K'tayyl class, general arrangement
technical drawing by Adam Kopala

K'tayyl-class destroyer
(Imperial Gamilon Navy)

Overview

The K'tayyl class is a type of warship currently in service with the Gamilon armed forces.

Name: Type 474 (K'tayyl class)
Manufacturer: Gamilor Fleet Yards
Combat designation: Heavy destroyer (DDH)
Entered service: March 10, 2401

Crew: 217
Length: 447 ft. 10 in.

Power system: Mk IV hyper-injection stabilized singularity core
Propulsion system: Inline thermofusion impulse drive
Speed rating: 88 MGLT
Flight control system: Reaction-thrust/inertia-vector hybrid control system
Maneuver rating: 25 DPF
Navigation: FTL multiprocessor core
FTL: Singularity-modulated Cochrane warp induction
Warp factor, cruise: 8.5
Warp factor, flank: 12.75
Secondary FTL: Hyperspace motivator drive unit
Hyperdrive rating: 1

Shields: Yes¹
Shield rating: Classified (estimated ca. 2000 SBD)
Armor: Dalekenium-reinforced tritanium hull
Armor rating: Classified (estimated ca. 3000 RU)

ARMAMENT
Fixed armaments: 3x Radak-class heavy linear accelerators
8x heavy plasma beam cannons
19x high-speed plasma pulse cannons
Expendable armaments: 4x flexible-payload torpedo tubes

HISTORY

The development process leading to the K'tayyl class, officially known by the bureaucracy of the Gamilor Fleet Yards as the Type 474 heavy destroyer, began in 2395. In March of that year, the Imperial High Command issued an instruction to the Navy Bureau of Warship Construction and Design (WARCON) to develop a new destroyer type as a replacement for the aging Type 398 (Falaca class). The command specification contained five non-negotiable requirements for the new vessel, stating that it must:

1. Possess a sublight, combat-configuration cruising speed rating comparable to that of a frontline starfighter such as the Incom T-65H Dragonfly IV;
2. Be armed with no fewer than two of the Navy's standard heavy starship weapon, the Radak-class linear accelerator;
3. Be capable of rapid deployment (as defined in the Imperial Navy's Rapid Deployment of Forces specification) either at warp speed or in hyperspace;
4. Require a crew of no more than 250 officers and ratings; and
5. Incorporate, as far as is feasible, captured and reverse-engineered enemy technologies wherever those technologies will provide a quantifiable tactical or strategic advantage.

WARCON's response, after two years' work, was the preliminary specification for the Type 474, a destroyer which (on paper, at least) met or exceeded all of the High Command's requirements. The prototype, christened IKS K'tayyl (DDH-240), was launched from the Gamilor Fleet Yards in October of 2400 and accepted into fleet service four months later. Full-scale production of the class commenced immediately thereafter, both at Gamilor and at the fleet yards of Nuvatra IV.

ANALYSIS

Named for the short dueling swords which have been prized for centuries by the Gamilon officer corps and aristocracy, the K'tayyl or Honor Blade class represents the current² state of the art in Gamilon small-to-medium-warship construction. K'tayyl-class ships have the most advanced computer systems and sensor packages in the fleet today, and are faster, more agile, and possess greater firepower than any other destroyer or frigate class presently in the Empire's service.

In a major departure from standard Gamilon shipbuilding doctrine, the Type 474 is not powered by the traditional suite of thermonuclear reactors and matter/antimatter converters that have provided the energy for all Cochrane-drive Gamilon ships before it. Instead, its energy and space-warping potential come from a forced singularity core derived from captured Romulan technology - the first time Gamilon engineers have been able to overcome the inherent instability of such a device and develop a production-ready singularity core system suitable for fleet service.

Sublight propulsion is achieved with a conventional system of fusion impulse thrusters, not by harnessing the core's gravity gradient potential (as in some of the most advanced Romulan vessels), but the Gamilons have made the first steps toward developing such a system themselves with the K'tayyl class's unique hybrid flight control system. This employs standard reaction control thrusters, but augments their effectiveness with partial inertia vectoring through gravity manipulation. With this system fully operational and a well-trained pilot at the helm, a Type 474 destroyer can outmaneuver some vessels half its size.

Weapons are conventional as well, but potent. In addition to its trio of Radak-class linear mass accelerators, the K'tayyl class is equipped with eight heavy plasma beam cannons and no fewer than nineteen high-speed plasma pulse cannons, all mounted in newly-developed barrelless "omnidirectional" projector units. The latter weapons, although primarily intended for anti-small-craft point defense, are so numerous, and their fields of fire can be so concentrated thanks to the ships' advanced fire control systems, that they have been employed to surprisingly good effect for both ship-to-ship attack and surface bombardment.

In addition, the ships are equipped with four flexible-payload torpedo tubes. These are customarily used for photon torpedoes, but can also launch mines, astrometric probes, or anything else that a creative engineering officer can fit into a standard Mark IX casing. There is even at least one (N.B. unconfirmed) report of a K'tayyl's torpedo tubes being used to deploy and retrieve a team of EVA commandos.

The precise capabilities of the Type 474's shields and armor are closely held military secrets, but observation of the vessels' performance in combat indicates that, as is customary in Gamilon design, a greater premium has been placed on the performance of the latter. That said, the K'tayyl's shields appear to be at least half again as powerful as those of the chronically undershielded Falaca-class vessels they were developed to replace. One thing the Gamilons are not keeping secret about the Type 474's armor is that the alloy includes dalekenium, an extremely durable alloy supplied by New Skaro Heavy Industries under the terms of Gamilon Empire-Dalek Combine Defense Technology Agreement of 2385.

Taken together, these capabilities make for a highly capable combatant. The type's record of battle to date shows unequivocally that a well-handled K'tayyl-class destroyer can punch far above its weight. Indeed, the International Consortium on Starship Classification officially lists the vessel as a heavy frigate, not a destroyer, and there was even some contention at the time that it should be considered a light cruiser. (It should be noted, however, that this sort of controversy is far from unique to the Type 474. The ICSC routinely charges the Imperial Gamilon Navy with underclassifying its warships for purposes of circumventing certain treaty provisions.)

pictured: IGS Vengeance (DDH-243)
photo by Adam Kopala

CRITICISM

K'tayyl-class vessels have revealed few flaws in their extensive battle experience to date, but they do come with several caveats attached. Their advanced systems call for more diligent and skillful maintenance than those found on many older Gamilon vessels, and the alien-derived nature of some of the ships' core technologies requires specialized training for all technical personnel. These are vessels which expect and reward competence and conscientious attention to procedure in their engineering staffs, and punish sloppiness and improvisation.

Similarly, Type 474 destroyers require careful, confident handling to get their best out of them in combat. Carelessness of operation, especially on the part of helm officers, can have disastrous consequences owing to the power of these ships' engines and their unconventional (for Gamilon warships, anyway) way of applying it. The only K'tayyl-class vessel to be lost to date, IGS Corrector (DDH-251), was destroyed in a high-energy-maneuver collision in battle which the Incident Review Board attributed to pilot error.

As a result of these stipulations, a mythology has grown up within the Imperial Gamilon Navy that the Type 474 is a vessel reserved for a sort of undeclared élite, and that being posted to one is a tacit acknowledgement on the Admiralty's part of a spacer's superiority.³ As one might expect, this frequently leads to friction between the crews of K'tayyl-class ships and other vessels in shore situations.

These vessels are also expensive and unusually complicated, which makes them fairly slow to produce, even for the mammoth Gamilon military-industrial complex. At the present rate of production, it will take at least another decade for all of the Type 398 vessels currently in service to be replaced. Some in the Imperial High Command have already floated the idea of developing a second, somewhat less advanced, replacement for the Falaca class to offset this problem.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

Any plans for future enhancements to the Type 474 are, as is Gamilon standard policy, highly classified, but it is a fairly open secret that WARCON is already developing a so-called "Block II" update which will incorporate certain lessons learned over the last few years. Precisely what this update will contain, and whether it will be applicable in refit to existing hulls or only incorporated in new construction, are unknown. There is speculation in some quarters that it may involve either licensing or attempting to copy the International Police Space Force's Next Generation Operating System (NG/OS), the quarian-developed software system that makes IPSF vessels operable by smaller, less specialized crews.

DISPOSITION

The K'tayyl class is in production at two of the Gamilon Empire's principal military shipyards, with a combined rate of production of roughly four per year. Twenty-one are in service now and one (see above) has been destroyed.

¹ This is the official response from the Imperial Gamilon Navy's Office of Fleet Construction to this item on our questionnaire.

² As of this writing, in September 2406.

³ Evidently this requirement does not extend to the commanding officer. One of the first K'tayyl-class vessels produced, IGS Vengeance (DDH-243), is captained by Commander his Imperial Highness the Prince Garon Dessler, and has managed to log an impressive battle record in spite of the disgraced ex-Crown Prince's notorious semicompetence, alcoholism, and inattention to detail. It is presumed in most circles that his executive officer, Sub-Commander Corimel Dragonaar, is responsible for this curious discontinuity, functioning as the ship's true commanding officer.

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