Fan of Worldbuilding, The Archmagos

Knights Of The Seas

The De Pury-class was a series of large frigate of the Republic of Nouvoloire's Marine Republicaine, or Republican Navy. The eight ships of the class were named in honour of the eight household knights of Antoine d'Polanger, founder of the Goilac Empire and unifier of the Gollandiac lands, earning the type the collective nickname of 'les chevaliers'. With the first ship of the class commissioned in 146, the De Purys would be the first new type of major warship the MR would receive ever since the declaration of the Republic of Nouvoloire under its democratic government in 129, which inaugurated its rule with a moratorium on new naval construction. As highly capable vessels incorporating modern systems and the lessons learned in the Yunxi War to great effect, the De-Purys gave the MR a keen qualitative edge over other navies in the region, and were regarded as genuine peers to all but the most modern surface combatants in its weight class in the United Commonwealth Navy.

Development And Disagreement

With the fall of democratic rule and the rise of La Clique, many of the MR's leading minds were eager to make up for lost time. Years of neglect under a pacifist government had left the fleet in a state of disrepair, with ships run ragged from lifetime extension programmes to keep up numbers in the absence of new builds. Now, with a glut of new funding from a regime that saw a potent navy as a vital tool for its expansionist designs over the region, the opportunity had come for the MR to reassert its status as the pride of the nation.

These aspirations, however, did not necessarily translate into a race to lay down as many new frigates and cruisers as the shipyards could manage. Naval leaders at every level had long divided themselves into factions based around their narrow branches of the service, with submariners, aviators, and surface sailors all competing for funding and, even more crucially, shipyard space. With the relative inferiority of submarine technology in the Republic, the fliers of the Flotte Avienne would make up the primary institutional obstacles to the surface fleet's most grandiose plans for the new class.

With the deadline for the finalisation of Naval Plan 140 fast approaching, the contest of wills between the two factions was hard fought. The MR's two rapidly aging aircraft carriers, Coudia and Autiers, were both its central symbols as well as the source of its actual striking power. The FA's leading officers thus viewed surface combatants as mere escorts for the vaunted carriers, there to protect the capital ships from submarines and any air threats that make it past their strike fighters. Their vision for the next generation of Republican frigates were vessels that were almost entirely without offensive teeth of their own, but carrying powerful sensors and either a heavy payload of air defence missiles or aeroship facilities and torpedoes to hunt adversary submarines. Resentful of this perceived slight against their clan, surface fleet officers would question the viability of relying on airpower as the only offensive tool across the fleet, especially when measured against the infamous carrier task groups of the UCN. They also noted that the small size of the fleet at large created a need for more firepower, not less, to be installed on every hull that could carry a missile battery. Arguments that the latest generation of carrier strike aircraft, to be procured jointly with the Ocrisian Empire under Project Sabre, would provide enough of a boost in striking power were rejected on the basis that the carriers could carry fewer of these larger aircraft, negating the extent of any increase in offensive strength.

Ultimately, it would be the surface officers who won the argument. Of the two frigate designs on order under NP-140, one a larger 7,500 tonne ship and other a smaller 4,000 tonne ship, they would succeed in removing the requirement put forwards by their aviator colleagues for the larger vessel to incorporate a sizable aeroship facility. Instead, it would keep its air defence capability and dedicate the freed up displacement, space, and budget to outfit the ships with a potent suite of ship-killers.

Characteristics

The most distinctive feature of the De Purys is its main armament. Installed on either side of the towering bridge superstructure are eight gargantuan angled deck launcher cells carrying the 'Tridente' supersonic antiship missiles, an Ocrisian design produced under license in the Republic. These ten metre long missiles can reach out to almost over two hundred kilometres, delivering their high explosive payloads at three times the speed of sound while skimming just above the waves to frustrate detection and interception. A twin five-inch gun turret mounted on the forecastle and eight deck launcher cells for the smaller 'Clou' antiship missiles on the fantail round out the vessels surface firepower.

As the largest class of surface combatant in the MR, the De Purys filled the role of chief air defence asset for their carrier group. A pair of twin-armed missile launchers, one between the bridge and forward turret and the other just behind the smokestack, fire 'Pavois' interceptor missiles, guided to their targets by the Fire Control and Area Search Wave Emission Sensors installed on their towering sensor mast.

While the Ocrisian Marte Tactical Management Network had been intended to be installed on the class since its inception, delays in the system's development meant the first five De Purys were completed without it installed. When present, Marte greatly improved the ship's tactical capabilities, allowing its Tridentes and Pavoises to receive targeting information from sensors on other ships and even aircraft. Indeed, the Tridente's range extended well beyond that of the ship's onboard sensors, meaning that such cooperative tactics were necessary if its weapons were to be put to their full use.

Construction

The apparent conclusion of the debate surrounding what form the MR's newest class of warship would take would not be the end of the challenges faced by the programme in getting its ships in the water. Decades of underinvestment had left the Republic's shipbuilding industry technologically backwards and much smaller than it had been in the Empire's heyday. Furthermore, this limited yard space had to be shared across the fleet's many construction programmes; of the five yards in the country that could build vessels in the eight thousand tonne range, three of them were entirely consumed with the construction of the new Mortray-class of expeditionary transports. Construction on the first pair of frigates began in 143, two years after the initial design was finalised, while the third began construction in 144 when a sixth yard, then under renovation, was ready to start work.

With the full backing of the fleet now behind the programme, the yards were pushed to work at a breakneck pace. The first ship of the class, De Pury herself, would be commissioned in early 144, with De La Morre following only two months later. Ships would be commissioned in alternating singles and pairs after that, with the last, Du Treilia, entering service in 150.

Operational Service

The De Purys would be put to work almost as soon as they were commissioned, tasked with almost continuous missions to make up for the deficiencies in quality and quantity across the fleet as a whole. De Pury and De La Morre would enter the order of battle of the Western Fleet just in time to participate in the Mutsuni Bay Crisis, which saw them rescue a convoy of Nouvoloian merchantmen en route to the Satsuga Republic and carrying a cargo of arms and munitions for local pro-Nouvoloian insurrectionists. The effect that their armament and sheer size would have on the Satsugan corvettes who had arrived to search the convoy would be noted with satisfaction by the fleet, validating their view that the warships could be a potent tool for overawing the weaker vessels of other regional navies.

De Purys would carry out similar presence missions elsewhere for the next few years, flying the flag and impressing upon the Repulic's neighbours the extent of its own strength. Their first taste of real combat would come in the Islander War of 154, where De Purys were present for every major engagement, from escorting the invasion fleet that took the Western Island of Ngaionui to the sinking of the newest of the class, De Rohan, while defending the carrier Autiers from an air launched missile strike launched from the Commonwealth carrier UCS Mystique.