Hydra-class cruiser

Hydra-class cruiser

The Hydra-class cruiser was a used by the Tetrarchy of Mezlagob and subsequently by the Royal Navy of the Golden Empire, and was the smallest  in the Armada.

Dimensions
425 meters long and nearly 200 meters wide at its widest point, the Hydra class earned its name due to the four "heads" projecting from main body. The lowest "head" was the bridge, while the two to port and starboard coordinated weapons on those respective sides and the top "head" controlled the docking bay and could act as an auxiliary bridge.

The Hydra's hangar bay opened directly at its bow. Each "head" had escape pods, and more were located toward the rear of the ship before the engine sections.

Armament
Due to its shape, many of the Hydra cruiser's weapons fired forward, including all five of its quad batteries and all four of its  launchers. It had an additional twenty standard turbolaser batteries, as well as ten s.

Crew and complement
At full strength, a Hydra-class cruiser ran with a crew of 1,800 enlisted spacemen and officers, as well as an additional 80 gunners. It carried a single squadron of s, as well as various ground and ship-to-ship assault craft.

Service
Unlike most ships in the service of the Golden Empire, the Hydra cruiser initially started as a mainline warship of the Tetrarchy of Mezlagob. Often deployed in flotillas of up to a dozen, Hydra cruisers would be deployed in strategic locations around planets for orbital bombardment prior to ground assault.

In space combat Hydra-class cruisers generally attacked in groups of at least three, concentrating fire from their forward batteries. So as not to leave themselves exposed to proton torpedo attacks on their innards, they would usually deploy their fighter complements immediately upon the start of battle, then close hangar doors and not reopen them until the battle was decided or the ship was in retreat.

In the same general class as the Firebird-class war cruiser but smaller and more lightly armed, the Hydra was not a favored ship in Royal production, whereas it had been a mainstay of the Tetrarchy fleet. It was, however, slightly less expensive than a Firebird, leading to its occasional production as a supplemental craft.

Behind the scenes
User:Sakaros named the Hydra-class cruiser in "honor" of the nickname he, Fermata13, and Jade-Starrz ascribed to the massive project of writing all the SWFanon articles related to the Golden Empire.