Cobra Razorback class Destroyer By Imperator-Zor Watch

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Through the 2130s considerable breakthroughs were made by COBRA in the fields of Warp technology, antimatter power systems and defensive technologies. It also saw the gradual emergence of a small interstellar empire which needed to be patrolled against pirates, convoys that needed to be escorted against and greater threats looming on the horizon. Even so the resources that COBRA at it's disposal were still limited, especially manpower. Even with the increasingly integrated Sauroid population, aggressive exowomb operations, heavy use of robotics and a trickle of immigrants there was a chronic manpower shortage for the ambitions of the Third Commander and even with alien technology being acquired and replicated there were still practical limits on what could be done and efforts had to be prioritized. It was deemed that the existing capital ship classes were adequate for their job in the 2130s, but smaller warp capable craft needed an upgrade. Even refit the the Garter class Frigate was beginning to show it's age. As such two designs for medium craft were put into production. The first was the Skink class Frigate, which succeeded in it's fairly modest goal of making a successor to the Garter class in the same size class using proven technology and was first launched in 2132. The second was a more ambitious plan using technology pioneered in the Oculus-class Survey ship, the Razorback class Destroyer.



The Razorback program began in 2135 and the first ship was launched in 2139. The resulting ship was 153 meters long and weighed in at 50,000 tonnes. She had a crew of 120 spacers with a reserve of 50 B.A.T.s. She could reach 73 C (Warp 4.2) for short bursts and had a cruising speed of 49 C (Warp 3.6) powered by an RAM-4 Warp Reactor which while being half the size of the RAM-2 produced 85% as much power as the RAM-2 reactor in use on Wasp and Adder class ships. Her engineering section had a secondary internal hull to protect sensitive systems. Her subspace communications systems were state of the art with a range of 10 Light Years. It only had room in it's aft for one shuttle. While less resilient than a cruiser or carrier, the Razorback class Destroyer was faster and a better response ship. Even so it lacked much in the way of internal cargo space even by the standards of the day, which limited it's utility.



Her energy armament had seven medium particle beam cannons and one heady particle beam turret, all but one of which was on it's incompletely spherical forward hull. It also carried seven torpedo tubes (six forward, one aft). It had fairly limited magazines and only carried 36 torpedoes in total as COBRA naval doctrine typically favored letting out a devastating opening salvo to having a greater reserve of missile for a drawn out slugging match. More notable was the fact that while the Razorback was originally to carry primarily fusion torpedoes, it was also outfitted with the specialized equipment for equipping said torpedoes with antimatter warheads. Said Warheads would be left empty of their explosive payload in most situations while the regular torpedoes would carry antimatter. The process took about fifteen minutes. Even so given the unstable nature of these weapons most captains were quite happy to obey regulations that active M/AM warheads not be kept aboard for more than 24 hours at a time, either by dumping their reaction mass back into storage or firing them.



Initially six of these ships were ordered, with three being completed by 2142 and two more at various stages of construction during the Battle of C-3. While victorious, this incident led to an additional six Razorbacks being ordered with work being accelerated on the existing units, which allowed them to be completed for the Second Battle of Cobra Prime in 2143. In retribution for the destruction of two Klingon warships, a fleet consisting of twenty four warships (including six D5 cruisers, eight D3 class cruisers and twelve patrol ships) was dispatched for retribution. Leaving aside armed mining ships and transports, COBRA had some thirty six ships available (almost their entire Navy) to meet them as well as eighteen defensive platforms. In most areas the Klingons had superior technology, which allowed them to inflict considerable casualties. Eleven ships and seven defense platform were destroyed outright, including the Flagship Hornet and with it the Third Commander. Eight more took significant damage. Even so the Klingon force, expecting an easy victory was in the end repelled. Fightercraft played a big part in this victory as the Klingon's weapons and tactics were ill suited to deal with them. But when it came to direct ship to ship action the Razorback was the most effective unit on a tonne per tonne basis mainly thanks to their torpedo armament. Fighter attacks disrupted the Klingon formations and ate away at their shields, leaving individual ships vulnerable to coordinated strikes from larger craft, especially massed torpedo salvos. At the end of the day the Klingon attack force was destroyed in it's entirety.



Even so, there were fears about a second major attack. More than half of the CSN was either destroyed or needed extensive yard work while the Klingons still had at least hundreds of ships in service and dozens of worlds. Fortunately this attack never came thanks to a border conflict with the Romulan Star Empire diverting much of the Klingon Imperial Navy elsewhere. Instead between 2144 and 2146 the Klingons launched several raids against shipping and against SEED colonies using Raptor Patrol craft. This did force the adoption of a convoy system in which the Razorback proved it's worth (even if two ships were lost). Four of them were also used at the Battle of Rgah-IV depot, a small prefabricated maintenance and refueling station set up to support raids in Cobra Space which had three Raptors docked. Eventually in November of 2146 a ceasefire agreement was made. By that point the CSN had refit many of it's ships or had produced new ones with systems first employed in the Razorback, though the class would still remain an important part of COBRA's fleet.

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