FMP/TDD-1
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| Tuatha de Danaan | |
| Serial Number | TDD-1 |
| Designer | Bani Morauta Teletha Testarossa |
| Ship Class | Assault Landing Submarine |
| Length | 218m |
| Width | 44m (excluding fins) |
| Displacement | 30800t(surfaced) 44000t(submerged) |
| Main Drive | PS type Palladium Reactor×3 Electric Drive（210000hp） |
| Full Speed | 30kt (conventional propulsion) 40kt (conventional propulsion w/ EMFC) 50kt+ (Magnetohydrodynamic drive w/ EMFC) |
| Standard Armaments | 533mm Torpedo Tube×6 Multipurpose VLS×10 SLBM Launcher×2 Mk48Mod6 ADCAP Torpedo AD(advanced)"Harpoon" AShM "Tomahawk" Cruise Missile ADSLMM ASROC (others classified) |
| Affiliation | Mithril Combat Division Pacific Battlegroup "Tuatha de Danaan" |
| Captain | Teletha Testarossa |
TDD-1, the Tuatha de Danaan is a fictional submarine in the light novel, manga and anime series Full Metal Panic!.
It is classified as an assault landing submarine operated by the non governmental anti terrorist mercenary organization, Mithril. It is the flagship and namesake of the Pacific Fleet Tuatha de Danaan battle group. Please refer to the Tuatha Dé Danann article for its origin in Celtic mythology.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
The flagship of the Pacific Battle Group of the same name, the Tuatha de Danaan (TDD-1) is an exotic and unique submarine operated by the Anti Terrorist organization Mithril. The boat and her capabilities far exceeding any existing vessel has earned the nickname as the "Toy Box" from the United States Navy as a popular mythical "Ghost Ship". Only the most senior of command personnel are aware of its existence.
Designed as an Amphibious Assault Submarine, TDD-1 transports ground troops into hostile territory to make quick, surgical and surprise attacks. It is closest to a submersible equivalent of the Wasp Class Amphibious assault ship in mission profile. Even so, it retains some capabilities of a SSGN and SSBN. It is more than six times larger than a Los Angeles Class attack submarine, and capable of navigating at more than twice the speed. The boat is unusually agile and maneuverable for its size and mass, even matching the maneuvers of the smaller Los Angeles class vessel. Its acoustic and magnetic signatures are also smaller than the smaller vessel owing to its state-of-the-art construction.
TDD is comprised from a triple hull design, similar to the Soviet Typhoon class Ballistic missile submarine in design philosophy. This gives the TDD-1 great survivability and a dive depth greater than most other attack submarines. Its upper hull separates to reveal a flight deck complete with steam catapults to launch its complement of S/VTOL Aircraft, Combat and Transport Helicopters, and the M9 Gernsback Arm Slave equipped with the X-2 emergency deployment boosters. TDD-1 is incapable of carrying armaments and supplies to support an extended combat sortie requires. Instead, the boat depends on the high mobility and firepower of its Arm Slaves supported by a small complement of aerial assets to deliver a combat presence. TDD-1 is well designed to meet its intended mission parameters, possessing an array of delivery options for its onboard M9 teams.
ECS capable Transport Helicopters are used to ferry the Arm Slaves deep into land territory for a stealthy insertion. For operations that require a very fast assault landing, the X-2 emergency deployment boosters send M9s airborne at high speeds. For ranges beyond that of the booster, M9s are capable of being launched as payload of the ship's SLBMs. For a silent amphibious assault, the TDD-1 is outfitted with 4 pressure hatches that is used to deploy the Arm Slaves directly into the ocean. The TDD-1's navigating speed and its flexibility in deployment gives the Tuatha de Danaan battlegroup a short response time and superior mission planning and execution capabilities.
TDD-1 is home to a Special Response Team (SRT) and a number of Primary Response Team personnel under the commander of Andrei Kalinin.
[edit] History
TDD-1 finds its origins in the failed USSR ballistic missile submarine development project designated Project 985.
Project 985 was begun in the late 1980s as a refined form of a transport submarine project of the 1970s. If completed, its size of 180 meters would have made it the largest submarine ever, larger than the Typhoon Class ballistic missile submarine. In the political turmoil of the early 1990s, the project was met with budget shortfalls and difficulty obtaining construction materials. The incomplete vessel was left untouched for 14 months, as workers and engineers failed to receive pay.
The military decided Project 985 would never reach completion under the prevailing economic and political circumstances, and canceled construction. The incomplete vessel was towed to the Arctic seas where it was scuttled and sunk to a depth of several thousand meters.
The naval intelligence community of the western democratic nations used this as an example of the flawed Soviet naval doctrine. Plan 985 was derisively called a "toy box", an obviously unrealistic and childishly optimistic design proving its lack of worth by its cancellation.
In the following years, several rumors surfaced postulating the possibility of the vessel being purchased by and covertly handed to the Chinese government. The CIA and the United States Navy have discounted these theories as fanciful conjecture and fiction.
Mithril somehow obtained the incomplete vessel to redesign and complete construction at Merida Island, beginning in late 1993. In efforts to incorporate exceedingly advanced technologies and maintaining secrecy proved to be extremely expensive. Its construction costs is estimated to be 5 to 6 times the projected cost for completing Project 985. Incorporating several advanced Black Technology systems, the ship was designed and constructed largely between Teletha Testarossa and Retired Royal Navy Captain Richard Mardukas.
[edit] Capabilities and Systems
While the concept of an amphibious assault submarine is not new, it is somewhat debatable. A submarine is limited in its overall payload, and is forced to compromise in performance to maintain that payload. The capacity would be limited to one company worth of land assets, whose presence and combat capability is considerably outweighed by the cost of construction. The risk, operating costs, cost effectiveness and technical / engineering issues make the vessel an extremely unrealistic proposition. The boat loses its advantages of stealth and speed when deploying its surface assets, rendering it extremely vulnerable to airstrike and surface ship attacks like all surfaced submarines. TDD-1 is viable only by the use of Black Technology, jokingly called by the author as "cheating". These technologies give TDD-1 an extreme speed advantage, superior acoustic stealth when surfaced and submersed, ECS radar and optical stealth.
TDD-1 itself is well armed, and is an even match against dedicated fast attack submarines. Armed with torpedo tubes, VLS racks, and a pair of SLBM tubes, TDD-1 is more than capable of engaging any other seafaring combatant.
[edit] Palladium Reactor
The Palladium Reactors are far quieter than comparable power sources, including fission nuclear reactors; the drawback is that the reactor piles must be replaced and refilled every 8 months, as opposed to every 15-20 years for a fission nuclear reactor of a Los Angeles class submarine. This additional power allows the use of an array of additional secondary systems.
[edit] Magnetohydrodynamic Drive
The boat is driven both by a traditional electrical shaft driven screw and a fictional Magnetohydrodynamic drive. The Magnetohydrodynamic drive uses massive superconductive electromagnetics to propel seawater. This gives the TDD-1 an extremely high speed whilst being nearly silent. It is alternately called the supermagnetic propulsion unit by some characters. The problems of cavitation at high navigational speeds are addressed by a related system. The same system is used on the fictional submarine Red October, from the novel "The Hunt for Red October".
[edit] TAROS (Transfer And Response "Omni-Sphere")
The TDD-1 is equipped with a TAROS, much like the ARX-7 Arbalest. However, The TDD-1's TAROS is an older model than the Arbalest's, and thus controls the TDD-1 systems rather than a Lambda Driver.
[edit] EMFC (ElectroMagnetic Fluidics Control)
EMFC (ElectroMagnetic Fluidics Control) controls the surface laminar flow of seawater across its hull using electromagnetic systems related to the Magnetohydrodynamic drive. It is used mainly to reduce surface turbulence and cavitation, but it can also be used as a secondary propulsion. On its own, the EMFC systems can propel TDD-1 in any direction including slides up to 5kt in speed. The omnidirectional secondary propulsion is used as a control system augmenting its rudders and control surfaces. This allows the immensely large TDD-1 an agility rivaling, if not superior to that of a Los Angeles class Fast Attack Submarine, a vessel a sixth its size. At the same time, the EMFC greatly reduces the operating noise of the TDD-1 while allowing it a much higher top speed.
[edit] ECS (Electronic Conceal System)
ECS renders the ship invisible to RADAR and visual scans, allowing the vessel to launch its attack forces closer to the shore uninterrupted. Without ECS, TDD-1 would be a vulnerable target open to attack from Air to Ship or Ship to Ship missile strikes while deploying its combat assets.
[edit] Artificial Intelligence
Dana (spelled as Darna in the game Super Robot Wars J), TDD-1's main ship AI also allows the ship to be largely automated. Its operating crew complement is much smaller, allowing for more dedicated mission specialists to be aboard. This makes the TDD-1 more effective as an assault carrier, as more land and even marine-amphibious combat personnel can be carried. The reduced crew complements also elongates the mission staying power, as consumables are used at a lower rate. In an emergency, the large scale automation allows ship operations to be handled by a single person using a specialized neural interface unit (Lady Chapel) through the Dana computer core. This capability is limited to the Whispered, as the one Chidori Kaname is shown doing this in the series.
Dana is written in the Bada programming language, a fictional derivative of the Ada programming language.
