All Combat Fleets,Whether they be Seafaring or Spacefaring, Rely heavily on their Supply Chains; Without Ammunition, Fuel, Food, and Other Vital Supplies, Ships are pretty much useless in War, For they can't just run back to Port whenever They run out of Something.
This is A Fact The Colonial Fleet almost found out The Hard Way in The First Cylon War; To keep Colonial Military Vessels supplied with Everything They needed to keep The Cylons at bay, Numerous Civilan Cargo Ships were pressed into Service to support the War Effort.
Sadly, Too Many of These Commercial Ships were not Designed, Much less built, to operate in or near Combat Zones; Many were lost, along with Their Civilian Crews.
The Colonial Minisrty of Defense ordered the Design and Construction of Specialist Military Cargo Freighters that would be able to Support Military Vessels with Vital Supplies and be able to operate near Combat Zones.
By Combining A Huge Cargo Carrying Capability with The Limited Armor of A Battlestar, Leonis Shipbuilding Ltd. presented the Demeter Class ReplenishmentstarThe Demeter Class,Named for The Godess of The Harvest, Has The Capacity to supply an Entire Battlegroup for One Standard Year; It has Storgage for both Perishables and Non-Perishables, And A Vast Loading Dock with Eight Large Cargo Doors; It also has an Expanded Topside Flight Deck,Meaning She can supply Multiple Ships at once using Multiple Modes of Transfer; At the Stern are Four Large Tanks for transferring Potable Water:
The Bow and Engine Sections are Modules from the Valkyrie 2/Posiedon Class Battlestars,Of which Thousands have been constructed to Build and Modify Various Military Vessels of All Types, Some for Combat, Others for Special Support Roles; These Ships have A Limited Weapons Capability strictly for Self-Defense.
In Combat Situations, A Replenishmentstar,Along with The Fleet's Other Support Vessels, Would hang back out of A Combat Zone,Protected by either Corvettes or Viper Squadrons,While the Combat Ships Conduct Operations.
The Design of The Demeter Class was So Impressive, A Non Armed Freighter Version for The Civilian Market was in development.Some Demeter Class Replenishmentstars were to be Assigned to Major Fleets/Battlegroups,While Others were to Operate Independently to supply Individual Military Ships Operating in Certain Sectors.
THE CLASS:
The Standard Compliment of The Replenishmentstar is about 3,500 Personel and an Expanded Detachment of Colonial Marines.
The Propusion Systems are One FTL Drive, Six Sublight Engines which are Enhanced with More Powerful Components to help move that kind of Bulk,And Extra Thrusters, Including 16 Lift Thrusters on The Bottom to Help the Ships Ingress/Egress to/from Ground Based Port FacilitiesStandard Self -Defense:
28 KEW Turets
250 Point Defense Guns
2 Ship/Ship Missile Batteries
Plus Full ECM Suite
Auxilliariy Ships:
30 Standard Shuttles and 2 Raptor Detachments20 Demeter Class Ships were Planned,With The Option for More,And the Possible Civilian Verson; Eight Wre Built and Three were Under Construction at the Time of The Second Cylon Invasion .
SHIPS IN SERVICE/STATUS:
Demeter (RPLR-550) Was Originally to be Assigned to BSG-75 before the Announcement of the Decommissioning of Battlestar Galactica; The Demeter's Last Known Location was on Gemenon,Attempting to Evacuate Survivors.
STATUS: Unknown
Themiscyra (RPLR-556) Raven Battle Group. STATUS: Unknown/PresumedActive
Nike (RPLR-592) BSG-44, Fifth Fleet STATUS: Unknown/Presumed Active
Hera(RPLR-570) WSG-05, Fifth Fleet STATUS: Unknown/Presumed Active
Cassiopea(RPLR-575) BSG-01, First Fleet STATUS: Destroyed at Picon
Andromeda (RPLR-576) Third Fleet STATUS: Unknown
Zehuti (RPLR-577) Seventh Fleet STATUS: Unknown
Sephora (RPLR-578) BSG-200 STATUS: Reported Destroyed
THE MODEL:
If The Center Secton of the Ship looks Familiar, It Should; It's Part of MPC's 1/48 Scale Eagle One Transporter from 'Space 1999'; After Looking at all other Ship Designs,Along with Models Avaliable on the Market, I figured this would be The Best Place to start.
Basically, I built the Center Section, Without the extra equipment, And Added Resin Bow and Engine Sections of the Valkyrie2/Posiedon Battlestar supplied by Mel Kraley at Starfighter Shipyards; Then, I covered The Body with Evergreen #4530 Metal Siding, Then Evergreen Strips...LOTS of Theml; Then The MPC Kit gave me the Water Tanks at the Rear, Added Plastruct 1/4 Open Truss Secrions above the Cargo Doors; The MPC Kit gave me A Few Extras here and there; Spare Pegasus Flight Deck Decals, Gun Turrets from The Spares Box;Finally, Name Decals from Downen Scale Replicas added the Final Touch; All Painting and Weathering was done with Acrylics.
All in All, It turned out better and faster than I had anticipated; I Intend to build Two More for My 5th Fleet; And Three of the Smaller 1/72 Scale MPC Eagle Ones will be Munitionstars.
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