Westray-Class Landing Helicopter Dock

The Westray-Class Landing Helicopter Dock is a class of Landing Helicopter Dock currently in service in the Imperial Union. Designed in tandem with the Windsteer-Class Landing Helicopter Dock, the Westray-Class offers increased tactical and strategic flexibility over the preceding Courageous-Class for the 23rd century naval and air warfare.

Westray-Class LHD Westray-Class Landing Helicopter Dock
Ship
HMS Westray conducts air opreations trial with K-53Bs from the 718 Naval Air Squadron
Role		Amphibious Operations and Support
National Origin		Imperial Union
Production History
Produced
2158 - ongoing
Designer		VAE Shipyards
Unit Cost		400,000(√)
Number Built		3, 7 on order
Service History
In Service
2194 - ongoing
Used By		Imperial Union Imperial Royal Navy
Vessel Characteristics
Displacement		3000 Tons
Length		110 m
Beam		16 m
Height		26 m
Draft		5 m
Propulsion		x4 FROSTON Electro Propulsion
Max Speed		29 kn (14.5 m/s)
Operational Range		1800 km
Complement		330 (30 officers, 300 enlisted)
Sensors and Processing Systems		FROSTON CRYSTAL Block II SIMPSON Radar System
Armament		x1 127mm Naval gun x6 Phalanx CIWS x5 250MW Lazer x64 VLS cells (Strike-length)
Planes Carried		up to 4 K-53B VTOL fighters

Development

Immediately following the government-led "super-merger" of Imperial defence corporations into VAE Shipyards Inc, independent think tanks throughout the empire as well as government-supervised naval committees would outline the need for a sizable naval-procurement program to ease the newly merged corporation into normalcy. As such, the Ministry of Defence and the IRN would launch the Mid-Century LHD Program in early 2155 to supplement the aging Courageous-Class LHDs in service, as well as stimulating and stress-testing various departments of the new corporation.

Internally within VAE, the new program was tasked to 3 of its naval subsidiaries: VSD (Vocavium Shipbuilding Deparment), Abyssal Shipyard Exports and Elnac Engineering. Elnac would drop out of the program within 3 months due to lingering structural issues from the swift merger, controversially leaving VSD and Abyssal as the sole competitors for a program intended to select 2 designs. The situation would become a topic of intense debate and critcism against both the Imperial government for faciltiating a less competitive environment as well as the corporation for selecting only 3 subsidiaries for the program. Due to mounting internal pressure from the IRN and voices of dissent from the national parliament, an Imperial Commission was ordered by the government to closely monitor the two designs in order to ensure the highest possible quality. The scrutinous inspection by the Imperial Commission as well as lingering structural disorganisation from the merger led to signficant delays to the program, but the structural feedback on the merger would allow substantial improvements to be made to greatly enhance cohesion and efficiency within the subsidiaries and VAE management.

With the conclusion of the program in late 2157, the IRN would select both corporations' designs at the conclusion of the program, with the Abyssal Export's design becoming the Westray-Class.

Design

CANBERRA REPLICA

Armament

[idk]