Roil-Class

Roil-Class Assault ship is a class of warships in the Star Forces of the Humankind Empire of Abh designed as an assault type ship used in The War against the Four Nations Alliance. It is a fast assault ship meant for short range patrol, reconnaissance, harassment, system defense, and close quarter combat. It serves at the front line of ship to ship battle against enemy ships, mainly its counter part, other patrol ships, and other targets of opportunity.

History
Humans have a long history of ocean going warships and warfare. Similar to the development history of those ancient naval ships humans have developed space warships. While all modern human warships can trace back their origin in the frigate type of ships the Abh have no such historic development. Their first warships were pure efficient machines of destruction never seen before in human history. In the course of history and their numerous conflicts with human nations, they have adjusted and developed ship types matching the roles of their human cousins. As the Abh population was never a match for their cousin's and due to their unique spatial-sensor organ, they have early on adopted single seat fighter like ships. The pilots and their wing position eventually gave rise to the current flyer ranks within the Star Forces. This type of ships eventually became the assault type of ships.

Assault ships are smaller mobile units generally associated with quick offensive action. It combines the roles known by their human cousins as frigates and destroyers. The Roil-class of craft were designed and built with this intent following the conventional doctrine of Pre-War assault doctrines of warfare. As such, these ships are relatively well armed compared to their human counterparts; carrying both point defense laser cannons and a primary anti-proton cannon in place of homing missiles that the Four Nations Alliance tended to use. Their version combines the torpedo boat and destroyer roles.

Roils could easily out-fight matching classes during their time due to superior mobility and the ability to use their laser cannons as point-defense of their own vessel. These capable units; however, sacrificed much of the ship's armor to house the power units needed for agility, better energy shielding, and firepower.

For hundreds of years the assault ship tactic proved successful. However, recent advancement in technology, large scale resource mining and production facilitated mass production of large ships on a scale not seen before. This fact has given strategists and tacticians reason to doubt the balance in combat usage by this type of ships. Assault ship advocates believed mass deployment of the assault ship will be able to keep the balance. Proponents of the new attack ship type believed it was too fragile to survive in the coming large scale battles. This would prove true in the Aptic Campaign. As a result the attack ship type in the form of the Caubh-Class was pushed into service as quickly as possible.

The War and Early Combat Roles
Following the start of the war sparked by the Battle of the Gosroth, it appeared the assault ships would dictate the pace of the war, given that a patrol ship had not succeeded against a wolfpack of 10 assault ships. The Roil-Class saw action primarily during the Battle of Skaresh, albeit a stalemate action, mobility doctrine held in the Laburec and it would continue to see mass production.

Operation Phantom Flame
During Operation Phantom Flame, the then Three Nations Alliance exploited a limitation of the Roil-class against projectile weapons; specifically mines. With the use of long range and separation mines, the point-defense of Roil-classes proved inadequate to deal with these small mobile weapons, which proved horrifyingly effective during the 2nd Battle of Aptic. The assault doctrine needed to be revisited, since it appeared that the Roil-Class, while capable of out-pacing enemy ships of the same type in a brawl, could not withstand pitch battle in the defense of fixed positions.

For this purpose, the Laburec revisited its production orders for ships since the Commander-in-Chief Abriel Dusanyu of Operation Phantom Flame found his fleets ill-equipped to deal with battleship and patrol-ship heavy enemy fleets. From this point on, the Laburec would emphasize production of larger patrol ships and ships of the line; including older classes as well. The classes featured prominently to fill this primary roll for a time would be the Byrsh-Class, Lauth-Class, and Kau-Class.

Operation Hunter
New variants to improve the power-plants and replace the losses of Aptic had been produced; however, mass production of the Roil-class now entered phases of joint production of the upcoming Caubh-Class, a medium frigate that balanced the ability to take damage, improved point-defense, and overall firepower. Roils were now to compliment heavy fleets and attack vessels like the Caubh to force the enemy to engage in a fluid battlefield.

The Roil-class saw moderate action at the spearhead of the 4th Fleet Hunter commanded by Admiral Neres Bebaus.

Operations Twin Thorns and Snow Crystal
The Roil-class continued to see combat service jointly with the Caubh-class. At the Battle of Kemal, these ships devastated enemy units when used in conjunction with the new medium attack ships. Admiral Rekef, despite taking some time to penetrate the enemy defense with lighter ships maintained damage parity and utilized his mobile fleet to ultimately achieve victory.

During Operation Snow Crystal, the Roil-class production would take a blow due to new enemy offensives into Kryb and Lakfakalle. The standing units continued to fight, though replacement Roils would become increasingly rare after this point in the war.

Design
The Roil class emphasizes mobility over fire power compared to the Galum-Class. It has only two instead of four turrets and none of two mines. Compared to the early development and trial version the production version has an aesthetic hull. Its tail and the early thruster engine housings gave it the imaginative impression of a hornet. This impression gave it its namesake.

The design consists of three hulls, two turret nacelles and two main thruster nacelles. The main hull houses engineering, the main reactor and the space-time bubble generator. A relatively large spinal anti-proton cannon is seated directly ahead of the core. The main fuel tank is located aft, in the tail section. The two other hulls form a transformable protective cover for the center-line anti-proton cannon. The top hull features the bridge and all crew facilities and quarters. The bottom hull houses the main sensor, communication systems and the shuttle bays. Both hulls have RCS and large maneuvering thrusters. The three hulls are connected via internal moveable arms which are covered by scaled armor plating. The two turret nacelles are each connected to the main thruster nacelles, and the main hull. They feature vertical wings with thrusters and RCS. The two main thruster nacelles feature large maneuvering thrusters (and in the movie version one fast firing multi-barrel laser turret).

Airlocks

 * Transfer bridge & airlock
 * The bridge is low weight, compact and provides a stiff and stable structure connecting the ship to its counter part with precisely aligned frames.
 * Located aft, on the top half and side of the bottom hull, and protected by armored dual hatches, opening up and down.
 * Usually folded and stowed in front of the airlock, it can unfold to a full ship's width, and can connect to its counter part.
 * The frames are separated by non-explosive means, a combination of actuators and helical cable; deploys, unfold out of its "canister"
 * An optical adjustment mechanism is incorporated into the system. The laser system automatically checks whether the focal plane detectors are properly aligned. The structure is not perfectly rigid, and tiny changes in the position may occur due to thermal distortions or movement. For example, when going in and out of a ship's or planet's shadow. The laser system will measure changes in the relative position of the optics mount and the focal plane via two lasers mounted on the optics mount that are paired with two position-sensitive detectors mounted on the focal plane. A star-tracker device on the optics mount provides additional angular information. These data will be used to correct for the small movements during connection.


 * Pressurized airlock bridge / main passage way & airlock
 * The bridge is an enclosed low weight, compact and movable connector which extends from an airlock to its counterpart.
 * Located close to the bridge on the side of the top hull, and protected by an armored multi-section bulbous cover.
 * It provides pressurized access to the ship, eases and enhances the transfer of personnel. It is permanently attached at one end by a pivot to the airlock terminal and has the ability to swing left or right. It can connect to a hexagonal prism airlock structure which provides a direct link between all members of a six-ships wing.

Emergency systems

 * As with most modern ships it features standard emergency systems. To isolate hull breaches from venting atmosphere, emergency bulkhead blast doors can shut off whole sections.
 * In case of excessive overheating due to weapons usage or enemy weapon's effect, the water sink reservoir can be vented for a quick heat dump.
 * The two Calikes serve as the primary evacuation boats of the ship. In case crewmen are trapped there are life-pods available throughout the ship to ensure the highest survival rate possible.

Structure
Largely lightweight high-tensile metal alloy frames in a double hull arrangement. The space between hull plating, the outboard space, consist of a complex water storage pipe system. This system serves as hard cosmic radiation protection, as heat sink, and as propellant for the thrusters. On the theory what really counted in explosive shockwave protection is an inboard void and the deepest possible liquid layer. Hence, this arrangement provides good hypervelocity impact protection e.g. against micro-meteors. Likely, the inner hull plating has a high tensile & strain composite layer serving as spall protection e.g. a mix of Nextel, Kevlar, glass cloth.

Armor
It's presumed to have a layered nano-carbon silica composition. However, it's a light armor. Further details are unknown.

Shield
It features a compact (electro-)magnetic shield system. It's a typical Abh shield with an Abh specific effectivity (coefficient). Despite its relative small size its output is within the same class as larger assault type ships like the Galum-class. It's estimated to be able to endure moderate to sustained light laser turret fire.

Armament

 * One Anti-Proton Cannon
 * It's a relatively compact offensive cannon with a punch comparable to other assault ships.
 * It has at least two firing modes
 * standard shot
 * disperse shot; used against mines
 * Six safety locks have to be released by the XO to arm the weapon.


 * Two Single Barrel Laser Turret
 * The turrets are dual purpose weapons serving as point defense and in an offensive role.
 * The system features auto targeting solutions with the operator steering in the general direction and pulling the trigger.
 * Through the fleet network the turrets can be slaved by Fleet HQ to effectively aim at one target per cannon at a time throughout the battlefield.

Variant

 * Roil-Class Command version (better communication and command equipment but otherwise no difference) The command section was made more voluptuous to house the additional equipment and the lower fuselage was widen to house more antennas.


 * Roil-Class II version sported an additional two rotary laser turrets that featured four barrels housed in the dome-like fixture emplacement. The emplacement on the ship itself would rotate to aim the next barrel to fire upon the enemy.

Difference and Changes between Novel and Anime

 * Senki I novel: 1 anti proton cannon, 2 (anti proton) turrets, hangar
 * Bots I anime: 1 anti proton cannon, 2 barreled laser turrets, 2 hangars
 * Bots I movie anime: 1 anti proton cannon, 2 barreled laser turrets, 2 dual-cannon laser turrets, 2 hangars
 * Bots II: 1 anti proton cannon, 2 barreled laser turrets, 1 hangar (this was probably done to fix the ship's size)
 * PC game: 1 anti proton cannon, 2 barreled laser turrets

Helzroil
This vessel served with the 1058th Assault Squadron. It was destroyed in action at Aptic.

Gamroil
This vessel served with 1058th Assault Squadron. It saw combat during Operation Phantom Flame. This ship served as the command vessel of the squadron. The ship's captain and squadron commander was Baroness Atosuryua.

Basroil
This vessel served with 1058th Assault Squadron. Basiroil-I was destroyed in action at the 2nd Battle of Aptic, captained by Deca-Commander Lafiel (WIA). The Basroil was later rebuilt prior to Operation Hunter.

The Basroil-II was under command of Deca-Commander Lafiel as well. The ship was later reassigned to a new captain.

Seigroil
This vessel served with 1058th Assault Squadron. It was destroyed in action at Wimple, Commanded by Deca-Commander Ragash (KIA).

Kidroil
This vessel served with 1058th Assault Squadron during Operation Phantom Flame. It was destroyed in action at the 2nd Battle of Aptic, Commanded by Deca-Commander [[Beikal] (KIA).

Commanders of Roil-Class Ships
Hecto-Commander Atosuryua

Deca-Commander Abriel Lafiel

Deca-Commander Beikal

Deca-Commander Ragash