabases are so large that only a handful of facilities are capable of anchoring them—so most resupply is delivered by AKE. Their stores are so immense that it would take months for them to be depleted—and many materials they can continue to produce so long as they have power running.
Their wafer chip and field-programmable gate array storage alone are equal to the GDP of a modest country; each seabase also possesses a chip fab. The seabases also have four (two per outrigger) Mark 4 “Seascoop” Synthesizers-Dehydrators, which are capable of generating upwards of 12,000 barrels of DF-13 Methanol-DiMethyl Ethel blended diesel at full power (two-thirds of the ABN’s output)—which can then be converted to OSATO’s standard JP-13 jet fuel. Their advanced printer-fabricators are amongst the largest and most powerful in the world, allowing each seabase to produce everything up to replacement quality turbine blades. Though, traditionally the Seabase is manufacturing spare parts and repairing damaged assets—earning them the nickname “the Islands of Misfit Toys.”
To protect such a massive investment of resources ($35 billion for the seabase without any of the goods aboard them), they are defended by a massive array of point defense weapons and the equivalent of 64 single-canister vertical launch cells. The ships also come equipped with nine Mk 46 Autonomous At Sea Tugs to maneuver traffic and a fleet of support drones to develop temporary forward anchorages.
Each seabase also has a dedicated air group for air transport and anti-submarine work and a small escort dedicated defensive Patrol Squadron with two patrol corvettes and eight gunboats. PATRON 11, the Night Dredgers, and Seabase Air Group 2, the Ole Gippers, are attached to the Reagan Seabase for FleetPro 36. The PATRON provides EOD and VBSS capability to the Seabase Group, in addition to defense against hostile USTs (uncrewed spar torpedo), submarines, and ASLM/ATLMs (airborne strategic or tactical loitering munitions).
So we used to call her Toy Island, not only because they had all the toys but because, for some reason, they had a lot of donkeys. I mean literal donkeys, the animals. We once had someone sent to sickbay because he got trampled by 20 donkeys at 3 am while on watch. And they were always smoking cigars while drinking whiskey and eating bubblegum. Who the fuck thinks bubblegum, whiskey, and old-fashion smoking go together? Fucking weirdos, lemme tell you that much.
— Senior Chief Petty Officer Jenny O. Menedez (Gunner’s Mate Senior Chief, USS Passaic FFG-103) on the REAGAN Seabase
The seabases have earned themselves a sordid reputation as the US Navy’s “transitory Tortugas” as the combination of floating city and massive quantities of materiel has led to a culture of semi-official bartering between other ships, ports, and within the seabase itself—and, of course, smuggling. The George Washington Seabase has the questionable honor of having the highest proportion of Fleet Security Force officers to crew and the greatest number of convictions in naval history shortly after she made her first equator crossing. The Neptune King would be arrested after being found in possession of eleven Komodo dragons, an adult bull moose, and an oil drum of kringle-flavored vodka. The FDR Seabase is usually considered the most even-keeled and responsible of the class, while the Reagan Seabase swings wildly between laser-focused competence and pandemonium at the flip of a switch.
“Nancy” had been assigned to Fleet Problem XXXVI part of the way through the rushed planning for the exercise, as it was decided that they did not have the time to preposition enough supplies. Thus, they hit the red button and decided to bulldoze every logistics concern by merely attaching the Reagan Seabase Group. Reagan would commission in 2038 and be critical to the success of Operation HAMMERHEAD at the Second Battle of the Mariana Trench. After the war, the Washington Seabase was moved into the ready reserves as a cost-saving measure, leaving the Reagan Seabase in the Pacific and the FDR Seabase in the Atlantic.
In charge of the Reagan Seabase is Rear Admiral Troy Holloway. He is the junior-most of the flag officers assigned to the CTF, having only recently fleeted up from Chief of Staff/Deputy Commander, 1st Naval Construction Division to Commander, Advance Seabasing Group 2/Commander, 1NCD. Often called “the Dude” or simply “Admiral Man Bun” by his sailors, terms of endearment and derision, Holloway is an atypical officer for Naval Construction Force stock. He is of two worlds: an ex-reserve officer in the Naval Construction Force, but with experience in the private sector in Silicon Valley and ARPA-I (Industrial), the sister of ARPA-E. He has the hallmarks of both a ‘Careerist’ (those who have served their entire career in the NCF, whether Slate or Corpo Navy) and ‘Conversion’ (those who were previously in the private sector or non-military government service). Despite a reputation as a mellow push-over, Holloway has acquitted himself well as an extremely effective leader of his seabase, bringing it to order while keeping it effective and contented. It is with his atypical—cordial and relaxed—demeanor that he is able to navigate the uniquely complex, often baroque, social mores and practices that define the hive of scum, villainy, and industry that is an Advance Base.
The Great Coven of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Ben Moreell class Nuclear Fleet Tender
USS Ben Moreell (AOFN-21), USS George C. Marshall (AOFN-23), USS Ernest J. King (AOFN-24), USS Lynde D. McCormick (AOFN-30)
Dimensions: 920 ft (length) x 128 ft (beam)
Displacement: 64,000 tons
Complement: 700
Missile Armament: 4x4 - Mark 61 C-VLS, 4x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Close in Gun System, 4x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 8x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 4 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Other Armament: 6x6 - Flexible Integrated Defensive Launcher
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 2 x large / 4 x medium VTOL aircraft
Other: 3 x Mk 3 Fleet Support Fabricator, 3 x Mark 2 Mod 3 Methanol-to-Jet Synthesizer-Dehydrators (3,000 bbl per day), 5,000 tons of hard storage, 5,000 tons of ordnance storage, 3,800,000 gallons of JP-13
The Moreell-class represents a flex on the People’s Liberation Army Navy. The PLAN’s massive carrier force completely outstripped their at-sea support capacity, especially fast supply ships. All knew of this Achilles heel, and the assumption that the PLAN would not even attempt to sustain all their carrier force was a key misjudgment that laid the ground for the disaster at the First Battle of the Marianas Trench. While the PLAN budgeting decided to invest in combat ships instead of logistics, the US did the opposite. The US would build fifteen conventionally powered Denali-class AOEs and eleven Moreell-class AOFNs, in addition to an expansion of the “slow” oiler fleet. That number of fast ships was approximately triple the entire PLAN fast support fleet. The Moreell-class are more numerous and qualitatively unmatched—each ship is worth a flotilla’s worth of conventional support vessels.
An AOFN is not merely a supply ship; it is part replenisher and part fabricator. They have the endurance to keep pace with a carrier battle group at a full sprint or outrun most threats. They have ten times the hard storage and twice the munition storage of the older Supply-class. The 75-ton wafer chip storage alone is mind-boggling, let alone the hundreds of tons of powdered alloys or the Lockpoint-process spinners for at-sea carbon composite production.
The ships are built around three Mark 3 Fleet Support Fabricators, USG-produced industrial printer-fabricators—effectively robotic auto-adaptive additive-and-CNC-manufacturing workshops. They are capable of building anything they need to build anything they want. The ships have a modest fuel-storage capacity that is paired with an equally modest at-hydrocarbon production facility. Every Moreell is equipped with three Mark 2 Mod 3 Seascoops, which can produce a maximum of 3,000 barrels per day of DF-13.
Each AOFN is embarked with a Naval Depot Battalion from the Naval Construction Force. While technically “Seabees,” they are not “CBs;” instead, they are called “DBs” or “Debbies” (to distinguish them from their Construction Battalion and Acorn siblings). They run the ship’s printer-fabricators and synthesizers, can be deployed as surge damage control parties, and can develop temporary forward anchorages with the help of the ship’s complement of modular autonomous amphibious construction vehicles, the Mk 43 Cuttlefish. As such, the Moreells are some of the most prized (and overworked) vessels in the United States Navy.
Logistics is Victory, Victory is Logistics.
Lockwood class Nuclear Submarine Tender
USS Lockwood (ASN-46)
Dimensions: 737 ft (length) x 121 ft (beam)
Displacement: 34,000 tons
Complement: 800
Missile Armament: 4x4 - Mark 61 C-VLS, 2x21 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (RIM-116)
Kinetic Armament: 2x1 - 57mm/70 Mark 110 Close in Gun System, 6x2 - 50mm/60 Mark 152 Close in Gun System, 4x1 - 30mm/105 Mark 357 Close in Gun System
Direct Energy Armament: 2 - Mark 149 Integrated Point Defense Weapon (Mark 10 HELIOS)
Aircraft: 1 x hangar with space for 1 x large / 2 x medium VTOL aircraft
Other: 3 x Mk 3 Fleet Support Fabricator
The Lockwood-class mission profile is relatively simple: forward subsurface support. The class is designed to be constantly at or beyond the line of contact, resupplying squadrons of attack boats at sea to keep them at the front and extend their patrols, only returning to port to replenish their supplies and swap to an alternative crew, like a ballistic missile submarine. To permit their forward presence, the pair of ships have unmatched stealth, including a Zumwalt-style tumblehome hull for low observability and a second-generation active disruption array (though this proved less effective than hoped and extremely costly to maintain) to conceal the ship from orbital observation and air search. Their bevy of features to decrease observability leads to a ship that is twice the displacement of the Zumwalt with a third of the radar cross-section.
Lockwood would be the forward-most OSATO surface vessel in the first days after the destruction of the Reagan-Kaga carrier group. She was assigned to what would become designated TF Nemesis, Submarine Squadrons Three and Five, the USN submarines based out of Naval Activity Ōminato. During this first patrol, her shortest of the war, TF Nemesis would launch Operation DOOLITTLE.
Lockwood would also embark on the longest single patrol of the war, her third, which lasted a total of 413 days. During the war, she would only spend ninety-six days in-port and never be detected by the PLAN. She would be found by a Philippine fishing trawler, who filed a false report on behalf of Lockwood. The false location and heading sparked panic in the Central Military Commission, who feared the coming of a second Operation DOOLITTLE. In response, they mobilized three carriers, four SAGs, and a bomber division. In the resulting stampede from Ningbo, the Type 06 CVN Shanghai rammed and sunk the Type 059 strike cruiser Chongqing. Thus, ASN-46 has the unique honor of being the only US Navy ship to have indirectly sunk an enemy warship.
Her sister ship, USS Franken (ASN-47)—named after the late Assistant Secretary of the Navy, former Vice Admiral Michael Franken—holds the honor of being the only USN non-combatant to sink a PLAN combatant; her broadside action against the Type 056 China Coast Guard Corvette Weihai is a running meme in the fleet.
The Arsenal of Atlantis.
The Boats
Parche class Nuclear Research Submarine
USS Parche (SSRN-861)
Dimensions: 620 ft (length) x 46 ft (beam)
Displacement: 32,000 tons
Complement: 200 (without embarkees)
Torpedo Armament: 4 - 533mm Torpedo Tubes
USV: two Mark 14 SDVs (80-foot), eight Mark 12 SDVs (40-foot)
Parche, named after the legendary Cold War boat, is the successor to USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) along with the Virginia Subsea and Seabwarfare sisters Halibut and Narwhal. Based on a stretched Columbia-class hull, she was built from the keel up as an SOF insertion and an underwater intelligence-gathering platform. She is the largest submarine ever built by the United States and one of the most decorated, especially considering the relative brevity of her service career.
The Navy’s capacity for seabed warfare capabilities would not keep up with demand during Second Sino, especially as Jimmy Carter would be lost on Day Zero. Therefore, Parche would only spend forty-seven days in port during wartime. Parche would almost always complete multiple missions in the same run, including deploying a group of stand-in-forces with her SDVs, resupplying other SIFs, taping undersea cables, and planting mines in strategic waterways. She would earn a total of eleven Presidential Unit Citations and thirteen battle stars.
The perfect boat for when you need to clip a dozen undersea cables, tap a dozen more, and then drop my band of chuckle-fucks off at a place we have no right of being. It’s like having Selina Kyle as your ex-wife after a less-than-amicable divorce.
— Colonel Lafayette Jean-Baptiste Deslondes Saint-Germain DuSaint (Commanding Officer, Studies, Counter-Observation, and Response Element), c. 2039
She would be assigned to the Composite Testing Force along with MV Argent Zephyr, though neither would be assigned to FleetPro 36, despite official scheduling. The pair would be tasked with a real-time climate/environmental assessment of the war games and deep sea climate research.
Big Boat, Little Shadow.
Blk II Columbia class (Rhode Island subclass) Nuclear Guided Missile Submarine
USS Guam (SSGN-833)
Dimensions: 590 ft (length) x 43 ft (beam)
Displacement: 24,000 tons
Complement: 155
Missile Armament: 24x7 - Launch Payload Tubes
Torpedo Armament: 4 - 533mm Torpedo Tubes
Puerto Rico is the second purpose-built SSGN derivative of the Columbia-class SSBN. As a Block II boat, she is built with two extra quad-packed missile tubes for twenty-four. Block IIs have additional cost-saving measures compared to the Block I/IA/IB/IC boats, but not as many as the Block III boats built after the Comprehensive Reduction Treaty. Her missile tubes can either accommodate seven medium-bore missiles (e.g. BGM-109 Tomahawk or BGM-201 HLAM) or three large-bore missiles (e.g. BGM-200 Long Range Hypersonic Weapons) for a maximum of 168 missiles.
Puerto Rico and her then-captain, William Jones, distinguished themselves as the lead ship and overall mission commander for Operation DOOLITTLE.
The USN’s four forward-deployed SSGNs would be OSATO’s first major retaliatory strike. USS Maine (SSGN-835) and USS Rhode Island (SSGN-832) would hammer the PLA’s amphibious forces still massed against Taiwan and their cross-channel invasion ports. At the same time, USS Louisiana (SSGN-837) would target the East Sea Fleet HQ at Ningbo, while Puerto Rico targeted the North Sea Fleet headquarters at Qingdao. The PLA had long prepared for OSATO long-range fires and had heavily defended their key defense nodes with a world-class IAMD network. PLA missile defenses would ably protect the invasion force and spare much of their invasion port facilities and the fleet HQ at Ningbo from American fires. However, the air defenses around Qingdao would collapse in a theatrical fashion.
Shandong’s regional AD commander panicked as reports of a wave of advanced anti-radiation seekers going active out of the blue just off the coast flooded his command center. He ordered his batteries to turn off their fire control radars in a bid to save his launchers and infrastructure, fearing that their worst nightmare, a massed VLO SEAD air operation bypassing their search radars, had come true. The incoming ARMs were not AGM-188B Stand-in Attack Weapons but Tomahawks Anti-Radiation Missiles. Captain Jones split his launch into two salvos, against doctrine, gambling that a dozen or so surprise TARMs would spook a local battery commander or two, allowing more TLAMs to get through to the target. Much to the surprise of everyone, the regional IAMD grid ordered the grid off.
“Santa Muerte” broke the back of the North Sea Fleet with its second salvo, crippling the best carriers of the PLAN—their four Type 004 nuclear carriers. One sank and was later recovered (Zheijiang); one was destroyed in a spectacular magazine explosion (Hebei); and two were crippled (Jilin and Beijing). The attack also struck four Type 059 strike cruisers (Ningbo, Leningrad, Guangzhou, Shenzhen). Leningrad, named to prove that the People’s Republic was still communist, would later detonate while under repair. A further two SSNs, six SSKs, eight DDGs, three CGs, and eleven FFGs would be heavily damaged or sunk before being re-floated—though not all would reenter active service.
Captain Jones is a cunt, but he knows how to kick a door off its hinges. RECOMMENDATION: Retention
— Entry in the “Little Purple Book” of Captain Sayumi Elizabeth Kanto, (Chief of Staff, Commander, Battle Force, Allied Fleet), c. 2037
Rear Admiral William Jones—Commander, Submarine Flotilla Nine—himself is a cantankerous, desperado figure without many close friends. He is an older style of office, preferring the company of an empty bar and a stiff drink to conversation. His acerbic manner and things like cheating at card games have him marked as a kind of scoundrel. However, for some, it becomes apparent this is more affectation than reality. To his few friends, the Medal of Honor recipient is a profoundly empathetic figure burdened by the weight of the deaths by his hand and those few precious friends and colleagues he has lost. As COMSUBFLOT-NINE, he is the United States First Fleet’s senior submariner, riding shotgun for FleetPro 36.
Liberty’s Frontline, Liberty’s Avenger.
Mako class Nuclear Attack Submarine
USS Swordfish (SSN-864), USS Nautilus (SSN-871), USS Daggertooth (SSN-886)
Dimensions: 400 ft (length) x 34 ft (beam)
Displacement: 9,500 tons
Complement: 135
Missile Armament: 3x7 - Launch Payload Tubes
Torpedo Armament: 4 - 533mm Torpedo Tubes
The Mako is a product improved derivative of the Virginia-class attack submarine, based on the Virginia Block VI, the “normal” (non-VPM-centric) follow-on to the Block Vs. The class is built around the new S11G reactor and a high-entropy alloy hull, which allows for greater stealth and greater performance. They are finely tuned multi-purpose boats able to serve as an attacker, SOF hauler, or TLAM chucker. They, like their Virginia sisters, are the bread and butter of the Silent Service and were vital to the success of the Allied Powers in Second Sino.
There are very few problems in this war that cannot be solved by the application of additional MAKOs or VIRGINIAs. If there are any lucky numbers, they surely must include 774 and 852.
— Rear Admiral Jennifer Kaine (Commander, Carrier Battle Group One), c. 2039
The three boats present in Seattle are not the only ones assigned to the Fleet Problem; the rest of Submarine Squadron Three (three more attack submarines) deployed ahead into the Salish Sea. The six boats of Submarine Squadron Eleven were intended as a Red Team and were forward deployed to Hawaii. The boats assigned to the CTF have all performed at least two combat patrols sinking a combined tonnage of just shy of 3.6 million tons of displacement. USS Nautilus (SSN-871) has the honor of being the first submarine to sink another submarine in Second Sino, the Type 095 SSN 423. USS Daggertooth holds the honor of the last kill of Second Sino, the Type 071 LPD Longhu Shan. The latter was the source of intense controversy as the vessel was flagged as a hospital ship but had been taking place in “combat operations,” firing at sub-launched reconnaissance drones.
The Wolves of World War III.
Barracuda class Nuclear Hunter Killer Submarine
USS Barracuda (SSKN-24)
Dimensions: 430 ft (length) x 43 ft (beam)
Displacement: 14,500 tons
Complement: 125
Torpedo Armament: 16 - 711mm Torpedo Tubes
Barracuda is a predator. She is designed solely to hunt and kill high-performance submarines. She is the spawn of Seawolf and a Fifth Offset under the Sea with speed greater than a Papa and noise less than a Seawolf. Unlike most modern submarines, the Barracuda forgoes vertical launch tubes and instead has sixteen 28-inch torpedo tubes with a triple-deck automated torpedo room. Those massive tubes are capable of launching any weapon rated for underwater service. Her primary weapon is planned to be the Mark 66 ULTRA, a 28-inch torpedo specifically designed for the new class. However, it is also capable of launching sleeved Mark 62 HATEs (Heavyweight Attack Torpedo, Enhanced). However, the Mark 66 has had a troubled development and remains in IOC as its concurrent dev program struggles to make headway. Her next-generation S13G PWR reactor has unparalleled energy density and, paired with the ship’s hydrogen fuel cells, allows her to be practically undetectable by passive sonar.
SSKN-24, along with Redwood, are the biggest questions that the Navy wishes to have answered by FleetPro 36. Big Navy hopes putting the fresh-out-of-yard boat in a high-authenticity operational environment will prove the program worthwhile and help knock the dust off Mark 66. A feat of note is that the ship, on her shakedown cruise, was able to penetrate an active sonar exercise and get an unobstructed shot on USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77).
Ian, what do you mean “They haven’t live fire tested the torps?” How the fuck can you drop six billion dollars on something and not make sure its new high-fallutin’ weaps work? Did they get the fuckin’ Zummie program office to work on this? What do you mean “They didn’t think to test them underwater?”
— Captain Aabria Okoye (Commanding Officer, USS BARRACUDA, SSKN-24) to Commander Ian Gorra (Executive Officer, USS BARRACUDA, SSKN-24), c. 2041
To help evaluate the new boat, the Navy wisely assigned their best submarine driver and submarine ace of aces, Captain Aabria Okoye. Okoye cuts a striking figure with a terrifying record and skillset. The Nigerian-American skipper’s vitiligo and alopecia make her stand out, but her skills make her a legend. Okoye’s commands have sunk a total of twenty-six submarines (11 SSN, 14 SSK, one undisclosed), and Okoye herself is one of twenty-five individuals to have been a double recipient of the Medal of Honor (one of four in the 21st Century, and one of only two with non-posthumous second award).
Scion of Seawolf.
This only includes vessels that were displaced in The Departure. The CTF was originally tasked with over 100 vessels. Four additional Burkes DDGs, five Ellington DEGs, and three Virginia SSNs avoided the displacement as they were either in the Salish Seas or at the very rear of the procession leaving Puget Sound. OSATO and NATO Contingents, two separate task forces, were also intended to rendezvous at Oahu.
The Task Force’s allotment of Landing Ships Medium, Patrol Corvettes, and Gunboats are not included in the fleet’s total numbers as these ships were subordinated directly to other vessels and thus are formally considered “launches of extraordinary size,” a bureaucratic hiccup invented in 2029.
An N3D reactor is rated for 500 MWe (660 MWth) in a smaller footprint than the Fords' A1B reactor. In other words, it produces 130% of the power of an A1B reactor in 70% of the footprint due to a staggering ~75% thermal efficiency.
The Fleet Operations Center is formally pronounced as fock, though almost every sailor will refer to it as fuck, so long as they are not in polite company.
FIRESHIP mandated that all new vessels built for the United States Navy, minus those exempted, would be built with space and excess displacement to accommodate additional defense weapons, including no less than four standard point defense mounts and at least sixteen single-cell equivalents of a tactical length VLS. This would allow all ships in a task force to contribute to the formation’s long-range defense, even if they did not have the fire control or radars to properly utilize their VLS, by acting as distributed magazines for their escorts.
This definition excludes certain support vessels, notably the Liberty-class Advance Seabases, the largest military vessels ever built, or the Trident-class Seabase platforms, converted oil rigs. The largest aircraft carrier ever built remains the PLA's Type 05 superheavy carrier.
NMINS, located in Priest Point, Washington, was built under the auspices of the Naval Act of 2025. It is the world’s most advanced shipyard, costing a whopping 11.7 billion USD. A highly automated facility, it was approximately twice as productive as Newport News but only required 75% of the personnel, and with a surge productivity margin nearly triple that of the US’s other supercarrier-rated yard.
The Mark 9 is a hybrid ETC-EM system, using a mix of electrothermal chemical and electro-magnetic technology to accelerate its projectiles even faster than traditional ETC weapons technology without the same energy demands as a pure EM railgun system.
I don't know if this is the right place to post this question but, I was watching the Battle Order/Templin Institute video about the OSATO/PRC war and the attacks on the Marianas. But I wanted to ask a question.
It's referenced that the USA started "REFORT" exercises that sound like they were on the scale of the Cold War-era REFORGER exercises.
I just wanted to know, what units were assigned to the 12th Joint Division/Taiwan Defense Command, and what units were assigned as follow-on REFORT units from the US/UK/Australia/Vietnam etc.?
Thank you !
Wonderful work, and I really liked the Okinawa classes concept. But dumb question, what happened to the Marine-All-Domain-Force ORBAT?