abstract
| - The Edward Saganami-C-class heavy cruiser is a fictional class of space warship in the Honor Harrington series of military SF novels. The Saganami-C class is the newest and most advanced heavy cruiser fielded by the Royal Manticoran Navy. It is also the largest, weighing in at 480,000 tons, more than half the tonnage of the RMN's newest battlecruisers. While different enough in fact from the original Saganami and Saganami-B cruisers to be considered an entirely different class, naming it the Saganami-C allowed for the RMN to continue building it during the brief truce with Haven. Cruisers of the Saganami-C class are named for predators. The Saganami-C carries a heavy armament. Twenty heavy missile tubes line each broadside, each one with the ability to fire off-bore, alleviating the need for chase-mounted launchers. In addition, taking a page from Grayson's naval doctrines, each broadside boasts eight heavy energy cannons (presumably a mix of lasers and grasers), of a caliber and power comprable to those mounted on battlecruisers. The fore and aft chase-mount energy cannons - two grasers and three lasers each - are even heavier. In addition to the standard sidewalls and multiple point-defense lasers, the Saganami-C carries a modified bow-wall generator, which can be used both as a standard bow-wall and to maintain an anti-energy cannon defense while still maintaining forward acceleration. A vessel of this class, HMS Hexapuma under Captain Aivars Terekhov, was the primary ship of The Shadow of Saganami. She distinguished herself in the Talbott Cluster directly following the resumption of hostilities with Haven, aiding in the suppression of terrorist movements on the Cluster's worlds and aiding in the Cluster's peaceful integration into the Star Kingdom.
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