San Diego

San Diego-class High Speed Battleship


Overview
	Following the Jihad, the major powers of the Inner Sphere entered a period of rebuilding. The war had depleted the blackwater navies of all the Great Houses, leaving a small handful of ships in Inner Sphere hands. While some proposed a focus on pocket warships, the creation of the Raven Alliance, existence of the Leviathan IIs, and overall continued Clan warship production prompted a renewed focus on the recovery and reinforcement of military shipyards in addition to production of pocket warships. Within a decade of the reclamation of Terra, each of the Great Houses had resumed production of the mightiest weapons of war.
	The rebuilt spacedocks of Necromo would build the first ship of the class, designed from the ground up to make use of lessons learned from the punishing war against the Word of Blake. The largest warship constructed by the Capellan Confederation, it took eight years from initial proposals for the first ship of her class to launch free of her slipway to thunderous applause from the carefully selected paparazzi.


Capabilities
	At its core, the class was built on the old idea of being able to outgun anything it couldn't outrun, and outrun anything it couldn't outgun. With her massive engine banks providing up to 4 Gs of thrust during combat, the second half of the adage was accomplished. Her heavy armor, significantly front-loaded, and her prodigious firepower secure the first half.
	However, the San Diego was a departure from conventional warship design. Most were built to expect and be capable of independent deployment for a year or more on extended patrol without access to resupply facilities, with cavernous cargo bays enabling such feats. Instead, the San Diego features a very modest cargo capacity and ammunition stores with the intent that ships of her class would operate as part of a cohesive flotilla of other aerospace assets, including substantial logistical assets such as dedicated jumpships with Mules.
	The departures don't end there however. Similar to the Black Lion, ships of both classes carry only one or two different classes of primary weapon. The San Diego is fitted with several hundred Piranha subcapital missile launchers as her only capital-scale weapons. Providing an offensive punch able to thwart most any anti-missile defenses, these are matched with a series of Improved Heavy Gauss Rifles and an anti-missile grid capable of stopping attempts at nuclear missile assaults cold along with enabling an impressive barrage of fire against any enemy aerospace fighters which get too close.
	Additional protection comes from the ship's fighter bays, from which up to two full regiments may be stationed alongside two dozen small craft, and six docking collars allow for a sizable escort of dropships. Internally, armories and bays for over one hundred battle armor marines give the ship excellent protection from attempted enemy boarding actions. All of these assets along with the large number of gunners required for the multitude of weapons require substantial living area, and the San Diego features an almost absurd ten grav decks to house her more than one thousand crew members and dropship escorts in comfort.

Deployment
	The San Diego, first of her class, found herself in combat less than half a year after her launch. Alongside her two escorting Impavido destroyers and two logistical Invader jumpships, the flotilla staged an attack on a Federated Suns patrol along the two nation's borders.
	Four Avalon-class light cruisers found their normally quiet beat interrupted as the Capellan taskforce entered the system. Using their speed to close, the task force closed with the Davion warships and the San Diego quickly brought her considerable weight to bear. With a significant portion of their armaments neutered due to the heavy array of anti-missile systems and unable to outrun the the faster Capellan vessels, the four Federeated Suns ships were eventually scuttled and abandoned.
	This victory was especially important as it silenced most of the worry and criticism of the class' unorthodox design decisions, from the usage of subcapital weapons to the mere fifteen volley endurance to the lack of weapons that could respond at extreme range. By 3115, twelve more vessels of the class would enter service with the CCAF.

Notable Ships
	The second ship of the class, the Carmen, disappeared in 3102 under mysterious circumstances. On a pirate pacification patrol, contact with the ship was lost after the ship and attendant vessels jumped to engage a confirmed pirate base in an uncharted system. Future checks of the system revealed the base abandoned and no trace of the task force, however every few years sightings of the enormous vessel sporting a red coat of paint surface in different parts of the Inner Sphere. For now, no one can truly say where in the world is the Carmen San Diego.