Designation: Valivarre Class Super Dimensional Battleship (SBB).

Names and disposition:

These ships were built at the Robotech Factory Satellite and in the Luna base shipyard. Their names are written with the 'UES' prefix.

Ship's complement:

• Ships' crew (1,879 men),
• One mechanized division (5,350 men) (not always assigned),
• Air group (1,800 men),
• Life support limits are for a full combat complement and about 5,000 supernumaries (13,000 men total).

Dimensions:

Length:	1391 m (main hull).
Height:	239 m (main hull),	367 m (over all).
Width :	180 m (main hull),	312 m (over all).
Mass :	14,250,000 metric tons, operational (typical).
Fuel Mass :	1,500,000 metric tons, maximum (typical)

Propulsion systems:

• Main power system: RRG mk9 protoculture-fueled Reflex furnace cluster. The powerplant of the Valivarre-class vessel can deliver up to 30.8 Petawatts of power, and can operate for ninety-four minutes at maximum power before overheat initiates autoshutdown.
• Maneuvering Thrusters (8): Fusion-plasma reaction thruster clusters mounted on the main hull; located on the ventral, dorsal and sides on one third and two third the length of the main hull. Auxiliary thrusters are located on the side bodies.
• Reaction-mass Thrusters (1): Energica SIHF-02 Fusion-Plasma Reaction Thruster with protoculture energizer, mounted in the rear of the main hull. Due to the modular design of this engine, and its ability to function partially, no secondary engines are mounted.
• Anti-gravity System (1): 21 RRG Starturtle anti-gravity pods.
• Space Fold (1): RRG Mk3b spacefold, later upgraded to a Mk3h spacefold.
• Planetary Capabilities: The Valivarre-class has atmospheric capabilities through its reaction thrusters and anti-gravity system. The ships' lower body has sufficient strength to let the ship land on it, although the landing ground should be as firm as possible (granite is recommended). The ship would float in an ocean, and this is the preferred method of landing.

Endurance and mobility limits:

• The dry stores endurance is limited to about 8 years with a full crew complement. The on-board life support and recycling system is based on a smaller version of that of the Macross-class, and the extensive recycling installations ensure that only incidental biomass losses need to be replenished. Water stores are recycled almost completely. The hydroponics installations on board provide the crew with a steady supply of fresh foods, and some is exported to smaller ships in the fleet.
• The mecha consumables supplies (missiles mainly) are reasonably extensive, and can sustain continuous combat operations for over twenty days against the Invid. However, a battle against Zentraedi or other like forces with a capital ship capability will swiftly drain the stores of anti-ship missiles, as these are not usually carried in very large numbers.
  The ship launched missile magazines should suffice for two large battles or three or more skirmishes.
  The ground troops embarked can be supplied for twelve days of sustained combat.
• The Reflex furnace can function for about 35 years at normal usage levels before an energizer rebuild was necessary.
• At full power, the main propulsion systems can produce up to 391 Giganewtons of thrust at a minimal reaction mass efficiency profile, or as little as 13.5 Giganewtons of thrust at a maximum efficiency setting. At lower power levels, these thrusts are commensurately smaller.
• At full power, the Valivarre-class can achieve a maximum delta-v of 193 kps at the cruising acceleration of 0.1 gees, a maximum delta-v of 38.4 kps at the battle acceleration of 1.0 gees, and a delta-v of at most 10.8 kps at the flank acceleration of 2.5 gees. At lower power levels, these ranges are commensurately smaller.
• The fold systems are not navigationally guaranteed for any single jump beyond 10 kiloparsecs. If longer voyages are required, the ships have to conduct multiple fold jumps.
• The maximum sustained atmospheric speed is limited to Mach 3. A higher speed can be attained while accelerating to orbit, or in emergencies, but this stresses the engines to above their sustainable heat tolerances. The maximum hover time on the anti-gravity systems is limited only by the protoculture supplies and maintenance requirements.

Weapon systems:

• RRG Reflex Cannon Mk.4 (1): As in Zentraedi Monitors, the front section of the Valivarres is formed by the booms of the main battery. In order to fire, the cannons open vertically, the beam being generated between the two booms. The effects of this weapon against planets equals the heat and blast effects of the detonation of fusion weapons of 50 MT, if fired at full power. If utilized against starships, the largest vessels can be destroyed with the leakage of the beam. A direct hit will vaporize the target vessel. The weapon can also be set to a wider dispersal. In this setting, it is capable of clearing a wide area of fighters and other mecha, although starships in this area will only be blinded. The cannon has an effective range of 300,000 km. The capacitors for the cannon can be recharged to full power in 55 to 60 seconds.
• Krupp MBPC-2 heavy particle beam (5): A heavy weapon firing 2.5 TJ of particle energy per shot, equivalent to approximately 500 tons of TNT, out to an effective range of 300,000 km. Capacitors can charge and fire each weapon six times per minute at maximum capacity.
  One of these cannons is mounted in a 'chin' mount behind conformal covers in the lower bow halve, one in the dorsal cannon boom, two in the 'elbow' links to the outriggers, and one is located on the forward ventral, in front of the bridge. Unlike the cannons mounted on the Seron Thoun, these large particle beams resembled the more advanced weapons of the Macross-class in design and firepower.
• RRG LT-15 Double Laser Turret (20): Installed in a low lying turret, this double barreled weapon has an effective range of 300,000 km, and delivers 1,500 MJ of laser energy every two seconds at the highest rate of fire.
  Ten of these turrets were mounted forward in the main battery booms, the other ten were dispersed over the other hull areas.
• PL-2a Point Defense turrets (12): Mounted behind movable panels in the upper main hull (8) and the side bodies (4), these standard REF weapons can fire 56 MJ of particle energy four times per second.
• VLR-1 Skylord rocket launch tubes (8): Mounted to fire a rocket horizontally away from the cannon boom. These launchers fire the SLBM sized Skylord, a rocket with a special 3 MT nuclear fusion warhead that accelerates at 10 g throughout its flight and has a delta-v of 8 kps. A conventional warhead is also available. Each launcher has sixteen rockets in the ready magazine.
• Mk. 253 Missile Launchers (8): A launcher with 10 individual launch silos. The silos each contain 6 ready missiles in a rotating mechanism, which can reload while firing. The ready magazines store 400 missiles per launcher. These launchers typically fire Warhawk and Spacehawk missiles. Typical warheads are anti-mecha cluster munitions, nuclear reaction anti-warship and nuclear reaction re-entry capable weapons.
  Four launchers are located near the engine, the other four in the bow.

Air group and mecha complement:

See Naval air group compositions for a detailed summation.

Aerospace forces

• 450 veritech fighters and space fighters,
• Three combined squadrons wit 36 AEW planes, reconnaissance planes and couriers, and two transport squadrons with 24 shuttles of diverse design.

Ground forces mecha (if embarked):

• 210 Destroids (various types).

Electronics and major subsystems:

• DS-2 Barrier Defense System: An advanced forcefield system which covers the full four pi steradians around the ship with a yellow-greenish forcefield (or if desired, only part of the ship). This field will stop all solids and directed energy weapons (except lasers through a narrow band). However, excess energy which cannot be shunted from the field will be stored in the virtual structure of the field itself. The storage wattage is high but not infinite, and when the barrier overloads the field will discharge the stored energy particles. This discharge will have the force of a high-yield (>45 MT) fusion bomb. However, as the discharged energetic particles' vectors will be away from the field and its generating vessel, the vessel will survive, though it will suffer severe damage to its internal electronics and power systems, and will not be battleworthy until repairs are made.
• DS-1 Pinpoint Barrier Defense System: A smaller system which uses four movable disks of forcefield, conformal to the ship's surface, to repel light torpedo attacks, or particle beam fire. It serves as a back up to the DS-2 system.

Design Notes:

The Valivarre class appears at first sight to be a mixture of the SDF-3, a Nupetiet-Vergnitz Flagship and a Rineunadou Lojmeuean Monitor. The class is however modeled on the Seron Thoun class, a Border Fleet design built by the Robotech Empire from C.E. 1730 onwards.

The general hull form resembles that of the Zentraedi Flagship class, though it is of course far smaller. The aft section mounts an engine of the same modular design philosophy as the one mounted in the Flagship. Forward of the engine is the center part of the hull, with a command citadel (virtually identical to the citadel on the SDF-3) on top. To the sides are the two shoulders which mount the side bodies. Forward of the center section is the Reflex Cannon, which forms the foremost part of the ship. The main cannon has about the same firepower as the original Seron Thoun version, but incorporates many newer technologies first seen on the SDF-1 and is in fact more reliable than the original design, as well as smaller in size which frees up internal volume for other uses.

The two side bodies are, as in the original Border Fleet design, devoted to sensor installations. Each side body mounts four large 'horn' antenna and numerous sensor blisters. These sensors form the FTL sensor suite of the ship, capable of detecting folds within 20 to 30 lightyears. Also, the side bodies protect the engine and central sections from incoming broadside fire. In addition to the side bodies, three large sensor horns are mounted on the nose, and two large disk-shaped EM sensors are mounted on the lower ventral hull.

Internally, the Valivarre class is radically different from its Zentraedi template. As all former Zentraedi in the Earth forces are micronized, the internal arrangements of the class are redesigned to cater to the micronian size of its crew, and the smaller size of their mecha. Also, the technological level of the ships' systems is on par with that of the Sian Macross design, which is almost 200 years more advanced. As a result of the smaller size of many systems, there is room for an additional heavy cannon in the nose of the ship, and the consumable supplies are relatively larger as well. In addition, a high standard of comfort has been achieved in the crew quarters.

The aft section of the ship is the engineering area with the main engines, Reflex furnaces and the fold system. Centrally located in the ship are the administrative offices and the crew quarters, while the ship is directed from the command citadel. The forward part of the ship houses most of the heavy armaments and most of the mecha.

History:

The Valivarre class was designed in 2015 as emergency program capital ships that could be built in less time than it took to complete a new Macross or Pioneer class battlefortress. The requirement for fast available capital ships was prompted by the destruction of the SDF-1 Macross and the SDF-2 Odyssey, at a moment when Earth's capital ship building capacity was still limited and the Robotech Factory Satellite in a dilapidated state.

Rather than embarking on a crash program to built more Macross class fortresses, the RDF Spacy decided to design a smaller, reflex-cannon equipped vessel that could be built faster in the specialized Lunar construction dock that had built the SDF-2 Odyssey as well as in the less advanced yards that were producing the Tokugawa class space carriers. Although this delayed the construction of what would eventually become the SDF-3 Pioneer, the result was a more numerous (and less irreplaceable) class of battleships that was capable of almost all functions required of a full-scale battlefortress at only 80% of the mass and in 70% of the building time.

To cut down on the design effort, the Spacy design bureaus looked for suitable hull and engine designs it could copy in the archives of the Robotech Factory Satellite and there stumbled on the Seron Thoun class of Border Fleet battlecruiser. This design fit the required size and mass requirements and was swiftly adopted. After some deliberation, the RDF decided to built the ships with as much visual similarity to the Seron Thoun as it could. In this way, identifying these vessels as hostiles by remaining Zentraedi the expedition encountered was delayed for some moments. This idea was subsequently used on the design for the SDF-3 Pioneer as well, which ended up designed to resemble a larger Border Fleet monitor.

Five ships of the Valivarre class were commissioned between 2016 and 2021. The first of the class was named after Tirol's star, to commemorate the long search for that system then underway, and the other ships were named after prominent stars in the Earth skies. From 2017 to 2029 the class was in the forefront of the search efforts, often forming the heavy core of a Space Action Group. During such actions, the Antares was destroyed in 2023, and the Aldebaran in 2025. The three surviving ships fought on until 2028, when the Spica and the Valivarre engaged a heavy enemy force which destroyed the Spica outright and crippled the FTL capability of the Valivarre. The damage to the name ship of the class was so severe that complete repair was considered uneconomical and the Valivarre became the flagship of the guard fleet for Space Station Equality, the former Robotech Factory Satellite. In 2030 the REF returned to Earth to defend against the Robotech Masters; however, the squadron containing the final remaining battleship, Polaris, didn't defold over Earth until the fighting was over. The Polaris remained in the Earth system and survived the intial Invid Invasion, but was destroyed a few months later while covering a REF counter-invasion.

After the war, the Tirolian Republican Navy adopted this design. The result is the Nairok class, half-sisters of the Valivarre, named after Tirolian colonial stars. They are best described as a 'Valivarre with an Ikazuchi look', as the exterior hull design is Terran in concept, rather than the blistering shapes favored by the Tirolians. Seven ships of this class are now in service, with several more building. The new vessels are named Nairok, Lexa, Enih's, Lodnihp, Dared, and Kirdlab.

See additional design notes.

Return to REF Naval index.

Go to Robotech Reference Guide Home Page.

Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. This document is in no way intended to infringe upon their rights.
Graphics courtesy of Alex Fauth.