Starlite Aerospace DD-10 FGMD

A staple of 3rd generation Terran starship design and a favorite among Alliance combat fleets for centuries. Starlite Aerospace's' DD-10 Hwacha, best known by it's UESN designation of Spectre-class Fleet Guided Missile Destroyer (FGMD) served from 2135 up until the Alliance-wide fleet reconstruction and upgrade program that took place after the Terran-Vorla war (TVW) in the early 30th century. 

The entire nose of the DD-10 was lined with ninety-two STS-145 VLS launch cells, which due to the ships small size and the unique configuration of the tubes, some had to be made shorter than their standard size, limiting the catalog of weapons they could deploy from said tubes.

Along with the launch cells on the nose, there are an additional forty tubes on either side in the same side-by side configuration as on the nose, for eighty total on the dorsal hull. The ventral section differs a bit based on the ship and production block.

However an additional eighty STS-145 cells with thirty-two STS-2000X heavy launch tubes, which fire larger missiles, and most notably FTL anti-ship cruise missiles such as the Talon TBX and later on during the peak of the TVW, the Black Dragon family of stealth FTL cruise missiles as well.

The most unique feature of the DD-10 was it's Disposable Missile Canister System, or DMCS. This system took small missiles such as the AIM-77EX, a longer range, naval-launch version of the IR-guided AIM-77 Adder used by most Terran starfighters, and was able to launch them directly from their shipping cradles which were then ejected back and away from the ship at about a 45-degree angle.

These were mainly designed to saturate Imperial starfighter squadrons with an overwhelming number of missiles, and when the complicated conveyor system was maintained well, it worked and was extremely effective.

Unfortunately, during wartime, proper maintenance suffers and these systems tended to fail frequently. Refusing to open, or the ejector mechanism would seize up rendering the enter system inoperative.

She was also equipped with a Ares Dynamic Systems 8'/.50 caliber Mk-247 hypervelocity gravitic naval cannon capable of lobbing a 145 lb, 8-inch diameter tungsten or depleted uranium discarding sabot round at roughly 125,000 feet per second, with a fire rate of fifteen rounds per minute, this gun will shred the hull of any period vessel it was fired at and could punch clean through some of the best shield grids of the era as well. 

In front of the Mk-247 sat two MC-7D 25mm railguns, each could put out around fifteen rounds per second, and though they fired at a fraction of the velocity of the Mk-247, and were extremely limited in the damage they could deal to an enemy warships, they were quite effective against Imperial starfighters and bombers, and indeed, pretty much anything else that wasn't a capital-ship grade hull or buried under deep rock

As a fleet destroyer, the main role of the Spectre-class was fleet defense using it's many, many missile tubes as it's primary means to intercept and shoot down enemy starfighters and incoming missiles alike.

As such it was lightly armored with minimal shielding, focusing all of it's energy on it's performance and maneuverability over direct-hit survivability.

That didn't mean the DD-10 was defenseless either. They were equipped with twelve C-75 point defense guns, four on either side, two aft facing, and two on the ventral hull and a two-layered A/N/N-1sB-2, 0.5 terawatt shield grid, which was an underpowered system for a ship of it's size, really only there to protect against shrapnel and radiation.

Despite being ill-equipped for ship-to-ship combat on paper, the DD-10 proved itself to be a worthy adversary for it's Imperial counterpart, the Sno'Toroh-class destroyer. Frequently out maneuvering and out-gunning them, but not always.

After the war, the entire DD-10 fleet would be almost immediately mothballed in favor of the much newer and more capable DDX-15 Draco. A few remained in service for decades to come, by the mid 30th century, the last of them had been officially retired from active service with the UESN.

Many remained in mothballs for centuries, some were used as active target ships, and some were recycled, but the majority were sold off to interested third parties.

Enough where made though, and they where made well enough that they still pop up here and there across the cosmos even into the 45th century.  Sometimes in the hands of small, colonial patrols or as a less advanced, sovereign species' first foray into the world of faster than light travel.

By that time, the DD-10s time as a warship has long passed and any surviving example would have served dozens of roles or more since. Many have been so heavily modified, retrofit, torn down, and refit again so many times that they're unrecognizable as what they used to be.

-------------------------------------------

Alright, so this is a re-upload of sorts... I put a similar image up yesterday and realized there were about 100 things wrong with it, so I deleted the entire post, went to bed and started over.

I got details wrong in the post and None of the VLS cells rendered and there were other issues I didn't notice because I was exhausted, and that was after I spent literally 2 days getting them ALL rigged for animation.. I was pissed, lol.

Each VLS cell also has it's own, fully animated missile that launches out. I can make it launch them all at once, or one, or six at a time out of any cell. It's not perfect, but it works and it's what I always intended for this ship to do.

I also went through and totally remastered the inside of the missile bays on the side. (DMCS) There wasn't any detail inside them before. Just black, not even a simple panel texture. That's a sin that's been corrected as well, lol. Now they're full of scale detail. Even a properly scaled access hatch which no one will probably ever see, lol.

One thing that's hard to tell from the render is how small this ship is. I've had a lot of trouble with that in the past but have been trying real hard to scale everything correctly (as much as I can, sometimes for it to look right... yeah)

It's exactly 420 feet long (I didn't aim for that, it was just a happy accident as Bob Ross might say)

The missile bays on the side are small enough that if you were standing on the top of the conveyor system, you could easily reach up and touch the top of the bay. In fact, human (6'1) for scale:

And here's the ship with the old paint. I like that better but lost the files when I (accidently deleted) a bunch of files a year or two back. I threw this on right after it happened just so it had something, but never really cared for it. It's passable though.

When I first made this model, the ship was 15 times bigger in my head. Then I scaled it with my other assets and.. yeah.