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Qalliph Queadol o Gadradakan Mar-class Dreadnaught

Note: While Marduk ships have been assigned Terran naval/space type designators, it must be stressed that their size and armaments placed them in a class of their own, matched only by contemporary construction of like designations. As such, their designations must be viewed as indicators of intent and use rather than absolute strength.

Names and disposition:

These ships were built at numerous locations throughout the Marduk Empire for several thousand years. There has only been one version of the design; though subsystems such as the fold system were upgraded over time, the impacts were not major enough to warrant a new version number.

The exact number of constructed units cannot be given due to the loss of records. However, an estimated guess puts their number at approx. 420,000 units.

Of this number, approx. 15,000 were destroyed prior to 2063. Approx. 254,000 of the remaining units were destroyed during the 4^th Robotech War (2063-2070). Estimates place the total units remaining at approx. 151,000 dispersed throughout the galaxy.

Ship's complement:

• Ships' crew (750 men)
• Marduk troops (3400 combat ready)
• Emulators (4)
• Life support limits are for a full combat complement and about 9,800 supernumaries (10,000 men total).

Note: The given numbers are approximations; the exact number varied somewhat due to operational realities and different ships.

Dimensions:

• Length: 3000 meters overall
• Height: 680 meters overall
• Width: 760 meters overall
• Fuel Mass: 48,000,000 metric tons
• Operational mass (typical):  150,000,000 metric tons

Propulsion systems:

• Main power system(1): Anti-matter reflex furnace cluster. The powerplant of a Alz-mi Ilar Mar-class vessel can nominally deliver up to 200 Petawatts of power, and can operate for 120 minutes at maximum power before overheat initiates auto-shutdown.
• Maneuvering thrusters (66) : Fusion-plasma reaction thruster clusters with steerable nozzles.  There are 6 in each of the ventral and dorsal forward booms, 8 dorsal amidships, 8 ventral amidships, 10 on either side of the central hull, 6 on the ventral and dorsal aft side bodies,
• Reaction-mass thrusters (4) : All are fusion-plasma reaction thrusters with anti-matter energizer. Mounted in a straight row of 4 engines directly behind the main sensor array. There are no forward thrusters; breaking maneuvers are made with the aft main thrusters using exhaust deflectors opening in the engine pods and through ports in the upper aft hull.
• Anti-gravity system (1): 340 anti-gravity pods.
• Gravitic displacement drive (1): local monopolar-induced gravitic space-time distortion drive.
• Space fold (1): Spacefold Drive. This system generates a hull-conformal fold.
• Planetary capabilities: The Dreadnaught has atmospheric capabilities through its reaction engines and anti-gravity systems. The hull has sufficient structural strength to make a cold landing, but the landing field requires extensive preparations to increase its carrying capacity and equalize the terrain. The ship will float in an ocean, but only the upper ingress/egress ports will open above the waterline, which greatly hampers access to the ship.

Endurance and mobility limits:

(all estimated based on storage space, fuel capacity and similarities to Local Group  designed ships)

• The dry stores endurance is 20 months maximum; after that, the ships of this class need to restock. Water stores are recycled almost totally. If fewer or no auxiliary vessels are carried, the freed hangar space can be used to store additional consumables.
• The mecha consumables supplies (mainly missiles) are able to sustain continuous combat operations for more than 20 days.
  The missile magazines for the ship's own launchers are typically empty after three major space battles.
• At full power, the main propulsion systems can nominally produce up to 3 Teranewtons of thrust at a minimal reaction mass efficiency profile, or as little as 58 Giganewtons of thrust at a maximum efficiency setting. At lower power levels, these thrusts are commensurately smaller.
• At full power, the Dreadnaught can nominally achieve a maximum delta-v of 320 kps at the cruising acceleration of 0.3G, a maximum delta-v of 88 kps at the battle acceleration of 1.4G, and a delta-v of at most 37.3 kps at the flank acceleration of 2.7G. At lower power levels, these ranges are commensurately smaller.
• The fold systems were not navigationally guaranteed for any single jump beyond 10 kiloparsecs. If longer voyages were required, the ship had to conduct multiple fold jumps.
• The maximum sustained atmospheric speed is Mach 2. The maximum hover time on the anti-gravity systems is limited only by maintenance requirements.
• The hull has a designed life-time (including regular refits) of approximately 12000 years.

Weapon systems

• Reflex cannon(1): This is the most powerful weapon in the Marduk arsenal and can fire 150,000 km with a discharge of over 80 MT of TNT.  This weapon has slightly inferior rate of fire though of only once every two minutes.
• Tachyon cannon(6): The main anti-ship weapons are two tachyon cannons were mounted in each forward boom with the remaining two mounted in the rear side bodies.  The tachyon beam has an effective range of 50,000 km. and a full power discharge of 200.1 GJ. Although the cannon could be fired at lower power settings (and commensurate increases in the rate of fire) the highest power setting was typical in combat. The rate of fire at this setting was approximately five salvos per minute.
• Reaper cannon(150) : This the Marduk variation on the Zentraedi combination cannon.  Two different beam weapons (variable frequency laser and reaper cannon) are provided on one mount so that the discharge medium can be chosen as the optimum for the local target and environment conditions. Both weapons have the same yield at the muzzle. The laser can be fired in a low power mode directly before the particle beam fires, this setting is typically used to burn a vacuum path for the particles through an atmosphere. Because of the slow recharge time of the larger weapons, and the flexibility inherent in the double mount, this cannon turret is the weapon system most often utilized on board Marduk vessels. For ground support, it is the only effective weapon as the other systems are to heavy to be used around own troops. The cannon has an effective range of 70,000 km. Each full-intensity shot has a yield of 2.3 GJ, and the cannons can cycle through their firing sequence once every three seconds. Although these cannons are mounted to provide fire on all bearings, the highest concentration is in the nose and on the sides of the nose.
• Torpedo tubes(20): A reloadable Silo Launch System (RSLS), or as it is better known, a torpedo tube, capable of firing large anti-ship and ground bombardment torpedoes. The tubes can reload in 10 seconds, and have a 20 round magazine close-by. The missiles used are the ASZM-1 Asteroth, ASZM-2 Basilisk, ASZM-3 Serephis.  The former is a nuclear missile with a 450 kT reaction warhead, the second is a conventional tipped missile with a warhead of 1 metric ton. The third is an interesting weapon which is only used to disrupt enemy communications and radar. It sends off a massive EM pulse and acts after that as a jammer station.  All missiles are optimized for anti-ship strikes in deep space, but can be used in orbital bombardment modes or in an atmosphere.
• Missile launchers(100): A missile launcher mounted in a pop-up turret, firing anti-mecha/missile missiles, though the projectiles can guide on point-blank enemy ships. The turret run by an AI system which selects the best missile for the target.  The most common missile system used is the SAZM-1 Lucifer, a weapon with a conventional blast fragmentation warhead of 60 kg and an atmospheric range of 40 km. at a speed of Mach 12.5.  If heavier targets are present, then often it will be the SAZM-2 Cain, a weapon with a 180 kg blast fragmentation warhead and a range of 15 km.  If faster targets are present then the missile of choice is the SAZM-3 Lilith which has a 30 kg fragmentation warhead, but has a top speed of Mach 15 and a range of 20 km. When the missiles are released they are already on their intercept vectors, or very close to them. Each turret has a reload time of 6 seconds and a magazine with a 800 round capacity. They are mounted for spherical coverage. 

Air group and mecha complement:

• 1500 Gilgamesh Type I Command Power Armor
• 165 Gilgamesh Type II Command Power Armor
• 700 Annihilator Veritech fighter
• 30 Marduk Shuttlecraft

Note: The given numbers are approximations; the exact number and type of mecha varied somewhat due to operational realities and different ships.

Design notes:

History:

Unknown. Sketchy details exist but nothing concrete. Most information has been classified top secret by the RDF and UNT Government.

Layout adapted from Robotech Reference Guide

Content by Jeffrey R. Spillner
Copyright © 1998-2002 Jeffrey R. Spillner

Page Last Updated on January 21, 2002 @ 14:00 GMT