Gerald let Ahren dictate their directions while observing surroundings. The North Star Military Academy to his surprise, was not too different from its old world equivalent, with buildings up to three stories high and massive windows facing a central green park filled with trees and clover instead of grass for some reason, creating a nice view for buildings in a circular formation.
What he did not realize that this `circle` was but one of many and between those, there ware complexes housing professors and their families, shopping centers for food, clothing, weapons, entire agency’s dedicated to cater to the young elites of the Stellar Empire.
In this world, North Star Military Academy, the third most prestigious academy in the Stellar Empire, was capable of educating in 1 million students concurrently during its 4-year curriculum.
Calling this institution an academy, and comparing it to its old world equivalent, was like calling a small village to a metropolis. With the current population exceeding 2.3 million, it can only be called an academic city.
Despite the enormous size, Ahren effortlessly found the correct building by selecting it on the shuttle control panel. These were futuristic car-like flying devices straight out of a movie, capable of incredible acceleration while keeping passengers save by the means of miniaturized Esaki`s gravity control reactors. They worked by increasing and changing the vector of gravity force with one reactor working on a chassis and canceling it out with the second one for the inside of the cabin, working also as a table.
Gerald was gawking like a tourist all the way to the next lecture hall. He was given the side eye on the way by Ahren, but he did not care, even if he knew that one day all of these wonders will become the new norm.
The lecture hall was exactly the same as the one he had awoken in, beside being in a different building and a variant of posters on the walls.
As soon as they found the seat, a muscled middle-aged man walked briskly into the hall.
“Welcome students, on my first lecture on starship formations II. I would assume that those of you who passed the previous level of this course have the fundamental knowledge on types of starships and their roles on the battlefield thoroughly memorized, but for some reason time and time again I was proven wrong, so this first lecture we will reserve for a review.” Professor told briskly.
He paused for a moment to do something on his terminal, and a moment later a picture of a bulky, long spaceship with a tip of a giant cannon at its bow.
“This is a battleship. Put your hands down! Of what make, it does not matter!” With a stern demeanor, the professor reprimanded a few overeager students in the front rows. “It is a heavy spaceship carrying big caliber weapons while protected by heavy armor. This type of ship fulfills its role as the pillar of the fleet, while slow and unmaneuverable due to its big size, it nevertheless delivers the most amount of direct force often necessary in space conflict to break through the enemy formation and deliver an inexorable critical blow from medium distance.” Professor paused, before continuing.
“All the information I have just said is known to you all, as last year exams have shown. What a select few of you don’t know is that beside these features, battleships most often also serve as a command center for the entire fleet with its advanced communication arrays.” There was a few uneasy shuffling among the crowd, but no one spoke up.
“It is at this juncture that most of you lost points, forgetting this attribute and placing this responsibility squarely on a spacecraft carrier spaceship. While it is true that all most popular and important fleets in our Glorious Empire have such aircraft carriers as its flagship and command center, most fleets in the Empire do not have the resources necessary to build and maintain these types of support spaceship.” He swept his gaze among the crowd.
“Now, the weakness of the battleship are self-evident. They are as I said earlier slow and unmanuvereable requiring a constant escort of other types of spacecraft to cover and support it, be it from smaller ships or from lings and missiles, rarely seen nowadays.” Saying this, professor changed the image projected to the same spaceship surrounded by others in a round formation.
“It is not a ship designed for detecting threats but due to the sheer size of the vessel some sensory equipment are required, thus it can be said that it has mediocre capabilities in that regard.”
The image was changed to noticeably smaller but still big ship with more streamlined frame. Along its sides there were visible guns of large caliber partially buried into the armor.
“A level below in class is battlecruiser, its primary function is to protect the flanks of battleships from other large threats on the battlefield standing tall in face of the enemy. It is also capable of fulfilling the role of cruiser in the fleet, depending on a model and flow of battle. The most common types of battlecruisers have a mediocre speed and maneuverability in favor of heavy armor. Its armaments typically consists of several large caliber guns with the medium range and side arms of smaller caliber for smaller spacecraft at close range. ”Professor pulled the metal container from the pedestal and drunk from it.
“Typically it has good or mediocre speed and average maneuverability along a plethora of communication arrays in case of a loss or lack of battleship command center and a sensor arrays in case of a need for a high speed chase or guerilla tactics.”
“The weakness of this type of spaceship is that it is highly susceptible to swarm tactics and theoretical interstellar torpedoes. It lacks the interceptor type lasers typically associated with frigates to fulfill that role and therefore like it escorts the battleships it itself is escorted, typically by frigates, more on that later.”
The image changed once again, this time to once again a smaller, more streamlined hulled spaceship with the pointed tip and slim on the sides while being fairly tall and long. Due to its size difference, it was now possible to differentiate the various types of rail and coil cannons on its side, with a lack thereof on the bow.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Cruisers like these are a high speed, high maneuverability spaceships designed primarily to the secondary role of the Battlecruisers. Its job is to bombard enemy formation at the beginning of an operation and to fill in the role of destroyed or disabled craft during the battle with the help of armaments raging from large caliber to the small interceptor types. There are also used the most, compared to other types of combat spaceships before and after the battle mostly due to their long range sensor arrays to conduct decapitation strikes, harass the enemy formation, flank them and ambush them. Believe me, you don’t want to fight a strike force of cruisers inside an asteroid field.” The man had a cheeky grin on the face as he said that.
“Now begins the second most common mistake some of you have committed during the previous year. Despite the all-round nature of cruisers, it is also the master of none. Its speed and maneuverability necessitate an engine with a thrust comparable to the full-blown battleship on a spaceship, one third its size, taking up valuable space inside. Its weapons are varied and numerous requiring different types of ammunition, which necessitate numerous storage rooms which in turn not only pose a risk to hall integrity but also decrease the volume of ammunition it can hold. Weapons and ion thrusters consume a large amount of energy, leading to more fusion reactors. All of these stack upon each other, creating a fast, powerful but fragile and short-lived glass cannon requiring frequent resupply…” A grizzled veteran is what this man was for sure of by now, looked like he wanted to say more about the type of spaceship he was most animated speaking about, but he stopped himself and changed the image again.
This time it was vastly smaller spacecraft with hull in the middle of bulky and streamlined with one medium size rail gun six four barreled coil guns on its surface,
“This is a destroyer. It may not look like much, but it is by far the most cost-effective type of spacecraft in the Galactic Alliance. It features typically one medium caliber cannon and a handful of smaller ones. Furthermore, it has a fair amount of protection for its size. It has mediocre thrust to weight ratio along with average maneuverability. It has average sensors with virtually no communication array. It is used for saturation attacks.”
And serve as a cannon fodder.
Thought Gerald, keeping silent as the professor opted to skip the weaknesses of these type of spaceships and directly changed the image to a strange small ship with one small caliber coil gun and a dozen of polished protrusions on its hull.
“ The smallest spaceship on a standard interstellar battlefield is called a frigate. This type of ship is most numerous inside our Empire despite its limited usability, as it is used heavily on the fronts of conflict with the Chrysalis and the Replicators. To counter their ling and drone swarms. “
“It mounts one small caliber coil gun and most importantly a dozen of laser interceptors capable of forming an array with nearby frigates to efficiently guard the fleet from the most numerous threats on the battlefield. Beside these armaments, the frigate, for its size, has the most amount of armor beside the battleships. I repeat, most armor, FOR ITS SIZE.” A veteran said, irritated.
“The weakness of this type is once again its size, which means that beside aforementioned features all other functionalities have been sacrificed. It is a slow, clumsy, blind and deaf craft that is used by people too poor to buy a proper spaceship or by pheasants in our navy.” Quite a few uneasy squirms one again ware seen, but were ignored by the veteran.
“ Now we will go through the support type spacecraft. The first on the list is-“ Gerald have seen the hand shooting up from the seat in front of him.
“Yes?” professor said.
“Sir, why carrier spacecraft are classified as support type even when there are often present on a battlefield?”
“Ah, an age long question. The confusion stems from a misconception that all spaceship present on a battlefield are combat types spacecraft, when in fact only those that directly contribute to a prolonged conflict are classified such. That’s why beside spacecraft carriers, reconnaissance ships also torpedo ships of old have such classification.”
“Today due to time constrains we will discuss only spacecraft carriers and reconnaissance support starships. Beginning from the carriers”
The image now zoomed out a lot to contain an enormous, larger than battleship spaceship with mostly flat shaped hull, somewhat pointed at the bow. Its surface was littered with small caliber guns and laser interceptors that ware arranged on the top surface of the ship.
“The spacecraft carriers are a unique and definitely the most famous support type spaceships specializing in transportation, coordination and resupply of large amount of unmanned interstellar drones and one manned fighters. Its sole purpose is to provide continuous harassment of the enemy threatening the integrity of their formation. Although carriers are not designed for battle by themselves, it is usually equipped with large amount of small and interception types armaments used solely for defense. Due to already extensive communication arrays used to coordinate numerous small crafts, carriers most often serve as command centers for the entire fleet.”
“The weakness are many. First and foremost, with the lack of any large caliber armaments they have no way of fighting back in case of a direct assault by any kind of capital ships, which are cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships. Second, although they are armored, the need for docking space usually beneath the carriers means that it has gaps ripe for exploit by an enemy. Third, they are slow, slower than the battleships in fact, not to mention their maneuverability which is simply nonexistent along their sensors.”
“Despite its flaws, spacecraft carriers are the pride of our Stellar Empire representing the pinnacle of Engineering with a Tier 4 medium interstellar carrier - Lumine Imperium serving as the flagship of the Imperial Guard Fleets. The few times these inordinate machines of war were mobilized spelled doom to the threats of the Stellar Empire!” The Veteran was almost shouting at the end displaying his patriotism and pride to the country he served.
After the few deep breaths and a sip of liquid he continued by changing the image once again to the ship in size somewhat between a frigate and a destroyer. Its shape was the most bizarre of the bunch, it had a disk incorporated into its hull, spanning the entirety of the port side. Its numerous antennas, radars and telescopes giving an impression of a staring insect.
“This is an interstellar reconnaissance ship. It specializes in long rage surveillance of the enemy fleets and its movements, doing most of its duties before the battle even begun. It is the least popular spacecraft, despite being vital for the prosperity of the empire. It has good speed and mobility despite being most often light hours away from the combatants. Furthermore, it is usually equipped for long duration missions.”
“Like interstellar carriers it suffers due to its specialization, with paper thin armor build for blocking radiation and space debris, no weapon systems and long duration of deployment coupled with specialized knowledge and foresight required to predict enemy movements to avoid detection in hostile territory requires a specialized crew. Despite pilots of these ships being paid the most among, the Imperial navy, to this day we always struggle with finding promising talents for these.” A man said solemnly.
After a moment, he changed the image to the several groups of ships arranged in different configurations.
“Now we will review the types of formations used by our navy. The first spherical formation is called…”
Despite Gerald efforts, he couldn't continue to concentrate as the entire year worth of knowledge did not enter his mind efficiently beyond this point, which finally helped him remember, to simply recall the memories of his alter. He realized that beside some gaps he `knew` all of these already making the efforts of the past hour moot…