Ship Corvette USN Griphon

The Griphon class light-corvette is the latest in a long line of successful corvette models produced by the Brennedine Allied Industrial Consortium, a Polaran manufacturing concern. As a result, its design reflects the compact and practical common conventions of the Concordat Navy. Thus, the Griphon is a relatively spartan craft which seeks to meet its class-goals with a minimum of excessive additions and comforts.

First seeing action in 886AE, the Griphon has been successful within the spectrum of its ideal operational parameters (small-craft hunter-killer). It is both cheap to build and maintain, relatively hardy and can be operated effectively by a small crew, making it attractive to many small nations within the ULP (whose population and budget cannot support larger ships). Like most corvettes, it is heavy on engines and armor, which allow it to run down small ships and dominate them at short-range, where its superior armor and armament are most telling. However, this effectiveness comes with a price.

The Griphon is easily outclassed by most capital class vessels at medium to long range, and its point-defense and particle shield coverage are woefully lacking. Likewise, while it can easilly out-run most pursuers, its ECM equipment is hardly the greatest and is especially vulnerable in respect to Antarean vessels, which are incredibly ECCM heavy. Griphons also fare poorly when isolated from their parent flotillas and do not possess much in the way of fighter-support (capable of transporting only 4 fighters and 2 AMs at a time). Therefore, they must be used intelligently, and only in places where they can be suported by both heavier and lighter elements.

These deficiencies aside, the Griphon is still a highly lethal package in its own right. Its armament is decidedly focused on close-range interception and domination. Packing 14 ion-array mounts, mostly nose-mounted (three located along the spine and belly). 9 Hellraker class missile turrets, supported by a pair of Relivance class light-torpedo tubes, dot the hull and give the Griphon an impressive missile spread. However, the older Hellraker missiles are notoriously prone to targetting failure and are almost useless intercepting more modern missiles and torpedoes. A pair of light gatling rails mounted on the ventral hull round out the Griphon's armament.

Curiously, Brennedine's designers decided to use older model missile and torpedo launchers. Particularly, the Hellraker, which has been out of favor due to its obvious deficiencies for quite some time. This is most likely due to the fact that the Concordat Navy is known to have a significant surplus of ammunition for this dated launcher platform and probably commissioned BAIC to produce a craft that could take advantage of this relatively cheap and plentiful ammunition supply. Whatever the reason, it is currently the most glaring weakness of the ship's standard design. It should be noted that the USN version of this ship swaps the Hellraker for a slightly newer Umbry rapid-firing launcher, which while smaller, has proven more effective against more modern opponents.

Known ships: USNV John Maiden USNV Berserker

Stats: Hull Integrity: 220.000p Hull Armour: 70p Shield Strength: 20.000p Max Thrust: 3800p Lenght: 340m

Armament: 2x Medium plasma cannon 2x Anti-ship torpedo tubes 2x Twin-linked vulcan cannon 1x Small spinal ion cannon

Fighter bay: None