Dimin class Pocket Cruiser

Dimin class Pocket Cruiser
Small, for a capital ship.
Type: CL Pocket Cruiser
Category	BCS
Size	7,300 Tons
Hull Configuration	Slab Hull
Streamlining	Streamlined Hull
Tech Level	TL–15
Engineering
Computer	Model/9 with extra capacity
Jump	J-3
Maneuver	6 G
Armaments
Hardpoints	73
Accommodations
Staterooms	35
Personnel
Crew	65
Officers	7
Enlisted	58
High/Mid Passengers	0
Payload
Cargo	15.5 Tons
Fuel tank	0 Tons
Construction
Origin	Third Imperium
Manufacturer	GeDeCo
Year Operational	986
End of Service	Examples still operate post-Collapse
Price
Cost	MCr6,722.8125. MCr6,050.53125 in quantity.
Architect fee	MCrAdrian Tymes
Statistics
Quick Ship Profile	CL-07S63
Images
Blueprint	Yes
Illustration	No
Source
Also see	Cruiser
Canon	Published, fan design
Era	Third Imperium
Reference	EXTERNAL LINK: MGT Forums
Designed with Mongoose Traveller High Guard rules, but portable to other versions.

The Dimin class Pocket Cruiser is a sub-capital warship.

It is a military ship, specifically a Pocket Cruiser.

Description (Specifications)

One of the smallest true capital ships in Charted Space, the Dimin class takes the concept of "wrap a ship around a gun" to extremes, with just under 40% of its mass being its main gun. Substantial automation, including replacing all of the gunners with virtual gunner software, allows for great reductions in size and cost - though with smaller size comes a reduction in how much punishment the hull can take, only partially offset by the best armor TL-15 can provide. It can go toe-to-toe with capital ships twice its tonnage, but most of the weapons it bristles with are intended to take on fleets of smaller ships, with particle barbettes for true spaceships and lasers for smallcraft and missiles attacking the Dimin or its escorts. It carries no sandcasters, with armor thick enough to repel almost all laser fire, though it carries no marines either; unless the crew is well prepared, or a Dimin's escorts can keep away all boarding shuttles, boarding actions are its biggest weakness.

A Dimin has enough power to fire its main particle beam continually while maneuvering, charging its jump battery, and running all other ship systems. Although traditional barrages against other capital ships are possible, the weapon also supports a "beam sweep" mode, wherein the target is not so much an enemy ship as the general volume of space the ship is in, and the beam is moved through the area in a space-filling curve. This is especially useful when attacking ships too small to directly target, much as one might aim a pressure washer at a general volume of painted-on graffiti rather than individual flecks of paint, a comparison that is more apt when facing large swarms of smallcraft. Targeting lasers bracketing the beam and sensors to pick up reflections help detect the moment the beam passes over a target, so as to optimize beam output during each second-long period, but this can be deactivated for nonreflective targets or ones that have a smaller cross-section than the beam. The weapon achieves its small size while preserving its deadly output by channeling the beam through seven progressively smaller stages, most of them over 100 tons by themselves, with deflection for fine aiming mounted above and to the sides. Critical hits that disable the beam most often wreck this deflection, limiting the beam to firing straight ahead instead of mostly straight ahead: turning the entire ship to land the beam's 12 by 6 meter cross section on a target many kilometers away is difficult enough that all concerned usually treat the whole weapon as disabled if aiming via deflection is inoperative.

Image Repository

Not available at this time.

General Description & Deck Plans

Deck Plans for this vessel.

Basic Ship Characteristics

Following the Imperial Navy and IISS Universal Ship Profile and data, additional information is presented in the format shown here. ^[1]

Basic Ship Characteristics ^[2]
No.	Category	Remarks
1.	Tonnage / Hull	Tonnage: 7,900 tons (standard). 110600 cubic meters. Streamlined Slab Hull. Dimensions: Maximum: 210 meters long by 42 meters wide by 12 meters tall
2.	Crew	Crew: 1 Captain, 3 Pilots, 1 Astrogator, 33 Engineers, 14 Mechanics, 20 Gunners, 7 Administrator, 6 Officers. 110 virtual Gunners provided via software.
3.	Performance	Acceleration: 6-G maneuver drive installed. Jump: 3.
4.	Electronics	Model/9 ship computer with extra CPU capacity distributed through the ship.
5.	Hardpoints	79 hardpoints.
6.	Armament	Spinal Weapons Mount with a particle beam. 24 particle barbettes.
7.	Defenses	3 type-3 point defense batteries. 14 pulse laser triple-mount turrets (sometimes used for offense, but primarily meant for defense against missiles and smallcraft).
8.	Craft	None. Vacc suits required for EVA (extra-vehicle activity). Rescue Balls for crew escape normally carried.
9.	Fuel Treatment	It is typically equipped with a fuel purification plant and fuel scoops.
10.	Cost	MCr6,722.8125 (no architect's fees, those having been paid off by Imperial design contract during the Third Frontier War). MCr6050.53125 in quantity. (These are the official average cost numbers according to GSbAG, which included the extended decimal fraction.)
11.	Construction Time	21 months standard, 16 in quantity.
12.	Remarks	One of the smallest Spinal Weapons Mount equipped capital ships.

History & Background (Dossier)

The Dimin was conceived during the end of the Third Frontier War. It was intended to be used by pocket empires to guard their own turf, setting up useful buffer zones while relying on Imperial maintenance sources. While the original concept was sold to the Imperium by GeDeCo to be used in Spinward Marches Sector to ward off the Zhodani Consulate (which pitch obtained a contract to pay for the architect's fees), it proved more popular in other sectors with a number of small multi-stellar polities such as Trojan Reach Sector (which was GeDeCo's actual intended market) and, after GSbAG negotiated a license to the design, Reaver's Deep Sector and Hinterworlds Sector.

The small (for a capital ship) size means the purchase and maintenance costs are somewhat affordable to the richer of pocket empires, it is still a significant cost. (Keeping this cost down is one of the reasons the design favors energy weapons so heavily, and carries no missiles or other ammunition-using weapons.) As a result, it is said that any pocket empire that fields one of these is in the pocket of its patron. It is certainly the case that supplying these has become a political tool, to ensure the continued friendship of the recipient polity.

There have been cases where a Dimin-equipped small polity attempted to turn on its patron. In most cases, the navy (or at least the Dimin's crew) made common cause with a government faction on the patron's side, and blew away the opposition. In most of the other cases, after having one or more Dimins enabled the government to sustain a months-long war, the Dimin(s) started to break down from lack of maintenance; once they were out of the picture, the remainder of the war was a mopping-up exercise by the government's opposition.

Those polities that play nice with their patrons, may use their Dimins against their neighbors, who typically have no capital ships of their own. Shredding sub-capital ships at long range with little worry about return fire is exactly what Dimins (and, indeed, most battleships) are made to do, and they do it well. Documents from the design process suggest that calling a Dimin a "Pocket Cruiser" instead of a "Light Battleship" was intended to undersell this function for two reasons: to get those polities who are granted a Dimin to cherish it even more once they see it in action (against pirates, if no one else), and to avoid alarming Imperial bureaucrats.

Fortunately for said bureaucrats, Dimins are far more often used by minor polities for the deterrence value of having a capital ship than for actual combat. Though, just because a saber is rattled does not mean it can not cut.

Class Naming Practice/s & Peculiarities

Ship Interior Details: The bridge is organized around two holotanks, one for fleet coordination and one running the countermeasures suite; which one is which varies from Dimin to Dimin, and it is not uncommon for an administrator or engineer to borrow an unused station at one of the holotanks. Actual operation of the ship is done from four consoles at the corners of the bridge (not all of which are always crewed, especially when not on alert), with their crew more often talking via intercom, text chat, or neural link than by unassisted voice. While the bridge can not be sheltered in the ship's core, said core being used for the particle beam, it is at least toward the back, just forward of the crew spaces. Said crew spaces are a little cramped, with double occupancy for all non-officers and sharing the crew commons with the cargo hold, which is small enough that a Dimin's escorts are sometimes forced to carry some of its maintenance supplies on long expeditions.

A Dimin is shaped like a massive flattened bullet to hint at its purpose and to provide streamlining, as it is intended for use in low-budget situations where highports might not always be available. The corridors' gravity plating can be slightly angled to accelerate and decelerate crew at up to 0.1G, letting crew get from anywhere to anywhere in the ship's corridors in under two minutes (assuming no obstructions and the gravity plating is all working); automatic traffic control avoids collisions (or encourages them when repelling boarding actions, making the boarders' current location "downhill" from the rest of the ship). Fuel scoops and processors are present to allow wilderness refueling, though processing a full tank's worth of fuel takes about half a week, so Dimins pressed for time often risk jumping with unrefined fuel. The limited cargo capacity means a Dimin most often travels with supply ships to carry extra parts for maintenance. While the barbettes and turrets are manually accessible in case of emergency, those sitting in the chairs are more often there to perform maintenance than combat.

Dimins will usually be named to stroke the ego of the receiving polity, so the class has no overall rhyme or reason to their names. Popular rumor says the name "Dimin" was an internal code name during the design phase and might not have been used for an actual ship, though this is not quite correct. The test frame ship named "Dimin" (short for "diminutive") was upgraded to full readiness after the architecture was complete and the design certified (though certain legal technicalities suggested it might not count as a ship of its class for some purposes due to the exact sequence of events), and was on hand when the Fourth Frontier War broke out. Although it was destroyed buying time for a BatRon to escape, it performed well enough to help inspire subsequent Imperial naval policy to shift from Battle Riders to true battleships.

Selected Variant Types & Classes

Military Ship - Warship - Light Cruiser:

Type CL class Light Cruiser

References & Contributors (Sources)

This article has metadata.

This ship was designed using Mongoose 2nd ship design rules.

Matthew Sprange. High Guard (Mongoose Publishing, 2016), 8-22.

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This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

Citation Missing - High Guard (Design Sequence Used)
EXTERNAL LINK: An Alphabet of Ships
Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
Author & Contributor: Adrian Tymes
Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science

↑ Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.
↑ Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.

[1] Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.

[2] Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.

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