It's another vehicle by request! Hey, did you know that if you request a vehicle, you could be next? Well, not NEXT, because I have another few requests ahead of you, but you'd be on the list! And lists are exciting! So get on there with your request! Do it! Do it NOW!!!
So. We haven't gone into the skies in a while, and this seems like a good opportunity to discuss a big, beefy menace brought to us by the Sea Foxes. Need to move a whole lot of stuff in a hurry, but have it get there safely- and, oh, maybe make life miserable on your enemy on the way there? Stay tuned, because your ship has come in. Let's look into the Cardinal.
Built by the Foxes and named for a now-defunct baseball team from Terra (
citation needed), the idea to the Cardinal is to haul battle armor. Not that it can't carry anything else, mind you, but a Clan VTOL with a ten ton cargo bay... let's be honest, you know what that's for. Anything else it does is a secondary role- but as it turns out, it's pretty good at other roles too. It's a beast, used mostly by the Jade Falcons, Republic, and the Foxes themselves. If you like to move infantry via VTOL, this is going to make you forget the Karnov ever existed.
Cardinals start with a 215 XL engine, an expense the Clans have rarely shown interest in for vehicles in the past but which the Foxes likely don't much mind. And the results are pretty special- the enormous 50-ton aircraft zips around at an 8/12 speed, maybe not barn-burning in the way an attack VTOL can move, but pretty fantastic compared to many battle armor APCs- and of course, being an aircraft, it can avoid the kind of terrain problems that can stop a Svantovit in its tracks (so to speak). Not much point to an APC that isnt' much faster than the guys it's carrying, so here the Cardinal shows a big advantage over other BA taxis.
Another important thing to a battle armor taxi is surviving to drop the kids off- dying before you get to the field is lame. So... be able to take a couple of hits on the way, right? Oh, but VTOLs are always thinly armored and can't take any real damage. Oh, wait, this has FIVE TONS of ferro fibrous armor, so take that idea and stuff it. The front of the Cardinal can take a pair of Gauss hits and STILL not break the armor, with thirty-one points up front! On a helicopter! Each side and the rear can take 21 points, enough to hold down an AC-20 hit. That's RIDICULOUS for a VTOL. The rotors have the standard two points, but you know the drill- can't armor that up. The rest means that dropping a Cardinal is VERY difficult- small arms and SRMs are almost useless, and even heavy weapons will take a few tries. Don't try that with a Karnov.
Now, usually you need gunships to clean out the LZ before the transports arrive (Cobras clearing out Hueys, for those who watch Vietnam movies). But... well, why bother with gunships? The mighty Cardinal will just do it all. An LB-2X in the nose starts the show, providing an amazingly long-range peppering that can clear light targets without any return fire being able to respond- and thanks to the bonuses against aircraft, enemy VTOLs go away quickly as well. That's an intriguing weapon to mount here- the author would have preferred a large pulse laser, but in tests the LB was far more useful than one would think. One ton of ammo supplies the gun, which should always be cluster because of course it should. Backing the cannon is an LRM-5 with one ton of ammo (remember, it's Clan, so no minimum ranges!), a handy option for a little additional pepper. And in case of foot soldiers, break out the twin AP Gauss in the nose as well (also sharing one ton). That's a pretty hefty and useful arsenal for a transport VTOL, though lacking in solid punch. (That pulse laser sure would be nice, right?) And of course, the main weapon is that ten-ton infantry bay- two points of battle armor can really make someone's life miserable in the right places.
Republic forces brewed up their own variant to meet their own needs- this version expands the bay to twelve tons (aka, three squads of BA), but to do this it drops the weapons to gain an MML-5 with a ton of ammo and three Clan-style small pulse lasers, all in the nose. Not quite as awe-inspiring, but handy nonetheless- and twelve tons of infantry? Just wow. Considering the vast array of BA the Republic has access to, that really opens up options for RAF commanders to set up some very nasty tricks.
So, there you have it, your new favorite transport VTOL- not cheap, compared to a Karnov, but... what a beast, right? Give it a try and let me know how you like it, and be back here next week for more.
