Potemkin Warship

Potemkin-class Battlecruiser
Faction	Soviet Union
Unit Type	Capital Ship
Designation	Anti Ship
Prerequisites
Production Building	Naval Yard
Secondary Ability	Magnetic Harpoon
Cost	Unknown
Production Time	Unknown
Heroic Upgrade	Surface-to-air missiles
Dev. Status	Coded

Country of Origin	Russian SFSR
Manufactured at	Admiralty Shipyard, Leningrad
Key Features	» 508mm naval guns (×4)  » "Shchuka" magnetic harpoon  » 16-layer reinforced steel armour  » Armour piercing shells (many)  » Mechanical targeting computer (outdated)

"We sunk Atlantis!"

- Potemkin Warship crew

Background

In testing of the Dreadnought-class missile cruisers following their refit, something soon became apparent; though the new Dreadnoughts retained all of their survivability, and though they could now level coastal fortifications with ease, the once unstoppable battleships were found to be lacking in anti-ship capability. Their V4 missiles were formidable, but they were not able to track moving targets, and their high explosive warheads were not designed to penetrate ship hulls. Furthermore, all of the Dreadnought's pre-refit weaponry had been removed to make room for the missiles; before, the Dreadnought could have dispatched ships that closed the distance with its ancillary guns and fended off attacking aircraft with its anti-air mounts; now, it had no defence against either.

Attempts to rectify the issue by arming all Dreadnoughts with scaled up versions of the S-15 anti-ship missile for ship to ship combat soon ran into problems, and despite the best efforts of Soviet engineers, it didn't look like those problems would be sorted out any time soon. Premier Cherdenko ordered Admiralty Shipyard to develop a ship to fill in the niche the pre-refit Dreadnoughts had filled now that all the Dreadnoughts had been converted to missile cruisers.

With the issues surrounding anti-ship missiles, they were soon discarded in favour of a more traditional armament; guns. However, with the Soviet Union gearing up for war by this time and most steel going into the production of more tanks and airplanes, Admiralty didn't have much to work with. To get around this, they employed the hulls of an existing ship class; the Potemkin-class battlecruisers. A total of forty of these ships had been built during during the early 1940s, but they were considered obsolete after the Second World War and decommissioned, stripped of their weapons and almost all machinery.

The slowly rusting hulls of the ships still remained, however, and were suitable for Admiralty Shipyard's purposes. The ship would of course have to be able to defeat battleship grade armour like that found on the Pennsylvania-class battleships, which would require large, powerful guns. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough steel available for a full complement of battleship calibre guns, and the Potemkin-class battlecruisers were likely too small to mount all of them anyway. However, smaller guns wouldn't be powerful enough.

A compromise was made; instead of six or nine guns, Admiralty engineers eventually decided on just four. To justify the new ship's worth, however, it was decided that the guns would have to be of massive calibre; to this end, the engineers came up with a design for a thoroughly monstrous 508mm naval gun. Such a large and heavy gun, it was reasoned, would be able to wreck any ship easily with just one or two shots. Inspired by the Apocalypse tanks, a powerful magnetic harpoon was also mounted, a system to allow the Potemkin to pull ships that tried to flee towards it (or it towards them). One hundred and sixty guns were soon made, and the magnetic harpoons were requisitioned from Arkhangelsk. Cherdenko had his warship.

The newly refitted Potemkin-class got the chance to prove themselves in naval battle soon enough, when the Third World War broke out. It soon made a reputation for itself. As the designers had predicted, the 508mm naval guns could utterly destroy other ship that opposed it, and the magnetic harpoon could pull targets right into the Potemkin's sights. The only real threats it faced were from aircraft and submarines, and with proper escorts these could be dealt with. While the Potemkins were ponderously slow due to their new engines being insufficiently powerful, their armour (reinforced by Admiralty to ensure it could survive engagements with battleships) allowed them to go toe to toe with battleships, and their firepower ensured that, once the target was in range of their guns, it was good as sunk. The ships proved so effective that the construction of entirely new Potemkins was ordered after the Rising Sun launched its invasion, to combat the ships of the Imperial Navy. The newer ships are even more capable than their original counterparts (as a result of not being refurbished from WWII era battlecruiser hulls), and the newest sport upgrades to the design, such as surface to air missiles that help to offset the Potemkin's vulnerability to aircraft. These newer ships, however, are generally entrusted to the care of the more experienced commanders.

Behind the Scenes

The Potemkin is basically a navalised Apocalypse Tank.