Impeller Room Belts
While the hammerhead armor provides some protection to the impeller room from raking shots, broadside protection is also necessary. These belts are the second most common armor feature after hammerhead armor and are known galaxywide by designers and damage controlmen alike as “the fore and after belts.” They consist of thick armor just below the outer skin of the ship and extend aft/forward from the associated bow/stern hammerhead. The lack of any visible penetrations, airlocks, seams, or ports from the impeller rings forward and aft to a point about halfway along the taper of the hull probably gives a good indication of the length of these belts. There are no external seams which might give a rough estimate of the depth of the belts at these points, but they are probably thinner than the hammerhead armor given that they are protected by a sidewall and rad screens. A total depth of roughly three quarters of a meter is probably close. This belt is likely dense with absorption enhancers in the outer surfaces and possibly even face mirroring.
General Engineering Belts
Also known as “fusion belts” these are broad area armor over vital machinery in way of the fusion reactors. This armor is in the bow and stern tapers and provides protection for the fusion reactors and other nonpropulsion engineering auxiliaries such as heat exchangers, coolant transfer lines, damage control remotes, and secondary power systems. These belts are usually about the same diameter as the impeller belt. Figure 4 shows both how the belts sit some distance inside the outer hull envelope and how they are centered on two of the three fusion reactors. The space between the engineering belt and the hull leaves room for nonessential spaces such as the captain’s day cabin, whose windows are visible on the starboard side of the after hull taper in some file holos. The redundant third reactor and the placement of all reactors within the core armor probably mean that the engineering belts are thinner than the impeller belts to save mass.
Gundeck Belts
Frequently called simply “the gun belts.” these armor layers sit on the outer skin of the ship on the upper and lower curves of the hull and act to limit damage to the offensive and defensive armament, magazines, and sidewall generators. These belts would be rated successful if a hit by an opposing beam destroyed only the weapon directly behind the armor and not others. Extensive mount by mount compartmentalization is required behind the armor to ensure this. The gundeck belts are laid over the basic outer hull armor matrix and likely consist of additional high density boundary layer materials grown onto silicon carbide substrate. This additional material appears to thicken the belt by roughly ten centimeters.
Conclusion
This concludes our introduction to modern starship armor design. This area is still sadly misunderstood even among naval enthusiasts. It is hoped that this article provided the reader with insight into how combat starships are built so that their operations might be better understood. The available time and space meant that fundamental concepts such as compartmentalization, relativistic effects, lateral armored bulkhead placement, and control run protective features had to be omitted. The author intends to continue his research, exploring these subjects as well as finalizing armor and laser interaction codes of his own design. It is hoped that these codes, derived entirely from open source high energy density physics research, will appear in subsequent issues of this periodical and be useful tools to his fellows.
Appendix: Armor Design Figures
Table of Contents
Ruthless
An Act of War
“Let’s Dance!”
An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design
Appendix: Armor Design Figures
David Weber, In Fire Forged
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