Invincible-class Fast Battleship

The Invincible-class Fast Battleship was the brainchild of Admiral Kisher. Segmentum Tempestus suffers from heretic raiders sliding from the empty space between its far-flung star systems. In particular, Chaos and Eldar large raiding ships were often faster than the escort flotillas of the Tempestus fleet. Kisher dreamed of a ship class that was as fast as a light cruiser but carried the firepower of a battleship. Such a ship, he reasoned, would be capable of swiftly hunting down heretic raiders and then dispatching them equally swiftly with massed long-range firepower. He pressured the Fleet Techmagii until, much against their will, they conceived and developed the fast battleship class. The Techmagii protested in vain that severe compromises were inherent in the class' internal compartmentalisation and back-up redundancy in vital systems, especially the power distribution grid. Kisher brushed aside such pessimism claiming that the fast battleships would be faster than ships that were stronger and stronger ships that were faster. Up to a point the theory worked and the fast battleships won a series of ship-to-ship actions with heretic and xenos cruisers.

The problem was that because they were as large as battleships, were armed like battleships and looked like battleships, tacticians were tempted to use them as battleships. In the battle-line they proved horribly vulnerable; fast battleships could dish it out but not take it. They were like heavyweight boxers with glass jaws. Fast battleships were not popular with fleet officers being known with traditional naval black humour as 'Kisher's Kombustibles'. Fifteen of the class were ordered but only ten were produced after three exploded in fast succession at Swetz Climb.