F-9* Stingray - 60t, TRO3025 and beyond
Originally posted 22 Dec. 2004. All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread. This week, we have kind of a twofer: the F-90
Stingray family, and its predecessor, the F-77
Deathstalker - since they're essentially the same family, I thought covering one without the other was a little unfair. ;D
The
Stingray, while also found with the LCAF, is the Free Worlds League's preferred medium fighter and mounts a formidable arsenal of energy weapons, and has the dual distinctions of being the only IS1 ASF I know of that mounts a PPC, giving it almost unmatched one-shot punch, and of being the only forward-swept-wing fighter in Inner Sphere service, giving it sex appeal. ;D
SUCCESSION WARS: The most common
Stingray fielded by the FWLM, the F-90, requires careful handling. A 6/9 thrust curve and the customary five-ton fuel capacity means it can dance around its LCAF counterparts the
Lucifer and
Chippewa with near-impunity, and that it can keep up with the Capellan
Transits and
Transgressors. It has a 60/45/34 armour profile, which is fairly decent for its weight, albeit still vulnerable to thresholding by the omnipresent ML across the aft. And the firepower? Whoa, mama! A nose-mounted PPC and large and medium lasers in each wing, backed by twenty heat-sinks, makes for a weapons mix that requires careful bracket firing. At medium range, you use the PPC
or both large lasers - either option putting some serious damage down-range and retaining negative heat; in close, you can choose between both larges or the PPC and both mediums, either option being -4 heat and generating some fearsome punch. The PPC/both LL option is a +6 on the heat-scale - not a great idea, but if used judiciously, followed by a turn or two in the 'standard' firing patterns to cool off, it can make for some serious hurt on the far end. An off-centre target, by the way, can receive as much as a PPC and both lasers from that wing for a mere +1 heat - none too shabby, by my lights. ;D An alpha-strike puts you over the top by a whopping twelve points, so I'd call that a tactic of last resort, but if you
do use it, the other guy's gonna be wearing a halo of tweeting birds for damn-sure. ;D
All in all, the FWLM must love its medium fighter - it's a fast, agile dogfighter that can turn-and-burn with some of the best, and the only thing limiting its combat endurance is fuel; those LCAF pilots who get
Stingrays must be ecstatic at the better performance (and survivability) of their craft as opposed to the sluggish
Lucifer.
Use
Stingrays as the utility fighters they are - go for the other guy's mediums and heavies (you
own Lucifers and
Chippewas!), or provide much-needed fire-support to the
Cheetahs when they mix it up with enemy lights. Use
Stingrays to tie up his interceptors and dogfighters and give the
Rievers a clear path to their target. Watch your heat-scale, and don't get separated from your wing-mate - no rearward armament means that a
Thrush or
Seydlitz can ruin your day in a hurry if given the chance, so mutual support is a must.
In the attack role, the
Stingray is formidable. A maximum bomb-load (twelve tons) makes for a 3/5 thrust-curve, which is certainly swift enough for a fighter-bomber of the time. What all those wonderful energy weapons can do in a strafing run makes one cringe at the thought - few IS1 assault 'Mechs short of the
Awesome can generate that much firepower - though strafing
Stingrays would be vulnerable to other fighters while they tried to cool off between passes. And even with the heat problems, the effects those big energy weapons can have on DropShips and larger targets (especially under squadron rules) is enough to give opposition naval officers some very restless nights. ;D
To defeat
Stingrays, you're well-advised to have lots and lots of light fighters. If you're playing LCAF, give your
Seydlitz the support of a lance or two of
Lucifers and soften up the
Stingrays before they get to the merge, then punch the
Lucifers through to engage his heavy assets while the
Seydlitz turn with his mediums and chew them to bits. The CCAF actually has some better options for dealing with the
Stingray - the
Transgressor is a medium fighter in a heavy's clothes, and its arsenal/heat-curve is actually better than the
Stingray's in some ways - but once again, the plan is for the big boys to hold his attention and soften him up before the merge, then the
Thrushes work the angles and get behind 'em in the actual furball. And if those same
Thrushes were to drive a
Stingray or two in front of a lance of
Transgressors and all those big guns.... ;)
There are two primary variants to the
Stingray in the IS1 era. The F-90S, a Steiner creation, tries to ameliorate the base F-90 model's finicky heat-curve by replacing the PPC, one heat-sink, and a ton of armour with an AC/5 and a ton of ammo. You can use the AC and both larges at Medium range without overheating, but to my mind the improved heat-efficiency doesn't make up for the decrease in throw-weight and the increased vulnerability. Only use this model if you've got nothing better. :'(
On the other hand, the F-94 is a far better proposition. All the armour and heat-sinks were retained, but the weaponry was completely overhauled: the wing-mounted LLs were traded for LRM-10s with a shared ton of ammo, while the nose-mounted PPC is downgraded to an LL and a third ML. The heat-curve on this model is much more forgiving, it gains the ability to reach out and touch someone at Long range, and while it lacks the sheer sex appeal/
oomph factor of the PPC/LL combo, it can actually use its three primary weaspons consistently while the ammo lasts (LL + 2 x LRM-10 = -4 on the heat scale), then transition to the LL and all three MLs to finish the target off (which is still -3 heat). This one's probably meant for attack duties (a strike from this sort of arsenal makes many IS1 heavy/assault 'Mechs green with envy and/or white with fear), but I wouldn't hesitate to use it as an interceptor/dogfighter, either, especially if supported by some F-90s. This model of
Stingray kicks ass. ;D
[VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants, including my own, belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=1238.0 .3049 AND BEYOND: Foundtech brought us the F-92
Stingray, a product-improved F-90. The installation of extended-range particle-cannon and large lasers yields much-improved reach, and the direct conversion of the original twenty SHS to double heat-sinks does wonders for the heat-curve - one can fire the ERPPC and both ERLLs together without having to worry about an overheat, which must have put evil, carnivorous grins on the faces of
Stingray pilots everywhere. ;D Nothing was done about the armour - a pretty grevious oversight, to my mind; the use of ferro-aluminium could have pushed the wing armour above the threshold threat of MLs - but the leap in useful firepower is still enough to make squadron-commanders rub their hands together in glee.
Despite a heat profile that's far more forgiving than the original's, the F-92's performance characteristics and assigned roles don't change all that much. Use them as you would under IS1 tech, but be careful - the upgraded
Lucifers and
Transgressors might not be any faster or thicker-skinned, but they've had weapons upgrades of their own, and you don't have the armour to go toe-to-toe with them. Your main worry, however, are -Z4
Seydlitz, which are further-reaching and tougher than before - they're no longer the one-hit-kills you were used to. Stick with your team, don't let anyone get swarmed or tailed, and use those big guns and DHS to maximum effect - a full salvo from your ER beams may not smoke a -Z4
Seydlitz outright, but they certainly can if you're good and/or lucky, so the prospect of getting in front of that lot is going to give him long, gloomy thoughts about mortality.
Countering these improved
Stingrays is also much the same as it was under IS1, but with increased hitting power to make it work. Lyran players have the -R16
Lucifer at their disposal, which has enough throw-weight to
really chew pieces off of
Stingrays for the guys driving -Z4
Seydlitz to exploit. The CCAF opted not to upgrade its
Thrushes - probably chose not to throw good money after bad :P - but what the -13A
Transgressors can do more than makes up for that; use TR-13As to dogfight with the
Stingrays, or as fire-support while the
Thrushes drive the F-92s onto their guns.
[VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants, including my own, belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=1238.0 .F-77 Deathstalker - 80t, TRO3026R
Download the .pdf here. In this tech-level, we also have the rediscovered F-77
Deathstalker, a 5/8 eighty-tonner which was the
Stingray's direct ancestor. When TRO3026R came out, a lot of people on the boards (cbt.com, back then) bagged the
Deathstalker, saying it was thinly armoured, sluggish, and ran too hot to use its armament effectively. The first two charges have some validity to them; to the third, I can only ask "WTF were you jokers smoking?" :o ;D
The
Deathstalker's armour is, admittedly, awful. 55/41/31 is the sort of armour layout you expect to see on lower-end mediums, not heavies. 5/8 is not the best accel profile around, but it's a match for most other heavies, so I don't see the big deal. But the weapons... zoinks! Each wing mounts a pair of ERLLs and an ML; the nose houses an AC/10 and a ton of ammo; and twenty-five freezers make for a
lot of dissipation capacity. This thing has a
better heat curve than the F-90 that replaced it, with an alpha overheat of +7, rather than the F-90's +12. Proper heat discipline makes for far, far better performance than the critics suggest: you use the AC/10 and ERLLs for two turns (at +1 per turn), then leave out the AC/10 on the third (for -2) to get neutral again. The mediums are the main sticking point in the arsenal to me; with all those DHS and the ERLLs, they won't see much use and are pretty much dead weight - unless you're in a close engagement and in a real hurry to cool off, at which point the AC/10 and MLs yield 20 damage for only nine heat (and when you set that against 25 DHS, even an F-77 that's bordering on mandatory shutdown won't even
notice that kind of heat - its heat-scale will
plummet after a single turn of this).
Had its structural flaws been corrected and the type deployed for front-line service, the
Deathstalker would not have been a dogfighter. It would have found its niche in escorting DropShips and other heavy assets; as a complement to formations of completely-ammo-dependent
Rievers, providing the mid-range firepower to their strikes that the F-700s themselves lack and acting as formation defenders once the
Rievers went Winchester and turned for home; and as a ground-attack aircraft, delivering devastating strafing attacks and point-strikes. Mutual support and formation discipline would have been the primary means of surviving enemy interceptors, as the primary tactic would be to get behind them with light-fighters and pound them until something gives.
[VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants, including my own, belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=1238.0 . Be advised: the attached .txt transcripts of previous runs of this thread contain numerous reader-proposals for variants. I'll try to change those out for 'sanitised' versions of those threads when I can, but I can't promise it'll be soon - that's a lot of ground to cover. ;)
