A Guardsmen of the Astra Militarum might be expended as easily and as rapidly as any form of ammunition
within the Imperium of Man. In the time it takes for a conscript to fall to the dirt
after suffering a lethal blow, their replacement can have already taken their space on the line.
The Imperial Navy has no such luxury.
The destruction of even the smallest warship represents the loss of hundreds
of thousands of man-hours, of vital resources and irrecoverable technology.
It is therefore no wonder that the greatest asset of the Holy Fleet are not the enormous
battleships and grand cruisers salvaged from the Dark Age of Technology, nor the vast fleet
anchorages and battlestations that guard systems of vital importance, but rather:
any class of ship that might be easily repaired or replaced. In this respect, the most important
vessels within the entire warfleets of the Imperium, might be the Lunar Class Cruisers.
The backbone of the Imperial Navy, Lunar Class Cruisers are likely the most ubiquitous warships
within any of the Segmentums that divide the Imperium. Over 600 are believed to be
active within the Segmentum Obscurus alone and many thousands more are scattered across the
remainder of the galaxy. They can be found in every role a cruiser was designed to fulfill,
from independent actions that include long-range patrols, commerce raiding, and reconnaissance,
to screening larger capital ships within Imperial armadas. They have also become popular outside the
Imperial Navy, with many ships of the Lunar Class operated by the Basilikon Astra of the
Adeptus Mechanicus and the Crusading Fleets of the Adeptus Astartes. Still others are commanded by
prominent Rogue Traders, or have been claimed by renegades, traitors or xenos scavengers.
Their pervasiveness within Imperial service is due wholly to their comparatively uncomplicated
design. They can be built in shipyards and facilities that might be otherwise unable to
construct a ship of the line, and much of the work can be accomplished by unskilled labor.
Many Lunar Class cruisers are famous purely by the site of their construction, whether
over hive worlds and industrial worlds with no shipbuilding expertise, or even feudal worlds and
agri-worlds lacking major industrial facilities. In this respect, the Lunar Class Cruiser “Lord
Daros” is especially noteworthy, constructed in orbit of a feral world with materials mined
by local primitives and then sacrificed at what they believed were “sky temples”.
Like all materiel that is produced in mass numbers across the Imperium, the Lunar Class can vary
drastically in its appearance and specifications depending on where it was constructed.
This is further complicated by the centuries of repairs and refits these vessels are subjected to,
many of which are conducted during inopportune moments and require
improvised modifications over regulated additions.
Reduced to its base characteristics, a standard Lunar Class is not particularly impressive
within Imperial service. They are a midsized vessel, generally 5 kilometers in length,
with a mass of 28 megatonnes and a crew of roughly 95,000. Many of the elements that have come to
characterize Imperial ship designs are present, including a heavily armored prow that gives way
to an elongated, ostentatious superstructure. The Lunar Class bristles with weapon emplacements,
but its principal armament consists of prow mounted torpedo launchers, and immense
concentrations of armor piercing lance batteries and more versatile macrocannons, laser cannons,
railguns and missile launchers. These are mainly located on the Lunar class’s port and starboard
sides directly behind the armored prow. The ship’s stern is dedicated to housing a conventional,
subliminal plasma drive and warp-engines that allow for travel through the Immaterium.
On its own, a Lunar Class is generally considered to lack the ability to engage
with the enemy at great distances, and is most effective at medium, or point blank engagements.
Experienced Captains will therefore typically use the vessel’s torpedoes to disrupt enemy movements,
and take advantage of this distraction to quickly close the distance with hostile vessels.
Imperial doctrine however stresses that the Lunar Class should almost always be deployed
in pairs for it is when operating in tandem that the vessel truly shines. By forcing the
enemy to divide their firepower between two mobile targets, and covering one another’s approach, dual
Lunar Class Cruisers have been known to destroy warships that greatly exceed their combined size,
armament and capability. Likewise, damage that might confine other classes of vessel to lengthy
repairs within a shipyard, can be repaired on a Lunar class in a fraction of the time.
The relative ease of construction and modifications makes the Lunar Class a fitting
template for other vessels within the Imperial Navy. The up-armored and up-gunned Armageddon
Class represents a recent attempt to create less expensive Battlecruisers from Lunar Class hulls.
The Dictator Class replaces offensive armaments with vast launch bays for strike craft.
The Dominator Class is equipped with the massive Nova Cannon to make it not only effective,
but devastating at long range, while the Gothic Class doubles the number of heavy lances at the
expense of its more versatile weaponry. Many other official and unofficial variants exist,
with Rogue Traders in particular, commonly removing the forward torpedo tubes in favor
of more cargo space. Fast, well armed and armored, the Lunar Class is a truly
versatile platform for whatever variants or refits the Imperium might consider.
In the long and bloody history of the Imperium, the Lunar Class has gained renown as a dependable,
effective warship. Ships of the class have racked up a tally of impressive battle honors,
from the Badab War to the Fall of Cadia, the Macharian Crusade and the 3rd War of Armageddon.
But no action in which the Lunar Class was involved can match the Battle of Kharlos II, when
four cruisers engaged and left adrift the infamous Planet Killer. Once the flagship of Abaddon the
Despoiler before it fell under the command of Malefica Arkham, its destruction saved billions of
lives in a sector of the Imperium still recovering from the devastation wrought by the Gothic War.
Yet for every famous victory of the Lunar Class, a thousand more go unremembered.
Such is always the price of ubiquity. But it is the merchant convoys and frontier patrols,
the distant voyages and routine cruises that truly bind the Imperium together. For it is
through the Lunar Class and all its unremembered, mundane triumphs that the Imperial Navy endures.