Bennet Class Model + Design Speculation

[Snickett]

Hello, I'm returning to the Outsider Universe after a long while; I saw some of those Bellarmine patches on social media. After snagging one for myself, I decided that I wanted a physical model of the ship itself. To that end, I commissioned a 3D modeler to create one:
https://x.com/KreutzerXM/status/1868492521334284728

I'm an avid 3D printer, so getting one on my build plate was a priority, and I'd say it went pretty well:


I didn't clear out all the supports on the rear engines, so I perhaps looks a little unfinished near the back.

Hopefully I'll get some time during the upcoming holiday to get some painting done, I'll post follow up pictures when completed.

While I have the 3D model, I thought I'd do a little speculation on the placement on certain things on the Bennet class as well as the refit and subclass mentioned in the extra lore background.

Given that the Bennet class is a scout ship, I figure it will rely rather heavily on probes, so I figured the darker bits on either side of the main hull were both docking ports as well as bays for launching probes and the like. I also figured it could be configured to handle shuttles or other small craft, depending on mission (deep space exploration, planetary survey, etc.)
I also figured that the primary shuttlebay would be located along the ventral side of the ship and launch via a drop rack, something like Enterprise's NX-01 with its shuttlepods. Given that the Bennet is only 190 meters long, you can probably only cram in one craft and that design would probably need folding wings if it were atmospheric capable; otherwise I'd see being able to throw in 2 smaller ship-to-ship launches and the like.


A bit more speculation from me on the refit of the Bennet class as well as the related Yorktown class in service to the Colonial Fleet. The refit Bennet has been upgunned, with a rear covering missile tube (I kind of think the missiles launch vertically and reorient rather than horizontally outwards) along with two mass driver turrets along the engine nacelles.

The Yorktown version has further array of weapons; I think the ventral fin of the original Bennet was something of a sophisticated sensor array; this design does away with it for a fourth missile tube in its place, along with additional weapons turrets for presumably scouting patrols in closer spaces than what the Scout Corps usually investigates.

That's all for now. I'll try to get them model painted and presentable and we can all bask in how cool the ship design is.

[Urist]

Very neat model! I really like the guesswork on what the various greebles are on the vessel.

For what it's worth, my understanding of the Bennet-clss 'refit' was that the refit vessels had been/were being upgraded to Yorktown standard. That said, I do like the idea of an 'intermediate' Bennet refit, and God only knows that IRL warship classes often evolved towards each one being functionally unique.

As for the location of the missile tubes, my assumption had always been that the Bennet-class's two tubes were those dorsal bumps to either side of (and slightly forward of) the PD laser turret. Given what we know about TCA naval doctrine (almost nothing other than 'they focus on patrol duties, and have no actual war experience'), I'd assume that the missiles are there essentially to provide a long-range weapon against pirate craft which the warship might not otherwise be able to intercept.

And so putting both launchers in an orientation where they can fire in very close succession (high salvo density = very difficult for TCA-tech-level PD to down both missiles, especially for a bodged-together pirate 'ship') and with as much of a kinetic boost to launch velocity as possible would be very useful.

By contrast, VLS-esque (launched off-bore) missile systems seem an odd choice for a spacegoing warship, where missile velocity is everything and can keep all of the launch velocity because of the lack of air resistance. They don't seem to provide any advantage other than salvo density (which is admittedly quite useful, but with fixed launchers you can get quite rapid launches in series anyways).

One of the major benefits of IRL VLS AShM (hee hee acronyms go brrrrr) systems is that they can respond without any delay to a target at any bearing relative to the ship, which is very useful given that sea-skimming missiles/aircraft can appear without warning at alarmingly close ranges where the few seconds of delay for an arm-launcher missile system to swing over onto the target can prove decisive. But in the space-combat of Outsider, you'll see your targets coming a long, long time before you choose to launch; fast response time is less useful there.

[QuakeIV]

Always saddened me a little how cool/fleshed out the human stuff was given how little a role it (seemingly) plays in the story

[Urist]

Yup. IIRC much of the human ships/history was 'inherited' from a previous fiction project that Arioch had begun work on before Outsider. So it's rather a bit 'over-detailed' for the role it plays. That said, it does provide good fodder for model-makers/artists/fanfiction-writers!

[GeoModder]

Neat little project.
Regarding placement of the different functions of the Bennett class, I always thought the shuttle bay doors were those big ventral hatches on the forward section of the ship.
Its kinda alluded too in the story, last picture of page 11, were Sculley gives the order to go "down" to the shuttle bay.
And since the engine section cannot be reached at that point, she couldn't mean down in that part of the ship.

There's somewhere on the internet an annotated version of the heavy cruiser ECS America, it marks several of the functions of that particular class, mostly the weapons. Perhaps that could be of use to determine ship functions on the Bellarmine.

[Arioch]

Or you could just ask.

The shuttle bay is behind the doors on the underside of the forward section, and the two missile tubes are the cigar-shaped projections on either side of the dorsal turret.

[sunphoenix]

Beautiful Work!! Love to buy one myself!!

[RedDwarfIV]

Always saddened me a little how cool/fleshed out the human stuff was given how little a role it (seemingly) plays in the story

It's probably why there's so much speculation about what humanity could do to help in the war (the canon answer being nothing). If there weren't so much information on all the ship classes, I doubt people would be pining to see them in action as much as they are (myself included).

[Hālian]

That looks great! I'd love to get one for myself (I don't own a 3D printer), paint it up, and maybe use it as a BattleTech proxy.