Charon-class escort carrier

Firebird-class War Cruiser

The Charon-class escort carrier was the most commonly used carrier in the Royal Navy of the Golden Empire.

Dimensions
The Charon class was 440 meters long and 200 meters high, but only a slim 100 meters wider. It featured three main decks and two "mid-decks" in a tower formation; each mid-deck linked two main decks. The three main decks were each 425 meters long, 50 meters high, and 100 wide; the two mid-decks were 396 meters long, 72 meters wide, and 25 meters high.

The starfighter launching bays stretched horizontally along both sides of each of the three main decks. The remainder of the decks' length and internal space was taken up by the engines.

The command bridge was at the fore on the lower of the two mid-decks. Living quarters were interspersed through the five decks.

Armament
Charon-class carriers had the weakest armament of any capital ship in the Armada other than Tershin-class patrol corvettes. They carried two s at the bow, mounted on the middle main deck, and three amidships on each side. The class also featured much weaker shields and hulls than the next smallest craft, the Hydra-class cruiser.

Crew and complement
740 Royal Navy spacemen were required to crew a Charon carrier at full strength, with an additional twenty gunners on its weapons emplacements. In addition, the ship carried Royal Starfighter Corps mechanics attached to the fighter complement.

As its main purpose, the Charon class boasted a full wing of seventy-two s. The makeup of these fighters varied greatly depending on the fleet or group to which the carrier was tasked, although only a few carriers in fleets with numerous others would carry all seventy-two fighters of the same model.

Service
The one and only purpose of Charon carriers was to transport large amounts of starfighters into combat zones. Apart froms (which carried a full wing as well), the carriers transported more fighters than any other ship-of-the-line of the Royal Navy. Indeed, the Keltrayu-class heavy cruiser was so packed with weaponry that it had room for only a single fighter squadron; multiple Keltrayu cruisers operating together would usually be assigned a Charon carrier for their own protection against bombing runs by enemy fighters.

The Charon carrier was given a deliberately narrow profile to make it a less appealing target in battle. Its weak armament meant it had to be kept far from the exchanges of other capital ships; Charon carriers would usually cease forward motion just out of turbolaser range, launch their starfighter complements, and then withdraw away from battle. Some commanders who preferred having their fighters closer would have the carriers shadow much larger craft, such as Star Destroyers, counting on the fact that the enemy could not safely ignore the threat of the Star Destroyers to focus on picking off the fighter carriers.

Behind the scenes
For several months, the Charon-class escort carrier was simply listed as " escort carrier" in outlines, as User:Sakaros could not decide on a class name. He came up with numerous potentials, each as awful as the last, until Jade-Starrz suggested Charon. The class is named for, the boatman who ferried souls across the to the Underworld in Greek mythology.