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Owner |
E'chekri Empire |
| Class |
Capital Ship |
| Availability |
Limited Availability (33%) |
| In Service |
1830 |
| Out of Service |
n/a |
| Source |
Death of Dreams |
| Author |
Tyrel Lohr |
| Last Updated |
April 20, 2005 |
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| Description: |
By 1829, the E’chekri offensive into the outward sectors had stalled. Following the phyrric victory at Kastane and the destruction of that major Solassi colony world, the E’chekri were forced to take stock of their military assets. In the six months before and after the Tragedy of Kastane, the E’chekri’s capital ship fleet (including all battleships, heavy cruisers, and carriers) had suffered an over 20% casualty rate. New capital ships took time to build. In the meantime, the E’chekri forces continued to be whittled away with every enemy feint and failed counterattack.
As a partial solution to this problem, a new class of warship was drafted that would have the firepower of a heavy cruiser on a light cruiser’s frame. These “gunship cruisers,” as they were termed by E’chekri military designers, would sacrifice armor and versatility for shear, unadulterated firepower. As was a common design practice, the schematics for the first gunship cruiser class, the En’vasy, was based heavily on previous E’chekri warship designs in order to accelerate the development process.
The first En’vasy Gunship Cruisers left docks at Hrovenn in 1830 and arrived on the front lines two months later. The initial batch of newly minted gunship cruisers was first committed to the Kholran front. It was in battle with the Kholran that the E’chekri had suffered the highest attrition rates among its larger fleet units. Combat trials in this theater proved the gunship cruiser concept. En’vasy Gunship Cruisers could not hold under intense enemy fire, but while active they did indeed project the anti-ship firepower of a full heavy cruiser.
These early successes did not however win the En’vasy Gunship Cruiser large unit construction runs. The costs of building the En’vasy cruisers was high, high enough that the Sovereignty felt it wiser to invest that same money into producing true heavy cruisers. As a stop-gap measure though, the En’vasy Gunship Cruisers excelled and enough ships were built to shore up the fleet until the next wave of new construction capital ships were completed.
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| Related Entries: |
| No Related Entries |
| Design Notes: |
| No Design Notes Available |
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Questions, comments, or suggestions? Please contact
Tyrel Lohr at contact@tyrellohr.com.
All original content © 2025, Tyrel Lohr.
All other materials are owned by their respective authors.
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