And behold, we have a new post about a ship that was used by the colonies and newly built by the fleet. I love writing class histories.Note: I modified the visual design from a commission by Allen Knot, that was made by Canis. I asked and obtained Permission from Mr. Knot. All modifications were done by me so if they're horrible, don't blame anyone else.The Forest Class mid-sized cutters had their genesis in the High-Speed Assault Battlestar project, that attempted to use much smaller and faster battlestar style craft to replace both the larger battlestars and many of the cruiser-class warships. Fielded by Caprica Aerodyne Inc, the prototype…Was hated.At only 512 meters long, it neither carried enough firepower (not even with two Pegasus class heavy cannon that were mounted in the nose) to damage potential threat vehicles, nor did it carry enough armor to survive, especially when simulated nukes were used. The craft was fast, it was true, but once it got to the combat zone, it simply couldn’t pull its own weight in the battle. In addition, the cramped fighter and raptor bays met with complaints from the test pilots, and when the ship was engaged in high speed evasive maneuvers, something the company claimed would make its lack of armor unimportant, even the most skilled test pilots found landing to be impossible, culminating in the death of a Fleet pilot. The contract was withdrawn.But Caprica Aerodyne employed nearly 400,000 workers, and the potential of massive layoffs in a planetary election season saved the design. The Caprica defense fleet had been looking for a mid-sized multirole ship, and their procurement department was informed that the Forest class would be chosen-period. The only thing the Caprica Guard procurement department was allowed to do was to mandate “changes to the design in line with its new duties.”And in a very rare event, those changes produced a far more effective ship than the original had been.Converting the ship from a fast-attack battlestar to a multi-role ship was surprisingly easy. The larger engines permitted the addition of a “belly-pack” hanger, and the addition of two larger cargo-decks to the flight pods while not reducing the acceleration profile to an unacceptable degree. In addition, the large anti-ship missile battery was removed and replaced by further facilities for raptor and shuttle bays as well as a number of reconfigurable spaces (in addition to those provided by the belly pack and expanded flight-pod bays) that could be converted to anything from disaster relief to cargo transports.The armament remained the same, with the notable exception of the deletion of the missile bay. As the ship was no longer expected to engage basestars, this was seen as a negligible loss in addition to providing a goodly savings on the unit cost. The heavy forward batteries still enabled the ship to pose an effective threat to most potential enemies, while the other weapons provided adequate all around coverage.The cargo spaces were quite useful for a multi-role cutter, while also extending the ship’s range. The belly pack was a “full width” pack, with the lower cannon moved “Downward” to the surface of the pack, which improved their fields of fire.However, this required that the rear landing surface of the belly pack to be close to the engines, something that made landing difficult. As a result of this, plans to include launch tubes for extra vipers were scrapped. In addition, the belly pack could be used to directly land supplies, as the ship was capable of atmospheric operations, although landing on anything other than water or a landing cradle would cause damage to the ground and parts of the ship. Usually, the ship merely hovered a few feet above the ground, though the stress this put on the gravitic generators made it a rarely used practice save in times of emergency.Flight II:The Flight II Forest class differed in one major way— the belly pack hanger was deleted in favor of a larger cargo/multirole purpose pod with the upper hanger works being slightly enlarged. The argument was that the ability to surge launch five shuttle sized craft had proven sufficient in every case and that deleting the belly hanger reduced the potential for air accidents. However, it did reduce the total size of the raptor airgroup which was a point of contention for the cutter captains on longer patrols.Flight IIIThe Flight III cutters tried to reconcile the two camps by converting the belly hanger as had occurred on the Flight II cutters, but retaining some of the hanger space with four raptor landing pads. This cutter design proved popular and most later production proved to be a mixture of Flight II and III cutters although some customers continued to purchase the Flight I design.The first 12 cutters produced (in a publicity stunt, that attempted to hearken back to the first 12 battlestars) proved highly successful, gaining praise from their crews and commanders alike. The viper pilots remained unhappy with the tight quarters, but unlike the planned (and never achieved) 80 viper complement of the original designs, the cutters were only operated with 24 vipers during peacetime, although it could be increased with a great deal of crowding, to 48 during wartime. Caprica Aerodyne soon found itself receiving orders from other Colonial Guard units and a number of private corporations, although in many cases those ships were delivered partially or totally disarmed (the level of disarmament depending on the corporation’s needs and political clout).The Colonial Military:Ironically, the Forest Class found itself taken into service by the very force that had originally refused it. The Colonial Fleet realized that while a complete bust as a battlestar, the Forest did very well as a speedy midranged picket ship, less expensive than the cruisers while still retaining a great deal of flexibility. In addition, the ship’s point defense armament was upgraded, permitting it to serve as a close escort to civilian or military craft. Not all of these ships had been fully upgraded at the time of the Fall which ensured that some did survive, though their ultimate fates remain unknown.“Flight IV”One group found the Forest Class quite useful—the Colonial Marines obtained several flight II and III craft as special forces transports. These craft were heavily modified, though most of the modifications were internal to the ship. Advanced stealth systems were added, including “domes” that covered the cannon when not in use, while a complement of skilled special forces troops and stealth landers, vipers, and gunships were added to the craft, allowing it to strike without warning. Most importantly, when the stealth systems were not active (or rather than the ship was operating DRADIS signature enhancement systems) special “smart paint” allowed the ship to appear, visually and on DRADIS as a conventional cutter. At least 12 craft had been delivered at the time of the fall, and their nature kept them out of the initial, disastrous battles.Flight IVAThe Colonial Remnant did not include any of the cutters in the initial flight, however, the need for a ship large enough to go where gunships couldn’t, and small enough to be easy to produce resulted in teh Flight IVa, which was based on teh Flight IV. Improved stealth characteristics and the ability to land on worlds by “belly flopping) (the bottom turrets were modified to retract into the hull to avoid damage) made the ships perfect for small scale raids, picket duty and strikes on small cylon targets of opportunity. The marine teams on these ships were elite and heavily equipped with augmented armor, enabling them to take on roles that had at one point required tanks (The remnant only had those tanks stored on the General Aland and found them useless due to the time it took to deploy them— in any case the nature of the conflict with the cylons made conventional ground forces less than useful).was used at the point of first contact for earth, touching down in New York Harbor. In addition to its ability to land, the Colonials felt that its relatively small size and light armaments would help in not intimidating the Earth. It was at this point that most of Earth’s representatives came to the conclusion that the Colonials had a rather different definition for the term “lightly armed.”Flight V:The final flight produced to date ,the Flight V’s were introduced in the early 2000s, incorporating an advanced defensive suite, as well as replacing the forward KEW batteries with “Primary Beam” X-ray cannon using disposable fusing canisters. In addition, an internal ion cannon was fitted, with a number of beam emitters spaced over the ship’s hull for near total coverage. While still not a capital ship by any means, the Forest class proved highly useful in the retaking of the Colonies. Today it remains a popular and common ship for light military, policing and exploration duties all over the known galaxy. In addition, more than a few surviving Colonial splinter groups used these ships, some of them for decades past the ship's design life, a testament to the skills of the long dead Caprican engineers who took a disaster of a design and gave it new life.Jane’s All the Galaxies Starships, 2035 Edition.