Terran Federation Rodger Young Class Cruiser by larrynguyen0096 on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

My own take of the Rodger Young from Starship Troopers, Made for L4's Mass Effect and Starship Trooperscrossover fanfic on ff.net and alternatehistory.com, the current story arc can be viewed here:
FF link:www.fanfiction.net/s/12368590/…
AH link:www.alternatehistory.com/forum…

Rodger Young-class Protected Cruiser
A class of protected cruisers designed from the frames of civilian cargo ships to reinforce the Federal Stellar Authority fleets which mostly consists of light scout cruisers at the time. Soon after their commissioning, the first dozen of the class were sent to Alpha Centauri to deal with the Hesperus secessionist movement at the time. For a period, the design proved to be quite successful against the smaller picket ships and missile cruisers the Hesperian secessionists deployed, however, the deployment of the new Arc Cruisers by the secessionists proved the vulnerability of the class against directed energy weapons, which prompted a total refit of the class from what is essentially a converted auxiliary cruiser into a full-blown protected cruiser after the war.

Due to the experiences from the Alpha Centauri War, an effort to give the ship more firepower and operational range was made, the ships received lightweight construction frames and thinner armor protections utilizing composite materials, of which was partially compensated by compartmentalization of its bulkheads and addition of heat-proof coatings. Despite this attempt, their protection is still inadequate and many were lost from plasma hits during their encounter with the Bugs in the early stages of the Klendathu Campaign.

By the time of the Third Bugs War, the design had proven to have overreached its capabilities, due to the additional weight from the reconstruction after the Alpha Centauri War, vessels of the Rodger Young class are notoriously underarmored and known for breaking apart even against Railgun shells of their own caliber or god forbids, Plasma weapons as well as prone to hull instability. Because of this, they were derisively known as "Mobile Space Coffins" or "Bug's Plasma Magnet" by their own crews due to their tendency to explode from being hit by plasma at the hull section due to their underprotected fuel tanks and their vulnerability against heat-based directed energy weapons.

After the war, most Rodger Young types had been retired from services, save for a few vessels being sold off to private corporations or preserved as museum ships. Despite its notorious reputation, the hull design of the class proved to be a pretty stable firing platform and formed the basis for the Terran Federation Super Dreadnought design that later would be finalized as the TFS Sol.