Over the centuries, only a few vessels have meriting naming after High Shaman Gutrug. They have always been typically large capital ships. The War Dreadnought that bears his name is the most recent and the biggest yet, and the largest vessel of the 6th generation.
The largest orc ships ever built were during the supercruiser era in 4th and 5th generations. The orcs only built four, and all were subsequently destroyed in action.
The War Dreadnoughts were a product of that era, and being smaller and more efficient, stayed around until the present.
The High Shaman Gutrug is the centre point and pride of the Orc Fearcrushy fleet. A little over a mile long, it is carries a tremendous amount of firepower. The primary armaments are nine huge torpedo launchers, mounted in turrets. Each tube is capable of firing a burst of four torpedoes, each of which has a yield of 750TXq and an accuracy envelope of 637 500km. The turrets are themselves the peak of orcish engineering, sturdy and capable of handling the very high-speed traverses required to allow them to track starships. The turrets were developed specifically for the High Shaman Gutrug class, and it was the first vessel to field them.
The technology has been re-used on more recent orc vessels, such as the Gurikh frigate and even scaled up for the Lurshiv cruiser.
Secondary weapons consists of a mix of blaster and blaster beam batteries, totalling 2040TXq in output. While this firepower is substantial, the weapons only have small accuracy envelopes. The blasters have only 178 000 km; the blaster beams have slightly larger enveoples at 182 000km, but rtrade that for a loss in power. Even so, this is still very much short-ranged weaponry, and High Shama Gurtug often struggles to bring it to bear, resulting in the batteries serving as rather sub-optimal point-defence systems instead of anti-ship weapons.
Actual point-defence weaponry is quite light, with only a dozen Ruk BFG-11 sextuplet autocannons installations, with a combined output of 3420TXq.
The High Shaman Gutrug is one of the comparatively few orc capital ships fitted with shields, rated to 3600TXq. The majority of the War Dreadnought’s defence lies instead in the multilayer composite armour that is the Fearcrushy’s specialty. The armour belts make up 8% of the vessel’s mass, and provide an impressive Armour Integrity Capacity of 14700TXq.
The dreadnoight’s engines struggle to push this mass of armour and weapons, and the High Shaman Gutrug is a cumbersome vessel, managing only 23 MEUs. Acceleration is slightly better for its size, at 3.2mc.
To somewhat make up for its low agility, the High Shaman Gutrug carries a hanger, typically fitted with two squadrons of Krasskorg Heavy Fighters. These provide an additional ability to strike at range.
The High Shaman Gutrug entered service in the late 2320s and has been in continuous production. There is only one variant known, first sighted in 2345. This is somewhat uncommon, since orc vessels generally do not see as many incremental improvements as those of other fleets. This is simply because the orcs prefer to set a standard and keep to it, rather than confuse their mechanics and engineers with changing specifications. The variant’s the official designation is not known (it is believed that there may not be on one). It is superficially similar to the regular War Dreadnought, but lacks the hangars. The dorsal fighter launch ramps, however, have remained. It is uncertain whether this is due to this version being a conversion of an existing ship or simply to retain simplicity in the production.
Instead, this version of the High Shaman Gutrug uses a more advanced torpedo turret, which is capable of firing bursts of up to five torpedoes. What was formerly the hangar now provides additional munitions space. In addition the number of Ruk BFG 11 emplacements has been doubled, providing significantly more protection against missile attacks.
Due to the similarities in hull structure and lack of an official designation, is often somewhat more difficult to distinguish which version a particular High Shaman Gutrug is, if one does not see the fighters. It often takes a more detailed scan and comparison of the power distribution to make the determination – though it becomes self-evident when the vessel actually fires.
Product Information:
Range: Orc Fearcrushy
Race / Species: Orc
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