Retry's
Midge II made me curious about a dedicated bomber based on a small fixed-wing support vehicle.
The Mayfly is a dedicated bomber using an internal bomb bay capable of delivering 3 small fuel air explosive bombs dealing a total of 60 points of area effect damage. The Mayfly is used, typically en masse, to destroy ground targets, with a swarm of them flying in simultaneously to deliver large quantities of AE damage. A Mayfly has not-great odds of surviving a bombing run against a prepared target, but the target is also likely to take very serious damage. As a super-cheap system costing far less than it's bomb load, a low survival rate is fine.
The Mayfly has two deployment modes: in a counterinvasion role, it can swarm any enemy ground units and wipe them out rapidly for a far lower cost than most other approaches. In an invasion role, Mayfly swarms can be deployed from dropships at high altitude from aerospace fighter bays. From there, they can swarm down to dive bombing altitude (i.e. altitude 5) and destroy ground based defenses with any survivors returning to high altitude for pickup.
Mayfly Drone
Mass: 4.58 tons
Frame: Unknown
Power Plant: Fusion
Armor: BAR 2
Armament:
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 2455
Tech Rating/Availability: D/E-F-F-X
Cost: 22,460 C-bills
Type: Mayfly
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced)
Tonnage: 4.58
Battle Value: 9
Equipment Mass
Engine Fusion 0.5
Safe Thrust: 3
Max Thrust: 5
Structural Integrity: 3
Heat Sinks: 0 0
Fuel: 0 0.0
Cockpit 0.5
Armor Factor (BAR 2) 8 0.104
Armor
Value
Nose 3
Wings 2/2
Aft 1
Weapons
and Ammo Location Tonnage Heat SRV MRV LRV ERV
Drone Operating System BOD 0.958 - - - - -
SV Chassis Mod(Propellor) BOD 0.0 - - - - -
SV Chassis Mod(Ultralight) BOD 0.0 - - - - -
Advanced Fire Control BOD 0.0 - - - - -
Cargo Capacity: 3 tons
Features the following design quirks: Internal Bomb Bay, No Ejection System
Design decisions:
Drone or UAAV? Using a smart robotic control system costs less and frees up a ton for an extra bomb. However, SRCS control has substantial drawbacks: gunnery is fixed at 5, there is no real coordination amongst units, targeting is iffy, and movement really only takes into account a target while ignoring other adversaries. A drone system addresses all of these issues. For example, a coordinated massed-attack likely improves survivability substantially by saturating air defense systems, veteran pilots can provide superior piloting, and more optimal targeting can be done. There's a more subtle value as well: pilots with practice on drones become better.
3/5 or 4/6? 4/6 makes it possible to achieve max velocity (7) using safe thrust. On the other hand, using overthrust to hit velocity 7 on a propellor based design seems to have no substantial drawbacks. For a design which is unlikely to survive more than a bomb run or two, extra maintenance overhead (or whatever) doesn't seem like a real concern. Using 3/5 also reduces the cost by about 11%.
BAR 3 or BAR 2 armor? BAR 3 is 3% more expensive than a default of BAR 2 while pushing the critical damage threshold up to 1 from 0. Ultimately, I decided against it because the odds of a critical hit destroying the vehicle before structural destruction seems relatively low given the low quantity of armor & SI.