Dammerung

The origins of the pirate battleship Dammerung took Siveter Lund months to discover. Originally laid down some time in late M40 in the Ganethan Sector, it was thought lost with all hands during warp transit in early M41. It popped up almost a millennium later in early M42 as a pirate vessel in Boros' Folly, and was recaptured following the Dammerung Conclave called by Nikolai Kovach following a successful protracted boarding campaign by Raven Guard and Inquisition agents in which the largely captive crew was convinced to turn on their piratical masters.

Subsequently the ship was brought back to the Aureole and was recommissioned six months later in the colours of Battlefleet Achernar. Many of the crew who had involuntarily served the pirates were, contrary to their expectations, not given the chance to leave the ship and were instead pressed into Naval service. The Admiralty's rationale was that, while the resultant crew might be ill-disciplined and lack morale, they would already be familiar with the ship's systems, and would therefore preclude the need to recruit new, inexperienced sailors.

The Dammerung does not conform to a standard Imperial pattern, although clearly it is influenced by the Oberon class, with a mixture of macro cannons, lances, and flight decks on its flanks. Unlike the Oberon class, its prow sports a nova cannon and a modest number of torpedo tubes. The ship's most unusual weapon system are the turret-mounted single shot torpedo tubes mounted on the wings. These are quite possibly improvised weapons fitted by the pirates, but were left in place by the Aureole's shipwrights for the tactical options they give to the captain.

Ship stats

Leadership: 6 HP: 12 Shields: 4 Armour: 5+ (6+ from front) Turrets: 5 Turns: 45° (may not Come to New Heading)

1 Prow nova cannon, range 30-150cm
6 Prow torpedo tubes, speed 30cm
3 Dorsal lances, range 60cm, arc L/F/R
4 launch bays (2 port, 2 starboard)
4 starboard torpedo tubes, F/R/B, cannot be reloaded in battle.
4 port torpedo tubes, F/L/B, cannot be reloaded in battle.
Starboard weapons battery, range 45cm, firepower 6.
Port weapons battery, range 45cm, firepower 6.
Starboard lance battery, range 45cm, firepower 2.
Port lance battery, range 45cm, firepower 2.

Command Staff

Combat officers

Captain Yasir Anwar, commodore 2nd-class.
Executive Officer Thandi Adebayo is a very friendly officer who gains loyalty through diplomacy and empathy rather than imperious commands. Her jovial nature is at odds with her new captain, and she's used to the smaller, more intimate confines of commanding frigates, so is experiencing quite the unpleasant culture shock in a ship full of pressed crew who don't necessarily wish to be there.
Gunnery Officer Lt Commander Consuela Vaso is a perfectionist determined to work in every specialism prior to applying for a command of her own. So far she's worked in communications, augurs and helm. She was serving as the gunnery officer aboard the Dominion and came with Captain Anwar when he was promoted to the Dammerung as they enjoy an excellent working relationship.
Flight Officer Lt Commander Kasimiro Rey was one of many flight officers serving in the Aureole's fleet of attack craft, and through a combination of lobbying and family connections has now moved on from leading a squadron of interceptors to a command position on the flagship.
Brigadier Orfeo Martinez commands the Dammerung's corps of armsmen. He has served on quite a few of the fleet's ships and owing to his breadth of experience was eventually promoted to the brigadiership of the Aureole's armsmen corps, where he promptly felt he'd gone from being a marine to a policeman. Bored and frustrated, he was considering retirement before the position on the Dammerung came up. He's a proud man, and this way he can go back to serving on a ship without it feeling like a demotion.

Political officers

Commissar Severinus Okafor is fresh out of the Schola Progenium and assigned to the Dammerung by the Commissariat on the basis that, newly indoctrinated and lacking any pre-existing relationships with anyone in the fleet, he will uphold the Cult Imperialis to the very letter of the law. His appointment was a compromise made by Admiral Tryphosa in exchange for the Schola Progenium providing a number of new officers for the ship's regiment of armsmen at short notice.
Confessor Nsia Himura has spent her life working in various cathedrals on Kaprun, taking confession and managing outreach efforts in her diocese. She hopes to do her bit to help the other preachers on the ship motivate the pressganged and indentured crew below decks, and is experienced enough to know this will be a meaningful challenge.

Other bridge staff

Techmagos Senioris Osanna Jeong has worked as a shipwright in the Aureole for over a century. She oversaw the refit of the Dammerung and, having never worked with a battleship, was so awed by this testament to the Omnissiah that she asked to serve as the ship's Engineseer Prime, even if only for its first tour of the sector. She suspects they will only pry her from the ship post-mortem.
Min-Seo of house Accorso is the ship's navigator. She has been brought in from the Eridani sector.
Master Astropath Zera Bandon has understandably come to think of every word as something that brings one closer to death. As such she considers get every utterance very carefully, and expects the same from others. She is in her late thirties, subjectively, but has a firm grasp of her craft and does everything she can to impart this knowledge on her charges such that they might live a little longer.

Ship systems and crew

The Dammerung has a total crew compliment of approximately 12,500. Many of these are drawn from the crews of Imperial ships captured by the Dammerung when it was a pirate vessel, and since they already knew the ship and were glad to be rid of the pirates, the Navy simply pressed them back into service. They are at least now treated better and fed properly (by Navy standards) but many of them aren't exactly thrilled to be there, and would probably leave if given a choice. The test are newly-pressed and/or recruited from the poorer inhabitants of Kaprun.

Weapon systems

Prow nova cannon

Only the front half of this kilometer-long launcher can be seen protruding from the backswept prow of the ship. Klaxons sound throughout the vessel before it fires, as the recoil is felt as a sharp jolt through the deck plates. Those unfamiliar with the experience are generally advised to steady themselves. A lieutenant manages the 200 crew needed to maintain it, but control over the trigger mechanism is actually handled by the gunnery officer on the bridge, as they must coordinate with the helmsman when firing this gargantuan weapon.

Prow Torpedo tubes

The prow tubes can carry a total compliment of 60 torpedoes, allowing for ten full salvos. Each of the six tubes is manned by a crew of 30 and commanded by a 2nd Lieutenant, who in turn reports to the Lieutenant in charge of all six tubes.

Port & starboard gun decks

The gun decks fire in support of the macro cannon batteries, although they lack the macro cannons' effectiveness at range due to less impressive sighting equipment. 1,200 of the Dammerung's crew live and work around these guns and the associated barracks and mess halls.

Port & starboard Macro-cannon batteries

The Dammerung sports eight macro-cannons. Each gun requires a crew of 130 to operate and maintain, and is commanded by a 2nd Lieutenant, reporting to the Lieutenant commanding the battery, and each has a nickname. The port side guns are known as Felicitations, Tetrarch's Wrath, Accuser, and Trigonometry's Reward. The starboard guns are called Tooth Rattler, Overture, Omen, and Badab's Envy.

Dorsal, port and starboard lance batteries

The lance turrets require much smaller crews compared to the cannon batteries, but the maintenance of power lines and focusing lenses is a constant challenge. Each turret is commanded by a 2nd Lieutenant, augur reader, assistant augur reader, a gunner, an assistant gunner, and a tech priest senioris. They are assisted by teams of techpriests and maintenance personnel responsible for removing burned out heat sinks, power relays and lenses, taking them down to the manufactories for recycling, and fitting fresh components - sometimes during a firefight. Each turret in total therefore has a total compliment of approximately 100. The dorsal turrets have been nicknamed The Diplomat, Relative Discomfort, and Your Matriarch. The port lances are Excessive Burnout and Palinopsia. The starboard lances are known as Bisector and Severance Package.

Port & starboard flight decks

The ship's most strategically vital attribute is its fleet of attack craft. The ship is a permanent home to 30 attack craft: 4 squadrons of interceptors, 4 squadrons of bombers, and 2 squadrons of assault boats. These decks are home to the 660 personnel who fly, maintain and co-ordinate the carrier's most important assets.

Turrets

The ship's quad-linked autocannon turrets are used to fend off incoming ordnance. There are 68 turrets on the ship's hull, each with a crew of four: a gunner, a loader, a comms officer linked to the command deck, and an auspex officer responsible for providing the the gunner with targeting information.

Other areas

Incomplete areas

Whilst all the ship's primary functions were tested and brought up to Navy standards during the refit, a capital ship is fundamentally an eight kilometre city, and it was never going to be possible to get everything spotless prior to relaunch. It was decided by the Admiralty to get the ship operational, and have work crews continue cosmetic alterations while the ship goes about its business. There are over 400 builders, plumbers, decorators and other staff working in shifts to bring numerous non-critical facilities online. This work is expected to take months, if not years, depending on the level of quality desired. Unusually for the Navy, the areas around the command deck were given the lowest priority as it was felt officers would be motivated to endure poor conditions for their career prospects, whereas treating the press-ganged crew even worse than usual would risk a mutiny.

As such, many of the junior officers are sleeping in improvised dormitories in what will eventually become extra cargo holds. There are a great many rooms that have been emptied and mostly cleansed, giving this section of the ship a desolate, abandoned feeling in those places the craftsmen haven't started working on. The sounds of craftsmen working on adjacent areas can be heard echoing down the empty corridors.

Ordnance manufactorums

There are five manufactorums running down the ship's spine, overseen by the techpriests. They are used to build ammunition and ordnance as well as replacement ship parts. Compared to proper docks they are small, and have little room for the storage of materials, meaning that they can only really swing into sustained action when they have access to a supply of raw materials. They are designed primarily as a stopgap measure in the event that the ship has to operate away from port for a sustained period of time; in such situations the ship's bombers can be re-tasked to transport materials from a planet's surface up to the ship. The manufactorums are crewed mainly by techpriests, Mechanicum serfs and servitors numbering 540 souls in all.

Recreation areas

There are three recreation promenades arranged along the forward half of the ship's core. They are populated largely by non-military personnel running shops in which ratings can spend their scant wages. Music, gambling, 'massage' parlours and various other entertainments are offered and largely ignored by the officer classes. The threat of having a promenade pass revoked is enough to keep most crewmen in line. Indeed, it is shocking to BFA crew that other battlefleets do not necessarily have such facilities on their ships.

Features unique to the Dammerung include the amphitheatre, situated nine decks ventrally from the command decks, originally constructed by the pirates as a fighting pit and since remodelled as a respectable venue for the ship's hundreds of officers to enjoy dramatic productions approved for consumption by the Adeptus Terra. Three companies are responsible for the productions: the Twilight Players (traditional plays and recitations of sanctioned verse), the Warhorns (motivational opera), and the Dammerung Thespians' Guild (amateur productions put on by the ship's officers).

Medicae facilities

Medicae personnel are a crucial, if lamentably small, component of the crew. Yamikani Meklit is the Dammerung's Chief Medicae. She manages 15 sick bays, 20 triage suites, and 9 operating theatres, most of them situated near the ship's core between the manufactorums and promenades.

Galleys

Keeping the crew fed requires a huge catering staff. There are at least 100 cooks, with 500 additional galley staff. There are 50 galleys on board, one of which exists purely to serve the captain, and another responsible for the command staff.

The command deck

The command and control crew operate on the deck immediately below the bridge, and co-ordinate the ship's functions and navigation. In all there are 80 junior officers and 140 mono-task servitors. As per Navy regulations, no-one below the rank of ensign is allowed on the command deck.

Specialist personnel

Techpriests & Mechanicum serfs

The Mechanicum crew bunk in separate barracks to the navy personnel, although fraternisation between low-ranking members of both institutions is commonplace, much to the disapproval of the senior techpriests. Mechanicus staff comprise a substantial proportion of the ship's crew, with a compliment of around 2,600, many of whom are the staff responsible for the ship's recommissioning, as they already had familiarity with the vessel's systems. Some of these technical staff even served under duress at the whims of the pirates, and at this point view the ship as their entire world. 40 of the techpriests on board are purely responsible for maintaining and scrutinising the ship's central machine spirit for signs of impurity, given the vessel's origins. Most of the components of the cogitator itself were replaced, but the Inquisition informed Techmagos Senioris Osanna Jeong that it was important to constantly scrutinise the ship's cogitators for any unexplained scrapcode.

Preachers

Priests are a common sight on warships. Sailors are a superstitious lot, and having a priest extolling the Emperor's Grace within earshot of a hard-working gun crew maintains morale. The Ecclesiarchy contingent of the ship is big enough to crew a frigate, with about 250 priests all serving under Confessor Himura.

Armsmen

Given the frequent need to board pirate stations and vessels, Battlefleet Achernar's capital ships are expected to maintain a full contingent of 1,000 armsmen. Of course, the Dammerung is the fleet's first battleship, and also the first vessel to carry multiple squadrons of assault boats, so the previous 'one full regiment' approach was deemed insufficient, particularly given the largely non-voluntary composition of the ship's crew. As such, a significant number of Navy armsmmen were transferred from the Aureole to the ship during its refit, resulting in a marine corps of 1,500 armsmen.