Hapan Battle Dragon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hapan Battle Dragon is a fictional spaceship in the Star Wars universe.
Contents |
[edit] Design and function
Designed by Olanji/Charubah, Battle Dragons became the primary capital ships of the Hapan Navy, supported by Nova-class cruisers. The Hapan fleet, led by Prince Isolder's oversized Battle Dragon Song of War, contained at least 63 Battle Dragons, each representing one of the Consortium's worlds.
The Hapan Battle Dragons are double saucer-shaped starships about 500 metres long with a central core connected by sixteen rotation support struts, painted in a manner intended to honor their sponsoring world (ex. Prince Isolder's Song of War was painted red). They are heavily armed with nearly one hundred gun emplacements. A Hapan Battle Dragon consists of two saucers joined by the central core. Ion cannons were mounted along the edge of the top disk, set on a type of rotating chain. As each cannon fired, it rotated along the saucer rim, and the next cannon in line swung into place, ready to fire. This configuration proved to be superior to a standard turbo laser battery due to the speed at which the guns circled the saucer. While each individual cannon still spends ~90 percents of its combat time idle while it charges its capacitors as in the usual arrangements, no gun is stationary/ever charged and idle, wasting time waiting for a clear shot. The net result was a sustained barrage of ion cannon blasts directed at a single target. This is a considerable improvement over conventional capital ship design, since the rotating rim design assures that all weapons will be able to fire on the target, as opposed to fixed emplacements, where only the weapons with a line-of-sight to the target can ever fire (and those must recharge as well, while exposed to attack). In addition to the rotating weapon emplacements, Battle Dragons were armed with ten proton torpedo tubes, tractor beam projectors, dorsal- and ventral-mounted heavy triple ion gun batteries and four pulse mass mine (portable gravity well generators, based off the Imperial Interdictor's designs) launchers. Each Battle Dragon carried three squadrons of Miy'til starfighters or X-wings, four Hapan gunboats, six dropships, and four shuttles in onboard hangars and a battalion of 500 troops. The ships required a crew of 1,200 and 190 gunners.
[edit] Flaws
Battle Dragons were discovered in battle to have two serious flaws: firstly, the drive system could be damaged relatively easily thus, crippling the vessel. And secondly, the designers intended for the Battle Dragon to be used en masse, against a very few targets. With that end in mind, they skimped on targeting computers, putting in only 4. The effect was to offer outstanding performance against a single target... but against a group of targets, utterly useless. Tactics for a lone Battle Dragon against a group were little more than the Dragon choosing a vector and throwing a wall of energy in that direction, hoping that random hits would allow that Dragon to escape, so poor were the few targeting computers performance against a mass of targets.
[edit] Tactics
The Hapans used this to disable the deflector shields of another capital ship, such as an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, and then fired salvos of proton torpedoes. This was found to be extremely effective, especially when the Hapans attacked with multiple Battle Dragons, as witnessed during the battle over Dathomir. The pulse-mass mines simulate a mass shadow in space to prevent jumps into hyperspace by enemy ships. The three squadrons of Miy'tils were deployed as a fighter screen to prevent heavy bombers penetrating the ion cannon defense. The ion cannon-based design is fairly unique in capital ship design; but the design was a realistic response to the Hapes cluster's level of advancement- their isolationist stance had resulted in their ion cannon technology being on par with, and perhaps even exceeding, the galactic level of achievement, but their turbolaser technology had lagged considerably. This also allowed the Hapans to enhance their fleet by capturing several dozen Imperial Star Destroyers. After the Vong incursion, the New Republic upgraded a number of Dragons with turbolasers.
[edit] References
- Cracken's Threat Dossier, 1997. Campbell, Drew, et al, West End Games. ISBN 0-87431-504-2
- Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, 1996. Bill Smith, Del Rey Books. ISBN 0-345-39299-X
- Destiny's Way, 2002. Walter Jon Williams, Del Rey Books. ISBN 0-345-42874-9
- Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia, 1995. Dave Wolverton, ISBN 0-553-56937-6
