A design originally worked out in the final days of the First Contact War, the Strelets remained a “paper ship” after the surrender of the Sintillan People’s Republic until the Treaty of Lvov was amended in 6.8 AS. As part of the long-term normalization of relations with the deWulf, permission was granted to establish a new space fleet, with certain restrictions that fortunately allowed the Strelets design to be completed and laid down in early 7.0 AS.
The biggest restriction that remained as part of the Treaty of Lvov was the ban on long range weapons in the Sintillan Navy. Fortunately for the Strelets, her compliment of laser projectors was still allowed. Sintillan energy mounts were based around the bomb-pumped laser concept; by detonating a small nuclear weapon, vast amounts of energy could be released and lased to create impressively powerful weapons in a compact system. The danger was that sometimes this containment system failed, which could result in significant damage to whatever the weapon was mounted on.
But drawbacks like that usually came with some benefits, and four of those laser projectors packed an impressive wallop. While not quite as powerful as a capital laser individually, a pair of Beta projectors and matching Alpha detonation chamber are smaller, and more resistant to damage thanks to the modular nature of the technology. A late update to the design was the inclusion of linked targeting software that allowed for a variety of firing modes, including a inefficient but effective planetary bombardment system.
Featuring the same high top speed that is a hallmark of Stintillan ships, their tactical drives offer almost double the tactical speed of the standard deWulf battle line while still maintaining an equivalent cruising speed. Unfortunately concessions have to be made in order to accomodate high speed and firepower, and the Strelets is both light on passive defenses and entirely unable to deal with incoming missiles or small craft beyond evasive action. Unfortunately for the design team that came up with it, the Sintillan Navy is soon absorbed wholesale into the deWulf Navy, and high speed DeC equipped units pass out of service.
The Strelets represents one of the last hurrahs of uniquely Sintillan design. A blunt and derivative design, it’s simply the destroyer upscaled to pack another pair of DeC laser projectors. All it really gains is an expanded superstructure to allow for a second pair of projectors to be superfiring over the original pair that the destroyer was designed to carry (even though the final model has a dorsal and ventral gun). Not one of my more creative designs, but sometimes creative and different isn’t what you’re looking for.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 