Author Note: According to fluff text in TRO Primitives I, the first practical Aerofighter (as in one that could fight effectively in both air and space) was the Chimera. Text in the Star League sourcebook also indicates that the Hegemony didn't have a capable transatmospheric aerofighter during the campaigns of persuasion, meaning our Chimera has to have come into service after 2316, when the campaigns began. The problem is that the Master Unit List puts the introduction of the first primitive Sabres at 2314, before the Hegemony even began its campaigns or, well, existed.
So I'm sorta splitting the difference here. In this case, the Chimera was not yet in service for the early part of the Campaigns of Persuasion, but had been in development since before the Hegemony formed, and prototypes would have been flying before the Sabre was introduced.Deployed within the first year of the James McKenna's rise to power, the Chimera is the granddaddy of every aerofighter currently in existence, and the very first practical transatmospheric fighter ever deployed. The impetus for the Chimera dated back to the Hegemony's first clashes with its wayward colonies. Though space superiority was no problem, providing air support for ground operations required the capture or establishing of dedicated ground launch facilities for the Hegemony's fleet of airbreathing fighter craft, and thus, by nature the Hegemony surrendered air superiority during the critical landing phase to the defenders, who were able to exploit it ruthlessly with massed bombing runs using heavy bombers like the Torrent. The deploying of specialized V/STOL and rough field capable fighters alleviated some of this problem, though even these craft proved vulnerable to being destroyed on the ground before they could be properly readied for combat.
The first attempts at using spacecraft to overcome this weakness relied on transatmospheric shuttles hastily equipped with weapons. Though most of these craft proved functional at intercepting and attacking large, slow moving flight groups of heavy bombers, they were wholy unsuited for engaging enemy fighters on anything approaching an equal footing. Even so, they bought time for the Hegemony to bring a true solution into the fray, with the first squadrons of Chimeras entering the battle six months into the Campaigns of Persuasion.
It's a common misconception that the Chimera was a direct product of the Campaigns of Persuasion, concieved, developed, and introduced in only a couple months, when the truth is, the need for a dedicated transatmospheric fighter had been identified even before the fall of the Terran Alliance (some calls for one dated back to the Outer Reaches Rebellion), and then Admiral McKenna had first ordered its development back in 2299, and had selected the Martinson Armaments design for production just before the Alliance fell into civil war. The new fighter simply hadn't been ready for service when McKenna began his campaign to expand the Hegemony, and the commanders of the HAF had simply underestimated the ability of these "rebel worlds" defend themselves, contributing to the unexpectly heavy losses to airpower during the early months of the campaign.
Once the first Chimera squadrons began entering the fray, the situation changed drastically. Just as they would over a century later with the first Battlemech, hegemony engineers went with an extremely heavyweight design for their first aerofighter. The eighty five ton fighter's great mass allowed room for not only a powerplant that gave it maneuverability almost comperable to most of the atmospheric fighters of the day, but also room for a weapon load that outclassed anything else in the air. Since it was expected that a relatively small number of Chimeras would be available at first to cover a wide battle area, designers also included a large fuel tank to extend loiter and maneuvering time, as well as a thick layer of armor plate that allowed the fighter to ride out a severe pounding while also being virtually impervious to penetration by the weapons of the day.
The first Chimera squadrons were assigned to naval units tasked with ground support, and it gradually became the Hegemony's principle air superiority craft. Though slated to be replaced in that role by the theoretically more maneuverable Copperhead, problems with that fighter kept the Chimera in the air superiority role for better than a decade before improved Copperheads and the new Star Dagger took over the job. Even then, the Chimera hung on as a dedicated heavy attack craft until well into the Age of War, when it was replaced by some of the first aerofighters built to "modern" construction standards.
Chimera F-28
Base Tech Level: Advanced (IS)
Level Era
-----------------------
Experimental 2425-2469
Advanced 2470+
Standard -
Extinct 2520+
Tech Rating: D/D-X-X-F
Weight: 85 tons
BV: 1,098
Cost: 4,659,489 C-bills
Movement: 5/8
Engine: 310
Heat Sinks: 18 (8 Pod)
Cockpit: Primitive Cockpit
Fuel Points: 720 (9.0 tons)
Structural Integrity: 8
Armor: 192 (Primitive)
Armor
-------------------
Nose 51
Left Wing 50
Right Wing 50
Aft 41
Weapons Loc Heat
-------------------------
AC/5 NOS 1
LRM 15 NOS 5
Medium Laser RWG 3
Machine Gun RWG 0
Medium Laser LWG 3
Machine Gun LWG 0
Medium Laser AFT 3
Medium Laser AFT 3
Ammo Loc Shots
-----------------------------------
AC/5 Ammo NOS 20
AC/5 Ammo NOS 20
LRM 15 Ammo NOS 8
LRM 15 Ammo NOS 8
Half Machine Gun Ammo NOS 100
