THB-D36 Thunderbird – TRO3075
Originally posted 09 Jul. 2008. Produced by the partnership of the Lockheed Corporation of Gibbs and Donegal's CBM Aerospace, the Thunderbird first entered service with the LCAF in 2480 and quickly became not only the workhorse of the Lyran heavy fighter arm, but was cloned by other manufacturers across the Inner Sphere soon after the formation of the Star League. (These secondary manufacturers include Wangker Aerospace on Axton, once a Hegemony world but now in FedSuns hands, and Perdition's Pinard Protectorate, presumably some time after the Concordat got its 'freedom' from the Star League. As an aside: TPTB have explained the Taurian licence to build
Seydlitz, but one wonders when the heck they'll finally come clean about the TC's ability to get their hands on all this
other Lyran hardware? ???) Despite its 'ungainly' appearance and perhaps
because of its relatively simple technology, it enjoyed constant production in its original form throughout the ensuing centuries, being made so widely and in such large numbers that it can be found in virtually every starfighter arm in known space, serving as an air-to-mud attacker and a DropShip escort/killer.
A lot of what
could be said about the original TRB-D36
was said during the original FotW runs (/me points upwards). Therefore, I'll concentrate this examination on the variants described in the fluff of TRO3075.
Though the baseline
T-bird was pretty hellacious in its own right, there were some who thought it could be even
nastier. Elite formations within both the LCAF
and the SLDF agreed, and to meet the demands, Lockheed/CBM developed and fielded the TRB-D46.
Class/Model/Name: Thunderbird TRB-D46 [speculative]
Mass: 100 tons
Equipment: Mass
Power Plant: 300 Fusion 19.00
Thrust: Safe Thrust: 5
Maximum Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity: 10 .00
Total Heat Sinks: 25 Double 15.00
Fuel: 6.00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters: 3.00
Armor Type: Standard (304 total armor pts) 19.00
Standard Scale Armor Pts
Location: L / R
Nose: 111
Left/Right Wings: 73/73
Aft: 47
Weapons and Equipment Loc SRV MRV LRV ERV Heat Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 ER Large Laser Nose 8 8 8 -- 12 5.00
1 ER Large Laser RW 8 8 8 -- 12 5.00
1 ER Large Laser LW 8 8 8 -- 12 5.00
1 Medium Laser RW 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
1 Medium Laser LW 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
1 LRM 15+ArtIV RW 12 12 12 -- 5 8.00
1 LRM 15+ArtIV LW 12 12 12 -- 5 8.00
Ammo (LRM 15) 24 --- 3.00
1 Medium Laser Aft 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
1 Medium Laser Aft 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: Heat: 58 100.00
Tons Left: .00 Yes, folks, that armour total
is correct (though the layout is guesswork): after making all the other changes, they
added five tons of the stuff to an already well-protected spaceframe. (I said in the original column's Workshop section that it was pretty easy to turn the
T-bird into a proto-
Hydaspes. I wouldn't bet against the Clans' having done exactly that. :o) This sucker is a Long-range
terror - leaving out the self-defence MLs results in absolutely no heat-deficit, and you can pound the hell out of an opponent at extended distances pretty much forever (or as long as your ammo and/or gas last). As an attack-craft or a fire-support platofrm, this bird has few equals in the pre-Clan era, and when used in the later role, any ASF trying to make an 'end run' around the dogfighters to smack down the support platforms first could well be biting off more than it can chew. #P
Bad news: despite hopes for "eventual widespread deployment" the -D46 came so late in the Star League's lifetime that only two hundred were completed before The Fall, and the ensuing shortages of advanced components - both during the Coup and in the Succession Wars era - forced production to revert back to the 'standard' -D36 model. :(
Good news: the foundtech rennaissance meant that Lockheed/CBM restarted production of TRB-D46s in 3055. You're looking at the better part of 7.5M C-bills per article, but I'd say it's worth every cent. }:)
More was to follow. Pinard Protectorates came out with their own retooled
T-bird, the -D50, which severely cuts back on the foundtech needed to build its birds but does so by using a weapons package that's a little...
odd compared to the baseline baseline.
Class/Model/Name: Thunderbird TRB-D50 [speculative]
Mass: 100 tons
Equipment: Mass
Power Plant: 300 Fusion 19.00
Thrust: Safe Thrust: 5
Maximum Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity: 10 .00
Total Heat Sinks: 34 Single 24.00
Fuel: 5.00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters: 3.00
Armor Type: Ferro-aluminium (250 total armor pts) 14.00
Standard Scale Armor Pts
Location: L / R
Nose: 86
Left/Right Wings: 56/56
Aft: 52
Weapons and Equipment Loc SRV MRV LRV ERV Heat Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Large Laser Nose 8 8 -- -- 8 5.00
1 Autocannon/10 Nose 10 10 -- -- 3 12.00
Ammo (AC/10) 20 --- 2.00
1 Large Laser RW 8 8 -- -- 8 5.00
1 Large Laser LW 8 8 -- -- 8 5.00
1 Medium Laser RW 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
1 Medium Laser LW 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
1 Medium Laser RW 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
1 Medium Laser LW 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
1 Medium Laser Aft 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
1 Medium Laser Aft 5 -- -- -- 3 1.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: Heat: 45 100.00
Tons Left: .00 A medium-range slugger compared to the 'all-range pain' of the -D36, the -D50 is cheap and easy to make and maintain with baseline technologies (FAA aside), and if some sneaky beggar gets his hands on AP special munitions for that AC/10, things could get
interesting for any mud-bug who gets caught in front of one of these. It's not quite an alpha-baby, but you can Strafe without buying yourself a Control Roll, and that much firepower is going to rattle anybody's cage. I'm not convinced that giving away the LRMs was a good idea, but there should be enough standard -D36s in the TDF that you could team them with -D50s and provide the necessary support without excessive difficulty.
As the original manufacturer, it's only fitting that Lockheed/CBM brings us the other
T-bird variant, brand new as of 3074. In accordance with good practice, they started with a solid base (the fearsome TRB-D46) and cranked up the dials, producing the TRB-D56.
Class/Model/Name: Thunderbird TRB-D56 [speculative]
Mass: 100 tons
Equipment: Mass
Power Plant: 300 XL Fusion 9.50
Thrust: Safe Thrust: 5
Maximum Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity: 10 .00
Total Heat Sinks: 20 Double 10.00
Fuel: 6.00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters: 3.00
Armor Type: Ferro-aluminium (313 total armor pts) 17.50
Standard Scale Armor Pts
Location: L / R
Nose: 113
Left/Right Wings: 72/72
Aft: 56
Weapons and Equipment Loc SRV MRV LRV ERV Heat Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Ultra AC/10 Nose 15 15 -- -- 8 13.00
Ammo (Ult AC/10) 20 --- 2.00
1 Heavy PPC (TW)* Nose 15 15 -- -- 15 10.00
1 ER Medium Laser RW 5 5 -- -- 5 1.00
1 ER Medium Laser LW 5 5 -- -- 5 1.00
1 LRM 20+ArtIV RW 16 16 16 -- 6 11.00
1 LRM 20+ArtIV LW 16 16 16 -- 6 11.00
Ammo (LRM 20) 24 --- 4.00
1 ER Small Laser Aft 3 -- -- -- 2 .50
1 ER Small Laser Aft 3 -- -- -- 2 .50
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: Heat: 49 100.00
Tons Left: .00 Um. Well, the -D56 should be really good at what the fluff says Lockheed/CBM designed it for - Dropper-chopping and heavy-fighter busting, neither being insignificant concerns in the era of Clan OmniFighters and WoB 'pocket WarShips' - as long as it stays at Long or Medium range and watches its weapon-mix. A squadron's worth should rip hell out of most 'Ships, and once the ammo is depleted its remaining energy armament means it can RTB with a certain degree of impunity. That said, I'm not a fan of ERSLs on starfighters, much less as a bird's only tail-guns in the age of XLFEs and ferro-aluminium armour, and in a similar vein the Ultra-10 doesn't really strike me as a 'super-decisive' weapon the way an HPPC, Gauss rifle or Ultra-20 might be.
[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=XXXXX.0.html