Niigata-class cruiser

The Niigata-class cruisers are a class of heavy cruisers completed for the Imperial Navy. The Niigata-class cruisers were designed to be a vast improvement over the older Chubu-class heavy cruisers.

They were designed as muti-role, all-purpose cruisers to fit the long-range combat role with their broadside Yari and Type-68 Triple Torpedo tubes, the mid-range combat role with their 420mm Railgun cannons and 180-cell VLS missiles, as well as being able to fight in close-range against fighters and other small threats with their 22mm pulse lasers and Yamabushi CIWS system. They can also act in a space-to-ground attack role with specialised missiles and their railgun cannons. Some versions of the class are not able to fire space-to-ground ammunition.

The class has the longest production run and number produced of any cruiser class in the Imperial Navy, and is adopted as a near-ubiquitous mainstay in many Imperial Navy fleets and formations. It is as capable of acting alone as in large groups with other ships, and is also able to act as a command ship in smaller fleets.

Ships of this class are produced by Shirada Shipworks.

Development
In the Battle of San-Roku, the old and venerated Chubu-class heavy cruiser began to show its age as four out of five of the Chubu-class cruisers in the fleet were destroyed rapidly by the Hachuurui force with little effort. The Chubu's age was acknowledged after a string of further defeats during the long battle involving Chubu-class ships that were outmatched by more advanced alien ships. Long regarded as the mainstay of the Imperial Navy, the fact that the Chubu's time was up was a bitter pill for the Imperial Navy, and a replacement was grudgingly sought.

The new heavy cruiser project was to build on the existing framework provided by the Chubu-class and produce a new, formidable and modern warship that could carry out long-range solo patrols with little support and also act as a solid supportive element in Imperial Navy formations.

As ranges in space battles became longer, the Chubu's long-range firepower was found to be severely lacking. The Chubu-class mounted two-forward-facing Yari on two "wings", limiting its long-range firepower to a small cone facing the forward of the ship. Many Imperial Navy ships had already made the change from forward-facing Yari to broadside Yari, allowing the long-range beam lasers to have much wider fields of fire. Even worse, unlike hull-mounted Yari arrays the wing mounts on the Chubu were vulnerable to destruction by enemy fire, allowing enemies to easily "de-claw" the Chubu from a long range. The only benefit the Chubu's Yari systems had was that they were of an older, more powerful version that took up more space. The new cruiser design thus replaced the two forward-facing heavy Yari with weaker but more accurate side-mounted Yari arrays, as found on other Imperial ships.

It was also demanded by the Imperial Navy's commanders that the new cruiser be able to carry torpedoes as well, to provide it with extra long-range firepower. Triple torpedo launchers were thus added to the broadsides of the new cruiser.

The railgun cannon configuration changed little, with the same dual-cannoned turret design remaining, along with the general layout of the turrets. However, the turret rotation system was modified to include mag-lev systems for faster turret rotation, as well as improved autoloaders and targeting systems.

For close-range protection against enemy fighter craft or close enemy ships, the pulse lasers were drastically increased in number and placed in more strategic locations to cover the ship's flanks, though forward firepower was neglected, leading to some blindspots on the front, directly ahead of the armoured prow.