Type-40 Cruiser

Type-40 class Cruiser

"Interesting, two ships in one huh? This'll be one hell of a surprise to anyone caught off guard."

- Rajh T'le, Feliinyen General

The  was a class of the new line of warships designed after the end of the Clone Wars, along with the Willpower-class Destroyer, the Palace-class Destroyer, the Liberator-class Battlecruiser, the Defiance-class Battleship, the Oasis-class Replenisher, the Shelter-class Carrier, the Regal-class Sloop, and the Night Watcher-class Monitor.

Details
The Type-40 class would be designed from the get-go to serve as the forward section of the similarly named Type-40 Base Ships, such as the Shelter-class Carrier and some later models of ships. As such it lacked several aspects that most feliinyen ships had; it had a significantly slower hyperdrive with less range, a small supply of consumables as the ship wasn't designed to operate by itself for long any long period of time, as well as a very lacking complement of small craft, being entirely dependent on the Base Ship for most of its functions.

Given that the Type-40 Base Ships were all classes of high value targets that required constant escort (carriers, tankers, interdictors, medical ships, cargo/troop transports), the Type-40 Cruiser was constructed as such an escort, one that would always be with the Base Ship until that vessel ran into any kind of opposition, in which case the Type-40 Cruiser would detach and enter combat while the Base Ship retreated. This was done as a means of removing the need to assign capable warships, that would otherwise be used to their original purpose as warships, to escort roles that would essentially remove a warship from the front lines.

One feature that did make the ship stand out among other feliinyen ships is it's exceptional maneuverability and speed for its size, allowing it to be a potent anti-fighter ship as well as an escort cruiser.

Production
The class would begin production mere weeks after the Empire's declaration of war against Feliingna as it was already past the research and development stage by the time of the declaration of war. The first prototypes would later be permanently fixed into their given Base Ships and sold to the Rebel Alliance as a single, solid ship.

Usage
The Type-40 Cruisers would rarely see use, as most of the Base Ships they were attached to would almost never see front-line usage. However in the few occasions were they came into the spotlight for their given role they demonstrated their competence at the task. In one such occasion a trio of Oasis-class Replenishers would run into a small Imperial Task force, composed of 5 Arquitens-class Light Cruisers and 2 Quasar Fire-class Escort Carriers. The trio of Oasis detached their Type-40s and began to move back, however given that they were all fully loaded with enough fuel and supplies to service a large fleet, this maneuver was slow and timely, forcing the 3 Type-40s to engage the Imperial Cruiser as well as the fighters deployed by the Escort carriers. For 10 agonizing minutes the Type-40s fended off the Imperial forces, long enough for the Oasis to flee into hyperspace and for a pair of Queen's Blade Battlecruisers to arrive and mop up the remaining Imperial forces. The 3 Type-40s; T40-1807, T40-1787, and T40-1850 would later be reunited with their Oasis Base Ships and their crews would be awarded each a Medal of Courage for their outstanding performance in fending off a force of equal size and superior firepower.

Obsolescence
While the Type-40 would not see retirement as an entire class, many ships of the class would eventually be retired and replaced with the more modern Type-50 Cruisers, a more anti-ship oriented parasite cruiser.

Behind the scenes
This ship was created using the Lego Digital Designer.

The feature of it being 2 separate ships was inspired heavily by the Saucer separation feature of the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-D of the Star Trek Next Generations TV series.