Coalition Close Air Support Gunship

[NovenTheHero]

Well, I want to agree with you all the way guy, but there are some flaws

I understand the importance of CAS, but the CS has it with several air platforms.

Black Lightning
Demon Locas
Super SAM
Talon Stealth Fighter

[Dead Boy]

1b. C-80P Particle Cannon:
Primary Purpose: Anti-armor
Secondary Purpose: Anti-personnel
Mega-Damage: 4D4x10 for anti-armor shot; 5d6 in 10' radius for rapid fire burst.
Range: 2500'
Rate of Fire: One shot per melee for anti-armor; H-t-H attacks for burst firing. The two cannot be combined in the same melee round.
Payload: Unlimited

You do realize that this makes you vehicle's PB cannon more powerful than the primary gun of the Skull Smasher's, right? Now admittedly I've always thought that was one grossly underpowered gun on the IAR-3, but still, it sets a precedence of sorts.

[Dustin Fireblade]

Well worth the wait. And just in time too....my group and I are playing tomorrow night, and I have the feeling they are going to need some CAS.

For the weapon choice, I'd prefer the C-80P. Mainly to reduce my logistics, and I prefer energy over ballistic. Likely though a unit would have both.

[Borast]

While I didn't go "word-for-word" editing...

A gatling cannon with three different types of barrels...nnn...I don't think so...

A rotary/gatling cannon is designed to pump out the maximum possible firepower without the barrel immediately melting...the 1/6th of a second (or less) allows the barrel to cool somewhat, while the gun continues to fire. Also, the gun always fires at the same point in it's rotation - typically at "12" or "6" o-clock. One shot per barrel per revolution around the gun's long axis.

Other than the nightmarish ammo jam problems this beast would suffer from, the big problem I see is the HV ammo overtaking the slower moving explosive or flechette ammo, resulting in a possible craft killing series of explosions, or simply a shower of deflected flechettes clogging the intakes, tearing through the engine, etc...

From the basic description of your gun, the closest thing I can think of would be Blue Thunder's gatling...it had a .45 rifle barrel in the middle of the gatling and fired a single shot at a time. Physics is not my strong point so I don't know if this could really work or not.

If you want to keep the multiple calibre and ammo loads, I suggest you do two three barrel gats instead of a single multiple calibre gat. You can have the two slaved side-by-side and set to fire simultaneously, or one at a time. In anycase the multiple loads for the larger calibre cannon is possible, but to the best of MY knowledge, rarely done - it's normally one or the other! After all, feed switching is prone for nasty jams!

Other than that...it's a nice little package.

[Dustin Fireblade]

Regarding the concept of the gatling gun:

http://www.knox.army.mil/armormag/ja97indx.htm

Click on the Future Combat System article...



Morgan, used this yesterday in my game. A mixed unit, 2 with the gatling and 2 with the particle beam...did very well. I'll send you a more detailed report later. The look on my players faces though...
Course now they want one....it really helped them out.

[Slag]

There was something alot like this in Rifter 19 (IIRC) where they used the Deaths Head as a platform for a gunship.

[R Ditto]

Interesting, but I have a few questions and things I want to point out.

1: How much does it weigh?

2: Why such a high altitude? It seems many of the other VTOL craft can’t get that high.

3: What’s the effective cost of this thing? Would it be cost effective to simply field multiple helicopter gunships along with all of the support personal and supplies required?

4: What’s up with the gatling gun? A gatling railgun with two different calibers in the same weapon? Wouldn’t that poses a mix of recoil, power transfer and ammo feed problems? You should know that the more complex and the more parts something has, the more likely it will stop working due to something going wrong. Just powering the barrels themselves seems like a nightmare in a multiple rotating barrel setup, especially when there are two different sized barrels each requiring their own type of power flow..
IMHO, Gatling guns = good for standard guns, nightmare for rail guns.

5: I might have missed it somehow, but how many rounds does the gatling rail gun fire to do its damage? And why such a big radius for the Flechette rounds? You might need a lot of Flechette rounds to do that much damage to a 20ft wide area.

6: What’s with the PB gun? It seems a bit powerful IMHO, although the slow rate of fire balances it out, but what’s with the rapid fire burst? 5D6 MD to a 10ft radius? That’s a bit to much damage to a 20ft wide circular area. I think a full squad of soldiers with particle beam rifles would need a full melee to do that amount of damage to anything/everything in a 20ft area.

7: What’s with the laser defense system? 720 degree coverage? Doesn’t that equal a full 360 degree coverage twice over? It also seems a bit powerful and to long ranged for something that uses fiber optics to transfer laser energy to some omni-directional emitter setup.

8: The weapon bays. I would go with 3 SRMs to replace an MRM. A multi-warhead MRM effectively has 4 SRMs in it, so 3 SRMs and a rack to hold them should fit in the same amount of space as an MRM. For MMs, why not a simple retractable launcher? When needed, the bay opens up, the launcher lowers down into a firing position, unloads, and then retracts when done firing.

9: What kind of sensors does it have, what are their ranges, and what bonuses are from the sensors? Can the combat management computer know what time to kill ECM? Like if someone doesn’t like ECM and has fired an anti-radiation missile its way?
On the subject of the sensors, I do think the sensor mast is a bit to long. Only need a few feet to peek over obstacles/cover, IMHO. A full blown “sensor periscope” might not be needed in most occasions.

10: This thing could become like the GB... it becomes the first thing the enemy wants to blow up when they see it, which causes problems if it happens the be one of the more expensive things involved in combat. It’s a VTOL gunship, so it needs to stay close the ground part of the time, and that could make combat a bit of a risk at times.

11: About stealth, it isn’t to stealthy unless it runs without radar, laser navigation, and without ECM. Problem is, all the external or exposed weapons components and the sensor clusters won’t help stealth much either. That means if you want to try and be stealthy, it means flying almost blind using just passive sensors and hoping someone doesn’t spot you or any of the radar reflective things sticking out of it. I also bet it isn’t exactly quiet due to its VTOL engines.

Overall, an interesting idea that might see limited use due to limited production relating to complex parts, and a possibly prohibitive cost.

Other comments I have (relating to stuff in the backstory part).
The CS Helicopters don’t exactly appear to be made as long range strike platforms, so having non-nuclear engines makes sense. This also makes sense due to their vulnerability. One advantage I can see is a rotorcraft possibly being able to carry more than a vectored thrust/VTOL craft can. The CS does also already have oil wells and refineries, IIRC, so getting fuel wouldn’t be a problem.
Also have to consider that maybe the CS wanted to put less drain on nuclear fuel resources and start using other resources they have laying around.
Also can’t forget the type of effect that might be caused from hearing the rotors of one or more of the gunships approaching from the distance.

Not all Sams are wimpy/useless in such a role. The Super SAMAS is an effective strike platform. It has speed, it has good altitude, it can hold up to 80 micro fusion grenades. It can possibly unload its total payload in a melee, inflicting a total potential of 480-2880 MDC total. Even a single volley of 8 would do 48-288 MD to everything in a 12ft area. Take it up to max height, and the thing can technically do some indiscriminate saturation bombing.
There is also the dual plasma and dual laser guns. Give it a CTT-M20 to really kick up the firepower. I know from Super SAMAS vs. GB debates that the Super Sam is one tough customer. Helicopters backed up by Super SAMAS would be a nasty combination.

[Dustin Fireblade]

The current CS helo's are both lightly armored compared to the Thunder, even discounting the rotors (you only need to knock one rotor out). As mentioned there is a whole set of logistics required to support them in terms of fuel, mechanics, and they each require a four man crew. I'd rather train more people for a more capable machine that will have a better chance to bring them back alive, get there faster and be able to support those guys on the ground.

Don't have a problem with the CS helo's but I'd rather see them as a CSAR platform than a CAS platform.

As for the sky/rocket cycles...as mentioned the pilots are vulnerable to various dangers, not the least of which is the weather. I'm pretty adamant that these are fair weather fliers, something I'm pretty sure most people discount. Also the craft themselves are fragile.


Hey Morgan how do you visualize the Thunder? When describing it to my players I basically went with it modeled after the Triax XM-275 Lightning.

[R Ditto]

It's approximately the height the helicopters work at. The CS has shown they can get aerodynes that high, as exhibited by the Death's Head.

I was under the impression it was a VTOL like the AFC-103 and AFC-105. Even the Death Bringer and Sky Lifter only have an altitude of 6000ft
The DHT has its own rather large propulsion system mounted on the bottom.

Again, not considered to a exact credit amount when I was working on it. But the costs for the choppers become very high when you look beyond the simply the cost of buying one.

Helicopters are a lot cheaper than many of the vehicles and even rocket cycles. Giving one a nuclear power plant would probably increase the cost of one of those copters by ten times, if not more.
Example, the Iron Eagle from IHA in Mercs. 1.5 million for the liquid fuel version, 24 million for the nuclear powered version.

The CS now has to extract and refine whatever fuel it's using, move it too the front lines with regularity (and liquids are not known for being volume friendly), provide personnel who's purpose is fuel the beasts, all the material required for fuel handling (tankers, pumps, blivets, etc)

The CS Navy already operates helicopters and even F-14s, so the CS knows about this kind of stuff already.
I think I did mention something along the lines of “The CS does also already have oil wells and refineries, IIRC, so getting fuel wouldn’t be a problem.”
I think that also means they would already have people skilled in moving fuel around and refueling vehicles with internal combustion engines.

and train technical types on helicopter mechanics as opposed to those that know VTOL/aerodynes and could work on the whole range the CS has opposed to two models. The choppers are also very fragile which raises their operating costs (others may not do it, but I allow for area effect attacks to do more then hurt the main body).

The CS Navy has helicopters.
They were making Helicopters as they were making all of those other VTOL/aerodynes for the “new” CS military.
The CS did capture IHA, which made helicopters.
MDC materials are not as fragile as SDC materials, so MDC helicopters probably don’t suffer from as much wear and tear from normal operation.
What does it matter if the rotor is a big single external one, or one or more smaller internal ones or electric turbines connected to a vectored thrust system with a lot more moving parts to direct the thrust? Both seem equally complexin their own ways, if you ask me.

Once again, I ask you all to look at Dustin's link, or check info on the Future Combat System either in

I looked at it, and I see one spot it’s shown mounted on a ground vehicle, a tracked one at that. After looking at the muzzle velocities, I would have to state this is definitely not a good weapon for a VTOL. An A-10 can only fire a second or two with its 30mm gatling gun before recoil overcomes its ability to maintain enough velocity for its wings to generate effective lift. This thing is packing several times the muzzle velocity, which means a lot more recoil. I bet it also needs a LOT more power than a regular nuclear power plant can generate.

I hope this VTOL has crew used to flying backwards if they fire to long of a burst. I’d also have to now say the damage is WAY to low. The GB’s gun is roughly 50mm, and has a muzzle velocity of 1500m/s. This gatling railgun is at 4000-8000m/s. Just one of those 25mm rounds should be able to equal the hitting power of a single BG blast.
The 35mm flechette rounds should have no trouble equaling the power of a BG round due to the high speeds, but I don’t think it would be able to cover a 10ft radius/20ft diameter area.
This thing should be restricted to short bursts, which should have no trouble wasting more or less anything not a GB or large armored vehicle.

There is the question of if the CS could even have the capabilities of creating a weapon like that, and if their nuclear power sources could handle anything over the weapon firing a single round at a time. I’m thinking it might need two reactors. One for flight systems, sensors, life support etc, and a separate, larger one to power the energy weapons, plus a nice sized capacitor/battery system.

You didn't as I didn't state how many rounds are in a burst. Considered it moot since the can't fire anything less then a burst. *snip*

Many railguns can’t fire anything other than bursts, but they still list rounds per burst and damage for a single round. I did notice the gatling railgun you are basing this off of does appear to have a possible single shot mode. There is mention of “The anticipated controlled variable rate of fire is from 1 to 60 projectiles/min, depending on battlefield conditions and availability of targets, while optomizing and conserving energy”
I can’t seem to have much luck finding any other mention of rate of fire, or of how many rounds it can fire in a single burst.

*snip* As for the flechettes, since burst rules are normally so simplistic in the game, the area of coverage is assumed to be combination of the burst pattern of the cargo shells coupled with the gunner normally walking fire in the beaten zone*snip*

How do you “walk” fire from something that can likely spit out a few dozen rounds in a single second? I can see a “path” of fire, but not a 20ft diameter area. Or did you mean something like a few rounds in rapid succession instead of a true burst?
Would recoil and vehicle controls pose a problem for walking fire of a gatling railgun?

As has been stated on other threads, it can be argued that published Palladium stats for AFV-scaled weapons are off. As for the rapid burst *snip*

Perhaps, but a 20ft area hit from something that has no barrel wandering from rapid fire recoil seems to make a burst of PB fire unlikely to hit everything in a 20ft wide area. What if there were 10 soldiers in that 20ft area? That’s an amount of damage totaling 50D6 of damage being done (5D6 to everything in a 10ft radius/20ft diameter area). That’s over twice as much damage as the weapon can deal with a single anti-armor shot.

For big vehicles having poor damage capacity, for energy based weapons, it is likely that it is due to the fact a nuclear power plant can only put out so much power so fast.

720 degrees means on both the vertical and horizontal planes, X, Y, & Z axes.

As for range and power, it is meant to knock down air defense missiles, which normally in the Medium Range category. This is also not a single shot, but an abstract of a burst of laser fire. As for the power coming through a fiber-optic... *snip*

Think of it this way. You got enough energy to vaporize up to a dozen people being directed through a physical means of transfer. That’s a lot of light energy, and chances are, any fiber-optic system capable of handling that kind of light energy is probably going to generate a lot of heat, if not risk melting the fiber-optics unless they have an incredible resistance to heat or a good cooling system.

Seriously, I don't see the it being too bad. Look at many laser pistols in the game and such as the CP-30. *snip*

The weaker a beam is, the shorter the effective range is likely to be before the energy disperses to much to inflict any damage.
Since the laser energy is being physically transfered and they finally directed in a way to allow it to fire in almost any direction, it seems like range probably should be 1000ft at best. Due to the speed the system should operate at, a missile should effectively be hit within 1 millisecond of entering the weapons range.

*snip*
I'd have even more folks crying foul if I gave them brand new missiles that packed an MRM warhead on something with an SRMs range, much as I would prefer something like that. But these are supposed to be AGM-65 type missiles.

For canon MMs/SRMs/MRMs/LRMs that have more damage for less range, check out the Heavy Hitter missiles on page 129 of Rifts Japan. They even got heat seekers and concussion missiles on the same page.

As for why no retractable launcher, simplifying the system. *snip*

Ok, I guess that works. It does have enough complexity as it is.

have to get to refining the sensors. I'll lower the mast as well. The sensor periscope is to allow the Thunder to do double duty as a scout aerodyne instead of making a whole new class, but I may modify that.

4-6ft should be an effective max reach for the mast.

As for ECM,...now c'mon R Ditto, don't I keep getting yelled at for adding complexity to the game and some sense of realism?!? *snip*

I wasn’t trying to yell at you because of game complexity. I consider anti-radiation to be a viable form of missile guidance.
That means an ECM system becomes like a big neon bull’s-eye to the missiles guidance system.

*snip*

Overall, an interesting idea that might see limited use due to limited production relating to complex parts, and a possibly prohibitive cost.

Any moreso then the CS's helicopter fleet? Or all their anthropomophic (ie robot) AFVs?

I was referring to the dual caliber gatling railgun, the interesting PB gun and the defense laser system. The CS doesn’t really have that kind of stuff as far as I know, so they can’t really use existing facilities to produce some of the parts.

VTOLs seem like they would be just as complex to maintain as a Helicopter. The helicopter has some moving parts for the rotors, the VTOL also of moving parts for their vectored thrust systems, mainly whatever is used to generate the thrust (either internal rotors/turbines) and what’s used to direct/vector the thrust.

I'm not sure at the advantage of rotor over vector thrust when you have nuke plants to provide the power. Look what they do with such things as the Death Bringer APC, Death's Head, or even the SAMAS. If the the rotor was that much more efficient, I would almost expect to see 1950's Popular Mechanics chopper pack on them. But we don't. *snip*

For some reason, I am thinking of the Black Hawk and one of the older heavy lift helicopters that was supposed to be able to lift one heck of a lot of weight. I’d like to see a Harrier carry that much of a load.
IMHO, a helicopter’s form of propulsion is probably easier to access and repair than a mostly internal vectored thrust/VTOL system.

As for fuel, refineries they may have but then comes all the associated costs of moving it, maintaining it, and supplying it. *snip*

CS Navy has variants of both that they use.
IHA Iron Eagle Helicopter says it all. One can save 22.5 million credits by buying the liquid fuel version.
That’s a lot of money to save.
The CS likely also has many other uses for liquid fuels, even though they don’t use it much for military use, there are probably a lot of other uses for the stuff, like civilian uses, all those people in the Burgs and whoever the CS trades with.

Well, this is close air support I am looking at, not saturation bombing. Hell, for that even the Super SAMAS is poor since you'd want to be using a Talon or Nightwing for that, neh? The grenades,...they have a 1000' range.
*snip*
My contention still stands that in the case of whistling down a flight of SAMAS for CAS, they won't bring anymore firepower then the calling unit already has itself. Sure, every little bit helps but rather poor use of resources. If the SAMAS are in significant strength,...well then they were waiting to exploit a breakthrough anyhow and not really the on-call or slice element sent to provide air support.

And if the SAMAS are that good,...then why did the CS waste time building the CH-12 Demon Locust gunship, and establish the support system for it, if Super SAMAS without end can do such an overwhelming job?

I didn’t say to use it just for saturation bombing. A Sup Sam can be a real menace when properly equipped. For someone who likes GBs, you can say I can really despise the Sup Sam when it came to old “GB vs.” type topics. PB rifles, MM rifles, railguns, and other weapons can be carried by a Sup Sam. With a PS of 38, the thing could carry guns other CS PA couldn’t handle. Dual wielding MM rifles would really be a death dealer. Don’t need much accuracy with plasma or frag MMs.

I feel like pointing out various things relating to that and other reasons that CS helicopters are useful, and why I didn’t mean a Sup Sam should just be used for CAS.

1: Combined arms warfare. Helicopters backed up by Sams and Rocket cycles (like the Warbird) can really cause havoc.

2: Both helicopters have passenger capacity, which makes them suited for delivering or extracting troops or special forces. They can also carry cargo if need be. Good for emergency situations, and if the regular VTOL APCs don’t pack the weapons needed to quickly suppress enemies with a lot of firepower in order to retrieve people from a hot LZ. Toss in with 1 for hotzone extractions. Good as backup for the VTOL APCs to lay down a load of suppression fire for VTOL APCs during loading/unloading of soldiers. Also good for situations where they rather risk cheap helicopters instead of expensive VTOL APCs.

3: The helicopters can be equipped to handle underwater targets.

4: Doppler Radar, very handy.

5: Winch and Cable, good for lowering/raising soldiers in areas where there is no clear landing zone, or even to pick up or drop off cargo from such areas.

6: The joy of unloading several dozen frag MMs plus rail gun and laser fire into a target area just for kicks and to scare the heck out of the enemy (at least those that survive). Good for hit and run attacks.

7: No need to worry about pesky mages or certain psychics (with flying spell or jet pack) doing something to the electrical systems. Helicopters can land somewhat safely thanks to autorotation, nuke powered VTOLs loose power and they likely will drop like a rock.

8: The helicopters pack more firepower than a Super SAMAS, for under 1 million credits. A Super SAMAS costs 5.8 mil. Most other “small” offensive fliers cost a good 1.3 million or more. The VTOL APCs cost a good 80+ million credits. For under 6 million, 6 Locusts can carry about as much as a Death Bringer. 6 Locusts spread out will be harder to shoot down than a single VTOL APC.

9: The CS does sometimes LOVE to use swarm/blitz tactics (SAMAS, for example). They don’t seem to have a problem with sending in a ton of lesser and inexpensive units rather than sending in fewer more expensive and better equipped units. A swarm of helicopters is going to cost less than and be harder to stop than just a few VTOL APCs or a bunch of rocket cycles.

10: The CS did capture Iron Heart Armaments IIRC, which did produce helicopters for sale to others. So that means the CS would have gotten helicopter production capacity anyways. The IHA Iron Eagle goes to show that liquid fuel versions can be a LOT cheaper than nuke powered. The same thing could be said about any vehicle that has options foe liquid fuel or nuclear variants. E.g., the Mountaineer in the RMB. 70,000 for a liquid fuel engine, 500,000 for nuclear power source.

*snip*
Damn,...gonna need some more fire extinguishers....

Just load up a lot of SRMs with Fire Retardant warheads.
Also handy for fire elementals or firing down the throats of dragons just to see what happens.

[Dustin Fireblade]

R Ditto...check out the ceiling for the CS helo's. And are you sure about the DHT's ceiling?

Also in terms of cost; you seem to be calculating only the manufacturing cost. The CS likely used combustion style engines for other than combat roles, using/adding the Locust and Lightning adds to the logistic nightmare of safely transporting fuel to a forward base, along with all the equipment needed to transfer the fuel. A ground-based airfield close to the front lines differs greatly in terms of the few CS aircraft carriers.

Also as I pointed out in a previous post the CS helo's are rather fragile, same with the various rocket cycles. The Thunder corrects this.

On the subject of design capabilities...well CWC was a huge leap for CS military tech. Where did all that capability come from?

For the rest I'm sure Morgan can reply.

[Jefffar]

They built and deployed "Aviation Cruisers" (Think a cruiser with a squadron of Helicopters or Harriers).

They tried to build conventional aircraft carriers, but the Cold War ended before they could ever reach operational status.

[Jefffar]

It's a light carrier, roughly comperable to one of the little British jobs. It only carries 28 fixed wing aircraft (of which 16 belong to a type that was never actually mass produced so they never were actually put on the ship). Most American carriers have an airgroup of about 70 fixed wing aircraft.

[Jefffar]

Fine, yes Kuznetsov is a carrier.

And an Armoured Hummer is an APC.


Not that I'd trust either to do the job.

[R Ditto]

MorganKeyes
I got more comments and whatnot.

About fuel.
In a way, liquid fuel does still have its uses. compared to nuke power. Especially when compared to a very expensive power source that could make you glow in the dark if the engine shielding got cracked somehow.
With all the tech around, transporting fuel probably isn't as dangerous/difficult, especially with MDC materials and such. May also be due to the CS have fuel surpluses due to using nuke power so much.
Btw, I’m not trying to say it should use gas.
(Except maybe for a “cheap” version to be sold to “allies” or for trade to others for who knows what)

For liquid fuel engines on vehicles, they can carry electrical generators to generate power when the engine is running. Nuke power is limited on such a small scale, so a gas turbine w/ electric generator could probably compete.

Also just saying that since it is nuke powered (and having so many energy hungry weapons) that it’s probably going to be expensive, although I can see a cheap knockoff made by others (maybe someone in the BM) using gas turbines instead of nuke power...

About altitude.
I didn't mean you had lower the altitude, I was trying to indicate that from my pov, it didn’t seem to have what was needed.
Since it was for CAS, such a high altitude for a VTOL didn't make sense to me at the time.

All you would really need is to toss in some thing about it having an improved VTOL system that allows it to operate a higher altitudes. (perhaps utilizing bigger or more VTOL systems than the other VTOLs). Another thing is that the MDC location list doesn’t mention anything like “hover jets”, giving me the impression of a vector thrust system that is mostly concealed and lacking effective thrust capacity.
Sorry about not mentioning those details earlier. I guess it kind of wasn’t in mind at the time.


Vulnerabilities of rocket cycles/Helicopters and strengths of VTOLs.
I can guess that body armor and burbites keeps skycycles viable, helicopters still useable, and VTOLs for keeping their good old Chi-Town citizen soldiers alive and well.
(It is the CS after all... probably not to many bright apples in that basket... Look at the C-30R, it’s a great railgun used on a mainly non-combat vehicle!)

The gatling gun and recoil and other things
The A-10 gets slowed down by a few hundred miles per hour when it has engines putting out 18,000 pounds of thrust total. That’s a lot of Recoil. I didn’t really mean recoil was going to be a major problem for a VTOL, just that the VTOL might find itself flying backwards.

A 25mm round going 4000m/s is going to generate more effective recoil/force than the A-10’s 30mm gatling gun. The 35mm at 4000m/s will put out even more recoil.

While thinking of this, I would assume a 35mm flechette round with a velocity of 4000m/s or greater would have range and power comparable to the GB’s Boom Gun.
I would assume that if the 25mm round was long/heavy enough, that it’s damage would make sense for a single round.
(It could technically be lethal with single shots. Anyone else agree with that assumption?)

The big particle beam gun.
Here’s another pov of the problem.
It says it can fire a 4D4x10 (40-160) MDC anti-armor shot once per melee, or the rapid fire burst equal to HtH attacks. Lets say the person firing that weapon is highly skilled (level 9+, with the 2 attacks for living rule) and has 6 (7 with boxing) HtH attacks. That’s 5D6x6 or 7 (30-180 or 35-210) worth of MD per melee.
That’s just one target per burst. It can put out more power in a melee with bursts than it can with a single shot (more so with multiple targets in a small area for the bursts). That’s one of the major complaints I have. The low power setting put out much more potential damage than the high power setting.

I would also like it cleared up about that area of effect. Is it fixed, no mater what, or would it get bigger/smaller based on the distance between the gun and the target?

The laser defenses
Two separate systems, one for each emitter, both tied in together control wise, would make more sense, also decrease the chance of the entire system failing due to whatever reasons. (not keeping all your eggs in one basket, as it were)
Does make me wonder what would happen if a Laser were to somehow strike one of the emitters and have fiber-optics channel the laser energy right into the gut of the thing.

The UAR-1 lasers may be equal to a rifle in power, but judging by the mounting, the system is more round/high/deep than long, and it appears to only fire single shots.
Then again, there’s a big laser rifle somewhere that can outgun a GB...

The Heavy Hitter Missiles.
Just because it’s for CAS doesn’t mean that’s the only thing it should be made/used for.
Sometimes you need to get down and dirty. If it has to take on a gunship type role and get in range to use its guns, like where an enemy is entrenched or otherwise isn’t easy to engage with stand off weapons. This becomes possible if CAS involves taking the heat off of VTOL APCs that need to extract soldiers from a hot LZ.

A mile is also a much better range than most other weapons, and the defense systems keeps down the worry of missile attacks. They also do still have a better range than the main 2 guns, so could be used against whatever targets would have to be engaged with guns.
Another tactic could be to sneak in, get in range, and unload EVERYTHING into the target area, then leave. In such a case, the Heavy Hitter and perhaps even Concussion style missiles could prove useful.


Gunships.
The word sometimes reminds me of the Hueys in Vietnam. Sure, they were used for fire support, but if they had to extract or evac soldiers in an urgent situation (and being the closest thing), then the extra space helps. (not that such a thing matters for a mainly CAS VTOL)

The other stuff.
About torpedoes. Since it might work near Rivers/Lakes, the non-navy one might need the option also.

As for Ladar... As in laser energy instead of radar/microwaves. Not
I don’t know much about Kitsune’s site, so I have no idea where to look for it at. (exactly where is it listed at?)
It seems even something like that would have limits and be easy to detect with the right optics.

I’m taking this stuff to seriously, though...
Before I know it, I’m going to want to convert some old killer heavy assault VTOL craft I once made long ago (well, about 10 years or so) for Shadowrun. (Inspiration of GI-Joe Cobra Mamba, and Warhawk from the same named PS1 game...)

On a side note, an EVIL idea for an optional weapons...
The C-30R Railgun. (The one on the CS Command Car, the one with impressive range)
Or perhaps a Quad mounted C-30R...
An effective damage of 2D6x10+24 for a quad burst (30 rounds each, 120 total)
Can’t forget the C-30R’s impressive range of 2 miles.
New definition to “Reach out and frag someone.”

[R Ditto]

Recoil:
You want potential recoil problems? Look at the Warbird rocket cycle. The thing weighs as much as a GB, packs as much firepower, yet doesn’t have any sort of penalty for firing off a big 3D6x10 MD rail gun (RG) burst.

For RGs in Rifts, I normally view them as having muzzle velocities around mach 3 (roughly 900m/s?), with some appearing to be around 20mm. Also with some basing off of SDC HMGs of the 12.7mm size, and estimated damage increases possible from high density AP type rounds getting damage up to a possible 1-2 MD. Another partial factor being the Ramjet rounds for Mercs. They can get a 12.7mm up to 1D4 MD per round.
The mention of “comparable to RG velocities” under Ramjet rounds doesn’t make much sense as rules/mechanics for RGs seem a bit vague at best.

Then again, little rail guns do as much damage as big rail guns, on a single round basis.
Another factor being in the RMB, the GB’s BG was listed at just “mach 2” and later upgraded to “mach 5”
Overall, I mainly view most RGs in Rifts as being just HMGs that use EM fields instead of chemical propellants, and harder/higher density materials for the rounds.
On a side note... take a 5.56mm round, double its effective mass, increase its velocity by 50%, and you got something roughly equal to the power of a single flechette (of 200) from a GBs BG.

IIRC, there was mention somewhere of a 12.7mm HMG with a muzzle velocity of over 800m/s and having effective ranges close to 6000m. Far better than “superior” RGs IMHO. Who needs RGs, give me a 12.7mm Gatling Gun with Tungsten APFSDS round... or even a 20mm gatling gun like the Navy uses in the CIWS. “Reach out and shred someone”.
(but that’s just my opinions/ramblings)

Missiles:
I can think of a possible way to “bend the rules”. Have a multi-warhead MRM that happens to have Heavy Hitter SRMs for its payload. Since Multi-Warhead MRMs have a bit better range than other MRMs, and since it’s simply carrying SRMs that still weight the same (but have more of their weight devoted to explosives), one should possibly be able to delivery Heavy Hitters over longer ranges.

Another thing about missiles. Could it be possible to mount an armored tube/casing for a single LRM on one of the medium hard points?

On a side note, I do have a few missile ideas (don’t really know if anyone else has come up with this kind of stuff before).
1: Multi-Warhead SRM. Basically packs 4 MMs that deploy into tight formation at the target area right before the missile hits the target area.
1A: A multi-Warhead MRM that can deploy 16 MMs upon reaching the target area, or 4 SRMs each packing 4 MMs. Really shake up the enemy by doing nasty things like raining Frag MMs on them.
2: Cluster Missiles. (Hey, the military uses them, so they should be in Rifts and used by military powers like the CS, FQ, NGR and Japan.)
Each carrying bomblets, each bomblet doing a simple 2D6 or 3D6 MD to a 5ft radius. MMs could carry 4 bomblets, SRMs could carry 16 bomblets, MRMs could carry 64 bomblets, and LRMs could carry 256 bomblets. Handy if you have a general idea of where the enemy is, but not an exact location. “Heavy Hitter” versions could carry 50-100% more.. Beef up damage to 6D6 to 6ft radius for micro-fusion type bomblets.
Sort of like a stand off carpet bombing capability.


Other ideas/suggestions.

I had an odd idea for the laser defense system.
Instead of fiber optics, simply have something similar to a laser gun barrel act as a channel for the laser energy from the core of the system to the emitters.
(I was thinking about Laser Rifles and Star Trek Warp Core setups when the idea popped into my head...)

For flight range.
Perhaps add something like a flight range of 24 hours if flying under a certain speed (200-300mph, for example), or roughly indefinite with occasional rest stops. (maybe something like 30 minutes for every 6-8 hours of flight).

Another idea/suggestion.
Have mention that it uses the same reactor type as the Death Bringer APC. While it’s a little bigger than your VTOL, it seems to have a high power output (estimate of 96-576 MD of damage per melee) and be able to provide a lot of power for VTOL systems. For the Thunder (which doesn’t weigh anywhere near as much as the 123 ton Death Bringer), it means less of its power diverted to VTOL, and more available for weapons.
It also means it can use a reactor model the CS is already produces.
(It also could give reason the thing has more than enough power to fly higher than many other VTOLs, perhaps with a shorter flight time due to running the system at a higher levels needed to fly at higher altitudes where the air is thinner)

Suggestions/ideas for the PB gun.
Perhaps there can be mention that it has some minor design flaw where the capacitor’s charging time slows down as its charge increases, where as the system is easy/fast to charge/discharge at lower power levels, allowing it to “go postal” on its lower energy setting.
Another option might be to knock up the single shot damage to 3D6x10 MD.
Yet another option might be two settings for the burst fire, a focus burst (small area hit), or a wide burst/spray attack (doing damage les damage, but hitting anything/everything in a 10ft radius/20ft area)
Another idea is instead of a “single” weapon, the guts could contain the effective guts of multiple PB weapons, Either all discharging at once (causing brief overheat, explaining 1 blast per melee), or an easier to maintain rapid fire mode with each separate system discharging in sequence, effectively giving each part a short/brief time to cool/recharge. Sort of like a Gatling gun concept for PBs, but without the rotating barrel setup.

[R Ditto]

Recoil
I also don't like the way recoil is handled in rifts... (goes back to the RMB.. the GB actually... seems like most of its "power" is in the recoil...)

Missiles
Ah, ok.
I'm the type of person who has no problems with "non-canon but sensible" items/weapons... (Like LRM turned Guided/Powered Bomb/Bunker Buster, or even missiles/grenades/bombs using the NG explosives from Mercs...)
Or those sweet small MRMs from Japan (Hawkeye GB, IIRC) that have a range of only 20 miles, appear to possibly be as big as a SRM, and can pack a 4D6x10 MD fusion warhead.
I kind of nicknamed them "Mini-MRMs".

Lasers:
Ok.

Particle Gun
I do have one other question, though.
Is it an "energy" type of particle gun (electrons or ions), or is it more of a "matter" type of particle gun (protons, neutrons, etc) that would plow right through energy immunities/resistances?

Although, IMHO, PBs should effectively "nuclear" weapons (affecting targets on the atomic/molecular scale) and thereby bypass energy immunities. Sort of like a Sand Blaster of death, but on a much smaller and faster scale.

On a related note, when I think of "big" anti-armor particle beam guns, I tend to think of stuff like the Naruni hover tanks or the big bad gun on the GB Mk4 from MiO Although they have high power, can fire multiple shots per melee, but do have a limited capacitor payload before they run out of energy to fire. (although the GB Mk4 has a slow recharge of 1 blast per minute)

On a final note, all this discussion has resulted in me getting ideas for a small VTOL/quad lift rotor gunship type thing...
(no real comments on it, though... I tend to go crazy when I make stuff that both seems comparable to canon and otherwise sensible...)

[Killer Cyborg]

Skycycles were similar to SAMAS in being used as air cav, but carried a heavier weapons load. This seemed ideal, with skycycles becoming the new gunships. But when skycycle units went up against some professional troops a startling revelation appeared. While skycycles themselves were roughly as tough as many SAMAS, the same could not be said of their pilots. Some mercenaries and professional militaries had picked up on this fact and made extensive use of fragmentation anti-aircraft weapons, mainly missiles. The air defense units would fire missiles or proximity shells at a skycycle formation. The weapons didn’t need to hit the skycycle itself, but simply get close enough to catch it in the blast radius and thus catch the exposed pilots in the blast.

Why not just train Borg pilots?

[Jefffar]

Or ask the NGR for a little of that force field tech from the Ulti-Max

[Pox]

Hey Morgan how do you visualize the Thunder? When describing it to my players I basically went with it modeled after the Triax XM-275 Lightning.

Give a look at the AV-8 about 2/3'rds of the way down. It fairly close though the Thunder is beefier, and if it's the railcannon version then the cannon is hard-mounted like the GAU-8 on the A-10.

Heres an AV-8 that someone has done that I pinched a few months back.

http://members.tripod.com/~SirTenzan/RIFTS/smartcicada.html

There is also a number of pods (both Weapon and Sensor) linked to it.

Note to Mods: If this is in Conversion Violation, I'm sorry. Just nuke this post of mine and let me know for future reference...thanks.

[Jefffar]

I've always thought the Air Force plan to replace the A-10 with the F-16 and then F-35 was a bit of a cruel joke for the guys on the ground.

It sounds like someone in the AF might have finally figured things out.

[Dustin Fireblade]

What about the multiple sky cycle variants? And couldn't the Death Head Transport (in one of its variants) be a suitable "Puff the Magic Dragon"? That is how I have used them one or two times...

Well, as the Sky Cycles go, area effect weapons (normal or magic) can knock out a pilot pretty quick, since he's exposed.
For the DHT's, I really consider their armaments self-defense myself.

[Zer0 Kay]

I dind't know that the CS had Aerodyne tech I thought only FQ had it and used it for their GB suport craft. They likely guard that tech with the same fervor they guard the GB manufacturering tech with. Show me another CS Aerodyne and I'll beleive this one. It's more likely they'd use something like the Deaths Head Transport with jet thrusters rather than the turbo fan of aerodynes.

The current Aerodynes of Rifts aren't much more resilient than the helicopters since the turbines can still be targeted from below.

[Borast]

What about the multiple sky cycle variants? And couldn't the Death Head Transport (in one of its variants) be a suitable "Puff the Magic Dragon"? That is how I have used them one or two times...

Hmmm...are we talking about a friendly purple dragon, or are we talking about a C-130 Hercules carrying obscene amounts of cannon and machineguns, front facing, or mounted to fire to the side?

Personally, although the DHT DOES look like an addict's nightmare, it isn't as cuddly as a "puff," and the C-130 looks "cute" in comparison to the DHT.

[Zer0 Kay]

I use the term aerodyne as it was used in Cyberpunk 2020. And in fact the CS has plenty of examples: Command Car, Scarab, Patrol Car, Sky Lifter, Death Bringer, Death's Head. Even the various types of SAMAS. Basicly a using raw thrust primarily as opposed to lifting surfaces for flight.

I figured you were using it from CP2020, I forgot their defined as a flying vehicle using vectored thurst for lift and thrust.

Damn your right. I guess the FQ GB transport is just an advanced helo.

[Zer0 Kay]

What about the multiple sky cycle variants? And couldn't the Death Head Transport (in one of its variants) be a suitable "Puff the Magic Dragon"? That is how I have used them one or two times...

Hmmm...are we talking about a friendly purple dragon, or are we talking about a C-130 Hercules carrying obscene amounts of cannon and machineguns, front facing, or mounted to fire to the side?

Personally, although the DHT DOES look like an addict's nightmare, it isn't as cuddly as a "puff," and the C-130 looks "cute" in comparison to the DHT.

PTMJ may be the slang for it but they are either the C-130H Spectre or C-130U Spooky. Here's a URL even shows the deck layout.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ac-130.htm
There is just something wrong about them but it still doesn't keep me from wondering why haven't they modified a C-17 or hehe a C-5 for those missions. C-5 probably because it's not that manuverable. The C-17 is faster than the C-130, manuverable enough to perform a tactical bank (all the way sideways), can land and take off from assault strips (I forgot the length but I beleive it's less than a 1/2 mile), has a larger cargo capacity than the C-130s. Hmm wonder what they'd load that angel of death up with? Something cool for the GAWS to look into. Retrofitting a C-17 and arming it to the teeth.


Oh here's a funny I found while searching for the Spectre and Spooky.
http://ecards.military.com/postcard-direct/images/humor/humor_speedtrap.jpg

[Zer0 Kay]

I was thinking a major DHT variant 1/2 the size. Vectored thrust from the top sides reducing the capability to target them from below. The rear thrusters are also protected from below and the sides. Weapons mounted Spectre style but along both sides (listed per side) 2xs.d.c. gatling laser cannons to clear folliage or other sdc obstacles without endangering troops. 1xHeavy Particle Beam Cannon. 1xHeavy Plasma Cannon. The Skull face is angled slightly down so that the bubbled eyes give the pilots a better view of the ground without reducing their foward visibility. The mouth section rather then being a single door now has the teeth as individualy covered, quintuple mini, dual short range, or single medium range missile launch tubes. Each "tooth" is a box that is loaded into the mouth individually depending on the load out required by the mission. The underside is covered by ten armored doors that retract to reveal...ten ( no way) M.D.C. glass bubble turrets 2 sporting a new wide persistent beam multi frequency laser cannons. 4 mounted with plasma beam (yes beam) guns and 4 equiped with a gattling railgun (designer wanted to keep with energy to extend field time, but high mucky-mucks like the noise ?) special safety features (like it matters) when any of the turrets are reduced to 25% of total M.D.C. it is automatically parked and the armored door closes. There are also sensors that detect laser targeting and deploys an aerosol canister to the targeted are to refract the laser and hopefully spoof the mark. Radar and actively trys to jam the frequency or for persistant locks launches chaff. Also tracks for missile like movement that doesn't register laser or or Radar and shuts off Radar emissions and launches flares. Due to all the energy used by the e weapons the craft would either have an idapendant generator or suffer from reduced speed.

[Vrykolas2k]

I like the idea. Yes.
I address the CS helo problem by replacing the gas engines with the same mini-nukes they use in PA. They have hundreds of suits just sitting around after all...

[Zer0 Kay]

My last comment about this is such: soon I plan to do a variant of SoT in my campaign.

"Citizen Morgan Keyes, the Coalition States wishes to thank you and your conceptual design team for its wonderful design. Your efforts will most certainly preserve the lives of our fighting troops during this coming conflict, and help us to secure victory over a horrific foe. The Emperor, nay, the entire Coalition States, thanks you for your efforts. That is all." End Transmission.


And, one day, when my PCs find out where that EVIL new vehicle came from (probably after they commandeer one of these bad boys) they will rue your name....til they turn it on its makers...

What he doesn't even get a CS Civilian Hero's Cross. Right before he is privately executed for being able to read and write not to mention all the complex calculations and engineering. Or they could just as well after the public cerimony offer their thanks by making him a pollitical prisoner and making him design more at the threat of loosing his entire family. Why the cerimony? Because they'd like the other people who are able to do this wonderous deed for the CS to come out of the wood work.

[Zer0 Kay]

Major problem with LADAR it's low powered laser. In foggy or precipitating weather conditions the LADAR will either reflect or worse refract off or the water droplets.

Now for a word from our sponsor (or my attempt to make something serious funny, yet miserably fail).

"Damn the fogs rolling in."

"What the hell is that rainbow from?"

Out of the dense mist come's the menacing form of CS's new prototype gunship...making SKITTLES(tm)?

[Borast]

It's an interesting flight of fancy, but the AC-130U seems to be doing fine work today. Now for the Golden Age and time of Rifts...? Hmmmm....

Well, the CAF has been using them for 40 years, and they are a lot easier to maintain and fuel then what the USAF call a Herc!

Besides, can you really see an aircraft with jet engines landing at, say McMerto(sp!) in Antacrica or Alert, which is only 1-2 degrees from the other end of the world? I can, they're called the world's biggest paperweights!

[Borast]

Actually, I wasn't referring to the runway length.

I was referring to the cold.

[Borast]

I am...

After all, -40 being a BALMY day is something to keep in mind!