Charon-class light frigate

The Charon-class light frigate is a type of escort ship in service with the UNSC Navy. Ships of this class are used primarily in fleet escort duties and planetary defense.

Hull and complement
At 490 meters in length, the Charon is a rather small vessel. Owing to its enlarged hangar bay, the Charon-class frigate is better suited to landing forces groundside than other frigate classes. The ship's sublight power plant is a Naoto Technologies: V4/L deuterium fusion reactor. Translight power is provided by a Series IV CODEN Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. The Charon has a maximum crew and complement of 782. It can carry several Pelican dropships as well as an assortment of ground and air vehicles. These include M808C Scorpions, AV-14 Hornets, and various varieties of M12 Warthogs.

The hangar bay on the Charon-class has a large opening on its aft wall. Three elevators are installed in the floor of the bay, which can either retract to allow for the launch of its embarked Pelicans, or extended to deploy its fleet of Scorpions and Warthogs to the surface.

Armament
The Charon-class frigate's primary armament is a Mark II, Light Coil – 83B6R3 Magnetic Accelerator Cannon. It also boasts fifty M58 Archer missile pods,, and four dual-mount M870 Rampart point defense guns are installed on the port and starboard hangar bays, one on the dorsal surface and one below. Additionally, the Charon sports three M4093 Hyperion nuclear delivery system silos, which are capable of destroying an unshielded.

Ships of the line

 * CMA Arabia
 * Bellicose
 * Iliad
 * CMA Vostok
 * Algolis-based frigate
 * Iliad
 * CMA Vostok
 * Algolis-based frigate
 * Algolis-based frigate

Trivia

 * The class potentially is named after either Charon, a minor god who ferried the souls of the dead to the underworld in Greek mythology, or after a natural satellite of Pluto.
 * The Charon class' distinctive, oversized cargo bay resembles that of the eponymous Firefly class from the television series Firefly. This was likely intentional, as the most notable Charon-class frigate depicted in the series, UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, first appeared in Halo 3, which was also when Nathan Fillion, who portrayed Captain Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly, joined the Halo voice cast, and whose Halo 3 character is named Gunnery Sergeant Reynolds.
 * The Forward Unto Dawn was drastically redesigned in Halo 4, including a restructured hull and the addition of several point defense guns. Though 343 Industries writer Jeff Easterling has clarified that the Charon ' s original design is canon, the redesign served as the basis of the.

List of appearances

 * Halo: First Strike (2010)
 * Halo 3
 * Halo Wars: Genesis
 * Halo: Helljumper
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo Legends
 * Origins
 * Prototype
 * Halo: Fall of Reach
 * Boot Camp
 * Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
 * Halo 4
 * Halo: Escalation
 * Halo: Hunters in the Dark
 * Halo: The Fall of Reach - The Animated Series
 * Halo Mythos
 * Halo: Silent Storm