This node is fictional. Refer to Continental Class Space Battleships.
This is the single largest weapon system aboard a Continental Class battleship. Its main components are:
- Torpedo launcher tubes (36 total)
- The torpedo depot
- Torpedo conveyors
There are six batteries of torpedo tubes, two on the back side of the ship and four on the belly side.
- Back / Bow: 8 tubes
- Back / Stern: 4 tubes
- Belly / Bow: 6 tubes
- Belly / Stern: 6 tubes
- Belly / Port: 6 tubes
- Belly / Starboard: 6 tubes
The tubes are standard 1300 mm tubes, which means that a small child could stand inside one of them when the tube is horizontal. They're big enough to launch even the T-2+ Spearfish, which is nearly 11 metres long. The middle section of the tube can be lowered down to the "loading station", where the torpedo is "checked in", that is, shoved into the middle section and connected to all necessary fixtures. Then the removable section is hoisted back into place and sealed.
At launch, a piston propels the torpedo out of the tube, whereupon the muzzle lid of the tube closes to protect it from the blast of the torpedo's ultra-high-acceleration solid-fuel rocket booster. After about one second, the booster has burnt out, and shortly after, an extremely dirty, compact gas-core fission rocket engine cuts in. The torpedo usually delivers just a bunch of high-velocity fragments to make a kinetic kill, but some torpedos are fitted with explosive warheads for various special purposes. The maximum effective range of this weapons system is essentially unlimited, kills have been recorded at distances of several hundred thousand kilometres.
It takes a total of more than 500 people to operate this system: battery leaders, tube leaders, torpedo gunners etc. | 
