Mars Class Battlestar (D30)

''The Mars Class Battlestar was the perfect after-war Battlestar and was designed accordily. She was a small, fast, and cheap ship to produce thanks to the after-war reducations. However her small size made her suffer from several problems compared to the larger Battlestars which would be later fixed in the Mercury Class Battlestar. Even then this small Battlestar Class would remain the mainstay of the fleet for many years...''

- Taken from Colonial Warships and Craft 

Technical and Historical Notes
After the end of the Cylon War the Colonial Fleet would start a program to build a new Battlestar Class to compliment the remaining Jupiter, Saturn, and Orion Class Battlestars. This program would end introducing the Mars Class Battlestar to the Colonial Fleet several years after the end of the war.

Overall the Mars Class was a perfect example of a post-war Battlestar, cheap and small but yet still powerful enough to be a main combatant in the Colonial Fleet. The Mars while smaller then the large and powerful Jupiter Class Battlestars the class would sport about the same weapon compliment of the larger Battlestar. The new Battlestar would sport thirty slightly smaller Mark IX Guns, and thirty even smaller Mark VI Guns as its main armenant. As well as sporting two hundred ten MEC-PD5 light point defense guns for use against enemy missile and fighter attacks. The Mars Class would also carry the same missile loadout as the larger Jupiter Class though a smaller payload due to the smaller size of the ship.

Thanks to the small size of the design, the Mars Class wouldn’t sport the same fighter compliment of the larger Battlestars having only two squadrons of fighters along with two squadrons of Raptors or other support craft. This small compliment prevented it from standing up against an enemy ship directly, but it wasn’t meant to do it so alone and thanks to sheer numbers built it wouldn’t be alone.

The class would also see several variant designs introduced to fulfill several different missions in the Colonial Fleet. A few of the variants like the Valkyrie Class and Warrior Class where basically the ships but dedicated for different mission, while others like the Kingman Class where quite different all together.

In the end the Mars Class would be the premier Battlestar Class of the after-war Twelve Colonies and the Colonial Fleet. During the years that followed over eighty of these dependable ships would be produced and would make up much of the Colonial Fleet for many years.

Battlestar Valkyrie (BS-41) [Commander William Adama]
The Battlestar Valkyrie would be the lead ship of the Valkyrie Sub-Class of the main Mars Class Battlestars. This ship would be rather infamous for its top-secret mission to send a scout over the Armistice Line to see what the Cylons where doing. However the mission failed and was detected by some sort of unknown enemy forcing the Valkyrie to destroy its scout craft, and its Commander would end up getting the blame for the mission.

Variants

 * Valkyrie Class, a variant design tailored for Stealth Missions and sported heavy amount of ECM equipment along with a special hull coating. However even then only a handful ever built thanks to no need for such a dedicated craft.
 * Warrior Class, one of the more popular of the variant designs, and basically replaced much of its missile armament for a larger fighter compliment. It is also equipped with an advanced DRADIS, and ECM suite which looks like a rollbar over the engine section.
 * Searcher Class, another of the less common variant designs, and replaces its entire missile armament for dedicated workshops and an advanced Tylium Refinery. These Battlestars were built to be assigned alongside Mercury Class Battlestars in a long-range Battlestar Group. Only several where built due to no real motive to explore.
 * Kingman Class, one of the more notable variant designs and basically makes the entire ship into a Marine Assault Ship. Basically replaces much of its more dedicated equipment with Marine Barracks, and other such equipment.

Design Notes

 * Basically my own version of the so-called Valkyrie-Type Battlestars seen in the series, and having it the main ship-of-line of the Colonial Fleet after the Cylon War.
 * Since I don't really believe the Valkyre-Type Battlestar should be in the Cylon War thanks to what we see in Blood and Chrome I decided to make it an after-war design.