TR-10 Transit - 50t, TRO3025
Originally posted 18 Jan. 2006. All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding “FotW Workshop†thread. ‘Broadly similar’ to the once-‘generic’ LTN-G15
Lightning and the chosen strike aircraft of the Capellan Confederation (for reasons known only to them), the TR-10
Transit has formidable close-range punch; that’s about all it
does have going for it, but hey, everybody’s got problems, right? ::) :P
Wrapped around a 200SFE which gives it much the same performance as the
Corsair, with five tons of gas to match that spaceframe’s combat endurance... one would think that the
Transit was a natural for going toe-to-toe with the Davion machine, right?
EEEHHHHHNNNTTT. Would you like to try for
Double Jeopardy, where the scores can
really change? :P
The TR-10’s ten-point-five tons of armour are pretty respectable, being just over the 20% mark HM:A likes so much, but its 65/35/33 layout leaves it vulnerable to ML TACs across its wings and aft. The nose armour’s thickness is probably owing to the weapons layout: each wing houses an ML, while the nose packs twin MLs and the grand-daddy of ’em all, an AC/20 with two tons of ammo, the whole assemblage being backed by thirteen single heat-sinks which allow one to fire all the nose guns at once, or salvo all four MLs if ammo is a concern (or depleted). Its maximum external load is a relatively light ten tons, but it can maintain a 4/6 thrust curve while hauling a max warload - a rare achievement in IS1 play.
Now, in IS1 play the AC/20 has
great intimidation value and unmatched stopping-power...
within its Short range. Unfortunately, a complete lack of any weapon reaching beyond Short range makes the TR-10 little more than a punching-bag for anyone who doesn’t share that short-coming... like the CSR-V12 and its twin large lasers. (Gee: funny, that. ::)) Its companion the
Transgressor is equipped for such Medium-range jousting, and thus in accordance with
received tactical wisdom it should be the main-stay of the dogfight if at all practicable, leaving the
Transit to put its AC/20 to more productive use elsewhere: in busting up anything tough enough to merit such punishment and too slow to dodge it. This rather pointedly excludes most ‘dogfighting’ starfighters but
includes most ’Mechs and ’Ships. A Strike from an AC/20 with four MLs to crit-seek is gonna rattle the cage on almost any ’Mech fielded in the IS1 era, and a squadron’s total bays deserve respect from naval officers: an AC/20 bay of some 12 Capital damage(!), a 6-Capital nose-ML bay, and twin 3-Capital ML bays in the wings. Hell, if you’re game enough, you can even tie up a Davion force’s
Corsairs with your
Transgressors and go after his
Stukas with TR-10s: the boom-stick makes a nice equaliser against all that armour, and they’re one of the few spaceframes in use that you
can out-manoeuvre! :-X
On the other side of the ball, what you want to do is stiff-arm
Transits and pound them to pieces at a range where they can’t bring their weapons into play.
Corsairs and
Stingrays will simply revel in this job, and better yet, if it turns into a knife-fight, they have the firepower to threshold the TR-10 from all angles - especially if they can stern-convert on the ‘cunning’ Cappies. Interceptors like the
Sparrowhawk and
Cheetah can also play a good role in this - the
Transit has no sternward weaponry, meaning that interceptors that get behind them can pick them to pieces more or less at leisure.
Now, the only remaining factory which builds
Transits is on Tikonov, which fell into FedCom hands in SW4 and was only reclaimed (through
another of Victor’s long list of SNAFUs) during the FCCW, so the only version of the TR-10 which ever flew remains IS1 technology: the TR-11, which makes the perhaps curious choice of offloading all four lasers for four tons of ‘reconnaissance equipment’. As spy-planes go, this is pretty fair... and as noted, despite having only ten rounds of fire the concentrated punch offered by the Tomodzuru makes for a great intimidator: any pilot sent to intercept a TR-11
has to be thinking, “Do I
really want to get close to an AC/20?†(Sooner you than me, pal. #P)
[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,4086.0.html Now, I know that there are some people out there who’ve used the
Transit before; I certainly heard enough gripes about them before the Mods decided all “-otW†listings belonged down here in “Fan Articlesâ€, lo those many years ago. :P So don’t be shy, people: let’s hear what you
really think about this spaceframe. ;D
Be advised: the attached .txt transcript(s) of previous run(s) of this thread may 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. ;)
