Trebuchet

The Trebuchet does not win battles. It survives them, which in Crimson accounting is the same thing measured from a different ledger. The hull is a slab of layered plating wrapped around almost nothing — a wall of armor with engines bolted to the back as an afterthought. Fleet doctrine parks it directly between the gunships and the enemy and tells the crew to hold position. Whatever fire would have shredded the real warships lands on the Trebuchet instead, and the Trebuchet absorbs it with the dull patience of a thing too stupid to know it is being shot. The two autocannons exist so the crew has something to do while they wait. Fleet engineers build it cheap and build it fast, because the role guarantees a short service life, and a wall that costs as much as a gunship is a wall nobody is willing to lose. The Fleet is always willing to lose a Trebuchet. That is the entire point.