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This fanfiction article, UNSC Newcastle, was written by Sev40. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission. |
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- "Enterprise."
- ―Motto of the HMAS Newcastle.[3]
The UNSC Newcastle (hull classification code: CO-02), originally commissioned with the HMAS prefix, was the sole surviving pre-Jovian Orbitor that was originally built for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) before being transferred over to the United Nations Space Command. Named after the city of Newcastle, New South Wales, the Newcastle was the second ship of the Canberra-class to be built. Like all members of her class, she was constructed in the orbiting Anderson Shipyards, with many of her components and superstructure blocks manufactured by BAE Systems Australia. Despite beginning construction in 2127, issues with the development of a self-sustaining fusion reactor, Australia's inexperience with building starships, and the importation of many necessary components meant that she suffered numerous construction and testing delays. She was finally launched in 2131, and was commissioned following a lengthy set of space trials in 2135.
As part of her duties, the HMAS Newcastle lent support to roaming United Nations patrol ships, performed extended border-patrol duties, and guarded the merchant vessels travelling between Earth and Mars. Her defining moment before the Interplanetary War was during the Belt Piracy Crisis, where she proved her necessity by capturing or destroying twelve hijacked freighters and fighting a rogue Indian Orbitor to a standstill.
Unfortunately, technology quickly overturned the few refits the Newcastle had, and by 2158 she was among the ships being considered for decommissioning in favour of a supercarrier. Thankfully, the eruption of the Rainforest Wars in 2162 and the escalation in conflict saw her potential scrapping being put on hold for the duration of the Interplanetary War. Already seeing some action unlike many of her later and more capable successors, she would be donated to the newly-emerged UNSC Navy as part of the Australian contribution. She would see most of her time in combat against the remnants of the Koslovic Martian People's Republic, either guarding the vulnerable logistical ships they preyed upon or screening the carriers. Despite the skill of her crew, she was forced back for repairs on six occasions due to ambushes from their adversaries before being relegated to a training ship.
When the Interplanetary War finally came to a close, the UNSC initially considered scrapping the Newcastle or using her as a target ship. Fortunately, a concerted effort by Australian naval veterans saw them volunteering as the caretakers of the long-obsolete Orbitor. Set down in a dock between Newcastle and Sydney, she became a memorial ship dedicated to all Australian servicemen who lost their lives in space. Kept in working condition, she would remain spaceworthy even by the Human-Covenant War. It was during this conflict that the Newcastle was finally destroyed, being used as a fireship in a vain attempt to stop the Covenant's invasion of Eastern Australia. There are currently no plans in place for a replacement replica, and due to the reconstruction of the country taking priority, it is likely that her legacy will be forgotten to future generations of humanity.
Construction[]
The Newcastle, then known only as CO-02, was fabricated in Anderson Shipyard's Drydock Bay 2, with her keel first being laid down on May 24th, 2127. She was assembled from fifty-six prebuilt modules, of which only sixteen blocks were constructed in Australia. Rather, the vast majority were supplied by BAE Systems Australia, who were able to keep a constant flow of components in an effort to speed up construction. A number of precautions were apparently taken on the part of the shipwrights to avoid the unacceptable delays which plagued her immediate predecessor, the Canberra, which was at the time undergoing space trials. As a result, much of the manpower who worked on it were transferred over to the new ship, with redundant management positions slashed to reduce bureaucratic inflexibility and even played a role in the formation of a supplier's alliance. All this was promoted as resolutions which would lead to a far speedier construction period.
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| The Newcastle nearing completion at Torres Station, after the disaster. |
In spite of all this, however, CO-02 fell into the same trap, with incredibly-long development delays which saw it taking far longer to build than any other space vessel for the RAN. This was characterised by a long period where prospective modules supplied by BAE had to be dismantled and reconfigured on-site, either thanks to internal systems not meeting the ever-changing standards, incompatibilities with the rest of the frame, and even faulty machinery which saw them being damaged while being integrated into the rest of the ship. This was compounded by the addition of temporary components, which sometimes saw some sectors of the ship suspending construction once the desired replacement had arrived at the drydock. In response, beginning in late-2129 the entire management team at the shipyards were fired without compensation due to internal investigations, beginning with supervisor Joshua Howles. In addition, BAE announced that they were working with the RAN to help resolve construction issues and ensure that imported parts met new quality standards - measures which were never elaborated upon. This was quickly followed by the company and by extension the Australian government employing a media blackout on construction of the starship, with unverified rumours of mounting issues only being passed through word-of-mouth and tabloid news networks
Despite the measures, it was confirmed that a major accident occurred during its construction. In 2130, a test-firing of the portside booster resulted in a massive explosion which engulfed Materials Storage Sector 2, killing seven workers and injuring twenty-three others. A further four people would die from their wounds before they reached the hospital back on Earth,[4] with the nurses of the Royal Flying Doctors Service being unable to save them. Construction was halted for the duration of a follow-up investigation. The findings revealed that portions of the thermal shielding had been removed and not reinstalled after repairs were made to some electrical fault, allowing the drive plume to vent into the unprotected area.
This catastrophe had the unwanted affect of drawing the first cases of international criticism, with a number of prominent figures slamming BAE's handling of basic workplace health and safety protocols and general incompetence regarding its construction.[5] Regardless, construction of CO-02 continued, and a renewed effort to finally put an end to the embarrassment and danger of her construction by the Australian government would put an end to the internal troubles. She was planned to be delivered to the RAN by October 2131.
On July 31st of the same year, the federal government announced a competition to allow the public to design the official emblem for the Orbitor. Entries would be judged by an internal team that will vote for each piece based on their artistic skill, symbolic significance, public interest, and finally the practicality for manufacturing. All entries that include any memetic imagery were specifically named as being automatically disqualified on-the-spot. The competition received 14,918 entries by the time entries closed on December 1st. The official winner was subsequently announced on Australia Day 2132, with novacastrian artist Marzell Wang being awarded the first prize. The other nine finalists also received prizes for their hard-work, and their pieces were publicly displayed in Newcastle's city hall for the day.
In June 2133, a BAE public relations spokesperson confirmed rumours that CO-02 had indeed been delivered to the RAN, and contracted refurbishment on undisclosed systems was being performed underway with its testing. This would be the last official report prior to her commissioning on October 22nd, 2135, when she was finally bestowed her new name of Newcastle.
History[]
Although fully crewed ahead of its commissioning on October 22nd 2135, the Newcastle was deployed on her first mission three years later in 2138. Placed under the command of Captain Kanon Rei Satou, she was deployed on an extended patrol around Luna to investigate seismic disturbances alongside the research vessel Gordon Garradd. Although believed otherwise by intelligence services at the time, both ships were on a genuine mission to investigate a recent increase in moonquake frequency. Using the opportunity to test both her sensory equipment and propulsion engines, the Newcastle made at least nine close-orbit passes of the satellite over its seven-month-long patrol, with two of these passing within one hundred kilometres above the moon's surface. Despite fearmongers stroking theories of the largest wildcat operation in the Sol system being the cause, the survey discovered that the collapse of a low-density gas pocket one thousand kilometres into the mantle was to blame. Logging the anomaly, the Newcastle returned to Earth.
For the next year, the Newcastle spent most of its time in a geosynchronous orbit of Australia, due to the Admiralty's mandate that one combat orbitor must be present in the Australian Orbital Zone at all times. Here, it acted as a local command presence for border-patrol squadrons, as well as shuttle very important personnel and dignitaries where needed. It was only after the official christening of her sister-ship, the HMAS Perth, that she was permitted to leave on extended operations. During this time, it participated in training exercises alongside the United Republic of North America, where it conducted mock search-and-rescue operations, space combat exercises, and exfiltration protocols for important members of the state.
Between 2138 to 2142, the Newcastle was deployed within the inner Sol system to continuously evaluate the condition of Australian interests, as well as conduct general counter-piracy operations. Although not officially apart of the United Nations Colonial Peacekeeping Force, it worked closely with the local United Nations Inner Patrol Group-1 (UNIPG-1) due to their similar missions. Most of its exciting operations duties revolved around detaining smuggling vessels or human traffickers, although there were two events that had some significance.
The first occurred in 2140. While returning home from a goodwill port visit to the Toraidento Habitats, the Newcastle received a distress signal from the disabled cruise ship MSV Sky of Emerald. At first suffering from an engine breakdown, the Emerald's atmospheric regulators then began pumping the ship full of toxic hydroxide-based gases. Although they took aboard the worst affected passengers for treatment, the Newcastle's small size could not evacuate the entire ship, and so a team of command staff and engineers were dispatched to uncover the source of the problem. The escalating nature of the machinery failures, so soon after each other, were suspected to be the result of sabotage, something confirmed when a disgruntled chef revealed she had been bribed to install an "innocent" virus into the cruise ship's central computer. After a complicated cyber operation by RAN engineers, the compromised terminal was isolated and removed, restoring normal operation of the Sky of Emerald's core systems. Even so, the Newcastle still escorted the cruise ship back to the nearest port, monitoring the health situation of the passengers and eventually donated the computer to United Nations authorities to determine who was responsible for the attack.
In 2142, the first commanding officer of the Newcastle, Captain Kanon Rei Satou, stepped down from command of the Orbitor in favour of retirement. His executive officer, Michael DeGarm, was promoted after a recommendation from his superior. After retrieving the relevant supplies from Earth, the Newcastle would be reassigned onto an extended patrol mission that would take her from the Asteroid Belt all the way to Titan.
Belt Nuclear Crisis[]
In mid-2144, the Newcastle would stumble across the remnants of the private station Arthur, a refuelling buoy that was located between Jupiter and Sol's asteroid belt. Although the circumstances behind its destruction were suspicious, as it was not the first destroyed civilian asset in the region, the observed damage was consistent with that of an asteroid collision and so was difficult to argue that it was not a freak accident. However, the discovery of free-floating components from the missing Australian spaceplane Cyclone - far from Axios-132 where it was last sighted - inspired the crew of the Newcastle begin conducting an official investigation into its disappearance.
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| The Hillcrest would aid the Newcastle's efforts at hunting down the source of the nukes, before it would turn against its wingmates. |
For the next five months, the Newcastle undertook a series of sweeps of the region, stopping freighters for manifest checks, scanning asteroids for anomalous readings, and if necessary detaining suspicious individuals. Much of this would unearth evidence of abandoned wildcat mining operations and dead-ends, the latter which only frustrated her crew. However, an increased amount of uncatalogued debris was located, justifying further investigation. Finally, in December 2144, they achieved their first big break when the Newcastle stumbled onto a civilian freighter being harassed by three unidentified hostiles. One of the pirate raiders would be destroyed and another would escape, but both the freighter and the largest pirate vessel would be disabled and detained. Most curiously, the pirate's plunder included several systems necessary to fabricating nuclear weapons, including a launch system and weapons-grade plutonium. DeGarm ordered his crew to link up with the UN Charles Darwin so they could deliver the prisoners, ships, and confiscated material and continue their investigation. Mid-journey, a prison riot followed by an explosion saw most of the pirates killed and the civilians disappearing aboard their freighter. Out of the twenty-eight prisoners detained, only six would be retained by the time the Newcastle rendezvous with the United Nations' patrol ship.
After transferring the prisoners and their ship, the Newcastle would be transferred as the flagship of a new armada dubbed Task Force INVBELT. It consisted of two other UN vessels, the UN Erdenet, the UN Suva, and the Indian Orbitor ISN Hillcrest. This approval was accelerated by the fact that several UN members received bomb threats and became paranoid of the attack. Within the next month, the ships of INVBELT intercepted a communications log that revealed a supply exchange and calibration date between several suspicious vessels. Against recommendations due to the lack of intelligence, DeGarm decided to lay a trap, and transferred his orders to the rest of the fleet via his fighters so they are delivered directly to the other captains in his task force.
- "... Ram the bastard."
- ―Captain DeGarm orders an end to the engagement.
The Battle of the Belt in February 2145 was the culmination of their efforts, and saw the task force engaging a sixteen-strong armada of freighters and spaceplanes. Announcing their presence and ordering the unidentified ships to pull over for inspection, Task Force INVBELT found themselves fired upon. Even with her task force backing her up, as well as her embarked complement, such a force significantly outclassed the Newcastle. In a fight lasting an hour, the Newcastle assisted in destroying or disabling a dozen ships in a calculated series of missile bombardments and pre-planned manoeuvres, covering boarding teams of Army personnel in the process.
Unfortunately, just as the enemy fleet was being routed, the Hillcrest suddenly opened fire on its allies. The UN Erdenet was immediately lost with all hands, while the Suva was left combat ineffective and forced to flee, leaving the Newcastle to face it alone. Although the RAN Orbitor was larger, tougher and more powerful, their Indian traitors were faster and used the cover of the now-incapacitated freighters to make it a more difficult target. Both ships would expend all their ammunition in an attempt to dispatch each other, and despite breaching each other's hull, neither would gain a decisive advantage. In one last act of desperation, the Newcastle rammed her opponent, tearing her starboard missile pod being ripped through the Indian hull before it was ripped off entirely. It was at this point that the Hillcrest departed, as neither vessel had the ability to finish each other off. In total, 86 sailors were killed during the fight, 32 were considered missing in action, and the rest were wounded in some fashion. Captain DeGarm himself died at his post, bleeding out not long after the engagement ended.
Newcastle would be relieved from the field eighteen hours later, and would be informed that the sole escaping freighter had been apprehended. Each freighter had indeed been carrying firearms and nuclear weapons, and their crews were carefully checked for sharp objects and explosives. However, they could find no trace of the Hillcrest. Perhaps more concerning, many of the vessels recovered were tied to terror groups that had previously had no contact with each other, pointing at some unknown party at play. In the aftermath, the Newcastle was towed back to Earth, where she would remain until July of the same year. Over the next two years, the Newcastle would fight the warship on three further occasions, with far better results than their first encounter. It would never gain the honour of destroying it, however, as it disappeared from all records in 2147. It was never seen again.
Indian Peninsula Conflict[]
Interplanetary War[]
- "There was never a point where we had any technological advantage. Orbitors like the Newcastle were long out-gunned, outmanoeuvred, and out-performed by ships built in the 2150s, let alone frigates built after the Rainforest Wars. We only got lucky - those kills we got were thanks to either support from other ships, or in combination with mines. And even with them, she took her casualties - but in spite of all the hull breaks, she kept pulling through in ways the Perth or Sydney couldn't... (It will) be a sad day when the Admiralty decides to scrap her. She deserves immortalisation."
- ―Captain (ret.) Christine Knowles, during an audio interview, c. 2184
The HMAS Newcastle took a minor role in the Jovian Moons Campaign, where she was ordered to stop and search all ships heading to the warzone and escort them to their destinations. Although it only took part in a single engagement against rebel strikecraft, in which it fought off a raid on the ammunition ship UN Trevor Quirke, the conflict demonstrated that modern Orbitors were too slow and vulnerable to the hit-and-run swarm tactics favoured by the Frieden rebels. This was so much more true for the Canberra-class starships used by the Australians, as their age and poor anti-fighter defences meant that they often failed their tasks more than they succeeded. In light of this, the ADF admiralty ordered all three ships of the class to return back to Earth, where they would be moored until it could be decided how they would be disposed of. The HMAS Newcastle was moored in orbit of Luna, where it was struck from the naval roster and preparations were made for its decommissioning.
The Newcastle was on the verge of being sold off to a shipbreaking firm on Mars when the Rainforest Wars erupted in South America. The sheer scale of a war so close to them shocked the nations of Earth, and this scramble caused the ADF to retain the ships and recommission them back into the fleet. The Newcastle was still being modernised when it was being mobilised, and even her new commanding officer, Captain Christine Knowles, boarded her after it reached its geostationary position off of Chile's coast. All Australian forces operating in or near South America were assigned under a dedicated United Nations task force, with only a modest fleet in the central Pacific being exempt.
As the conflict escalated and became impossible to control, the Newcastle went from enforcing an embargo around South America to an active participant. Although the Koslovics were involved, the Friedens were a far more difficult opponent to fight, as they were still well-supplied and armed by their corporate sponsors, and now boasted veteran soldiers from the Jovian Moons. The 13th Naval Squadron was charged with destroying their aircraft and spotting suspected strongholds, while the two AC-147 Lammergeier gunships lent their weapons to precision attacks in the Andes Mountains. Both units were expected to protect troop movements when they were attacked. Orbital fire support was limited to verified rebel maritime vessels, although it was rare that they would be identified before they attacked. As losses mounted and the warzone encroached closer and closer to the capital of Santiago, the Newcastle crew was finally able to lend support in the form of orbital bombardment. On August 9, 2162, the UN authorised the Orbitor to use low-grade space-to-surface missiles to stop a massed Frieden presence at Pueblo de Gallo, a small village north of San Juan. As well as destroying a makeshift airfield and barracks, almost 250 Frieden fighters and an estimated 60 civilians were killed by the attack. It would not be the last of its kind from the Newcastle, but it marked the southmost point in Chile where a major revolutionary base was found.
The Newcastle served in the Rainforest Wars right up until its conclusion, and gained distinction for firing the very last shot in anger, where it disabled a Koslovic evacuation craft that almost the blockade. In the months following the terrible conflict, it assisted in rebuilding much of South America's wartorn regions. It ferried everything from volunteer workers, medical supplies, and construction material, while it carried out a single Frieden fighter who was captured long after the fighting stopped. During this period, all armed forces under the command of the United Nations were organised under the United Nations Space Command. All signatory nations, of which Australia was one of the very first, agreed to give up their space expeditionary armies and fleets to the new organisation. The HMAS Newcastle was rechristened the UNSC Newcastle on November 17, 2163.
Later History[]
With the ceasefire for the Interplanetary War signed by all three parties in March 2170, the UNSC began preparations to disarm and demobilise its impressive military down to an economical and sustainable state. While its servicemen returned to their homelands, the Admiralty turned to decommissioning all assets that predated the original Jovian Moons incident in 2160 first, which included the UNSC Newcastle. She was towed to the UNSC Reserve Fleet's primary anchorage above Luna only three months later in June, where she was paid off and decommissioned on June 26. She was one of the first ships to be examined by UNSC naval analysts, where their findings recommended that, in light of her poor hull condition and obsolete powerplant and propulsion systems, she was to be decommissioned and scrapped. The possibility of her being used as a target ship was considered, but the leader of the assessment team, Chief Warrant Officer Three Demarco Arendse, believed that her framework was so poor at this point that the tests will need to be repeated on another vessel to gain accurate information on a given weapon's performance. As a result, in February 2161 the Newcastle was struck from the UNSC Naval Vessel Register while the Admiralty began to consider their options for scrapping her.
The news that the Newcastle had been moved into the UNSC's reserve fleet was met with uproar from a number of Australian ex-servicemen organisations, with the first calls against its scrapping being made not long after its first announcement. In particular, representatives of the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL), including its first commanding officer Kanon Satou, began a campaign aimed at building public support to save the Orbitor. They approached and pressured both the Federal government and a number of war museums to preserve the starship, citing that it has a significant place in Australia's naval history as one of the country's first and more renowned spacefighting vessels. The Australian War Memorial would decline to support it, while the Australian Maritime Museum would exhibit some interest, but admitted that the cost of setting it down planetside made it impossible for them to procure it.
Meanwhile, an official petition would be sent to the UNSC High Command, which urged them to halt attempts to dispose of the Orbitor. Fortunately, the UNSC listened and complied with their request. In March 2173, they offered to sell the Newcastle to the Australian Federal Government for an undisclosed amount. After a period of increasing public discussion on the topic, the Federal Government eventually purchased her on behalf of the Australian Maritime Museum. She was then moved to Torres Station for temporary storage, as her final resting place just an hour outside of her namesake city was built. The actual process of moving the Newcastle into the atmosphere began in September 2174, when progress had proceeded to the point where they could receive the old warship. She made planetfall on September 28, and very little changes needed to be made to make her ready for public exhibition. This was because they were carried out while she was in storage, such as removing toxic paint flakes and decontaminating her radioactive fission powerplant.
Preservation[]
The UNSC Newcastle was housed within the very centre of the Newcastle Aerospace Centre, in an exhibit that would become known as the Orbitor Berth. The warship's restoration and upkeep has been maintained by the Australian Aerospace Association (AAA), a not-for-profit organisation that has close ties to the nation's other prominent veterans and military museums. It is encased in a warehouse that protects it from the most corrosive effects of the weather and its proximity to the ocean. However, this was found to be insufficient, and the Newcastle must undergo a substantial restoration every few years or so. Originally, this had to be done every two years, but as the museum was upgraded and expanded, this was extended to only once every ten years.
Destruction[]
The UNSC did not make any attempts to fortify the area around the Newcastle Aerospace Centre prior to the Siege of Sol, partly due to its insignificant location and a desire not to make it a target for Covenant forces. Despite this, the centre hosted large numbers of refugees that fled the Covenant's attacks on the Australian East Coast. This unknowingly sealed the Newcastle's fate, as Covenant lances that hunted them were eventually drawn towards the property.
On November 5, 2552, Covenant forces composed of two Jiralhanae packs struck the facility in the early hours of the morning. While refugees outside the orbitor were quickly massacred, those within the Newcastle lasted for much longer. Farmers and hunters armed with their own civilian-grade firearms managed to hold off the aliens for over nine hours, with a siege setting in as the brutes called for reinforcements. One of the staff who maintained the orbitor attempted to reconfigure the forward 356mm cannon to fire one of the preserved shells they kept around. This failed, with the subsequent explosion killing almost a dozen people and injuring many more, and this saw the Covenant launching a final all-out assault. 172 civilians were butchered, and the Newcastle was so badly damaged that it broke into three pieces within its berth. In the days following, Newcastle was melted down as Spiker ammunition before it was abandoned, leaving nothing but a hulk. Following the end of the Human-Covenant War in 2553, the wreckage would disappear after it was scrapped by private salvaging companies, with the task being completed before the local council was able to step in.
Design[]
Original configuration[]
The UNSC Newcastle was built as part of the Australian Space Defence Program, an ambitious plan put forward by then-Opposition leader David Harrison to field ten spaceborne warships by 2130, to complement the two Lightning-class scout orbitors they already had in service. While the base ship HMAS Australia was created to fulfil interplanetary force projection and coordination, and the Desert-class spaceplane fulfilled all minor roles including logistics, the Canberra-class combat orbitors were expected to engage spatial attack ships in theoretical combat situations. Such a ship was expected to shoot down missiles and space fighters, deploy their own strikecraft and probes for reconnaissance purposes, and project force throughout the solar system.
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| The Newcastle firing off her RIM-90N missiles during training exercises near the Vesta habitat. |
Measuring 205 metres in overall length and massing over ten thousand metric tonnes, the Newcastle was smaller than most modern corvettes in the twenty-sixth century. She had a very shallow arrowhead profile, which started with a blunt nose which housed most of the ship's sensor equipment and her eight primary lifeboats. Despite not being designed for operations within a planet's atmosphere, her hull was streamlined and curved. At the aft was a free-standing bridge tower, complete with its own escape pods, rapid-fire autocannons, and chemically-fired countermeasures for defence. Later refits expanded on her secondary combat information centre located deep inside to better protect the command crew, and the bridge tower was reconfigured as an observation deck, communications tower, and planetary map room. There was a 'cut' of missing superstructure on both the dorsal and keel sides, which exposed the ship's mission pod and cargo docks. This mission pod was outfitted as an expanded crew habitation and relaxation deck, a research module, an early rotating artificial gravity centrifugal, or even a secondary nuclear fission reactor. Its vulnerability remained a constant concern for the crew that occasionally affected the morale of all Canberra-class starships. On the keel was an external hangar bay that could be used to launch at most two squadrons of aircraft or dropships, although due to manpower issues it was sometimes left completely empty.
The Newcastle was not as well armed as it should have been, as it was required to comply with the Space Armaments Regulations enforced by the United Nations and their signatories. Its only effective weapon systems laid in its two pods of Mark 81 Guided Missile Launch Systems, which fired RIM-90N Battleaxe heavy missiles from a combined magazine of twenty-four. Four Phalanx 3B 20mm close-in weapon systems (CIWS) provided defence against fighters and missiles, which were capable of firing in excess of 6,000 rounds per minute. Three ten-inch Mark 18 ship-to-ship cannons were fitted on high-speed mountings, and fired extremely high-velocity slugs from electrochemical charges for the purposes of defeating fast attack craft or stations at close ranges. Their positioning meant that only two of these could fire at a single target, however. As mandated by the UN, they had no nuclear weapons during this time, nor boasted any weapons which could inflict any sort of damage on the planet below. This reduced their resiliency but at the time this loadout was considered to be the apex of what was permitted.
To protect itself, the Newcastle was capable of deploying a variety of countermeasures specifically suited to breaking target locks, provide alternative targets for missiles, and disable enemy ships. The most celebrated system it had during this time were three oversized wireless communications arrays, which curled up around the wide-spectrum flare launchers. While nothing revolutionary having been over-engineered to accept shared intelligence, targeting calculations, and increase the crew's awareness of the battlefield, they were capable of filtering out battlefield static to directly access the enemy computer systems. This allows a crack team of electronic warfare operators to affect everything from weapon performance, to permanently corrupt their sensor displays, to even hijacking their propulsion systems for particularly-unprepared vessels. To protect herself against guided missile threats, she has six Maloo[6] decoy launchers, which were later developments of the nulka countermeasure. Unusually among decoys, Maloos emitted RADAR-jamming signatures in addition to infrared flares and signatures copied from its host mother ship. This was due to the rise of missiles which were built to chase less-desirable emissions signatures generally emitted by starships if they suspected flares and jammers had been deployed. Reflective emergency smoke emitters, multi-purpose decoy launchers, and ferrous shrapnel dispensers were also part of its defensive arsenal.
If all this fails, then the Newcastle had to rely on mitigating damage where possible. It couldn't hope to resist hits outright because it lacked armour plating completely as built; something not uncommon for this period, as there existed no materials that could reliably stop missiles nor naval shells in reasonable thicknesses at the time. It had a double hulled design, but this was largely to mitigate near-misses by explosives and provide a space for whipple shielding necessary to defeat small hypervelocity projectiles. If penetrated, the crew would restrict damage by closing blast doors, venting atmosphere, removing dud munitions, and relaying computer systems through redundant circuitry to maintain operation.
Originally, the Canberra-class was planned to utilise the largest-practical fusion reactor at that time, which provided far more power and reduced nuclear emissions. Unfortunately, actual working examples were still far too inefficient to be useful when the Newcastle was laid down, which forced the shipwrights to replace these with two nuclear fission reactors for power. In case of reactor sabotage or damage, there were dozens of photoelectric panels mounted all over the orbitor to provide power to auxiliary systems and reduce the load on the main reactor. Unfortunately, the panels had poor build quality that took over five years to fully fix their problems, and the full potential of the system was only realised when they were replaced in 2146.
Main propulsion was provided through two SP-CGII open-cycle atomic thrusters, which funneled the full output of its fission reactors into space behind it. Three triamino hydrazine ignition drives supplemented these to increase acceleration for a short period of time. Twelve reaction control systems were fitted for finetune manoeuvring, again using triamino hydrazine as fuel. Between these, the Newcastle was fast and quick to turn for a ship of its size, though its high fuel consumption limited its endurance in the field. For this reason, it often had to carry external fuel tanks to reach some interplanetary destinations.
2160 refit[]
- "The flight-control systems are decades old, and already I can just... Feel like it wants to fall apart. It's not a good experience... If it wasn't for the new weapons, I couldn't imagine she would be able to best even a Spencer yacht."
- ―Helmsman Natalie Ashford
The objective of the Canberra-class' sole refit was originally intended to totally overhaul the warship, a decision which would have allowed it to launch from drydock in an almost brand-new condition with capabilities rivaling those of a modern warship. Sadly, the cost of replacing the obsolete electronics far outstripped the original construction cost, so the UNSC limited all upgrades to those augmenting its tactical capabilities. This was mostly extended to its weapons fitment, although some computer systems were retouched to bring them up to modern standards.
The Newcastle's most obvious addition was its expanded battery of ship-to-ship cannons. Its original three turrets were replaced with four much heavier ASC-II Stonebreaker 356mm (14") naval guns that slowly fire primitive kinetic kill slugs designed to buckle armour. These were supplemented by twelve smaller Mark 38 208mm (8") naval guns used for fighting off light attack ships. Although they lacked power, they could accelerate their rounds to a far higher acceleration than the Stonebreakers and could cycle through thirty rounds per minute, so they acted as the Orbitor's general-purpose guns. Its eight missile cells were replaced with modernised Mark 90 Launch Systems, which could accept all heavy ship-to-ship missiles used by the preceding United Nations Colonial Peacekeeping Force. Normally, these were armed with RIM-84F cruise missiles for extended-range warfare. After 2166, the Newcastle was host to a mixed arsenal that also included RIM-157 SAMs and RIM-61K orbital bombardment rockets. For point defence, ten automated M79B Outlaw 30mm (1.2") CIWS were fitted. New fire-control systems were also fitted.
The Newcastle was planned to receive a full upgrade of its protective system, which would incorporate first-generation armour plating consisting of bismith-impregnated tungsten plating with a depleted uranium armour overlay to its belly. When combined with a modernisation of its double-hull protective system, this would have allowed it to reliably take multiple hits from impacting warheads and medium naval guns. Unfortunately, most of the materials scheduled for the Newcastle were usually redirected to new vessels currently being built, so only vital areas of the ship were given a thin layer of the new battleplate, and the proposed belly armour was dropped. Instead, hard points were added below its mission pod, which could tow a variety of cargo trailers and stations for resupply purposes.
Complement[]
- "The Newcastle was renowned for its well-trained personnel, famous throughout the world for their courage, skill, and professionalism. It is they who proved that advanced technology was not the key to victory, with their allies often remarking how they fought with an viciousness and bond that was rarely seen in other armed forces at the time."
- ―"Dumb" AI Kelly, during a tour of the ship.
Like most other orbitors at the time, the Newcastle had only minimal fighters and soldiers, relying on them only for reconnaissance and shipboard investigations that she was unable to perform. These were often the most understaffed areas of the crew; it wasn't uncommon for the Newcastle and her sisters to enter the field with only the minimum required soldiers, with no aircraft at all. In the RAN, she carried no bombers due to public outcry regarding their intended use, and as such she was only outfitted with an experienced squadron of interceptors and dropships.
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| In the field, the Magpie was every bit as fast and determined as its namesake. |
Acting as a reliable supplement to the orbitor's average sensor suite, the eight F/I-41 Magpie STOL interceptors were tenacious attack craft which were deployed deep in enemy territory to identify and pacify small strikecraft which could post a considerable threat to the Newcastle. With a small target profile, Magpies were hard to detect and difficult to hit in dogfights. While they could hold their own, they were not particularly agile when compared to their peers at the time - as a result, the Magpie was required to engage any opponents at extreme range. While it only had four hardpoints for heavy munitions, they had an expansive missile bay which could carry dozens of MAA8 Duelist missiles, firing in rapid succession to make up for their inferior destructive potential. As workhorse aircraft, however, Magpies could be fitted with a mission-specific tow cable to carry a 'trailer' of heavier weapons or more often consumables to be dropped off at a previously-specified destination for when more suitable foreign aid vehicles were unavailable. The specific unit which operated these formidable aircraft varied, with the most famous being the 13th Naval Squadron.
Battle honours[]
As with all other ships that had names recycled from previous RAN vessels, the UNSC Newcastle inherited the battle honours awarded to its seaborne predecessors that previously were operated by the ADF. It was originally suggested to the Federal Government that it may be possible to instead maintain two different lineages of the name due to the very different missions and roles that the Orbitor undertook, although this was ultimately disregarded in favour of setting a precedent to treat all future space-faring vessels as traditional warships.
- East Timor, 1999–2000
- Persian Gulf, 2002–2003
- Pakistan, 2067
- Asteroid Belt, 2143
- India, 2154-2155
- South America, 2162-2163
- Mars, 2163-2167
Notable Crew[]
Captains
Bridge Officers
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Gallery[]
Notes[]
- ↑ While some ships would be referred to as similar to certain maritime ships (including, but not limited to: destroyer-analogue, corvette-analogue), officially there were only three classes of warships recognised before the Interplanetary War: spaceplanes, orbitors, and base ships. Orbitors referred to a broad classification of exoatmospheric vessels whose main purpose was not to carry singleships; as a result, both auxiliary support ships and ships of the line shared the orbitor classification.
- ↑ Under development by the arms company Falchion Naval Munitions, the Mark 102 was intended as a hyper-long ranged naval gun which was projected to be effective out to a couple of thousand kilometres - enough to be viable at medium battle ranges. The RAN made allowances in the Newcastle's design for the weapon's installation during construction. When it was eventually cancelled, the large open space was reconfigured into first storage spaces for consumables and later a launcher for survelliance satellites and Lurker mine-missiles.
- ↑ Recycled from the Adelaide-class frigate of the same name, which was decommissioned in June 2019.
- ↑ Due to the nature of the radioactive explosion and the amount of casualties, Anderson Shipyard's resident medical facilities were ruled out as a place for treatment, with planetside hospitals becoming the only alternative.
- ↑ The two figures that led the criticism were the Canadian Admiral Arran Forbes and Northrop Grumman's CEO Hambish Keith, whose statements were covered on the e-blog Navy Today.
- ↑ Taken from the Aborigine word for 'Thunder', also taken from the HSV Maloo superute.