Katana-class Cruiser

The Katana-class dreadnaught stems back from the Old Republic Katana fleet ten years before the outbreak of the Clone Wars. It was a project which meant to alleviate the extreme crew requirements of the dreadnaughts that made up the bulk of the fleets at that time with a new and highly automated slave circuit. While the project was technically a success, the crews were infected by a hive virus, and while becoming insane and dying, they slaved all the 200 ships in the fleet together and jumped blindly into hyperspace. The loss of the Katana fleet was a political scandal that sparked a renewed call for decentralized ship automation, away from central computers and toward a pool of droids. Eventually Grand Admiral Thrawn located and put the Katana fleet to use again.

Katana-class dreadnaughts are similar to standard Rendili dreadnaughts, but they have a darker hull which together with lack of internal lighting due to smaller crews originally nicknamed the Katana fleet "The Dark Force". The freed internal space was used for housing two fighter squadrons. The entire interior of the Katana-class was redesigned from the original Dreadnaughts. Dreadnaughts, even the Katana-class, lacks fire-linking capacity and fires all weapons seperately.

Specifications:

Name/Type: Katana-class Cruiser
Designer/Manufacturer: Rendili StarDrive
Designation: Medium Cruiser
Crew: 2,200
Length: 600 Meters
Speed: 40 MGLT
Hyperdrive: x2
Shield Rating: 2,560 SBD
Hull Rating: 1,216 RU
Weapons: 10 Taim & Bak Turbolaser Cannons, 20 Quad Taim & Bak Turbolaser Cannons, 10 Taim & Bak Turbolaser Batteries, 12 Borstel RH8 Laser Cannon Batteries, 2 Phylon Q7 Tractor Beam Projectors, 10 Ion Cannons (refit).
Fighter Complement: 2 Squadrons.
Troops: 3,000 Stormtroopers, ~48 AT-PT walkers.
Support Craft: 4 Light Transports.