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: 4.89 tons
Frame: Unknown
Power Plant: Fusion
Armor: BAR 3
Armament:
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 3025
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-F-F-X
Cost: 26,166 C-bills
Type: Mayfly
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced)
Tonnage: 4.89
Battle Value: 13
Equipment Mass
Engine Fusion 1
Safe Thrust: 4
Max Thrust: 6
Structural Integrity: 4
Heat Sinks: 0 0
Fuel: 0 0.0
Cockpit 0.5
Armor Factor (BAR 3) 8 0.152
Armor
Value
Nose 3
Wings 2/2
Aft 1
Weapons
and Ammo Location Tonnage Heat SRV MRV LRV ERV
Drone Operating System BOD 0.989 - - - - -
SV Chassis Mod BOD 0.0 - - - - -
Advanced Fire Control BOD 0.0 - - - - -
SV Chassis Mod 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.
The 4/6 speed gets the bombs to the target faster than a 3/5 speed and has only a modest cost (~3% of total system). In particular, a 4/6 design can cruise at velocity 7 in atmosphere using safe thrust each round. Velocity 7 is the maximum safe thrust for a propellor driven design. This incidentally mildly improves the robustness of the design by increasing SI.
BAR 3 armor is slightly more expensive than a default of BAR 2, but it pushes the critical damage threshold up to 1 from 0, providing a modest increase in survivability against small arms for ~1% of system cost.