Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Navy

As with most Sectors of the Imperium of Man, the territories of human habitation are protected by the Holy Navy.  Unlike most Sectors, the [[Setting:Tri-Sector|Cloudburst Sector]] edges up against the border of the Astronomican's projection range, presenting some rare challenges.

=== Disposition ===
As with so many sectors of the Imperium’s edges, the Imperial Navy in Cloudburst bears a heavy burden.  Pirates, aliens, heretics, and Space Hulks lurk everywhere outside the naval patrol routes, and sometimes on the patrol routes.  The Navy of Cloudburst has to be aggressive to fend off its many threats, but it also has to be careful not to stray too far from its perimeters.  The Cloudburst Sector’s habitable worlds tend to bunch together near each other, with great spans of empty space between clusters that have never been explored or are otherwise empty.  Enemies of Mankind can and do hide in these dark spaces, waiting for a chance to assault worlds left unguarded by layabout or overaggressive Naval officers.  The huge freight convoys that pass between the planets of the Sector band together for protection, even when the Navy is present to protect them.  Often, Rogue Trader and Free Captain ships and even Explorators join up in these convoys, turning them from potential targets to impromptu warfleets.
The Navy has responsibility for neutralizing slaver and raider ships that threaten the Imperium’s citizens and military, and for ensuring the safety of the systems that can’t protect themselves.  The Navy also maintains a number of deep space anchorages and sensor platforms that collect information and supplies for naval deployments.  Some Imperial Sectors, including Cloudburst, operate Naval Intelligence as its own sub-department of the Munitorum command elements for their jurisdiction.  This responsibility usually falls to a junior flag officer who has shown more of a knack for desk work than field command.

In the case of the Battlefleet Cloudburst, both it and Battlefleet Celeste headquarter with the Cloudburst Departmento Synopticon, the general military intelligence branch of the Imperium, alongside the Templars Psykologis and Logis Strategos.  Their command structure, in which jurisdictional battles fought with impeccable handwriting and polite requisitions are as bloody as a Waaagh!, resides in the sprawling Stormwell Station, a monstrous space station that hangs high in orbit above the capital moon.  The Imperial Navy Intelligence office specifically stages nearby, which causes their own jurisdictional squabbles.  With the anchorages of the system scattered broadly to allow the Guard staging areas for long deployments, the Celeste system itself is quite secure, and so the Navy is free to range broadly across the Subsector.  Other Subsectors enjoy noticeably less protection, save Delving Subsector, which the Blue Daggers help patrol, and Subsector Cognomen, which the Basilikon Astra Cognomen patrols.

As the sole provider of non-transhuman aerospace forces for the defense of Cloudburst, the Imperial Navy in Cloudburst often deploys transports and carriers packed with gunships and bombers, fighters and shuttles for the use of accompanying ground troops, in accordance with the strictures of Roboute Guilliman.  Eleven thousand years of war have passed since the end of the Heresy, but that law the Navy still obeys.

=== Dispatch ===

The presence of multiple deep-space bomber factories in two Subsectors, Delving and Cognomen, have allowed Battlefleet Cloudburst to field full bays of Marauders and Starhawks on their warships.  This ensures that the Navy can provide strategic air options to Imperial Commanders fighting off the Glasian hordes, so long as their transports can actually get there.  Because of the relative isolation of the Sector, and the relatively recent nature of its threat, the Cloudburst Sector has only had the means and need to build heavy capital ships for a few centuries.  The cloud of distrust under which the Cloudburst Mechanicus operates in the eyes of Mars has only very slowly cleared, and time will tell if the Cloudburst Sector shall one day be as well-equipped as their older counterparts.

The lack of vessels heavier than a Cruiser in the Septiim system is a noted and increasingly loud complaint from the SDF and the Blue Daggers.  Why, they ask, is the Navy unwilling to lend any more firepower to the defense of a regional powerhouse like Septiim, especially given how the Glasians are guaranteed to attack it?  The answer is that the Navy of the Cloudburst Sector is highly overstressed.  The sector has relatively few systems to defend; however, given its sheer size, the absolute volume of territory that needs protection, and the regular losses it suffers from extragalactic incursions, circumstances add up to rapid force depletion.  Building massive battleships is expensive, especially in a sector with so few Forge World quality shipyards, and while the Septiim system is easily worth defending, so too are dozens of others.  Two Retribution battleships are under construction at the Cognomen shipyards, but their time to completion can be measured in decades.  In the interim, two Grand Cruisers of different models (Avenger and Furious) are also under construction, and will launch in one year.

Battlefleet Cloudburst had little active campaigning to do prior to the beginning of the Glasian incursions.  This is not to say that they were idle, far from it.  Their confrontations with Orks and pirates, both endemic to the region to some extent, allowed them at least to maintain a reasonably experienced officer corps.  All of that changed with the arrival of the Glasian menace.  Now, the local Navy accepts the requests of Battlefleet Ultima for support only during those times that the Glasians are not forthcoming, and desperately raids any and all pirate or otherwise uncommitted forces for their shipbuilding capabilities.  They have had very little success in this.  Aside from one or two Raiders captured from pirates and a single, barely-functional Gorlock class pre-fabricated ship cradle captured from the same pirates, the Sector Navy has had no luck in expanding their forces through offensive action.  Battlefleet Rampart has had more luck.  Although they have managed to push the limited Chaotic presence in the region back even further, the Navy is totally reliant on the Mechanicus to expand the Navy flotilla now, and both Cognomen and Cloudburst know it.  Mutual defense priorities demand that they co-operate, for now, and this is perhaps the reason that neither faction is keen in reporting the less-than-perfect adherence the other has to strict Imperial protocol.  This has also resulted in some SDFs in Cloudburst being far stronger than the Imperial Navy contingents in their home systems, which is not always without acrimony on the Navy’s part.  How, they ask, can the Navy keep up with the demands of the local systems if their SDFs gobble up all the new ships?

There are immense opportunities for a Rogue Trader or Imperial Privateer in the Cloudburst Sector in this regard.  The taking of worlds is all well and good, but the Cloudburst defenses are stretched as it is.  The acquisition of new ships or shipyards would allow the Navy to expand their defensive and construction abilities.  This is especially of interest to Rogue Traders Missionary, and the occasional Proselytizer fleet of the Ecclesiarchy.  The Adeptus Ministorum is fully aware of the threat of the Glasians at its higher levels.  They demand that the humans of the Circuit, whether left over from pre-Imperial colonization efforts or colonists from the modern Imperium, be extended the protection of the Holy Armada, so that they may be free of the menace of the Glasians.  Any attempts to capture more ships or modular shipyards for the Imperium would meet with active Ecclesiarchal support, for however little that might be worth.


For the purposes of patrolling the Oldlight Exo-zone, the only real options are [[Setting:Cloudburst/Rampart|Rampart]] in the north and [[Setting:Cloudburst/Maxient|Port Maxient]] in the center of the border region.  Most military officers prefer Rampart for its local defenses and more co-operative Adeptus Mechanicus personnel.

=== Unique Territory and Ships ===

As with many Sectors that border regions of space that contain large numbers of hostiles, the Cloudburst Imperial Navy enjoys a few rare models of starships, made locally to suit local needs.  These ships are the Mangonel light cruiser and the Peregrine recon bomber.  These are manufactured at the Hapster and Thimble yards, and their success has pressured the Cognomen shipyards to accept their template.  However, Cognomen is quite aware of the scrutiny of Mars towards their custom design of Dreadnought, and so are very carefully examining the ship models before they risk adopting them.
The Mangonel is based loosely on the Endeavour series of light cruisers, with an emphasis on armor over firepower.  Its ability to keep up with ships with far lighter guns and armor means that it makes a decent command vessel for Rogue Trader expeditions, as well.  However, the ship not being on the list of Mars-approved designs means that it is not easy to replace, and it is far less heat-efficient than its progenitor.  It is classified as a Pursuit Cruiser similar to the Punisher model used by the Arbites, since it focuses on straightforward engine power and armor instead of guns.  They have a relatively small crew complement, but their purpose is not slugging it out with ships of equivalent tonnage, it is catching and crippling ships of lesser tonnage.

The Peregrine is a recon bomber, one somewhere between the sizes of the Starhawk and Marauder.  The origins of the template stem from an attempt to expand the capability of Explorator and Rogue Trader ships to engage moving targets of greater than Escort size in the murk and radiation of the Cloudburst Circuit.  The hot gasses and unpredictable swirls of rock make it challenging for small ships like bombers to accurately target moving objects in the flurry of battle.  Thus, using the hull of a simple cargo shuttle since airflow isn’t a concern, the Rogue Traders responsible for the ship created a recon bomber with the payload of a Marauder, the sensor capability of a Starhawk, the long-range travel capabilities of an Aquila, and the close-in point defense of a Bratan.  Bristling with radar and LADAR pods and carrying enough rapid-fire energy weapons to shoot down a corvette-weight torpedo, the Peregrine can detect moving objects by a vast number of means: optical, LADAR, radiation emission, vibration, metal content, thermal, even a very limited artificial gravity sensor system.  Just like the sensors of the larger Claymore and Viper ships, the Peregrine is able to detect vessels moving far beyond its actual ability to engage them, and employs a variety of engine types to get close enough to unleash its plasma bomb payload.  It has a few simple ionic vacuum engines to travel like all Imperial bombers, as well as two small chemical rockets to provide emergency boosts to speed or enhance evasion or braking.  Its interior is cramped but serviceable for a crew of four: a pilot, a primary gunner, a defense gunner, and a payload technician who doubles as a comms officer.

=== Battlefleet Cloudburst ===

The flagship of the fleet is an Apocalypse, but it is not stock.  The ship, an Anvilus-built battleship, is a former test bed of the Navy.  Named the ''Vulpes Ferrum'', the ship appears stock from a distance, but closer inspection reveals a few small changes to its forward, ventral, and rear areas.  The armor around the engine nozzles is thicker, and the nozzles themselves longer.  The fighter bay has thicker armor around it as well, and the armored prow sports two extra frigate-weight fore-firing turbolasers.  The interior is more heavily modified.  The Navy sought to minimize the size of internal components whenever possible to increase carrying capacity, and also added four Lightning interceptors to the ship’s contingent, but the Mechanicus struck their test down as being too close to the crime of innovation, and so only one vessel was given the modifications.  Segmentum Command shunted it off into a backwater sector in M40, out of the way of potential embarrassments of the Navy.  The Navy of Cloudburst couldn’t care less about the Segmentum Battlefleet’s embarrassment, however, and gladly received the upgraded ship as their new flag-carrier.  Because of the widely-distributed nature of the Battlefleet Cloudburst, its supreme command never changes, and is always the office of the Lord Admiral on the ''Vulpes Ferrum''.  When Lord Admiral Maynard does need to station himself somewhere immobile, his preference is for the Coriolis anchorages, or those of Cloudburst itself.

=== Uniforms and Firearms ===

The standard Imperial Navy duty uniform is a very dark blue set of non-camouflaged fatigues with a black work cap, both bearing the Imperial Aquila in white and the Cloudburst Icon in muted grey.  The dress uniform is a light blue formal jacket, suit shirt, pants, and beret, with the belt buckle, the breast pockets, and the beret front all bearing the Seal of the Holy Navy.  Navy Special Forces use layered, matte-black combat uniforms or camouflage under camo carapace armor.  The duty weapons of ship crewers consist only of a ceremonial knife, while sailors who wish to purchase a sidearm from the Adeptus Mechanicus may do so.  In combat, such as counter-boarding actions, the Navy Provosts and Armsmen prefer the use of suppressed Ocelot PDWs, Razor rifles, Imperial Guard lasrifles, and Hawkswood shotguns, all manufactured under exclusive contract with either Cognomen (for the rifles) or Hapster (for the other guns).

=== Ship Contingent ===

As part of the fleet’s typical combat deployment, each squadron of fighters or bombers consists of twelve fighters, divided into flights of four and flight pairs of two.  Each squadron is one of six in a wing, except in the case of those heavier capital ships that have eighty-five fighters.  In those cases, the remainder of the wing constitute one supersquadron that usually serves as mobile reinforcements for other squadrons in the engagement.

The majority of new ships in any given Cloudburst manufacturing allotment are assigned to the defense of the Sector’s worlds from the endemic pirates and centennial Glasian incursions.  Septiim’s fleet allotment is listed separately, since their contingent rarely leaves.  Generally, given how decentralized the Cloudburst armada is, the individual Subsector Battlefleets are rolled into the Battlefleet Cloudburst contingent.  Exceptions will be noted specifically, as is the permanent [[Setting:Cloudburst/Septiim#Local_Imperial_Navy|Septiim Economic Zone fleet]].

Battlefleet Cloudburst Contingent: Flag vessel Apocalypse battleship, one Retribution battleship, one Emperor battleship, one Avenger grand cruiser, two Exorcist grand cruisers, one Vengeance grand cruiser, three Mars battlecruisers, four Overlord battlecruisers, one Mercury battlecruiser, nine Dictator cruiser-carriers, seven Dominator cruisers, eleven Gothic cruisers, twenty Lunar cruisers, two Tyrant cruisers, twelve Dauntless light cruisers, two Defiant light cruisers, three Endeavour light cruisers, one Endurance light cruiser, four Mangonel pursuit cruisers, one Enforcer system control cruiser, six Defender escort cruisers, one Turbulent heavy frigate, forty-four Sword frigates, nine Firestorm frigates, two Infidel raiders (captured), one Falchion escort frigate, thirty Havoc merchant raiders, forty-eight Claymore corvettes, thirty-six Cobra destroyers, eleven Viper missile destroyers, nine Escort Carriers, twelve Fast Clippers (courier variant), nine Fast Clippers (transport variant)

Battlefleet Rampart Contingent: Flag vessel Mercury battlecruiser, one Armageddon battlecruiser, one Dictator cruiser-carrier, two Gothic cruisers, four Luna cruisers, four Dauntless light cruisers, one Endeavour light cruiser, one Endurance light cruiser, one Dauntless light cruiser, six Sword frigates, two Firestorm frigates, three Infidel raiders (captured), five Havoc merchant raiders, seven Claymore corvettes, four Cobra destroyers, three Viper missile destroyers, four Fast Clippers (courier variant)

Battlefleet Hapster Contingent: Flag vessel Avenger grand cruiser, one Mars battlecruiser, two Dictator cruiser-carriers, three Gothic cruisers, three Luna cruisers, five Dauntless light cruisers, two Endeavour light cruisers, two Endurance light cruisers, nine Sword frigates, two Firestorm frigates, eight Claymore corvettes, five Cobra destroyers, eight Viper missile destroyers, seventeen Fast Clippers (courier variant)