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Assault Frigate - Chandley Class Variant — Description

Assault Frigate
Chandley Class Variant
A more ambitious development of the Chandley Class emerged from Starfleet's experience with the S'Harien Class Battlecruiser and its modular secondary-hull architecture. Rather than simply enlarging the Chandley's existing facilities, this configuration incorporated the S'Harien's expanded impulse propulsion and secondary hull systems, producing a frigate capable of supporting a considerably larger embarked force while retaining the fundamental characteristics of the original design.

The S'Harien-derived secondary hull nearly doubles the Chandley's Marine berthing capacity and incorporates a substantially larger seventh hangar facility than the more compact Andor-derived arrangement. It also provides access to the S'Harien's inventory of modular secondary-hull system, permitting specialized configurations such as the Marine Barracks/Fightercraft Hangar Complex and Cargo Bay Hull, the Cargo Bay and Cargo Transporter Hull, the Photon Torpedo Multitube Launch Hull, and the Special Mission Weapons Hull to be employed as operational requirements dictate. Auxiliary fusion generators incorporated into the secondary hull provide additional power during combat and planetary operations, reducing the burden placed upon the ship's primary power systems.

The configuration also allows the vessel to utilize the S'Harien's unusual "Jack-in-the-box" maneuver capability; the ability to jettison the secondary hull module, and thus shed significant mass in the event the vessel is in danger of being overtaken.

Weapons were increased more conservatively than in some other Chandley derivatives. The forward battery was expanded to six photon torpedo launchers, while the two aft launchers and six paired RIM-12C phaser installations of the standard Chandley were retained. The emphasis was therefore placed less upon simply adding weapons and more upon creating a vessel capable of carrying substantially larger Marine formations, specialized equipment, cargo, or mission modules into hostile territory.

In this respect, this variant of the Chandley represents perhaps the fullest expression of the class's inherent modularity: rather than becoming a dedicated combatant, it became a platform capable of being configured for the particular demands of the mission at hand.

Based upon the Chandley Class interpretation by Intrepid1708

Component contributions or alterations from Captshade and Adrasil.