Editing Imperial Navy (section)

=== [[Imperial Navy Escort|Escort ships]] ===

Escorts are the smallest armed vessels available to the Imperial Navy. These ships are normally assigned sector patrol duties or perform as escorts for much larger ships. In fleet engagements they will also act as scouts, ranging out in front of their armada to verify enemy ship numbers and locations. They are generally classified as either frigates or as destroyers. They are usually deployed in squadrons consisting of the same class.

==== Frigates ====

Ranging from about 1.4-2km long. They are used for all sorts of duties from convoy escorts to attack or patrol squadrons. Ironically named, as in real life Frigates were the same as Cruisers (which were not Ships of the Line). In the Age of Sail. But in WW2, cruisers had like six or eight times the armament and were more than twice the size of frigates and were self-sufficient and were intended to fight other ships and were considered capital ships. Usually deployed in three-ship squadrons. 
*'''Basic:''' Laser batteries or Light Macrobatteries only, maybe some Torpedoes if you're lucky. Named after types of swords.
**'''Sword Frigate:''' The most common warship in the Imperial Navy, and one of the simplest. No torpedoes or lances to distract you here; a Sword puts two massive laser batteries in turrets behind a pointed armored prow and cuts into enemy formations like [[C.S Goto|a multi-laser through canon.]]. Some variants replace the lasers with light macro batteries instead.
**'''Falchion Frigate:''' A new (245 years old) class of escort ship built by [[Forgeworld|Voss Prime]]. Slower than the Cobra (in the lore they were faster than invading Chaos ships, though) but still capable of firing torpedoes. While Cobras are used offensively in fleet actions, Falchion's are designed to be convoy escorts and stick close to larger warships to defend them from enemy escorts. Effectively a Voss-pattern Cobra with two more laser/macro batteries. 
**'''Turbulent Heavy Frigate:''' Heavy Naval Escorts; these things have comparable armour to cruisers. They're built to sally forth ahead of the main fleet and win skirmishes against enemy scouting forces and vanguard elements. They've garnered a reputation for being lucky; they've contributed to many glorious victories and survived catastrophes that other ship classes have not. Their only downside is that they have rather antiquated communication equipment, probably equipped for durability, not ease of use. The other downside is that the Navy isn’t smart enough to replace the Sword-class with these badasses.
*'''Lance-boat:''' Rarer for Frigates, as they need a Prow slot to mount a Lance.
**'''Firestorm Frigate:''' A Sword-class frigate with a prow-mounted Lance replacing one laser/macro battery. Gives the Sword some extra anti-ship punch that it dearly needs. It's also two hundred meters longer than the Sword-class as a result. The Navy does not like the Marines having them, for [[Horus Heresy|some reason.]]
***[[Derp|Given the general naming scheme for Frigate classes is naming them after weapons (Claymore, Sword, Falchion, Gladius etc), the Firestorm would make more sense being called the ''Lance''-class due to its role.]]
**'''Thunderbolt Heavy Frigate:''' Not much information on this one, but implied to be a Lance version of the Turbulent, like how the Firestorm is the Lance version of the Sword.
*'''Ordnance-boat:''' Mostly upgunned Frigates. Can carry a mix of macrobatteries and small lances.
**'''Tempest Strike Frigate:''' Specialized Brawling frigate designed for devastating enemies at close range. Basically a Sword with a triple armoured prow and heavy short-range broadside batteries. They're often equipped with Assault Boats and Barracks for boarding actions.
**'''Havoc Merchant Raider:''' Small, yet fast raider sized vessels whose impressive firepower came at the expense of armor. Glass Cannons, in large squadrons these can easily overwhelm larger vessels by weight of fire. Supposedly has large storage space for its size. Which makes sense for something meant for piracy.

==== Destroyers ====

The most common warship class. Their tasks range from scouting to shuttling VIPs or fighting in fleet engagements in large squadrons. Most pirates use these speedy, nimble vessels to prey upon transport ships. The Navy usually deploys them in squadrons of four. Instead of a WWII or modern analogue, the destroyers of the Imperial Navy are like those of the First World War: ocean-capable torpedo boats that swarm enemy ships.
*'''Basic:''' Usually mounts Prow Torpedoes and a Macrobattery/Laser.
**'''Cobra Destroyer:''' The PT-Boats of the Imperial Navy. Small, fast, and lightly armed, their one purpose in life is to fire shoals of torpedoes from 3-4 ship squadrons. A great part of the Imperium's military advantage (in fluff and [[Battlefleet Gothic|on the tabletop]]) comes from all the torpedoes they can fire at the enemy, and the Cobras are a big part of that.
**'''Infidel Raider:''' Was meant to replace the Cobra, but the plans [[Blood Ravens|were stolen]] by Chaos. Armed with Prow Torpedos and a Macrobattery like its predecessor, though some Chaos fleets upgrade them to Heavy Raiders by adding another Macrobattery. The Falchion was developed from the redevelopment. Both ships are almost twice the size of the Cobra they are meant to replace. Guess someone realized PT boats aren’t that useful if your extremely long-ranged and fast enemy just slaughters them.
**'''Iconoclast Destroyer:''' If there ever was a Guardsman of starships, the Iconoclast is it. A destroyer so shitty the Navy doesn't want it, the Iconoclast mounts 1-2 macrobatteries and is used by Rogue Traders, Chaos and Pirates. Notable for being one of the few ships to have a forward placed bridge, likely due to the smoke-stack like pylons along its spine. It actually has good firepower for its size and is effective at killing enemy attack craft, torpedoes, and destroyers. So, not actually shitty at all until a Sword shows up to kill everyone.
*'''Torpedo-boat:''' Why waste space on pop guns?
**'''Viper Destroyer:''' Given GW's naming conventions, it was inevitable somebody would do this. Not to be confused with the Sloop below, this is a variant of the Cobra where the remaining guns are replaced by torpedoes. Weak against escorts but deadly in numbers against capital ships. Use [[Boarding Torpedo|Boarding Torpedoes]] for hilarious results. Since a Cobra has one gun and it’s useless, we can only assume either Tzeench or self-lobotomy was involved when the navy decided to focus on the Cobra instead of the Viper.
*'''Lance-boat:''' Rather rare among Raiders, as most use their Prow slots for Torpedoes.
**'''Apostate Heavy Raider:''' A variant of the Infidel. Somehow those heretics managed to shove a full sized Lance into a Dorsal slot, which only Light Cruiser and bigger can normally manage.
**'''Idolator Raider:''' Also known as the "WTF is this" ship, the Idolator is the lovechild of a Infidel, a Firestorm and Xenotech. Has a prow lance and a macrobattery.
*'''Other:''' Mostly weak scouts.
**'''Viper Scout Sloop:''' Smallest warp-capable ship in mass production. It is an exceedingly fast scout ship with ridiculously powerful realspace engines and high-tech auspex scanners. In support of Naval Operations these vessels would burn into enemy territory at high speed, collect as much information as possible and then warp back to friendly territory. Unfortunately they are so specialized that they can't do much else apart from that.
**'''Rudense "Class":''' A small ship designed post Gathering Storm to be as fast, heavily armed, and densely armoured as possible, which they do with aplomb. You may ask yourselves, why are they not used in more regular combat roles? Well, the answer is that they are a specialised orbital insertion ship - designed to get as close to the atmosphere of a heavily defended planet as possible, drop it's cargo of primaris marines into the top layer, and get out of there. Whilst this may seem too specialised to be practical, few enemies are ready for half a company of marines dropping in to their base unexpectedly. (Nb - the class hasn't been formally named yet but the only example of it thus far was named the Rudense).
**'''Claymore Corvette:''' Designed entirely around escorting vulnerable transports and protecting them against light raiders in order to allow true Frigates to accompany more valuable ships such as Battleships, Battlecruisers and Cruisers. The Claymore Corvettes are easy to mass produce and maintain and are exceedingly common in the private sector, as they are simply a discount Sword. It’d be nice if someone bothered using them to protect troop transports.