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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[NAV]

It absolutely needs a bayonet lug.

So we can drive the motorcycle into someone and stab them. While also wielding a Horsekiller bayonet lance preferably.

[Olith McHuman]

What this really needs is a lance with a heat charge on the end.

[evictedSaint]

Artemis Improvement Package

The accuracy and range of the Artemis is rather abysmal.  Considering how the rocket artillery will prove useful in the desert and in the mountains, improvements to the rocket systems are in order.

Firstly, our Piracy Warning is adapted to be fired from the Artemis.  A timer activates after passing the apogee of the rocket's arc, turning on the infrared guidance and allowing the rocket to direct itself towards heat sources (such as Bull tanks, which conveniently angle their exhaust upwards).

Secondly, some rather simple and basic improvements are made to our standard artillery rockets.  The rockets receive our current rocket propellants in order to improve maximum range, thanks to our increased experience in rocket and missile technology.  The fins are angled to encourage the rocket to spin-stabilize in flight, improving grouping and accuracy.

[NAV]

Undepleted Uranium Rounds
Uranium would make an excellent armour piercing round. It's about 70% denser than lead, and has amazing kinetic penetrating properties.

"Uranium is favored for the penetrator because it is self-sharpening and flammable. On impact with a hard target, such as an armored vehicle, the nose of the rod fractures in such a way that it remains sharp. The impact and subsequent release of heat energy causes it to ignite. When a DU penetrator reaches the interior of an armored vehicle, it catches fire, often igniting ammunition and fuel, killing the crew and possibly causing the vehicle to explode."

Let's make a uranium penetrator round for everything. From 9mm pistol to 300mm Overcompensator. Probably the most relevant for our 15mm Horsekiller II, 20mm and 30mm autocannons, 75mm and 100mm tank cannons.

Ignore the mysterious illness and tumours. Only the weak get that Vlanladosian illness. You're not weak, are you?

[evictedSaint]

UF-SMRL-44 "Speedbump"

The United Forenian Shoulder Mounted Rocket Launcher "Speedbump" is an improved version of our previous RPG (AS-RPG28 A), which is showing its age when compared to Cannala munitions.

The Speedbump is essentially a tube with handles and sights attached.  The rocket is rear-loaded and features fold-out fins for in-flight stability.  The warhead is a heavy-duty HEAT charge for punching through enemy armor and spraying molten copper into the internals.  The rocket spins in flight to maintain stability and holds a more or less line-of-sight trajectory.  The Speedbump has improved rocketry over the AS-RPG28 A thanks to several years of rocket design and has an effective range of 300 meters.

At 5 kg's, the Speedbump is light enough to be air-dropped with a paratrooper...assuming they're alright with forgoing a few other pieces of equipment.

[Sensei]

UFAF-F-45 'Hayat' (hey we've had a Bjorn for like, a lot of turns. It's time to show some love for the VICTORS of Wands Race)
The Hayat is heavily based on our Very Very Frightening fighter, except smaller, at as close to 1/2 scale as is possible. It uses a single engine instead of two engines, removes the wing hardpoints. The engine can be either a version of the VVF-Q's engine (finally fixed with the help of that nasty Wolfram character) with afterburner, or the VVF's normal engine capable of using the original hydrazine Fuel o' Doom. The fixed fuel formula is also applied to the VVF-Q (though no effort is spent on giving the VVF-Q an afterburner). The Hayat retains the relative size of the control surfaces and the power assist for them, the flying tail, the twin 30mm cannon, the crude thrust-vectoring (now only on one rudder over one tailpipe), the countermeasures (flares and Fair Fight), and the radar. The single remaining hardpoint is modified as needed to carry the upper stage of a Noose missile. A primitive beeper in the cockpit tells the pilot when the missile has a target lock so he can best judge when to fire. Every effort is spent to keep the costs down, from new weight-saving internal designs for the structure of the aircraft to modified fuel formulas, preserving effectiveness at reduced cost. The goal, of course, is a fighter costing roughly as much as the Lightning Streak, but with substantially better performance, capable of beating the Cannalan aircraft by virtue of our superior aircraft and jet engine experience.

Hard: 5
UFAF-F-45 'Hayat': The Hayat is a light fighter derived from the VV-Frightening, a move inspired by the success of Cannala's Lancer. It has a single afterburning engine which makes up much of its size, and unlike the the VVF, burning a kerosene/gasoline blend. It has a single rudder, cutting through the exhaust, and a flying tail behind swept wings, themselves on top of two intakes.  It's got an elongated bulge behind the cockpit which contains countermeasures such as a Fair Fight module and flares, and the nose extends in front of the pilot to house radar and two 30mm Velociraptor cannons. It has a single centerline hardpoint, capable of holding a new development: The upper stage of a Noose anti-air missile, which weighs about half a ton. There is a "beeper" in the cockpit to indicate that the missile is pointed at a target. It's short on fuel and ammo, which is a particular concern with only one missile, but it reaches high subsonic speeds (partly limited by reduced engine efficiency near the sound barrier) and it has good energy retention as it's very low-drag, with no wing hardpoints to support. Like the VVF it is highly maneuverable, and the short length has even lead to less concerning groaning noises at extreme G's. At lower speeds its performance is just okay. [5 Ore (1 Al), 4 Oil]

Edit to add: The VVF-Q may benefit from the new fuel blend, finally stopping the flameouts.

[evictedSaint]

Desert and jungle; two places that totally depend on long-range.

We should either do the Speedbump (aka a decent rocket launcher) or the mine dispenser or uranium ammo (ideally with a fmj, and capable for tank shells and the HKMKII)

[Madman198237]

I think the first part of that was sarcastic, right?

I honestly do like the concept of motorcycle artillery using recoilless rifles. You don't need high speed to kill somebody with HE or kill a tank with HEAT. If we do it, though, start simple. Just mount the existing recoilless rifle onto a motorcycle sidecar-type attachment, maybe update the HEAT charge or whatever so it can kill a Bull from the flanks. Boom, instant use for motorcycle cavalry---no longer do they have to fear enemy tanks or enemy armor in general, now they can just kill the things, granting us HUGE mobility in the desert, because according to canon (first Arms Race, apparently), our motorcycles can work just fine in the desert.

Regardless, I think that the air-dropped mines might be a bigger advantage, they'll kill Cannalan mobility and render entire formations of Cannalan armored units and transport columns vulnerable to air attack as they try and clear the mines out.

[evictedSaint]

Desert is wide open, and sniper rifles were noted as being useful in the mountains. I was being serious :<

No no memecycles!! If they make it over the mountains or into the desert - sure, why not. But no motorcycles in the mountains!!!

[Madman198237]

Yeah but you said "desert and jungle", which isn't accurate.

But we're going to be fighting in the Tereshkova desert now, and if we lose that we lose the game, almost certainly, so the motorcycles aren't the worst option. However, I think mines could also be useful in the mountains---if a Haast does a low pass over the only path in the area, you know where the enemy is going to be for most of the next day as they clear those mines.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

UFAF-CAS-45 'Hornet'

A modification of the UFAF-F-45 'Hayat' that sacrifices some speed for better low speed performance, and has 2 hardpoints added to each wing.  Each of these hardpoints can carry half a ton, leaving the final payload of the fighter at 2.5 tons, allowing it to carry 5 conventional 500kg bombs, 5 Firecracker 500 kg PTAB bombs, 5 Noose AAM missiles, or some combination of these or other payloads.

[evictedSaint]

Yeah but you said "desert and jungle", which isn't accurate.

...whoops

I meant to say mountains, not jungle.

I'd rather not let them devour the mountains too. It would tempt sensei too much to throw the game next turn just to end it.

[evictedSaint]

UF-MAD-45 'Pegleg'
A variant of the Firecracker.

The United Forenian Minefield Airborne Deployment unit "Pegleg" disperses mines through the use of an air-dropped bomb unit.  Like the Firecracker, the Pegleg disperses its payload over a variable area depending on altitude of deployment. This is to quickly and remotely spread mines over a large area or through a chokepoint such as a mountain pass. It can be filled with any landmine we presently have, each with a small parachute on top to ensure they land softlyish and right-side up. All mines are modified so that when they are released from the dispersal unit, the mine is armed. AT mines cannot be stacked and deployed, but given that we can now rapidly and stealthily (nighttime parachute drops!) minefields the mobility kills we will get should allow us to immobilize and then use artillery against any hostile targets. Oh, and if they start clearing the minefield we can just start deploying the regular-old bombers to make a mess of them.

[Madman198237]

Huh. It reads like if we re-added the VVF afterburner to the Hayat (mentioned in the writeup but didn't make it into the final product), we might manage a supersonic fighter at last, since it goes high subsonic and has low drag (And the large control surfaces necessary to make a transition to supersonic flight without crashing and dying in the transonic turbulence).

Too bad we (probably) don't need it. It'd be pretty hilarious to be pulling supersonic boom-and-zoom/supersonic energy fighter maneuvers.

Anyway, I'm going to start the voting so this phase has a chance of going faster.

UF-MAD-45 'Blackcat': (1) Madman

All aboard the "deny enemy mobility" train!

[Happerry]

UF-MAD-45 'Blackcat': (2) Madman, Happerry

Air dropping mines sounds fun to me.