Author Topic: Fighter of the Week, Issue #047 (repost) - Strike Fighter, Light  (Read 7456 times)

Trace Coburn

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“Angel” Light Strike Fighter - 10t, AT2/TRO3039
Originally posted 30 Nov. 2005.

  All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding “FotW Workshop” thread.


  Planetary militias and home-defence units need air-cover and ground-attack capabilities, too, and given that they are usually very far down on national procurement priority lists, they most often can’t get aerospace platforms, or afford adequate numbers of them even when they’re available; indeed, for most planets’ self-defence needs, surface-to-space capability is not an absolute necessity so much as an expensive luxury.  Thusly, they find themselves in need of purely atmospheric aircraft which can move fast, deal damage... and be fielded in adequate numbers, often through indigenous manufacture.  This is the thought process which brings us the assembly of generic conventional platforms known as the Strike Fighter family.

  Taking “light” to a degree that few other combat craft can match - the lightest ASF available is twice its weight - the Light Strike Fighter (LSF) is explicitly designed for affordability and ‘swarm’ tactics, to saturate the defences of an invading DropShip/ASF force or ground units by speed and weight of numbers.  It first appeared in AT2 as little more than a picture and a stat-block, but TRO3039 has corrected that, giving us a name: the base model in the First Star League era was called the Angel by its original makers, Andurien Aerotech, but it was promptly knocked-off by everyone in sight, and variants have proliferated across most of the IS to meet various factional requirements and limitations.
  The LSF is generic Level 1 technology throughout, making it that much easier for worlds which have not yet experienced the benefits of the Inner Sphere’s technological Renaissance to mass-produce their own air-defence/ground-attack solutions.  Of course, the LSF’s 10/15 movement curve utilises a 100SFE powerplant, which means that those worlds would have had to retain or rediscover the ability to build their own fusion engines (which is by no means a sinecure, pre-3049).  Thing is, a couple of minutes playing with HM:A tells me that you simply can’t build a conventional fighter this size without using a fusion engine, which is a little strange when one considers the institutional experience of combat aviation in the twentieth century.  ::)  (I’m discounting the Boomerang, because it’s not a combat platform; it’s a reconnaissance ’plane, and thus little more than RP-fodder for most CBT players.  :-X)  With the double-efficiency conventional fighters get on their fuel compared to ASFs, a single ton of gas is probably sufficient for the LSF’s likely mission profiles - short-duration ‘hops’ close to base - though use of external tanks can extend that.
  Conventional fighters suck wind for armour, and the LSF is no exception: allowed only a half-ton of standard composites, 2/2/2, it has no thresholds to speak of and a single SRM (or AC/2 hit!) will strip any location it strikes.  This means that unless your target-zone is completely devoid of air-defences, any force of LSFs committed to combat is going to suffer a fair few casualties, and fast.  Their 10 SI gives them a decent chance of limping home from a few grazing strikes, but any sort of concentrated punishment - such as from decent-sized LRM racks, or God forbid a lance or two of Pike or Partisan SPAAGs - can tear huge holes out of an LSF squadron.
  The LSF’s canon ordnance load is a little baffling: the fusion engine comes with ten free single heat-sinks, and the designers loaded on an SRM-4 and a ton of ammo?  ???  I can only presume that they must’ve been thinking in terms of crit-seeking or Inferno-heavy tactics.  The external-warload capacity is a mere two tons at 9/14, which is still pretty fast; you can load it down with a pair of drop-tanks for double the fuel endurance (which lets you RP a recon mission), or a couple of RL/10s to make the other guy’s life un-fun.  A single LSF’s weapons and warload are unlikely to cause any heavily-equipped enemy any real grief... but at a mere 260 thousand C-bills and 137 BV per article, the odds of anyone fielding/seeing only one LSF tend very much towards zero.  }:)

  At that price, anyone who doesn’t use LSFs to swarm a given target needs their head read - this is the aerial equivalent of the Savannah Master!  }:)  However, you have to get them to the target to do that, which takes a little doing.  Plan your approach to the strike-zone carefully and avoid the densest concentrations of fire as much as possible... but once you turn in hot, go balls-to-the-wall and hit the target with a squadron or two - and I mean real-life-size squadrons, not the half-squads CBT considers ‘standard’.  Even at full tilt, any meaningful air-defence is going to cause you grief - I’d imagine that losses on an LSF sortie against a defended target are rarely lower than 25% - but if you can put steel on target and cripple/destroy something vital, like a command unit or an assault ’Mech, or even the DropShip the bad-guys arrived on... well, in cold mathematical terms, trading three or four LSFs/pilots and less than six hundred BV for an Awesome or a Leopard is a pretty good deal.
  Note: conventionals like this are found pretty much everywhere but see little glory.  An interesting (and probably very common) scenario would be a pirate ’Mech lance arriving on a Leopard (with the fighter bays ripped out to make room for loot) and facing a planetary militia equipped with LSFs and other such low-cost, home-made equipment.  ;)
  As for engaging enemy aerial assets: don’t.  Not in the air, anyway.  Bomb them on the ground, sure - but the overwhelming likelihood is that your opponent is attacking your planet with the benefit of ASF support, and any ASF which meets an LSF in the air is going to eat it for lunch.  The LSF simply does not have the armour or weaponry to deal with enemy fighters in the air, unless they’re fellow conventionals.
  If you’re playing in the Jihad era or later, though - or if your group likes to play things a little ahistorically - it’s very interesting to note that the LSF is juuuust big enough and has juuuust enough XO capacity to dip into the pages of TacOps and carry a single Light Air-to-Air missile.  It’s not a lot of added anti-fighter capability, but if nothing else it’ll derail the other guy’s train of thought.  }:)
  (Do I even need to say it? :D)

  For the defender, LSFs are like wasps: one is a painful nuisance, but a swarm can be deadly.  Your anti-aircraft defences had best be dense and well-sited - as noted above, a lance of Partisans will make mincemeat of a couple of LSF wing-pairs in short order.  Don’t be afraid to devote ‘secondary-target’ LRM fire to AAA duty, either - the more fighters you knock down before they deliver their warloads, the less time you’ll have to take out to repair and reorganise around the damage they inflict.  Friendly fighter coverage would be a great bonus - a squad of Sparrowhawks will positively shred any LSF formation they encounter.

  As noted above, the Angel LSF was cloned (and altered for local needs) across most of the Inner Sphere.  Many forces tried to lower the per-unit cost to afford the swarms of LSFs they knew they’d need, and the most common choice was to trade out the expensive SFE for a cheaper turbine powerplant.  House Kurita, never one to spend excessive amounts of money on ‘lowly’ militia formations, seem to have been the trend-setters on this score with their Suzume (“Sparrow”) variant, which mounts a simple 70-rate Turbine, an LRM-5 in place of the SRMs, and uses the remaining half-ton to put another point of armour on each wing.  :-\  I approve of the added range offered by the LRM rack, since it helps reduce your exposure to ground-fire, but I’m not sure the added armour is a worthwhile use of that half-ton.  (See the Workshop for more details.  ;))
  Shipil of Skye built most of the Lyran Commonwealth’s Angel-clones - dubbed the Owl - and their Owl II remodeling clearly thought in terms of saving on ammunition costs.  Retaining the 100SFE, it suppressed the SRM launcher and ammo in favour of three lasers - a nose-mounted medium and smalls in each wing - then doubled the internal fuel-capacity for better range.  I’m not sure that gaining the ability to Strafe makes this a worthwhile choice, but loading up on external-ordnance RL/10s lets the Owl II put a noticeable degree of discomfort onto a ground target in a Strike attack and exploit any breaches with its beams.
  Shipil weren’t done with the Owl design, either.  The Owl III appeared during the FCCW, turning the Owl II’s collection of lasers into a pair of nose-mounted ERMLs for a very respectable combination of reach and punch - the Owl III can actually hit out to Medium range now, and as with the Suzume, the improvement in survivability offered by the improved stand-off capability is hard to argue with.  (Glancing at the Workshop I ran with the first iteration of this article, either TPTBs independently evolved a similar idea or subliminally cloned mine.  Pretty cool either way.  :D)
  In their own turn, Andurien Aerotech returned to the Angel (once they’d rebuilt the production-facilities knocked out by the Cappies during the Succession Wars), and made an unusual choice in using foundtech by downgrading the engine to a 70SFE and using the freed cubage for nose-mounted pulse lasers (a medium and a small), with an aft-mounted ERSL valiantly swinging its handbag at the ass-grabbers and tailgaters.  On the one hand, the added accuracy of the pulse-beamers makes for better hit-rates, especially out of the undertrained militia pilots you’d expect to see in the things, and the SPL grants a certain degree of anti-infantry capability for COIN work.  On the other hand, I really can’t say the idea of slowing down an already marginally-suvivable airframe warms what passes for my heart, especially once the other side starts deploying MANPADS or, heaven forfend, actual AAA vehicles.  :o


  [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,3729.0.html



  Got any war-stories or personal variants of the Light Strike Fighter?  Put ’em up here for our edification....  ;)


  Be advised: the attached .txt transcript(s) 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.  ;)

Neufeld

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The latest record sheets has also has Angel (Upgrade) that replaces the SRM4 with a Streak SRM2 and increased wing armor.
To round off I might as well mention the FedSun Comet that is a clone of the base Angel.

"Real men and women do not need Terra"
-- Grendel Roberts
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We will be used to subdue the Capellan Confederation. We will be used to bring the Free Worlds League to heel. We will be used to
hunt bandits and support corrupt rulers and to reinforce the evils of the Inner Sphere that drove our ancestors from it so long ago."
-- Elias Crichell

Moonsword

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It's a disposable attack fighter.  Other than that, there's not really a lot else to be said here.  You might want to check out the new attack bird in the back of the new Liao book when you get a chance, though.  It's an interesting take on the strike fighter concept, albeit somewhat larger than the LSF.

Trace Coburn

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The latest record sheets has also has Angel (Upgrade) that replaces the SRM4 with a Streak SRM2 and increased wing armor.
  More from the still-being-redeveloped RS3039 Unabridged, I take it?  :P
  And that upgrade sounds... rather pointless, in all honesty.  You’re paying more for the weapons technology, you don’t get a meaningful increase in either throw-weight or armour, and your internal magazines are likely to be closer to full when they take a penetrating hit.  #P  Sounds like somebody in-universe needs to reacquaint themselves with the definition of “upgrade”.   ::)

Quote
To round off I might as well mention the FedSun Comet that is a clone of the base Angel.
  There weren't any meaningful differences between the FWL “Angel”, LC “Owl I” and FS “Comet”, so I figured there wasn’t much point bringing them up other than as brand-names.  ;)

It's a disposable attack fighter.  Other than that, there's not really a lot else to be said here.  You might want to check out the new attack bird in the back of the new Liao book when you get a chance, though.  It's an interesting take on the strike fighter concept, albeit somewhat larger than the LSF.
  I’ll probably have to lean on the community for a look at that one, but I’ll certainly try to give it a once-over.  (US$25 for a single .pdf is not only a case of sticker shock, it’s a little outside the limits of my current pay-cheques.  :'()
« Last Edit: 28 March 2011, 07:49:58 by Trace Coburn »

Neufeld

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  More from the still-being-redeveloped RS3039 Unabridged, I take it?  :P

Yes.

"Real men and women do not need Terra"
-- Grendel Roberts
"
We will be used to subdue the Capellan Confederation. We will be used to bring the Free Worlds League to heel. We will be used to
hunt bandits and support corrupt rulers and to reinforce the evils of the Inner Sphere that drove our ancestors from it so long ago."
-- Elias Crichell

Moonsword

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@Trace
I'll send you the details on the Katya.  My opinion of that upgrade is about the same as yours, by the way.

glitterboy2098

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honestly, IMO the LSF just screams out for a drone version...it's basically a real world UCAV with a cockpit crammed into the weapon bay.. :)
and being able to throw hordes of them into the fray without loss of life would make their disposable nature easier to justify..

on the otherhand, the drone equipment might cost more than the entire airframe..

FedSunsBorn

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That Owl III varient seems somewhat useful since 2 ER Medium Lasers is equal to some of the light ASF's out there for alot less money. I don't really like the SRM version but since it is so cheap, it doesn't seem really bad.

A drone version sounds like a nice idea but does Btech have the tech for an effective drone computer set up? The only one I remember was some kind of crawler vehicle back in the old TRO3026 and I don't even remember the name.
Made by HikageMaru

A. Lurker

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TacOps offers drone operating and control systems, and while a conventional fighter isn't allowed to act as a control unit, it can be turned into a drone. It probably wouldn't have too many ECM worries up there, either, though of course it wouldn't be performing quite as well as the real thing.

The drone operating system to be hypothetically installed in our fighter would cost 5,000 C-bills plus another 10,000 per ton of the item's weight. Since that weight is 10% of the drone unit's total weight, or a single ton for the light strike fighter, we'd be looking at a cost of 15,000 C-bills -- pretty low, really. Of course, you'd also have to pay for the control system directing it...but at 20,000 base + 5,000 per drone it can handle, that's not hugely expensive either.

glitterboy2098

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The drone operating system to be hypothetically installed in our fighter would cost 5,000 C-bills plus another 10,000 per ton of the item's weight. Since that weight is 10% of the drone unit's total weight, or a single ton for the light strike fighter, we'd be looking at a cost of 15,000 C-bills -- pretty low, really. Of course, you'd also have to pay for the control system directing it...but at 20,000 base + 5,000 per drone it can handle, that's not hugely expensive either.
if the drone system only masses a ton.. wouldn't that free up two more tons for weaponry?
hmm... 5 tons of weapon mass and 10 free heat sinks... large laser platform? scary thought..
i hear there are legal bomb bays now too.. i wonder how big of one you could fit into this for 5 tons..

A. Lurker

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Re: Fighter of the Week, Issue #047 (repost) - Strike Fighter, Light
« Reply #10 on: 28 March 2011, 16:49:01 »
if the drone system only masses a ton.. wouldn't that free up two more tons for weaponry?
hmm... 5 tons of weapon mass and 10 free heat sinks... large laser platform? scary thought..
i hear there are legal bomb bays now too.. i wonder how big of one you could fit into this for 5 tons..

You mean on account of the system replacing the cockpit? Not really. Aerospace fighters get the three-ton one-size-fits-all affairs; manned conventionals actually invest...10% of their total weight, same as the drone system.

Emil

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Re: Fighter of the Week, Issue #047 (repost) - Strike Fighter, Light
« Reply #11 on: 29 March 2011, 17:43:14 »
I never understood how these things had fusion engines during the Succession Wars.  I thought that SFEs were tough enough to produce that the Lyrans were worried about running into problems producing enough for the Rommel and Patton tanks.

What is it that makes aerospace fighters that much harder to produce than conventionals?  Surely it would make more sense to save the SFEs for aerospace and use the cheap turbines for conventionals, unless SFE production was a lot more efficient than it seemed.

Moonsword

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Re: Fighter of the Week, Issue #047 (repost) - Strike Fighter, Light
« Reply #12 on: 29 March 2011, 20:02:06 »
I never understood how these things had fusion engines during the Succession Wars.  I thought that SFEs were tough enough to produce that the Lyrans were worried about running into problems producing enough for the Rommel and Patton tanks.

What is it that makes aerospace fighters that much harder to produce than conventionals?  Surely it would make more sense to save the SFEs for aerospace and use the cheap turbines for conventionals, unless SFE production was a lot more efficient than it seemed.

First of all, they aren't the same engine.  To begin with, the 100 engine isn't really useful to ASFs because the acceleration curves it provides on fighters are either lower than any considered acceptable (4/6 at 50 tons and 3/5 at 100 tons) or well short of that used by normal designs (7/11 at 20 tons and 6/9 at 25 tons).  Further, aerospace and conventional fighters don't really use the exact same sort of engine - conventional fighters' engines are built to deal with pure atmospheric operations and are heavier than an aerospace engine of the same rating while providing less acceleration.  If you've got black box-type production lines, you've got the engines, so you might as well use them for the only thing they're really useful for.

Second, they didn't use them as widely as you seem to be implying.  TRO3039 indicates the Angel and other fusion-powered conventionals (including the larger HSF designs based on Jalastar's Meteor) suffered from a popularity decline during the Succession Wars.  Kurita's Suzumes, with their less powerful conventional turbines, were likely a response to that, as is the Taurian Bat Hawk HSF.  For more indirect evidence, the three types we know were developed and introduced in the Succession Wars, the Guardian, Boeing Jump Bomber, and 'MechBuster, all use turbines.  During the same period, the conventional turbine-powered Defender MSF and its ilk had a production boom.

Third, ASFs have to be designed to deal with atmospheric and space operations.  Ask NASA about how that complicates the design.  Then add in the fact that their support for armor is quite a bit more generous, meaning that there's probably some fairly significant structural differences.
« Last Edit: 29 March 2011, 20:03:53 by Moonsword »

 

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