Constitution Block III-Bis
Known at the time as "the last hurrah of the Constitution" (and later on as yet another cringworthy product of the "edgy"/"militant" era of UE's Admiralty), the Block III bis variant of the Constitution class was the final push of the torpedo faction of the admiralty in proposing a complement to the new Excelsior class cruisers that were beginning to come online. Rumors had it that it concept gain as much support as it did due to various corporate interests, who wanted to delay retooling existing production facilities until the tooling wore out.
Modification to the standard Block III include a total of
12 torpedo launchers arranged around the secondary hull in a formation that was nicknamed the "bonnet", 6 forward and the other 6 rearward facing. The original 2 torpedo launchers were replaced with a pair of megaphaser cannons, in a sense forced to acknowledge the shift in fleet doctrine. Other changes were minimal, with slightly uprated reactor and expanded magazines (at the expense of certain science and engineering facilities).
The design was intended for massed alpha strikes, with the capability to empty their entire stock of ready use torpedoes in under 2 minutes, and the entire magazine in 10 minutes.
The UES Dreadnought (a Block IIIa) was selected for conversion as a proof of concept, and problems begin to surface almost immediately in field trials:
-while the reduction at warp performance was within acceptable parameters, performance at impulse was... sluggish, meaning that it's intended role to go in, fire everything, and get out something much dicier.
-structural integrity was compromised, especially in the secondary hull during high speed maneuvers. Although it was claimed that it was due to the refit nature of the vessel it calls into questioning the entire project, as it was never intend to build new hulls for the variant.
-The reactor cannot supply sufficient to both the megaphasers and the torpedo launchers at the same time, furthermore, the megaphasers (a cutdown version due to the lack of space in the original torpedo launchers) has a much shorter range than the torpedoes, making them deadweight in most potential engagements.
In the end, the UES Dreadnought was converted back to her original configuration and the variant never entered service, although the idea of a heavy torpedo cruiser would remain alive for decades to come...