Wolf Class Support Vessel
Name/Type: Wolf Class Support Cruiser
Designer/Manufacturer: Stellar Enterprises
Combat Role: Long Range Fire Support
Personnel: 450 + 55 Gunners
Size: 555 meters
Speed: 18 MGLT
Shield Rating: 2,250 SBD
Projection Shields: 10000 SBD
Hull: 1,300 RU
Weapons: Dual Heavy Rail Cannon turret (Damage= 6 heavy turbolaser blasts at a single section of shield or hull), 2 Dual Rail Cannon turrets (Damage= 4 heavy turbolaser blasts at a single section of shield or hull), 4 Repeater Heavy Laser Cannons, 20 Dual laser cannon turrets, 2 30 Cell Warhead launch systems
Fighter Complement: 24 Droid Fighters
Troops: 150 Marines, 350 Defense Droids, 50 Repair Droids
Description: This ship was designed to offer fleets heavy support in engagements. It was fitted with rail cannons so that its weapons range could be greater than that of turbolasers. This would allow it to be stationed at the very rear of formations so that it could fire upon targets transmitted to it through data links. These long range weapons allow the ship to stay away from harm and target the whole battlefield.
To power these weapons systems most of the ships interior space has been fitted with power generation systems. To space power engines were also made smaller, lowering the ships maximum speed and other energy weapons systems have been left out. The deletion of turbolasers prevents the ship from engaging ships at close range once its rail cannons are fired. For protection the ship contains laser cannon defense systems in order to fend off fighter and bombers attacks.
Rail Cannons: These cannons are similar to the type of slug cannon on the Stellar Enterprises Gladiator defense station, only smaller in size and not as powerful. The pairs of Rail cannons onboard the Wolf Class are stationed outside the ship on massive turrets that are capable of moving their mass.
While these weapons are powerful enough to inflict heavy damage on even the largest ships, they require great amounts of power to fire. In order to fire all these at once, every watt of power has to be drained from the systems systems. It's shields are taken down by half, 2/3 of the laser cannons must be brought offline, and the engines have to be shut down.
The Heavy Rails require 1 post to reload and 2 posts to recharge in order to fire. This means that there must be 2 posts between any fire missions. These weapons, like the other, fire in staggered orders, meaning one round leaves its barrel before the other in order to help take down shields faster and inflict as much damage as possible. The Heavy rails can pierce shields and hit the hull with a single round on most 400 meter type vessels, while two rounds are usually required for vessels that range from 420 meters to 700 meters.
The smaller Rail cannon weapons take one post to recharge and fire, but cause less damage.
30 Cell Warhead launch system: This system is made to hold 30 warheads of different configurations and the Wolf contains 2 of these. One is located on either side of the ship at the front. Each cell is lined with magnetic coils in order to launch the warhead out towards its target at great speeds. This always the warheads to be fired without their engines on, providing them with a little stealth before their engines finally ignite once close to their targets. These engines are than used to readjust their course.
The warheads can be fired one at a time or all at once. Reloading is limited by the systems design and only 2 reloads are available per cell. Once expanded this system can no longer fire. Since the cells are all connected together, the whole system must be removed in order to be reloaded.
In case of a direct hit, the whole launch system with all 30 cells must be ejected into space. If not, the explosion from the remaining warheards could seriously damage of destroy the ship.
Shield Projection System: This system is based off a canon design built long ago. It uses shield projectors to project shields over long systems, upto several thousands of kilometers away. It can divide the ships over sevel ships and help to reinforce their original shields. This could be done to ships under heavy fire in order to prevent their distruction. It is located on the angular hump underneath the Wolf Class.
While firing the Rail cannons, these shields can not be projected as the power if used to fire the heavy rounds.
(From The New Order Sourcebook: the shield projectors of Belt-Runner I can cover ships at sensor range, providing up to 600 points (that's over 2 times the points of an ISD II) to any given ship- more than enough to survive a head on collision with one of Dubrillion's Asteroids. The Belt Runner can split these shield points among multiple ships)