Istanbul Monitor

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The Istanbul is a fairly typical naval monitor fielded by the United Colonies of Mankind, featuring battleship-class armor, a heavy-calibre primary weapon, and fairly low speed on a frigate-sized superstructure. All of this is possible only by dispensing with foldspace capability on the class - the Istanbul is instead brought in-system by a tug, after which its undersized sublight engines can maneuver it into position.

The UF-B-9000 mass driver the Istanbul is equipped with is a variant on the heavy-calibre version that the Kiev and UCM dreadnoughts have. Though the armour penetration of this weapon is slightly worse than its counterparts, it compensates by being on a unique rotating mount that lets it also be used as a bombardment weapon or to engage targets in higher orbital layers.