Dauntless Class (D19)

The Dauntless class of Battlestar was designed to go into battle against multiple Cylon baseships alone to allow other units to group and attack.



Dauntless
Dauntless is the lead ship of her class, and is more heavily armoured then the production types of her class. During her 30 years of service, she participated in many operations. At the time of the attacks, she was due to be retired from service and sent to serve in the reserve fleet. Dauntless is Commander Robert Sharpe's first command.

Dreadnaught
Dreadnaught was built at the same time as Dauntless but had standardised weapons systems.

Deliverance
Deliverance was identical to Dreadnaught in every way except she had MK III Vipers as standard

Restitution
Restitution was indentical in all ways to the normal Dauntless class specifications. Was withdrawn from service after a series of explosions ripped her flight pods apart and broke her back.

Andromeda Ascendant
Andromeda Ascendant had no differences except she was equipped with MK IV Vipers as standard. Upon her retirment from service, she had many parts taken off her to be used on the sole remaining ship of the class, the Battlestar Dauntless. Andromeda Ascendant then was given a minor overhaul and then put into store in the reserve fleet. She was not fitted with the CNP program like Dauntless as both ships were felt to not be cost effective for just a few more years service. Although the Cylons destroyed most Colonial vessels, the discovery of the Valkrie class Retribution may indicate that the Andromeda Ascendant could have been left alone by the Cylons who would have known she was inactive.

Avenger
Avenger was equiped with MK V Vipers from her commsioning and was retired in line with the Adar administration' policies for reducing the size of the Colonial Fleet.

History
Built to be twice as large as the original 12 Battlestars, Dauntless class Battlestars﻿ served for many years as the work horse of the fleet's operations. Because of the large size compared to other Battlestars, several of them were used in mapping beyond Colonial space. They could also be used in rescue operations on mining facilities on moons or asteroids.

Retirement
After some thirty years of service, all but three of the Battlestars had been retired from service and scrapped due to the Adar administration cutting back on the number of Battlestars and other vessels from the Colonial fleet. Andromeda Ascendant and the scrapped Restitution both were used for parts to keep Dauntless, the first ship of the class, running. Apart from an intact Andromeda Ascendant, the only other Dauntless class battlestar left intact was the Avenger. It was speculated, that both ships could be returned to service rather quickly as their FTL and sublight engines were intact. It is currantly unknown what happened to the other two Battlestars, but both are presumed destroyed.