Sistine-class aircraft carrier

Sistine, as in her 2006 deployment.
Class overview
Builders:	Whitecap Shipyards Alexandria, Meridon
Operators:	Meridonian Navy
Cost:	Classified
Built:	1990-2012
In service:	1996-present
Planned:	5
Completed:	5
Active:	5
General characteristics
Class and type:	Aircraft carrier
Displacement:	87,000 tons, full load
Length:	Overall: 330 meters
Beam:	Overall: Around 74 meters
Draught:	11 meters
Propulsion:	2 × Central Electric RM-2 reactors 4 × steam turbines, four shafts, 270,000 shp
Speed:	In excess of 30 knots
Range:	Unlimited
Complement:	Around 5,200 including embarked airwing.
Sensors and processing systems:	Broadlight SEA SENTINEL air tracking radar Broadlight S1620 3D air search radar Delta SM315 surface search radar Broadlight MCV-M1 air traffic control radar Matca AGS-101 landing aid radars Navigational radars
Electronic warfare & decoys:	CEG AFSEE electronic warfare suite Nulka decoys Nixie decoys
Armament:	4x M21 CADS Launching Mounts, 8x CADS/S missiles each x3 Goalkeeper CIWS
Armour:	Kevlar over vital spaces
Aircraft carried:	80 fixed wing and helicopter

The Sistine-class is a class of nuclear powered aircraft carriers in service with the Meridonian Navy. The ships are named after large Meridonian cities, and are the largest warships ever built for the Meridonian navy. They succeeded the Atlantia-class of aircraft carriers. They were built starting in late 1990, and the first ship. Sistine, was commissioned in 1996, with the final ship of the class, Baymark, commissioning in 2012.

Replacements for the aging Atlantia-class carriers had been planned since at least the early 1980s, but were delayed a multitude of time due to a mixture of budget constraints and emerging design requirements- most notably the integration of the new Common Air Defense Missile system, which was replacing a medley of other air defense missile systems across the Navy by the early 2000s. The Liberal government of 1986 was planning on cancelling the project and replacing the carriers instead with large missile cruisers as the centerpiece capital ship of the Navy, which were seen as cheaper and an effective way to limit long-term military expenditures. This caused an uproar in both Navy command and public opinion when said plans were made public. When five senior admirals and half of the Chiefs of Defense Staff tendered their resignations over the issue and more conservative members of the coalition began to vacate it, a snap election saw the liberal government ousted and replaced by a Federal Party coalition, which immediately reinstated the general officers and the Sistine-class project.

Designed based on lessons learned with the Atlantia-class, the Sistine-class carriers feature a number of new improvements. Most notable of these is an innovative two-island design, originally made to accommodate a separation of funnels when the ship was intended as a non-nuclear carrier, but ported over to the nuclear design due to their improvements in deck space usage, redundancy of systems and command, and operational efficiency. It features a state-of-the-art Broadlight air search radar developed for the Helena-class destroyers, capable of tracking hundreds of targets in real time. It is the first Meridonian capital ship to be nuclear-powered, and features improved facilities for aircraft and munitions handling. Carriers from Kohaku onwards have the M21 CAD/S launching mounts replaced with 8-cell VLS tubes, quadrupling the theoretical total of available anti-aircraft missiles carried, however it is unlikely that these vessels commonly carry that many. The VLS tubes do allow for the integration of standoff anti-submarine rockets and theoretically allow for the integration of ship-based cruise and anti-ship missiles, however the integration of non-defensive ship-based weaponry aboard the Sistine-class carriers has been rejected by the Navy. The Sistine-class is expected to serve until the 2050s at the earliest.

Ships in class

Ship	Pennant number	Laid down	Launched	Commissioned
Sistine	R10	2 December 1990	3 March 1996	1 December 1996
Kohina	R11	11 April 1993	2 March 1998	1 March 1999
Kohaku	R12	24 May 1996	12 August 2002	18 September 2003
Marin Bay	R13	22 June 2002	4 October 2008	9 July 2009
Baymark	R14	11 August 2005	2 December 2011	5 November 2012