Strike-class medium cruiser

Strike-class medium cruiser The Strike-class medium cruiser was a medium cruiser designed by the Loronar Corporation during the Galactic Civil War for the Imperial Navy as a general-purpose vessel capable of modular modifications to allow it to fit many mission profiles, yet cheap enough to be produced in large quantities.

Characteristics


While a frigate in size, the 450-meter long Strike-class was capable of challenging larger Alliance cruisers with its surprisingly heavy load of firepower, strong shields, and high sublight speed.

The Order of Battle considered two Strike-class cruisers the equivalent of one Victory-class Star Destroyer.

In addition, the interior storage space of the Strike-class could be modified for different missions. The most common sets were designed for planetary garrison, space superiority, and planetary assault. Planetary garrison loadouts included an assault company, two AT-STs, one AT-AT, and several support speeders; space superiority included up to three squadrons of TIEs; the planetary assault loadout included five AT-ATs.

History
A departure from the Navy's trend towards increasingly large warships, the Strike-class cruiser was an admission to diminished ability to defend space superiority against the Rebel Alliance and other forces as the conflict wore on.

During the campaign against rogue TIE Defender technology in the Eva-T system, the Strike Cruiser was used by four factions; loyalist Imperials commanded by Thrawn, the traitor Zaarin, the Rneekii, and the Nami.

Ironically, the one big disadvantage of the Strike-class cruiser was a side effect of its biggest advantage. Due to the modular design of the ship, a single, well-placed hit could shut down entire systems or weapon batteries if the densely arrayed power connectors between two sections of the ship were damaged. If the ship suffered too many critical hits by large-impact weapons (such as proton torpedoes or heavy turbolasers) it was also possible that it might simply break apart, losing large portions of its structure. By the time the ship was introduced into full naval service this was only considered to be a minor flaw, as the Empire had enough resources to replenish damaged or lost components that were considered "disposable" at that time.



However, as the war raged on and large starships started to become a rare sight, the Imperial Remnant felt the need to make this otherwise reliable, versatile and thus tactically important class of cruisers more durable, which resulted in reinforcing the connections between the cruiser's basic integral structure and the attached modules in order to prevent easy decouplings. Nevertheless, these spots remained the most vulnerable parts of the Strike-class, and pilots and commanders alike on both sides of the Galactic Civil War adapted their tactics to deal with this knowledge.

At least one Strike-class cruiser, Peregrine, was modified by the Rebel Alliance with two large, bulbous housings for gravity well projectors, which were removed from a captured Imperial Interdictor cruiser. This ship was designated by the Rebels as a modified strike cruiser.

Notes and references
Angriffskreuzer