The Istanbul is a typical naval defence monitor. Frigate-sized, it features armour as thick as a battleship’s and low speed to match. UCM Monitors achieve this through dispensing with Foldspace capability; they must be brought into system by tugs - large vessels under the auspices of the Fleet Logistical Corps. Once in system, its undersized, overstretched sublight thrusters slowly get the monitor into position.
This massive sacrifice of mobility also frees up considerable power for weapons, allowing the Istanbul to be over-gunned for its relatively small size. It features a massive UF-B-9000 mass-driver, in a unique, rotating mount; supporting its defensive role. This allows the Istanbul to easily engage targets in higher orbital layers or directed towards the surface for bombardment.
The Vienna mounts an anti-ship laser - the smallest UCM ship to be able to do so - due to its otherwise low power requirements. It also fits into a quite different role: that of battleship escort. Used in this way, its laser serves the useful secondary purpose of heating the target, assisting the much larger ship’s gunnery. Given this application, the Vienna also mounts additional point-defence clusters for limited aegis capability.
This set contains 3 UCM Monitors. These small ships are slow moving, and struggle to manoeuvre, but make up for that by targeting between Low and High Orbit without penalty, and having unparalleled armour for that size of ship.
This pack makes three ships, buildable as either Istanbul class Monitors or Vienna class Escort Frigates. The Istanbul has a UF-8-9000 Mass Driver, which is a ludicrous weapon for a ship of its size, usable either as a regular weapon or a Bombardment system, providing danger for all orbital layers. The Vienna on the other hand is faster and offers both Aegis (4) and the Mamba Laser - the smallest burnthrough laser in the game! With the traditional Burnthrough and Flash, it's a great weapon for softening up enemy ships and leaving them vulnerable to larger vessels.