Libra Class Destroyers proved a useful design when properly supported, but the problem was supporting them with enough fighters to help them complete their job. While CVL's were in plentiful supply, the ship suffered from being too fragile, and the amount of Vipers that were lost because they run out of fuel with no ship to head back to was too many to count. The Aquaria Class DDV was a partial solution, but one that never adequately solved anything, and so Colonial Command went in search of another answer. They came up with the Virgo Class Destroyer Carrier Leader, or DVL class. It was basically a normal DD with the addition of two large landing bays, one strapped to each side of the ship, which would carry enough fighters for escort and defence, and the ship itself would be strong enough to survive more than one or two passes by enemy Raiders. Or, like most designs, that was the theory. The reality was slightly different. For a start, the inclusion of the landing bays proved problematic at best, after all, a destroyer was not designed to mount such huge bays on the sides, and the whole inside of the destroyer had to be completely redesigned to accommodate them. This meant that some of the heavy weapons had to be removed as components were juggled around. The pods slowed down the ship with all the extra mass, and so larger engines had to be mounted just to make the ship keep up with ordinary destroyers, and with the pods, the manoeuvrability of the ship was also compromised. And then there was all the additional crew that had to be accommodated. The original destroyer had a crew of some 320 people, while the new ship had a crew of around 540, but no extra space to place them, and thus things got cramped very quickly. In the end only a few models were built, and while they proved useful in combat situations, they never were very popular with their crews. The DVL was designed and SSD drawn by me, the art was drawn by DVL's have two large shuttle bays, but may not conduct transfers via (J1.593). Each bay has a launch tube ([J1.54] which will propel a fighter flight to speed 12 and will launch in direction 5 [Alpha bay] or 2 [Beta bay]) and a standard shuttle hatch (launching and landing from direction 4 for both bays). This ship may not land on a planet. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
