Design: A-ASF-8 Light Combat Vessel
3-2, 5+1, 5-2
The new A-ASF-8 Light Combat Vessel is cheap. That's about the best thing about it at this point.
In hindsight, a lack of significant experience in air and space engineering makes creating a small deploy-able atmosphere/space fighter is a hard task. While just creating one or the other would have gone a bit better, trying to fulfill all these specifications at the same time was a serious strain on our design team. We had tried aiming for "jack of all trades; master of none" but clearly hit well below that mark. The ASF-8 is a compromise down to its core, but we hope to have reached a point where it's marginally useful for combat situations.
Appearance-wise, it's an interesting sight. Extremely large folding wings extend from both sides of the ASF-8's tiny cockpit that fits the pilot and nothing else. Next to the cockpit but technically on the wings are its missile pods, and adjacent to the missile pods are its engines. Tiny reaction thrusters dot the hull.
The ASF-8 is deployed via an irritatingly long process. The ITC was not designed to be a mothership. The ASF-8 is moved to the ITC's shuttle port, a "manual" override of the docking port is done to fully open it despite there not being a shuttle ready for docking, then a group of people from the ITC's crew push the ASF-8 out as if it were an unpowered car.
The ASF-8 has very light armor - stray bullets from competently made weapons, such as the ABR-1, can still rip straight through it but won't seriously compromise structural integrity. The armor and structural fortifications are more so there to prevent it from being ripped apart in the air. We lost a surprising number of test pilots to that little "bug" before it was fixed. Any kind of explosive-based weapon will demolish the craft, no matter where it hits. We're relying on its fast-strike capabilities here;
A complement of 4 unguided missiles is carried by the ASF-8 - 2 on each wing. The missiles... work. They can be reliably fired and reliably detonate a very low-yield explosive at their impact site. The missile complement should be enough to fulfill the fighter's role if used properly, but they require an expert pilot as well as luck to be able to actually hit a target.
Perhaps one of the biggest flaws of the ASF-8 is that it cannot under any circumstances launch itself out of the atmosphere. We struggled to make the ASF-8 small enough to fit into an ITC, and the end result completely prevents us from using any useful amount of fuel. A set of reaction thrusters allow the ASF-8 to deorbit itself as well as dock with a nearby transport, but that's all we can do with the given fuel amounts and even then, the reaction thrusters won't be able to fire for long. Thus in space the ASF-8 fulfills only a minor defense role. It can't go far from its mothership or else it'll be stranded in space.
In-atmosphere, the ASF-8 relies on a combination of gliding and a pair of very light jet engines. The jet engines can just barely lift the craft and allow it to move freely in-atmosphere, but only have enough fuel stored for a total of ten minutes of powered flight. The rest of the time, the ASF-8 is designed as more of an "attack glider". It's released from a transport in orbit over the planet, deorbits itself, and essentially glides its way down to a safe spot while attempting to eliminate any hostiles on the way there. Its powered flight means it isn't useless versus other aerial targets, however, and can still perform limited dogfighting maneuvers.
Eventually, the ASF-8 will glide down to the ground. We'll instruct our infantry how to make makeshift landing sights for the ASF-8; it isn't particularly hard considering the tiny size. From there, the ASF-8 is out of commission until an ITC shuttle comes to transport it back to the ITC.
For communication, the ASF-8 contains a small radio - similar to the ones our infantry has - that can allow for basic communications while next to its mothership or communicating with our land forces once actually over the land. It isn't particularly long-range, but it mostly works so far. It finds its targets by vision alone. Coordination via the radio can help pick up targets, but it's still extremely inefficient, giving the ASF-8 huge targeting times making it lose its valuable element of surprise and "speed".
The ASF-8 fulfills two main roles: Transport defense and basic ground attack. It's not particularly good at either of these roles. Its unguided missiles combined with its delicate nature make orbital combat challenging at best, even with a skilled pilot. The missiles require near dead-on hits on the ground to do any damage, and the limited aerial maneuvering makes aiming the missiles for those dead-on hits annoyingly hard.
But because of its tiny nature, it is an extremely cheap craft. Perhaps deploying these on mass will make Moerth think twice about trying to intercept our ITC's. But even then, its flaws may be too great.
A-ASF-8 Light Combat Vessel: A tiny "fighter" designed to intercept threats in orbit and provide limited atmospheric support while being deployed from a transport ship. Its extremely tiny amounts of fuel means it can't leave the vicinity around its mothership and if it heads into the atmosphere, it can't return until picked up by the mothership manually. Has basic jet engines allowing ~10 minutes of powered atmospheric flight, but is still very cumbersome when powered and mostly flies by gliding downwards towards the ground after deorbiting from its mothership's orbit. Has 4 unguided very low-yield missiles that have to be expertly aimed to even have a chance of hitting things. Targets by vision alone; takes huge time to find targets in space+air and is also slow in both space+air. In ITCs, he vessel is deployed via a very long process in which it is manually pushed out of the ITC. Sometimes called an "attack glider".
Weight: 1 CU = 1x
Expense: 6x
Resources: Metal
It is now the Revision Phase of 2208.
Author
Topic: Planetary Arms Race - Amaok, Strategy Phase 2212 (Read 34742 times)