Myrmidon Tactical Design. (Moved to new Storefront!)

[Marquesan]

. M Y R M I D O N . T A C T I C A L . D E S I G N . C O N S O R T I U M .

Thank you all for your patronage during our trial opening period!

During the time since we opened, we have had many customers and received an immense amount of support. We at Myrmidon Tactical Design would like to thank each and every one of you for your support of Myrmidon as we developed and grew. We now have a new Storefront that will be opening this week and would like to invite you all to our new home as we re-open into our new space! Thank you all again for your business.

[Marquesan]

Type-40, "Dagger" Support Aircraft.
Price: One Hundred and Thirty Million NationStates Dollars.

A development of the Myrmidon Tactical Design Consortium.


Role: Common Support Aircraft.
Crew: 2. (Pilot, Systems Officer.)
Length: 24.1m.
Wingspan: 22.1m.
Height: 4m. (-40B/-40C) 5.42m. (-40A)


Empty Weight: 14,138 Kgs.
Maximum Payload: 11,862 Kgs.
Maximum Fuel: 12,500 Kgs.
Maximum Take-off Weight: 38,500 Kgs.

Combat Range:
Ferry Range: 7197 Km.
Maximum Altitude: 16,800m.

Dry Thrust: 10,836 Kgf. (Per Engine)
Wet Thrust: 15,720 Kgf. (Per Engine)
Thrust-to-Weight Ratio @ Max Takeoff: 0.81:1
Cruising Speed: Mach 0.8.
Maximum Speed: Mach 1.6.
Rate of Climb: 225 m/s.



Overview:
The Dagger CSA manufactured by Myrmidon Tactical Design is the world's premier fifth-generation support aircraft. With a high-sweep/canard/ruddervator layout and dorsal intake feeding twin high-bypass turbofan engines, Dagger not only has the loiter time to remain on station over a target area for long periods of time but utilizes a combination of low-observable characteristics and cutting-edge materials to present a very small signature across radar, thermal and acoustic signatures, minimizing risk to Dagger's crewmembers.

Three variants of the Type-40 CSA have been produced:

Type-40A "Silent Dagger" is an Airborne Early Warning & Command/Anti Submarine Warfare variant with the same Electronic Warfare suite as the Type-32 "Shadowcat" bomber including the AX-186 radar mounted in the nosecone, but also adding a pair of fixed external AESA radars in a triangular array above the fuselage, each with up to 120-watt capability and 1,000 km range giving the Silent Dagger a full 360-degree capability with a high-resolution source database and IFF processor suite. Silent Dagger tracks sources with a directional accuracy of 1 degree RMS and has a signal accuracy of under 200Hz. Type-40A also equips Shadowcat's AX/AAM-100 Distributed Aperture System as an Electronic Warfare suite. Silent Dagger carries Shadowcat's EOTS targeting system and also includes 90 internally-stored sonobuoys and 90 parachute-deployed ground sensors and an extendable "MAD" boom for identifying magnetic distortions, equally useful at detecting metallic structures underground or even for surveying land for minerals and also underwater magnetic distortions, such as a submarine. -40A's MADL/MAGSNET communication system is boosted through a series of high-power amplifiers for both sending and receiving through the aircraft's broadband plasma antennae at ranges exceeding 1,200 km. The keystone of Silent Dagger's platform is a GPU-powered airborne supercomputer distributed in nodes throughout the airframe for weight balance and integrated central processing unit from the Type-32 Shadowcat. Together, Silent Dagger's sensor-suite is capable of producing ultra high-resolution 3D maps as it flies, instantly synchronizing with other battlespace intelligence sources to produce realtime SIGINT/IMINT data for relay to other allied units or commands. Silent Dagger is also an extremely deadly and capable anti-submarine aircraft.

Type-40B "Blood Dagger" is an Airborne Refueling Tanker with central fuel tanks in the Multimission Compartment linked to the aircraft's own tanks, giving Blood Dagger a total capacity of 24,100 kg of fuel. Refueling is accomplished through a flying boom system actuated by the Systems Officer through a 24" high-definition monitor and a joystick control with powered extension on a traditional hand throttle, making for intuitive refueling without requiring a third operator in the rear of the aircraft.

Type-40C "Steel Dagger" is a Carrier Onboard Delivery aircraft with the long multimission compartment from the rear of the cockpit to the tail filled either with seats or fitted with cargo rails to accomodate military pallets. Type-40C can accomodate as many as six full-sized turbofan engines on thier pallets two abreast or a massive amount of supplies up to 11,900 kg of cargo or up to 30 passengers. Most commonly used for urgent resupply of high-value or high-importance materials such as nuclear fuels or urgent replacement parts, Steel Dagger is a high-priority asset in the Marquesan Gendarmerie.


Armament:
While the Type-40 "Dagger" CSA does not incorporate a standard armament suite, its Multimission Compartment can be configured in a number of modular layouts that incorporate weaponry. In "Silent Dagger" configuration an access bay on the aircraft's belly amidships is configured as a bombbay and a rotary launcher from the Type-32 Shadowcat is fitted, allowing Silent Dagger to covertly launch up to six Mk. 54 MAKO lightweight antisubmarine torpedoes in addition to its electronics suite. As the -40C, the multimission compartment can be configured to carry and launch GBU-43/B Massive Ordinance Air Blast munitions or Massive Ordinance Penetrator bombs.


Construction:
Using a carbon/carbon composite honeycomb airframe reinforced with titanium diboride ceramic, the lightweight yet resilient frame of the Type-40 CSA was stress-analysis modeled, redesigned, modeled again and redesigned until the perfect balance of weight and strength was found. Using a carbon nanofoam insulation throughout the aircraft skinned in Farehyde aramid composite and coated in anti-IR and anti-RCS absorbent paints, the high-sweep/ruddervator/canard layout of the Dagger maximizes aerodynamic efficiency while presenting the radar return of a small pigeon. The most unique feature of the aircraft is its dorsal intake, bringing in air for the Dagger's twin high-bypass turbofans through S-shaped ducts that keep the face of the fan from reflecting radar energy. This dorsal intake has been modeled and stabilized up to mach 2.5 with variable-geometry inlet vanes to maximize efficiency through all airspeeds and altitudes while maintaining a stealthy, low-observable shape. Behind the engines, thrust-vectoring nozzles and upper wing surfaces are coated in IR/Acoustic absorbent materials to minimize the aircraft's signatures. The aircraft's high-sweep wings, canards and ruddervators are clean surfaces, modeled for low RCS but to maximize the aircraft's stability and maneuverability, especially at speed. Dagger provides an excellent and agile airframe for a craft of its type and size; its wings fold up for storage and the aircraft was designed around the naval environment, so it stands as the first fifth generation support aircraft built to be carrier launched.


Crew Compartment:
Dagger's crew compartment utilizes the very latest in all-glass cockpit design; the pilot and Systems Officer sit side-by side in a full-wraparound of multifunction, multitouch HD displays dominated by a pair of 24" touchscreen monitors infront of each seat that give the pilot or SO a full readout of all pertinent information. Moving-Map displays integrate with the cockpit information systems, all of which are EMP hardened. All flight-control surfaces are controlled by a "fly by light" system usng fiberoptic cable in quadruple-redundant separate relays which gives instantneous response to input while the cabin features pressurization separate from the rest of the aircraft and insulation/acoustic dampening to maintain the crew's comfort level during long-endurance sorties.


Powerplant:
Type-40 "Dagger" variants use MTD-2115 VG3D afterburning boosted twin-spool turbofans in a high bypass configuration fed by a single dorsal intake and exhausted through "iris" nozzles over thermal-absorbent tiles on the upper surface of the wings. These turbofans, shrouded deep inside the Type-40's body are totally isolated from radar return except for the exhaust nozzles, but provide an enormous amount of thrust while keeping exhaust-gas temperatures low and fuel efficiency curves high due to variable geometry fan-blades, cost-no-object materials and build quaity along with extensive 3D modeling in the pre-production stages. Extensive use of inconel, titanium, ceramic coatings and composite fanblades in the engines make for quiet, cool-running responsive engines that are fully FADEC controlled and constantly optimized in realtime for changing conditions. Type-40 supercruises at mach-1.7 and has a top "dash" speed of mach 2.6 under full afterburner.

[Marquesan]

Type-21, "Divine Wind" ADF.
Price: One Hundred and Ninety Million NationStates Dollars.

A development of the Myrmidon Tactical Design Consortium.


Role: Stealth Air-Dominance Fighter.
Crew: 1.
Length: 20.4 m. (66.93 ft.)
Wingspan: 13.3 m.
Height: 5.6 m.

Empty Weight: 16,000 kg.
Maximum Payload: 9,000 kg.
Maximum Fuel: 11,000 kg internally.
Maximum Take-off Weight: 36,000 kg.

Combat Range: 2,000 km.
Ferry Range: 6,500 km.
Maximum Altitude: 21,000 m.

Dry Thrust: 110 kN (11,200 kgf.) per engine.
Wet Thrust: (Afterburner) 186 kN (19,000 kgf.) per engine.
Thrust-to-Weight Ratio @ Max Takeoff: 1.06:1.
Supercruise: Mach 1.7.
Maximum Speed: Mach 2.8.
Rate of Climb: 380 m/s.


Overview:
The MTD Type-21 "Divine Wind" is a product of a weapons-design collaboration between the Marquesan Shogunate, the Elder Republic of Erjunhuf and the Alkharanian Republic of Tiami. As an aircraft, Divine Wind is the most advanced fifth-generation fighter built to-date, designed to compete with and perform in a manner superior to other top-flight aircraft from the larger design bureaus such as Gemballa, Lyras, Panopticon and Karlberg AB. With this in mind, a cost-no-object mentality prevailed in Type-21's design, modeled, scrutinized, tested and re-modeled to perfection on the most powerful modern supercomputers available. This design process was done in record time, going from clean sheet to its maiden test flight in a period of 24 months following a major armed conflict in Sondria that highlighted the need for an air-dominance fighter with a clear advantage over the commonly-fielded F-22 variants being flown by most of the region's air forces. Type-21 carries aloft the most powerful computer system ever fielded in a fighter aircraft and the most advanced sensor suite ever fitted to a production combat aircraft. Despite all this advanced technology, an efficient design process and selection of materials already being mass-scale produced by the Marquesan Shogunate for combat asset construction took advantage of the economies of scale and so consequently the price of the aircraft has remained at affordable levels, making Divine Wind an unprecedented value for its cost. With clear performance overmatch when compared to many fifth-generation fighters such as F-22 Raptor or F-35 Lightning II, the Type-21 Divine Wind stands alone as the world's premier Air-Dominance Fighter in service today.


Armament:
2 Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-30-2 Dual-Barrel Gast Cannons (Mounted in low-RCS wing housings.)
*600 Rd. Magazine per gun.*
- High Explosive Fragmenting Incendiary Tracer, (HEFI-T) 30x165mm.

2 Internal Weapons Bays w/ Modular Rotary Launchers, 9,000 kg. internal capacity.
*8 Large/16 Medium/24 Small Missiles.*
- Diehl IRIS-T Short Range Air-To-Air Missile. (Mach-3, 25 km Range.)
- MBDA Meteor Medium Range Air-To-Air Missile. (Mach-4, 100 km Range.)
- Alliant AGM-88E Medium-Range Anti-Radiation Missile. (Mach-1.86, 106 km Range.)
- KDA Joint Strike Missile. (High Subsonic, 280 km Range.)

Providing offensive capability to the Divine Wind ADF is a pair of dorsal weapons bays placed between the two turbofan engines on the bottom of the aircraft. Using trapezoidal openings to conceal the bays provides that the aircraft will have a minimal radar signature and vastly reduces parasitic drag from externally-mounted weapons and hardpoints, increasing the aircraft's aerodynamic efficiency. Inside these two bays are mission-configurable modular rotary launchers. These magazines are electrically powered and when a missile is locked into the launcher, it registers with the onboard computer so that a pilot's selection of one of the four carried missile types automatically rotates that missile into firing position, arms the missile and loads it with tracking information. Each launcher is divided into four sections that can house one, two or three missiles dependent on the size of the missile and each section can be configured on the ground to hold different payloads. When a missile is selected for firing, at the moment of deployment, the weapons bay doors open and the selected missile is released for firing, the entire process taking less than a half-second to accomplish. As soon as the missile clears the bay, the doors shut again to minimize drag and RCS. An average mission profile calls for the loading of two KDA Joint Strike Missiles or four Alliant AGM-88E HARMs, eight MBDA Meteor AMRAAMs and six Diehl IRIS-T ASRAAMs to prosecute a variety of air-to-air and air-to-surface targets.

Adding to this offensive capability is a pair of 30x165mm chambered dual-barrel cannons. Utilizing the Gast principle, the firing of a round in one barrel loads the other barrel, maximizing cyclic rate of fire. In this way, the Type-21 carries the equivalent of four 30mm cannons. These guns are mounted in the aircraft's wings in low-RCS housings that only open to expose the muzzles when guns are selected by the pilot and close as soon as they are no longer selected, thus reducing drag and RCS. Each cannon is fed from a six hundred round magazine loaded with high explosive fragmenting incendiary rounds which incorporate a tracer function, ideal for the destruction of hostile aircraft in a dogfight situation.


Construction:
The cutting-edge composite structure of the Type-21 is unlike any other fighter ever built. The aircraft's frame, constructed from stress-analyzed and modeled carbon/carbon composite honeycomb backed in titanium diboride (Tib2) nanotube-impregnated matrices is many times the strength of conventional aluminum or steel frame while being up to thirty percent less weight, giving Divine Wind a high structural rigidity with unheard of lightness. Using honeycomb frame structures has the added benefit of being microwave return attenuating and is also better at absorbing the stresses of extreme-envelope flight than conventional designs. This frame is first skinned in a layer of carbon nanofoam, acting as radar-absorbing material and also as thermal insulation. Over this, the aircraft's skin is formed from large, prepreg vacuum-formed sections of a composite called Farehyde. This composite, a four-ply blending of Kevlar KM2, Dyneema, Technora and Nomex is an outstanding aircraft skin due to its inherent resistance to chemical, abrasion, fire and impact, while being very rigid and outstandingly lightweight and also acts as a fine radar insulator while being more resilient to damage than traditional metal skins. Coating this composite skin is a unique dual-layer paint, first a classified radar-absorbing paint and then Intermat's Chameleon anti-IR camouflage paint, breaking up its visual image while rendering the aircraft nearly dead to IR or radar and allowing the aircraft to operate in even the harshest of environments, such as from the deck of an aircraft carrier. In addition to the material choices in constructing the Type-21, an emphasis was placed from the ground-up on minimizing the aircraft's overall signature, so early-on the election was made to attempt to completely avoid external rivets and external hardpoints on the aircraft along with a sleek, slippery design and features like horizontally-canted vertical "v-tails" and minimal interruption of the efficient design.


Electronic Warfare:
In addition to its state-of-the-art engines and airframe, the Type-21 is equipped with the latest in avionics and sensor equipment, all designed to help the pilot maintain complete situational awareness. The main sensor is the AX-085 AESA radar. An AESA radar, or active electronically scanned array, represents the latest in radar technology, allowing the aircraft to broadcast powerful radar signals with a very low risk of detection. By changing its frequency with every pulse, while also randomizing the frequency to which it changes, an AESA makes traditional radar warning receivers (RWR), which depend on searching the radio spectrum for abnormalities in the background noise (either through broadcast frequency or the repetition of a pulse) useless at detecting it. As a result, jamming against an AESA is also quite difficult, as finding the frequency on which it operates becomes a moot point. As the latest in radar technology, the AX-085 can change frequency more than 1000 times per second, allowing for an incredibly low probability of detection while simultaneously allowing for far more data to be gathered. Enhancing the array are also L-band radars on the leading edges of the wings: L-band radars have a proven effectiveness at detecting stealth-fighters, which comes at the price of reduced resolution.

In addition to the AX-085, the AX/AAM-50 DAS (distributed aperture system), consists of six high-resolution infrared sensors mounted on the Type-21 airframe, acting as missile warning system and providing a clear 360 degree field of vision, simultaneously providing both missile and aircraft detection and tracking, while also cuing countermeasures and weapons for immediate use. The centerpiece of this system is an electro-optical targeting system that combines a high-power targeting laser, high-resoluton FLIR and CCD television camera, mounted below and slightly aft of the nosecone, allowing the aircraft to discriminate targets with a very high resolution, while minimizing RCS. An electronic warfare suite is incorporated into the AX/AAM-50 that provides sensor fusion of RF and IR tracking functions, basic radar warning, multispectral countermeasures for self-defense against threat missiles, situational awareness and electronic surveillance. It uses 10 RF antennae over the leading and trailing edges of the wing leading and trailing edges of the horizontal tail. The Type-21 also comes equipped with a Multifunctional Advanced Datalink (MADL), a new system using stacked solid state plasma antennae for high-bandwith transmission with low risk of detection, the total system combines radio frequency and infrared tracking that the AX-085 and AX/AAM-50 provide, allowing for continuous target tracking and identification in every direction, while also sharing this data with every other fighter equipped with the MADL whilst remaining stealthy, allowing for total and complete situational awareness for every plane in combat. With all of these features going through the AX-085, any target within 130 miles can be spotted and targeted by every nearby Type-21 running the MADL while running a very low risk of detection.

Divine Wind's central computer is a comprehensively ECM/EMP hardened and armored "black box" unit engineered to withstand shock, vibration, humidity, temperature extremes, dust, flammable atmospheres, electromagnetic pulse radiation, electrical surges, gunfire and battle damage. The unit consists of a ruggedized single-board computer driven by a general purpose control processor based on a radiation-hardened quad-core system-on-chip architecture manufactured on a 35nm process. Memory is supplied by magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM) chips, complemented by a quad-core digital signal processor, dual-cell broadband engine, high resolution multimedia and vector graphics processors that all drive subsystems. The network topography is a triple-redundant MilCAN compliant databus carried on shielded and armored fiberoptic cable with full support for automatically recovering battle damage. The Black Box computer includes four solid-state 800gb secure-encrypted storage drives on non-volatile chips, slaved in a Raid-1 with a total data transfer rate across the entire network of 6 gb/s.

Divine Wind's processor suite processes all information in realtime and displays relevant data, warnings and statuses on the pilot's retinal display, with constant diagnostics performed whenever the aircraft is operating and entire operations are recorded and stored so that every aspect of the fighter's operation can be played back for after-action reviews or fed into a simulator to recreate the mission. The Type-21 incorporates a network-central C5I matrx that interconnects Divine Wind's sensor channels and Positional Navigation data suite with the Inertial Reference System using fused Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System, (GPS/INS) fiber-optic gyro rate sensors and digital electronic compass inputs, along with Mobile Air/Ground Subscriber Network (MAGSNET) communications. This data link can communicate and reference secure off-board resources such as datalinks from other friendly vehicles, multi-sensor unattended ground sensors and aerial sensors including AWACS data and manned/unmanned aerial vehicle sensors, thereby greatly expanding target detection and classification far beyond the fighter's own sensor suite. The complete situational awareness picture is displayed in realtime and distributed to other friendly units via an encrypted, jam-resistant, low detectable MADL datalink, allowing assets to quickly share their battlespace situation, intelligence, orders and comminication across all echelons. MADL also connects the supply train, maintenance and engineering support to the combat unit allowing near-realtime monitoring of aircraft health, fault diagnostics, battle damage, fuel state and remaining ammunition for closer coordination, and faster and more efficient ressuply.

The Type-21's cockpit encorporates a configurable multitouch all-glass display with a lightweight fitted helmet for each pilot. This helmet utilizes an in-cockpit visual reference system to ascertain targeting information based on the direction of the pilot's head and eyes. A direct retinal projection (DRP) system uses a low-power laser to project informational images onto the pilot's retinas through a fine and very lightweight piece of borosilicate glass which has the effect of creating fully 3-D images all around the cockpit instead of restricting the pilot to looking through a heads-up display; the movement of the pilot's head takes all that information with it. The layout of the cockpit has been carefully optimized for ergonomics and user efficiency. Acoustic, vibration and thermal insulation have been placed inside for long-flight endurance comfort, while the gold-impregnated glass canopy cuts down on EM and radar interference. A central stick with various weapon-selection functions and a left-side throttle with afterburner functionality are painstakingly-designed for ease of use, allowing the pilot maximum time to concentrate on flight and target prosecution. The cockpit's pair of 20-inch LED-backlit liquid crystal multitouch displays incorporate moving map, diagnostic, instrumentation and communications functionality, fusing all sensor inputs into one location where the computer may discriminate information to alert the pilot to. A highly-advanced ejector seat assembly is built with a complicated life-support system in the event of an ejection from the aircraft.


Powerplant:
The Type-21 is powered by a pair of MTD Type-2025 VG3D low-bypass afterburning turbofans. Developed specifically for this role, these no-expense-spared engines utilize a contra-rotating boosted twin spool design that combines high specific thrust with extremely efficient operation at high subsonic and supersonic speeds. Especially outstanding is the engine's response to climbing due to its twin-spool design that minimizes the weight of the engine and its moving parts with ultra-lightweight titanium and inconel components, carbon/carbon composite fan blades and cryogenically-machined titanium compressor blisks. Using an intermediate-pressure compressor stage to boost engine pressure means more efficient operation especially during takeoff or during rapid changes in altitude. Fan blade angles-of-attack are infinitely adjustable, as are intake vanes to optimize overall engine efficiency. A variable-geometry thrust vectoring "iris" nozzle coated in heat/acoustic absorbent ceramic complements each turbofan engine, allowing up to 30 degrees of vector in any direction independently of the other engine. The Type-21's engines also incorporate a stratified-fuel-injection (SFI) afterburner that boosts power 76 kN from full military power. All optimization and control functions of the engines are controlled by a high-resolution FADEC computer that monitors load conditions, air temperature, humidity, density and pressure in realtime and adjusts the engines infinitely according to optimization protocols that are set by pilot behavior, throttle position and mission parameters. In concert with the rest of the aircraft, these two engines provide giant-killing performance in the Type-21's class.

[Marquesan]

Type-32, "Shadowcat" Stealth Interdictor.
Price: Two Hundred and Seventy Million NationStates Dollars.

A development of the Myrmidon Tactical Design Consortium.


Role: Penetrator/Interdictor.
Crew: 3. (Pilot, Electronic Warfare Officer, Weapons Officer.)
Length: 26.6 m.
Wingspan: 16.3 m.
Height: 6.4 m.

Empty Weight: 18,300 Kgs.
Maximum Payload: 18,600 Kgs.
Maximum Fuel: 13,100 Kgs.
Maximum Take-off Weight: 50,000 Kgs.

Combat Range: 3,500 Km.
Ferry Range: 8,000 Km.
Maximum Altitude: 21,700 M..

Dry Thrust: 155 kN (15,800 Kgf.) per engine.
Wet Thrust: (Ramburner) Classified.
Thrust-to-Weight (Mil-Power) Ratio @ Max Takeoff: 0.632:1
Supercruise: Mach 1.7.
Dash Speed: Classified.
Rate of Climb: 310 m/s.


Overview:
The Type-32 "Shadowcat" is a tactical bomber unlike any other. Designed around a penetrator/interdictor role, this fifth-generation bomber is meant to stalk through enemy air defenses utilizing terrain-following flight and an airframe designed entirely around maximum concealment across the Infrared, Acoustic and Microwave signatures. It is super-agile and extremely fast, with a unique capability to "dash" above mach four, though doing this compromises stealth. Shadowcat carries a very high level of ordinance for an aircraft its size; its armaments are class-leading and uniquely, Shadowcat stands alone as a navalized bomber in its class. Utilizing cutting-edge materials and a clean-sheet rethink of how to best function behind enemy lines, this aircraft is a potent addition to any combat force in which it serves.


Armament:
1 Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 Six-Barrel Gatling Cannon (Mounted in flush-mounted belly-turret.)
*2,400-Rd. Magazine.*
- Depleted Uranium Fin-Stabilized Sabot, Armor Piercing, 30x165mm

2 Internal Weapons Bays w/ 6-Shot Modular Rotary Launchers, 18,600 kg. internal capacity.
*12 Nuclear Standoff Missiles, Cruise Missiles, Large Guided Bombs, or 36 Small Cluster Munitions.*
- Air-Sol Moyenne Portée *NUCLEAR* Standoff Missiles. (Variable Yield, 150/300 Kt, Mach-3, 300 Km.)
- MBDA CVS401 Perseus Ground/Naval Attack Supersonic Cruise Missiles. (800 Kg. Mach-3.)
- Rafael SPICE GPS/EO-Guided CBU-105 Wind-Corrected Cluster Munitions. (450 Kg.)
- Rafael SPICE GPS/EO-Guided CBU-107 Passive-Attack Cluster Munitions. (907 Kg.)
- Rafael SPICE GPS/EO-Guided Thermobaric Bombs. (907 Kg.)
- Diehl HOPE GPS/EO-Guided Penetrator Bombs. (1,400 Kg.)

The primary armament of the Type-32 Shadowcat Interdictor is housed in its two weapons bays. Sitting side-by-side amidships, the two weapons bays each hold a six-location rotary launcher. Powered electrically with integrated data feeds to load targeting info and wet plumbing to fuel missiles from the aircraft's tanks, these launchers automatically synchronize the carried weapons to the aircraft's computers so that a crewmember has simply to select a weapon for it to revolve into launch position. When the decision to fire a weapon is made, the aircraft's bomb bay doors fold outward and the weapon is pushed out of the launcher by hydraulic arms. As soon as the weapon is clear of the doors, the arms retract and the doors close to minimize drag on the airframe and optimize RCS. 12 full-sized weapons or 36 smaller weapons can be carried simultaneously, as much as 16,800 Kgs. of ordinance simultaneously. A variety of payloads can be deployed from Shadowcat, from nuclear standoff missiles and supersonic cruise missiles to guided bombs such as cluster munitions.

Supplementing this armament is a flush-mount turret housing a Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 gas-operated gatling cannon. This six-barreled cannon, chambered in 30x165mm is mounted aft of the front landing gear but forward of the weapons bays and rotates a full 360 degrees. The cannon can only be deployed with the landing gear retracted and only in subsonic flight to minimize drag, however the weapon has 140 degrees of swing, allowing it to prosecute targets in a wide cone beneath the aircraft. The GSh-6-30 on the Shadowcat is loaded with depleted uranium fin-stabilized sabot "darts" to defeat armored vehicles such as tanks by penetrating the thinner top armor of those vehicles. In combination with carried CBU-105 anti-armor cluster munitions, this gives the Shadowcat Interdictor an extremely competent offensive suite against armor in addition to its role as a tactical bomber.


Construction:
Shadowcat uses a revolutionary construction technique utilizing cutting edge carbon/carbon composite honeycomb subframes backed in titanium diboride ceramic to give the airframe incredible rigidity. These unique, stress-analysis modeled frames are significantly lighter and more compact than traditional aircraft undercarriage and frame methods and allow the frame to be precisely reinforced to eliminate stress and flex points and creating an aircraft with incredible rigidity and resistance to flex even under extreme movements. The aircraft's skin is triple layered, innermost an insulating blanket of carbon nanofoam which both deadens Shadowcat's skin to thermal transfer and attenuates microwave return from the metallic components of the aircraft, a hard skin of pre-preg vacuum formed farehyde aramid composite coated in a dual-layer low-RCS primer and an IR-deadening topcoat of paint, which work in concert to vastly deaden Shadowcat's signatures on the infrared and radar-return aspects. Further shielding the aircraft from infrared seekers are the dihedral ruddervators and the exhaust troughs into which the nozzles of the MTD 3025X RTA engines dump, absorbing acoustic energy and heat with specially-designed tiles which are open to the vertical, allowing ambient air to blend with the exhaust, diffusing the otherwise distinctive IR plumes. Because of the extreme speeds the aircraft is routinely subjected to, the entire skin and frame of the aircraft has been extensively modeled and designed to cope with stresses and heat cycles that would tear most aircraft apart.

Shadowcat was built to be deliberately unstable; with low wing loading, tight, symmetrical diamond wing trapezoidal planform and 40-degree dihedral ruddervators commencing precisely where the trailing edge of the wing leaves off, the slippery, hyperagile airframe relies on computer stabilized fly-by-wire to be controllable. With an emphasis on overall stealth and absolute speed, the Shadowcat is the fastest production bomber ever to fly in Sondria, but its overall design also provides excellent high-alpha flight ability and credible agility far exceeding other comparable aircraft in its class, even without thrust vectoring. Control surfaces are highly coupled, artificially stabilized by the onboard computer and work in unison either synchronously or differentially to provide maximum agility during flight, function as airbrakes, provide additional lift for takeoff or to pitch and roll the aircraft.


Crew Compartment:
The human component of the Type-32 Shadowcat is the most critical and most important part of the aircraft. Without a crew, the aircraft is merely a machine, but with it, Shadowcat becomes the most capable precision strike aircraft ever conceived. With this in mind, the crew compartment has been designed around the concept of maximum survivability, even if the aircraft around it is lost. When the crew steps into the Type-32, they step directly into a hardened capsule with independent life support systems. Made from triple-reinforced farehyde aramid composite and nanotube-impregnated "nanocrystalline" titanium layers under the aircraft's normal skin, the capsule is designed to resist even direct cannon fire from 23mm rounds. If ejection of the crew becomes necessary, a minimum of two of three crewmembers pulling the ejection handles adjacent to their seats will activate the system. Four rocket boosters, one in each corner of the crew compartment will activate and explosive bolts will free the capsule from its rigid frame inside the aircraft. Once this occurs, the capsule will lift off and a system of airbags below the capsule will deploy to cushion its impact and provide flotation for the crew. A system of four parachutes will deploy to stabilize the compartment's level descent and a pair of deceleration parachutes will deploy from the rear of the compartment; this system has been tested as effective from the aircraft's maximum speed and as low as 400 meters in altitude or as high as the aircraft's maximum ceiling. Inside the ejection capsule are four days worth of food and water and as long as the cabin remains pressurized, the onboard filtration system can run on solar and battery power for up to four days in a CBRN-contaminated environment.

During flight operations, the three crewmembers enjoy the benefits of the most modern integrated information system ever fielded on a production aircraft. Each crew station employs a direct retinal projection helmet system identical to the one used on the Type-21 "Divine Wind" ADF. Each crew station employs a pair of high-resolution LED-backlit capacitive multitouch screens, 51 cm by 51 cm in size. These screens relay all relevant information to the crewmember. For the pilot, a user-configurable aircraft diagnostics screen and a moving map overlaid with blueforce tracking, mission planning and targeting data from MADL/MAGSNET communication links are shown, while the EW officer has full control of the aircraft's electronic warfare suite including radar and threat prioritization from his screens. The Weapons Officer has active control of a realtime tracking suite that reacts to his helmet's DRP takes an integrated threat picture from Shadowcat's own sensor suite and from MADL/MAGSNET communication links. The Weapons Officer's station prioritizes threats and targets of opportunity and allows the WO selection of the aircraft's weapons systems, but can also select targets to relay to other allied forces that may be in the area and provides precise GPS/INS targeting coordinates for broadcast to other assets. All crewmember seats are heated and ventilated in addition to being shock-dampened and padded with vibration-attenuating memory foam, while interior temperature is regulated by the crew capsule's life support system, under the control of the pilot. Crew communication is provided by in-ear uplinks and a high-definition microphone imbedded in the helmet.


Electronic Warfare:
The Type-32 Shadowcat is equipped with the most cutting-edge electronic warfare suite ever fielded and is comprised of two primary systems, the AX-186 primary AESA Radar and the AX/AAM-100 DAS. As an Electronic Warfare suite, the primary role of the system is to provide for the survivability of the aircraft against laser, infrared and radar-guided threats, classify and prioritize allied and hostile units moving in the battlespace, distinguished from non-combatant contacts, provide suppression of enemy air defenses, blind enemy radar and is also capable of slipping malicious code into multiple-point aerial defense networks including drones and hostile aircraft.

Beginning with its capstone, the AX-186 Radar is a high-power AESA (Active Electronically-Scanned Array) mounted in the aircraft's nosecone. The AX-186 is capable of changing frequencies more than 1,000 times per second, transmitting sixty (60) watts of broadband power through its 6,500 carbon nanotube array. The entire module is cooled by a 5,000 BTU coldplate, keeping its solid-state electronics operating at optimum efficiency. The AX-186's carbon nanotube beam-formers cover wide RF bandwidths, produce multiple simultaneous beams, operate at high speed and are smaller, lighter and more power efficient than most currently available analog and digital systems. Improved functional capabilities include greatly increased control of jamming beams, which provides improved effectiveness, increased number of jamming assignments and reduced fratricide. Solid-state radar exciters provide ultra-wide band direct digital synthesis, enable software-defined techniques and incorporate integrated cueing receiver/digital radio frequency memory functionality for highly effective and flexible techniques generation. Shadowcat's onboard radar exciters offer increased effectiveness and number of jamming assignments, greater adaptability to counter emerging threats and improved spectral purity for reduced fratricide. The AX-186 has a range of more than 600 km and an extremely low probability of detection, allowing it to remain on for long periods of time while detecting, tracking and classifying more than 300 simultaneus targets. A sophisticated onboard processing suite prioritizes threats and provides aircraft identification which is relayed to the electronic warfare officer.

Spaced out across the aircraft are no less than twelve smaller AXJ-112 onboard solid-state AESA arrays, ten high-power wideband RF antennae embedded in the aircraft's skin which operate in both saturated and linear modes with high spectral purity, four diode-pumped solid state AL-20 1GW (One gigawatt) laser dazzlers, four AID-66 infrared countermeasure units and twelve high-resolution infrared sensors networked together to comprise the AX/AAM-100 DAS. This Sensor-Fused Distributed Aperture System provides a comprehensive sphere of threat classification and interdiction against incoming missiles and aircraft and simultaneously counters multiple pulse, continuous wave, pulse Doppler and monopulse threats; detects, denies, disrupts, degrades and evades lethal threats and provides multi-spectral (radio frequency, infrared and laser) situational awareness. When a threat is detected on either band, the corresponding AESA, IRCM and Laser-Dazzler most capable of intercepting the threat are cued up and begin "staring" at the target. In combination, this system is designed to overload the sensors of laser, infrared or radar guided missiles, but are switched off when no threat is present to minimize power consumption, heat and signature.

As a unit, the AX/AAM-100 DAS is capable of defeating most known threats immediately after detection at ranges of up to 5 km and radar-only at 10 km. When the aircrew encounters a threat emission, the AX/AAM-100 DAS establishes the threat range from the mission aircraft. If an aircraft is in lethal range of the threat, the AX/AAM-100 initiates its integrated instantaneous response, breaking missile lock through RF countermeasures, and cues the use of chaff and flares. As the aircraft’s survivability suite controller, AX/AAM-100 coordinates the response for laser and infrared threats, providing a truly integrated approach to aircraft self-protection. The system is an integrated RF electronic countermeasures system designed specifically for the Type-32 Shadowcat aircraft and is designed to detect and counter all modes of radar based weapon systems and also provides a tail warning function to detect and counter incoming missiles from the aft sector. The system provides 360-degree simultaneous receive and jamming coverage against a large number of concurrent threats. The ECM system sorts threats by priority and reacts against them automatically while allowing for “man-in-the-loop” intervention.

For penetrating airspace protected by early warning RADAR and SAM batteries, the AX/AAM-100 and AX-186 AESA work together with the aircraft's onboard processing suite to invade and hack enemy radar sites in all weather and atmospheric conditions. Utilizing state-of-the-art deceptive and repeater jamming techniques, Shadowcat can create false targets, shut down enemy radar sites or overload enemy computers to the point of inoperability and overheating, paving the way for other aircraft to pass through a "tunnel" of unprotected airspace. An EOTS (Electro-optical Targeting System) is mounted directly below the aircraft's nosecone that combines a high-power targeting laser, high-resoluton FLIR and CCD television camera, mounted below and slightly aft of the nosecone, allowing Shadowcat to discriminate targets on the ground for guiding precision munitions with in-flight updates at a very high resolution, while minimizing RCS.

Shadowcat's central computer is a comprehensively ECM/EMP hardened and armored "black box" unit engineered to withstand shock, vibration, humidity, temperature extremes, dust, flammable atmospheres, electromagnetic pulse radiation, electrical surges, gunfire and battle damage. The unit consists of a ruggedized single-board computer driven by a general purpose control processor based on a radiation-hardened quad-core system-on-chip architecture manufactured on a 35nm process. Memory is supplied by magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM) chips, complemented by a quad-core digital signal processor, dual-cell broadband engine, high resolution multimedia and vector graphics processors that all drive subsystems. The network topography is a triple-redundant MilCAN compliant databus carried on shielded and armored fiberoptic cable with full support for automatically recovering battle damage. The Black Box computer includes four solid-state 800gb secure-encrypted storage drives on non-volatile chips, slaved in a Raid-1 array with a total data transfer rate across the entire network of 8.5 gb/s.

The aircraft's processor suite processes all information in realtime and displays relevant data, warnings and statuses on the crew's displays, filtered to each crewmember's role, with constant diagnostics performed whenever the aircraft is operating and entire operations are recorded and stored so that every aspect of the fighter's operation can be played back for after-action reviews or fed into a simulator to recreate the mission. The Type-32 incorporates a network-central C5I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Collaboration, and Intelligence ) matrx that interconnects Shadowcat's fused sensor channels and Positional Navigation data suite with the Inertial Reference System using fused Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System, (GPS/INS) fiber-optic gyro rate sensors and digital electronic compass inputs, along with two tandem secure datalinks, the Multifunction Advanced Datalink and Mobile Air/Ground Subscriber Network. (MADL/MAGSNET) These two systems work together to combine RF, EMF, IR and EO tracking data that the aircraft's fused onboard sensor suite provides. With this communication suite onboard using stacked solid state plasma antennae for high-bandwith transmission with low risk of detection, Shadowcat can share its high-precision, high resolution situational awareness data with every other allied aircraft or vehicle equipped with either MADL, MAGSNET or both while remaining stealthy and allowing for high speed transmission of 256-bit full AES standard encrypted data with an extremely low risk of detection. MADL and MAGSNET both use random shifting-frequency transmission standards that shift frequencies 500 times per second and send encoded data packets in random order, encorporated in a broadband electronically-scanned array to send and receive communications. It is estimated that a non MADL/MAGSNET-compliant device with the correct encoding has a less than one in ten billion chance of receiving an entire transmission, sequencing the encoded packets and decoding the transmission.


Powerplant:
Shadowcat is powered by a pair of MTD Type-3025X RTA Combined-Cycle Turbofans. RTA stands for "Revolutionary Turbine Accelerator", a concept developed to change the geometry and mode of operation of a turbine engine in flight. Based on the Type-2025 VG3D that powers the Type-21 "Divine Wind" ADF, this boosted twin-spool engine has been enlarged and lengthened to produce 25% more power without afterburner than the more compact engine used in the fighter. The 3025X RTA Turbofan in the Shadowcat varies the angle of its primary fan blades, the contour of its intake vanes and the shape of its combustion chamber and exhaust nozzle to optimize fuel efficiency and power in various flight conditions, all controlled by a full FADEC and stratified fuel injection technology to finely monitor and adjust the engine's performance in realtime, mid-flight. The pair of 3025X RTA's use their turbines to accelerate the aircraft to Mach 1.7, which can be maintained without afterburner, making it the first bomber of its size and scale to utilize true supercruise. At speed, the engine's variable intake ducting moves to create an intake cone that bypasses the turbine entirely, slowing the air in the engine down to subsonic speeds and diverting all the intake air past the turbine and into a ramburner, which combusts the fuel-air mixture as a ramjet and can propel the Shadowcat to speeds above mach four and using precision fuel-delivery control to adjust absolute thrust and airspeed.

While exact numbers are classified, it is thought that Shadowcat can obtain a fuel-efficient hypersonic "dash speed" by utilizing its engines as ramjets and obtain mach 4+ in as little as ten minutes after a carrier launch. In either mode, the engine's exhaust is channeled through a variable-geometry "iris" nozzle that can adjust its shape based on atmospheric variables, the temperature and density of the exhaust and the desired mode of operation. 3025X RTA engines in the Shadowcat dump their exhaust into a pair of open channels that mix ambient air with the exhaust to diffuse the aircraft's thermal signature, especially from the ground. These ductways are covered in thermal/acoustic absorbent tiles that also contribute to minimizing the aircraft's overall signature. While the 2025 VG3D engine's nozzles allow thrust-vectoring, 3025X RTA is buried deep within engine nacelles inside the aircraft and its priorities center around maximum absolute thrust and minimizing Shadowcat's detectable signatures, while the aircraft's design is what gives Type-32 its outstanding maneuvering performance.

[Marquesan]

Type-100, "Great Hawk" Battlecruiser:
Price: Six Point Eight Billion NationStates Dollars.

Basic Information:
Displacement: 52,000 Tons.
Length: 320 Meters.
Layout: Trimaran, 8 Decks.
Range: Esssentially unlimited range. (Annual Maintenance Required.)
Top Speed: 65 Km/H.
Draught: 9.00m.
Crew: 300 Operators.
Full-Sized Image: Great Hawk-Class Battlecruiser.

Power & Propulsion:
Two 120-MW Helium-Cooled, High-Temperature Thorium Pebble-Bed Nuclear Reactors.
Four 50-MW ConverTeam 7,000-RPM 2-Pole Turbo Direct Drive Electric Motors.
Four Rolls-Royce Kamewa-SL Waterjets, 67,000 SHP Each.

Construction:
50mm Maraging Steel Spaceframe, Carbon Nanofoam Spall Liner, Aramid Skin, Cementious Foam Filler, 100mm Overall.
(Boron Carbide/Titanium Diboride/Maraging Steel/Farehyde) Fiber/Metal Laminate Bulkheads, 200mm. *128 Sections*
(Boron Carbide/Titanium Diboride/Maraging Steel/Farehyde) Fiber/Metal Laminate Armor Suite, 200mm.
CF/S2 Resinous Coating, Anti-RCS/Anti-Thermal Self-Healing, Salt/Corrosion-Proofed, 10mm.

Electronics Suite:
BAE Systems SAMPSON (AESA Radar)
Thales Group SMART-L/ELR (Search Radar)
Thales Group UMS 4110 CL (Long-Range Sonar)
Saab Group SeaGiraffe (Air-Defense Radar)
Saab Group 9LV-CMS (Combat Management)
Saab Group 9LV-FCS (Fire Control System)
Saab Group NLWS/SME-100 (ESM/ELINT)
Saab Group Tacticall ICS (Comm. Integration)
Tachyon Networks aXiom 7000 (SATCOM/C4ISR)
Rafael Systems Digital Shark (ECM/Jamming)

Armaments:
High-Velocity 255mm L/70 Guns. (9 Total, 3 Per Turret.)
High-Velocity 155mm L/60 "Boxer" Guns. (9 Total, 1 Bow, 4 Per Side, 18 Total Barrels.)
Oto Melara DARDO “Fast Forty” 40mm Twin Autocannons. (8 Total, 4 Turrets Per Side.)
Mk. 57 Vertical Launch Systems. (5 Total, 100-Cells Per Array.)
Phalanx Block 1B PSuM (HAS) Close-In Weapons System. (3 Total Systems.)
- 6 RIM-116 SeaRAM Starstreak Mk. II SAM Missile Pods.
- 6 Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 Stabilized Gatling Machine Guns.

Ammunition:
500 Rds. Marquesan Defense ERFB 255mm GPS-Guided Thermobaric, Armor Piercing Naval.
500 Rds. Marquesan Defense ERFB 255mm GPS-Guided High Fragmentation, Air Burst Naval.
500 Rds. Marquesan Defense ERFB 255mm GPS-Guided Parachute-Assisted, Anti-Runway Naval.

1,000 Rds. M712 Copperhead High Explosive Guided 155mm.
1,000 Rds. M989 SADARM Guided Anti-Armor Top Attack 155mm.
1,000 Rds. XM982 Excalibur Extended-Range Cluster Munition 155mm.

2,000 Rds. Bofors APFSDS-T Tungsten-Carbide Sabot 40mm Naval.
2,000 Rds. Bofors Pre-Fragmented, High Explosive (PFHE) 40mm Naval.
2,000 Rds. Bofors High-Explosive, Tracer (HE-T) 40mm Naval.
2,000 Rds. Bofors Multi-Function Fragment Curtain 40mm Naval.

96,000 Rds. High Explosive Fragmenting Incendiary Tracer, (HEFI-T) 30x165mm.

Thales Starstreak Mk. II (Mach 3.5, 7 Km. Short-Range Surface-To-Air Missile) 66 Total in 6 SeaRAM.
Raytheon SM-3 Block IIA (Mach 7.8, 500 Km. Anti-Ballistic Missile) 50 Total in VLS.
Lockheed Martin RUM-139C (High Subsonic, 22 Km. VL-ASROC Missile) 50 Total in VLS.
MBDA Air-Sol Moyenne Portee-A (Mach 3, 500 Km. Nuclear Standoff Missile) 50 Total in VLS.
MBDA CVS401 Perseus (Mach 3, 300 Km. Supersonic Cruise Missile) 100 Total in VLS.
KDA Joint Strike Missile (High Subsonic, 280 Km. Anti-Ship Missile) 100 Total in VLS.
MBDA Aster 30 (Mach 4.5, 120 Km. Surface-To-Air Missile) 150 Total in VLS.

---

DESIGN & BACKGROUND:
Great Hawk is a warship unlike any other. Her inventive use of advanced composites and spaceframe construction make her lighter, faster, more agile and more resilient than any conventionally-constructed combat vessel in the world. The reason for creating such a ship stems from a Marquesan Gendarmerie requirement for a compact, but extremely powerful capital ship with the ability to match the firepower of vessels many times her size and go toe-to-toe with modern warships if need be, or support ground combat assets even at great distance from the shore with accurate naval gunfire. The requirement called for the ship to be of shallow draught, so a Trimaran layout was chosen, also helping the Great Hawk to be both stable and agile in the water. Many auxiliary systems were pushed to the outrigger hulls, making the interior of the primary hull more roomy. Crew comfort and workspace ergonomics were put at an extremely high priority in the design of the class, so human-occupied areas are well-insulated and sound/vibration dampened, spacious and organized in the most efficient and aesthetically pleasing ways.

STRUCTURE & PROTECTION:
To create a ship that is lightweight, extremely tough, agile, fast and spacious, an entirely new way of thinking about ship design had to be invented. Modeled by supercomputer, the Great Hawk Class Battlecruiser is shaped around an enormous, plasma-arc welded spaceframe. The maraging steel used in its construction was impregnated with carbon nanotubes as it was being poured, giving the 50mm barstock frame a resilient nanocrystalline structure. Woven into the ship's frame is the entire wiring harness and fluid lines; in this way, the crew compartment is kept free of exposed cabling runs, lending a sleeker, more more modern appearance to the habitable areas of the ship. Once installation of the wiring harness is completed, the frame is encased on both sides in carbon nanofoam blanket for insulation, in turn encased with a four-ply aramid woven cloth called Farehyde, composed of Dyneema, Technora, Nomex and KM2 Kevlar. This creates the ship's skin and lends the ship a radar-absorbing, infrared-deadening, vibration dampening quality that traditionally-constructed vessels lack. Once the frame is completely encased, the interstitial space is filled with a lightweight cementious foam called AirKrete, which completely insulates the ship and also further unifies the structure.

Within this structure are 128 waterproof segments created by 200mm thick sections of Fiber/Metal Laminate armor, comprised of 5mm thick alternating layers of hexagonal and wedge shaped plates of nanocrystalline maraging steel, titanium diboride ceramic, boron carbide and farehyde which are laminated together under extreme heat, pressure and hyperacoustic agitation. These sections run through the ship's structure and act as bulkheads, limiting damage to the ship even in the case of a complete breech of the hull. This same structure is carried to the outer hull, where this 200mm thick Fiber/Metal Laminate armor plates the entire exterior of the ship. An unprecedented quality and level of armor unequaled in any modern warship, the Great Hawk's extreme resiliance stems from this lightweight but extremely durable armor, capable of resisting explosively formed penetrators and shaped-charge warheads from anti-shipping missiles without penetration of the crew cabin which, at any given point on the ship, is behind 310mm of varying degrees of structure.

The final layer of protection is entirely unique. A resinous, 10mm thick coating is applied to every exterior surface of the vessel. This resinous coating is both a paint and a type of armor. It is S2 Plastic and Carbon Fiber impregnated, homogeneously mixed with radar absorbent material (RAM) and anti-IR materials; the combination of which begins eroding long-rod kinetic kill munitions and decreases the likelihood of a missile lock from infrared missiles, decreases the range at which a radar lock on the ship can be obtained and resists salt and corrosion. The paint is also a self-healing coating that resists battle damage and absorbs small arms rounds and fragments rather than chipping off when the hull is struck.

POWERPLANT:
The Great Hawk Class Battlecruiser is powered by a pair of high-temperature pebblebed nuclear reactors. Fueled by thorium-impregnated graphite spheres and cooled with low-pressure helium, these reactors are much safer and much lighter and more compact than conventional pressurized water reactors. A pebblebed reactor of this configuration can also operate at much higher temperature regimes and efficiencies than a PWR and so fewer are needed. Electrical power from the two reactors is transmitted to four 50MW direct-drive electric motors. These four motors in turn power Rolls-Royce waterjets, each producing 67,000 shaft horsepower and propelling the vessel to a rated top speed of 65 km/h in safety and with exceptional quietness.

ARMAMENTS:
The Great Hawk-class Battlecruiser was designed around its guns. They ship’s nine primary cannon are electrothermal-chemically ignited, extended range/full bore 255mm cannons, magnetorheologically stabilized, automatically loaded and driven with 20-degrees of traverse per second. These unique primary cannon are high-velocity designs, 70 calibers in length and housed in retracting stealth turrets, which stow the guns when not in use to reduce the ship’s radar signature. The primary cannon are indirect-fire weapons, with a maximum elevation of 70 degrees from horizontal, meaning that fired shells are meant to travel a great distance or strike directly perpendicular to a vessel’s thinner and more vulnerable deck armor, piercing into the interior of an enemy vessel with precision GPS-guided munitions at greater than 80 nautical miles and detonating in the confined spaces below, meant to cause massive and irreparable damage. Secondary armaments include nine unique dual-barrel 155mm direct fire cannon (18 total cannons) with a range of more than 50 kilometers, eight 40mm autocannon and a remarkable 500-cell array of Vertical Launch Cells in addition to Great Hawk’s three full Phalanx missile/air defense systems, making this class of battlecruiser a veritable fortress to assault from the air, land or sea.*

[Marquesan]

MTD Type-160, "Black Harrier" Attack Cruiser:
Price: Three Point Eight Billion NationStates Dollars.

Basic Information:
Displacement: 33,300 Tons.
Length: 205m.
Hull Type: Monohull.
Range: Essentially unlimited range. (annual maintainence required.)
Speed: 65 Km/H.
Draught: 6.50m.
Crew: 100.
Full-Sized Image: Black Harrier-Class Attack Cruiser.

Power & Propulsion:
Two 80-MW Helium-Cooled, High-Temperature Thorium Pebble-Bed Nuclear Reactors.
Four DRS Technologies 36-MW Permanent Magnet Electric Motors.
Four Rolls-Royce Mermaid 27-MW Azimuthing Electric Propulsor Pods, 36,000 SHP Each.
(Two Masson Marine Coaxial Contra-Rotating, Controllable-Pitch 9-Blade Skewback Propellers, Each Pod.)

Construction:
50mm Maraging Steel Spaceframe, Carbon Nanofoam Spall Liner, Aramid Skin, Cementious Foam Filler, 100mm Overall.
(Boron Carbide/Titanium Diboride/Maraging Steel/Farehyde, 10x Each) Fiber/Metal Laminate Bulkheads, 200mm. *128 Sections*
(Boron Carbide/Titanium Diboride/Maraging Steel/Farehyde, 10x Each) Fiber/Metal Laminate Armor Suite, 200mm.
CF/S2 Resinous Coating, Anti-RCS/Anti-Thermal Self-Healing, Salt/Corrosion-Proofed, 10mm.

Electronics Suite:
BAE Systems SAMPSON (AESA Radar)
Thales Group SMART-L/ELR (Search Radar)
Thales Group UMS 4110 CL (Long-Range Sonar)
Saab Group SeaGiraffe (Air-Defense Radar)
Saab Group 9LV-CMS (Combat Management)
Saab Group 9LV-FCS (Fire Control System)
Saab Group NLWS/SME-100 (ESM/ELINT)
Saab Group Tacticall ICS (Comm. Integration)
Tachyon Networks aXiom 7000 (SATCOM/C4ISR)
Rafael Systems Digital Shark (ECM/Jamming)

Armaments:
3 155mm L/60 "Boxer" Guns. (Single Turret Mounting, 6 Total Barrels.)
12 533mm Torpedo Launch Tubes
1 40-Cell Mk. 57 Vertical Launch System
1 20-Cell Mk. 57 Vertical Launch System
1 Phalanx Block 1B PSuM (HAS) CIWS*
- 2 RIM-116 SeaRAM Starstreak Mk. II SAM Missile Pods.
- 2 Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 Stabilized Gatling Machine Guns.

Ammunition:
1,000 Rds. M712 Copperhead High Explosive Guided 155mm
1,000 Rds. M989 SADARM Guided Anti-Armor Top Attack 155mm
1,000 Rds. XM982 Excalibur Extended-Range Cluster Munition 155mm

90 Rds. DM2A4 Seehecht Heavyweight Torpedoes
90 Rds. WASS A184 Mod 3 BlackShark Torpedoes
90 Rds. MU90 Impact Hard-Kill Torpedoes

16,000 Rds. High Explosive Fragmenting Incendiary Tracer, (HEFI-T) 30x165mm.

22 Rds. Thales Starstreak Mk. II (Mach 3.5, 7 Km. Short-Range Surface-To-Air Missile)
20 Rds. Lockheed Martin RUM-139C Anti-Submarine Missiles
40 Rds. MDBA Aster 30 Long Range Surface-To-Air Missiles

---

*The Black Harrier Attack Cruiser is a Low-RCS fleet defense cruiser in service with the Marquesan Gendarmerie. Notable for its stealth design, the front of the hull is dominated by a unique stealth turret concealing three dual-barrel 155mm cannon. These unique guns operate on a hydralulic "boxer" principle whereby firing one barrel automatically loads the other from a ready magazine, increasing the rate of fire and making for a total array of six 155mm guns capable of ranging accurate and devastating guided munitions out to 50 kilometers in a hail of fire. Also prominent on the ship are the battery of 60 total VLS cells housing a combination of long-range Surface-To-Air and anti-submarine missiles. When combined with the 12 torpedo launch tubes onboard, this unassuming cruiser packs a massive punch. Designed around an advanced composite frame, this ship mounts a highly unusual composite armor structure, much thicker and more effective than other ships of its class due to laminate prefabricated construction backed up by a heavy-duty steel spaceframe construction. The Black Harrier can take an immense amount of punishment and keep on going. A massive electronics suite is cleverly housed in low-RCS deckhouses including extensive and powerful radars giving this smaller ship the same hunter-killer capability as its bigger cousin, the Great Hawk-class Battlecruiser. Its nuclear power and highly advanced propulsion means that the ship is quiet, fast and nimble. Propulsion is handled by a set of three azimuthing pods, electrically-powered with motors housed in the pod's fairings. They each operate a pair of coaxially-mounted nine-bladed contra-rotating propellers that make for extremely efficient and silent propulsion at all speeds. Each propeller's blades are adjustable for pitch by highly-reliable hydraulic servos that are integrated in the hub, simplifying mechanical processes and allowing constantly variable computer-controlled pitch. This allows the ship's central computer to continuously vary the propulsion system based on variables such as vessel speed, engine load, propeller RPM, hydrostatic pressure and sea state, water temperature and acoustic variables such as cavitation. The computer will automatically adjust to maximize thrust and minimize acoustic signature at all times, delivering power at optimum efficiency over a wide range of throttle positions and delivering massive power at a full run. Due to the highly unique design, these cruisers can run very fast while producing almost no noise, as actual propeller RPM remains very low at max thrust. Berths for its one hundred crewmembers are of the highest quality, space and comfort level. With nearly unlimited range, high speed for a vessel of its size and type, overwhelming firepower and a stealthy design, the Black Harrier Attack Cruiser is the best of all worlds.*

[Marquesan]

Type-64, "Whisper" Reconnaissance/Attack Helicopter.
Price: Forty Million NationStates Dollars.

A development of the Marquesan/Erjunite Defense Consortium, Myrmidon Tactical Design.
(Design by The United Federation of New Vihenia.)

Crew: 3. (Pilot, Co-Pilot, Systems Officer.)
Passenger Capacity: 10 Operators w/ all equipment.

Rotor Diameter: 18.44 m.
Length: 23.00 m.
Height: 6.34 m.
Width: 10.47 m.

Never Exceed Speed: 360 km/h.
Max Speed: 335 km/h.
Cruise Speed: 250 km/h.
Combat Range: 960 km.
Ferry Range: 1,650 km.
Service Ceiling: 7,000 m.

Empty Weight: 7,040 kg.
Loaded Weight: 11,970 kg.
Max Takeoff Weight: 13,270 kg.

Overview:
The Whisper RAH is a stealth helicopter gunship in service with the Marquesan Gendarmerie and abroad. It is a low-observable, contrarotating rotor all-composite helicopter built as a low altitude penetrator. With an extensive Electronic Warfare suite and a high fuel capacity, Whisper has the range and stealth to punch deep behind enemy lines to knock out defensive radar and anti-aircraft emplacements with its bristling array of armaments. Whisper's role is to be the "tip of the spear" ahead of ground and heavy air forces, slipping through terrain, flying low to avoid detection and knocking out critical defensive emplacements, effectively punching a hole through which allied forces pour.


Armament:
1 Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-30-2 Dual-Barrel Gast Cannon (Mounted in retractable belly-turret.)
*1,200-Rd. Magazine.*
- High Explosive Fragmenting Incendiary Tracer, (HEFI-T) 30x165mm

4 Racks of Four CATIC LD-10 Anti-Radiation Missiles (Mach 4, 21 km Range.)
*AND*
2 Racks of Four Diehl PARS3 LR PIR/CCD Air-Ground/Air Missiles (Mach 0.85, 7 km Range.)

The Type-64 "Whisper" RAH carries a deadly assortment of weaponry in addition to its highly-advanced EW suite. Firstly, Whisper mounts a normal combat loadout of sixteen LD-10 Anti-Radiation missiles. These mach-four capable weapons have a 21 kilometer range and mount a passive radar/home on jam/inertial guidance system that allows them to home in on a radar site even if it powers down or attempts to jam the missile. Its enhanced blast/fragmentation warhead and extreme speed work together to knock out enemy radar sites before they even realize a missile has been fired. Also carried by the Type-64 are eight PARS3-LR air launched missiles. These shorter range subsonic missiles can engage air or ground targets, though they are designed for use against enemy armor or fortifications. Whisper's gun is a dual barrel Gast-Principle cannon chambered in 30x165mm explosive ammunition, carrying 1,200 rounds in an internal magazine, allowing the helicopter to engage close in targets with deadly efficiency. Whisper's weapons systems can be commanded either by the Systems Officer from his screen, or by the Pilot, when directly slaved to the pilot's Direct Retinal Projection helmet.


Construction:
Like the Type-66 Hellcat Hunter/Killer, Whisper is constructed from radar-absorbent materials and cutting edge composites. Whisper's keel-beam construction is centered on a stress-modeled monocoque frame made from carbon/carbon honeycomb, reinforced with titanium diboride ceramic. This rigid and very lightweight frame can withstand extreme temperature fluctuations and conducts thermal energy, absorbing it from hotspots and distributing it across the airframe, keeping the hotspots cooler. The habitable area of the helicopter sits in an armored "bathtub" comprised of a 50mm thick "sandwich" of alternating 10mm layers of titanium diboride ceramic and Farehyde aramid composite, giving the aircraft extreme resiliance to penetration by shrapnel or small arms munitions up to 25mm cannon fire. The skin of the aircraft is a multi-layered composite, the innermost layer being carbon nanofoam blanket which both deadens the aircraft's skin to infrared seekers but also absorbs microwave radar energy. The outer layer is comprised of Farehyde aramid composite which is coated first in a radar-absorbent paint and then in an IR-camouflage topcoat which further breaks up Whisper's already IR-cold image in night vision. All glass surfaces are gold-coated to help minimize the helicopter's radar cross section, which is only fractionally larger than one of its carried missiles.

Retractable landing gear, smoothed and carefully modeled surfaces with "sawtooth" openings, doors and access panels all contribute to Whisper's exceptionally small radar cross section. The Type-64's pair of variable-geometry turboshaft engines sit in radar and IR-shielded tunnels with intakes and exhausts offset to minimize the chance of the fan face reflecting radar energy. The exhaust tunnels are lined in IR/Acoustic absorbent ceramic tiles and are slash-cut at the rear to diffuse the thermal exhaust plumes coming out of the twin turboshafts, the exhaust exits being exposed to rotorwash to further diffuse the IR signature of the aircraft. Whisper's IR Signature is reportedly so low that it cannot be effectively targeted in flight by heat-seeking missiles.


Crew Compartment:
The Type-64 seats three crew in an all-glass touchscreen cockpit, with the pilot and co-pilot sharing navigational and diagnostic information in a wraparound display, while the Systems Officer has a separate display with targeting screens for the helicopter's weapons systems and all controls for the aircraft's Electronic Warfare suite. To the rear of the crew area is a passenger compartment which can comfortably seat ten fully-armed combat operators and all their tactical gear, meaning that in addition to suppresson of enemy air defenses, the Whisper RAH can also perform infiltration missions far behind enemy lines by slipping through enemy radar networks and dropping shock forces where they are unexpected. The entire crew compartment is vibration and acoustic-dampened overpressurized and sealed to CBRN contaminants. Operators can fast-rope down from two access doors on either side of the aircraft, to the front of the load-bearing wings.


Electronic Warfare:
Whisper RAH's coaxial rotor mast mounts a large, 360-degree rotating Electro-Optical Targeting System pod which allows the aircraft to "peek" above cover and ascertain possible targets. Whisper's magnetorheologically-stabilized EOTS pod combines a high-power targeting laser, high-resoluton FLIR and CCD television camera with a 30-megapixel day/night resolution and a 50x zoom function with a high level of dampening against vibrations from the aircraft.

At the ends of Whisper RAH's load bearing wings sit two large AX/AAM-688 Electronic Warfare pods, designed with IR and radar-deadening materials that absorb or deflect hostile radar energy while actively-cooled flushmount arrays have uninhibited ability to send and receive their own transmissions . These pods are low observable composites of several important features that contribute to make the Type-64 one of the most effective SEAD helicopters ever fielded. Each pod houses three small, high-power AESA radar arrays which shift frequencies more than 1,000 times per second, one pointing outward, one forward and one rear. These AXJ-112 solid state radar arrays use 5,000 BTU coldplates and carbon nanotube beam formers to not only paint a clear, high-resoluton picture of the environment around the helicopter while providing friend or foe identification and threat classification. Added to the AXJ-112's are four diode-pumped solid state AL-20 1GW (One gigawatt) laser dazzlers, four AID-66 infrared countermeasure units and twelve high-resolution infrared sensors along with an ADS Protection AMAP Hard Kill Active Defense System.

This combination of defensive and offensive mechanisms means that Whisper can defend itself instantaneously against guided and unguided projectile threats from rocket-propelled grenades to IR, Laser and Radar-guided missiles. Solid-state wideband stacked plasma RF antennae in the EW pods are designed to detect passive-guided and unguided missile threats against the aircraft using a sophisticated processing suite to accurately determine the velocity and nature of the threat. An electro-optical countermeasure suite consists of multi-band fiber laser bundles producing pulse-coded directed energy to seduce or jam EO or IR sensor heads through intense over-radiation. Single polarization flexible optical fiber arrays are embedded into the aircraft's skin and are connected to Whisper's laser heads and optical systems which generate the signals. Both a short wave/long wave pumped laser and a long-wave laser pumped array are used. The sensor-initiated Active Protection hard kill system provides a last ditch point defense from incoming munitions and is cued by conformal Doppler X-band Thin Radar Array (XTRA) panels on the airframe that search for, classify and track threat signatures within 1,000 meters of the hull to avoid detection. The radar can track missile velocity and direction with an accuracy of ±1 millirad and incorporates a multi-band electronic counter-countermeasure (ECCM) utilizing digital polarization cancellation to prevent noise jamming and spoofing by electronic countermeasures (ECM) carried by an attacking guided missile. Whisper RAH also mounts an ADS Protection AMAP Hard Kill Active Defense System for a second layer of defense against unguided projectiles, such as rocket-propelled grenades, defeating these threats with redundant high-energy transfer lasers, providing a 360-degree cone of protection below the helicopter and 60 degrees of horizontal arc around the aircraft as well.

Whisper RAH uses the same central computer and fly-by-light system as the Hellcat Hunter/Killer, providing a quadruple-redundant, EMI-resistant and EMP hardened central processing suite that combines the aircraft's high resolution sensors and EW suite with data provided by the MADL/MAGSNET network into a single fused battlespace picture. A network-central C5I picture is obtained, fused both from Whisper's onboard sensors and the Multifunction Advanced Datalink and Mobile Air/Ground Subscriber Network. (MADL/MAGSNET) With this communication suite onboard using broadband liquid plasma antennae in each wingtip EWS pod for high-bandwith transmission and receipt with low risk of detection,
Whisper can share its high-precision, high resolution situational awareness data with every other allied aircraft or vehicle equipped with either MADL, MAGSNET or both while remaining stealthy and allowing for high speed transmission of 256-bit full AES standard encrypted data with an extremely low risk of detection. MADL and MAGSNET both use random shifting-frequency transmission standards that shift frequencies 500 times per second and send encoded data packets in random order, encorporated in a broadband electronically-scanned array to send and receive communications. It is estimated that a non MADL/MAGSNET-compliant device with the correct encoding has a less than one in ten billion chance of receiving an entire transmission, sequencing the encoded packets and decoding the transmission.


Powerplant:
Whisper RAH uses a pair of MTD-1215VG non-afterburning boosted twin-spool turboshaft engines in a compact low-bypass configuration. These engines operate at maximum efficiency by adjusting the pitch-angle of the primary low-pressure compressor to adjust for altitude, airspeed and various atmospheric conditions, along with fuel delivery. A "no-expense-spared" design philosophy was taken in designing the 1215VG turbofan, using carbon/carbon composite fanblades and monocrystalline titanium compressor blisks. Extensive use of titanium and inconel, ceramic coatings and carbon/carbon composites in the turbines make for quiet, cool-running responsive engines that are fully FADEC-controlled and constantly optimized in realtime for changing conditions. The quiet, reliable power provided by the MTD-1215VG's is transmitted to the contrarotating mast and its six broad, lightweight all-composite blades via a continuously-variably hydraulic/mechanical transmission that picks up power from the two engines free power fans connected to ultra-lightweight titanium shafts which spin the rotors by short, direct-drive planetary gear arrangements in a compact, armored box between the two turboshaft engines. This combination of high technology and efficient, compact design maximizes crewspace area while minimizing heat signature and fuel consumption, providing class-leading speed and agility to the Whisper RAH and making this helicopter one of the most advanced and deadly threats to enemy forces in service anywhere.

[Marquesan]

Type-66, "Hellcat" Hunter/Killer.
Price: Twenty Nine Million NationStates Dollars.

A development of the Marquesan/Erjunite Defense Consortium, Myrmidon Tactical Design.
(Design by Aerospace Innovation Inc. Front view can be seen here.)

Crew: 4. (Pilot, Co-Pilot, Crew Chief, Weapons Officer.)
Passenger Capacity: 10 Soldiers w/ Full Gear.

Rotor Diameter: 14.5 m.
Length: 16.3 m.
Height: 5.3 m.
Width: 4.4 m.

Never Exceed Speed: 330 kph.
Max Speed: 290 kph.
Cruise Speed: 270 kph.
Combat Range: 1,000 km.
Ferry Range: 1,900 km.
Service Ceiling: 7,100 m.

Empty Weight: 5,900 kgs.
Loaded Weight: 10,000 kgs.
Max Takeoff Weight: 11,400 kgs.

Overview:
The Hellcat is a helicopter gunship in service with the Marquesan Gendarmerie. Assigned a Hunter/Killer role, Hellcat is an exceptionally deadly large-frame helicopter built for long-distance speed, endurance and maneuverability. While an increased focus was taken on low-observability, Hellcat's design centralizes around its armaments and capabilities. The rear of Hellcat's interior is designed to hold a fire team of ten operators with a full combat load that can either fast-rope from the aircraft or can be deployed by way of a rear door with a short, remote-retracting ramp. With ten external hardpoints on load-bearing wings and a six-barreled gatling gun chambered in 30x165mm cannon rounds, the Type-66 Hellcat is the premier helicopter gunship of the Marquesan Gendarmerie.


Armament:
1 Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 Six-Barrel Gatling Cannon (Mounted in retractable belly-turret.)
*2,400-Rd. Magazine.*
- Depleted Uranium Fin-Stabilized Sabot, Armor Piercing, 30x165mm

LAU-61C/A-Kor 70mm Rocket Pods (19 Rockets Per Pod, User Selectable)
- M261 HE MPSM Unguided Rockets *9 M73 AP/AM Submunitions Each*
- M247 Shaped-Charge Anti-Armor Guided Rockets
- MK67 Mod 0 White Phosphorous Guided Rockets
- M151 AP Fragmentation APKWS II Laser-Guided Rockets

B20-Kor 80mm Rocket Pods (20 Rockets Per Pod, User Selectable)
- S-8DF Fuel-Air Explosive Guided Rockets
- S-8BM Runway Destroying Guided Rockets
- S-8S 2,000-Flechette Dispersant Guided Rockets
- S-8T Tandem HEAT Anti-Armor Guided Rockets

B13L-Kor 122mm Rocket Pods (5 Rockets Per Pod, Loadout User Selectable)
- S-13OF APAM/FRAG 450-Splinter Guided Rockets
- S-13DF Fuel-Air Explosive Guided Rockets

Racks of Four Denel Mokopa ZT6 Laser-Guided Anti-Armor Missiles (Up to 10 on External Hardpoints.)
*OR*
Racks of Four Diehl PARS3 LR Passive IR/CCD-Guided Anti-Armor Missiles (Up to 10 on External Hardpoints.)

The Hellcat Hunter/Killer can carry a variety of armaments, usually configured in one of two ways, though loadouts are adjusted to each mission profile:

The first normal loadout is an "Anti-Armor" loadout, where the ten external hardpoints are loaded with racks of four Denel Mokopa ZT6 ATGM's. These laser-guided missiles pack an incredible punch, its tandem warheads capable of penetrating 1,350mm of Rolled-Homogenous Armor. (RHA) With 40 missiles carried in addition to Hellcat's gatling cannon and the capability of dropping a fireteam wherever they are best utilized, there are few helicopters in the world so capable of unleashing true devastation and striking fear into an enemy force.

The second standard loadout is in an "Expeditionary" setup where the outer wingtip hardpoints are loaded with PARS3-LR missiles, capable of engaging both ground and air targets, while the next inner hardpoints carry Denel Mokopa ZT6 ATGM's. The remaining six hardpoints mount 122mm, 80mm and 70mm rocket pods, with the 70mm pods in the center of each wing and the 122mm pods innermost. The user-configurable pods can mount any combination of rockets to fit the mission profile, while the Weapons Officer's screen can designate what order the rockets are to be fired in.

Hellcat's cannon is a gas-operated Gryazev-Shipunov six-barreled gatling cannon. Mounted on a retractable hard turret and capable of being operated either by the Weapons Officer or the pilot, the cannon is mounted to a 360-degree swiveling turret, which when under pilot operation is limited to the forward 180-degree sweep but is controlled directly by the movement of the pilot's Direct Retinal Projection helmet and when operated by the weapons officer, can engage targets in 360 degrees. Hellcat carries 2,400 rounds of depleted-uranium fin-stabilized sabot ammunition, meant for knocking out light armor and other vehicles.


Construction:
Hellcat was constructed with an emphasis in cutting edge technology and radar-absorbent materials. The frame of the aircraft is composed of carbon/carbon honeycomb structures, reinforced with titanium diboride ceramic. This lightweight yet extremely resilient frame balances the weight of the aircraft and all its components while absorbing heat from individual components and distributing it throughout the frame, lowering the apparent thermal signature of normal hotspots like the aircraft's engines. The skin of the aircraft over the frame is dual-layered, with an inner layer of carbon nanofoam blanket to deaden Hellcat's skin to IR and absorb radar microwave energy under a 30mm thick layer of Farehyde aramid composite. Farehyde is a lightweight yet extremely durable composite which is a poor conductor of heat but works excellently as armor while being much lighter than standard alumimum. Additionally, the crew area sits in a 20mm thick "bathtub" of titanium diboride ceramic which extends up the sides of the aircraft to help the habitable area of the aircraft resist small arms and cannon fire, up to 25mm hits on the bathtub area and up to 50 caliber ammunition in most places across the airframe. The coaxial mast is designed to resist up to 25mm cannonfire, though it presents a very small moving target. Retractable landing gear and smoothed surfaces with minimal interruption, "sawtoothed" compartments and doors and gold-coated glass for all windows all contribute to lowered RCS for the Type-66, helping to optimize it for the hunter/killer role. Hellcat will be easily sustained, will require fewer personnel and support equipment, and will provide a decisive battlefield capability in day, night and adverse weather operations. The Type-66 has been designed to be exceptionally maintainable and easily transportable. Through its keel-beam construction, numerous access panels, easily accessible line-replaceable units/modules and advanced diagnostics, the Type-66 Hellcat possesses "designed-in" maintainability.

Survivability of the aircraft was paramount in its construction, so a coaxial rotor arrangement with two, contra-rotating three bladed rotors was adopted, eliminating traditional helicopter issues with rotor torque and thus the need for an anti-torque rotor at the tail, balancing lift from advancing blades to keep the helicopter stable even at high speeds and reducing the total swept area of the rotors, making the footprint of the aircraft smaller. For a helicopter of its size and weight, Hellcat is extremely fast, agile and able to fit into very small areas, allowing Hellcat to go where other helicopters cannot, fly lower and faster, all while presenting roughly the same radar cross section as an adult eagle. The skin of the aircraft is first coated in radar-absorbent paint and then in a final coating of anti-IR camoflague, breaking up the image of the helicopter in thermal or night vision, deadening the aircraft's thermal signature and making Hellcat harder to detect or target with thermal or radar-seeking targeting systems. The exhausts of Hellcat's twin turbofan engines are diffused through channels lined in thermal and acoustic absorbent tiles that are also in the path of the rotorwash, further diffusing the IR plumes and allowing Hellcat to slip through otherwise difficult enemy defenses.


Crew Compartment:
Hellcat's crew compartment in the front is dominated by four seats, two for pilot and copilot, one for the crew chief and one for the weapons systems operator, with the entire habitable area of the helicopter overpressurized and sealed to CBRN contaminants. All instrumentation is provided on user-configurable, 24" capacitive multitouch panels for each crewmember, relaying relevant information to each operator. The pilot's screen shows aircraft instrumentation and status information from the Hellcat's onboard diagnostics system, while the copilot's screen is dominated by a moving map with overlaid tactical data from the MADL/MAGSNET communication system and the aircraft's own onboard sensor suite, showing both allied and hostile assets, prioritized and identified on the screen with iconic markings, in combination with navigation data and terrain information. The Weapons Officer screen shows ammunition and weapons system statuses, along with the aircraft's electronic warfare suite's central control system. The crew chief's data overlay contains the communication and radar suite, from which he can instantaneously share data to all other screens in the aircraft, or transmit a data stream including encrypted voice or text to other allied assets in the area covertly. To the rear of the crew area sits a combat operator compartment with seats and storage for ten operators with all combat gear. These seats can fold up to make room for stretchers for medical evacuation of casualties as well, with room for up to eight stretchers lined up horizontally in the helicopter with quick-release carabiners to secure stretchers for flight.


Electronic Warfare:
Hellcat's EW Suite incorporates an AESA radar mounted in a composite-armored nosecone, the scaled-down AX-126 radar based on the Shadowcat Interdictor/Penetrator's AX-186. AX-126 transmits 20w of power through a 3,000 carbon nanotube beam-former array, shifting its transmitting frequency more than 1,000 times per second. Incorporated with the AX-126 is the AX/AAM-80 Distributed Aperture System, comprised of an EOTS (Electro-optical Targeting System) which is mounted above and aft of the cockpit to allow the aircraft to "peek" above cover and ascertain possible targets. EOTS combines a high-power targeting laser, high-resoluton FLIR and CCD television camera. Also integrated into the AX/AAM-80 is an array of four AXJ-112 AESA jamming arrays, with four diode-pumped solid state AL-20 1GW (One gigawatt) laser dazzlers, four AID-66 infrared countermeasure units and twelve high-resolution infrared sensors networked together. This Sensor-Fused Distributed Aperture System identifies, classifies, prioritizes and jams incoming threats and enemy radars. An electro-optical countermeasure suite consists of multi-band fiber laser bundles producing pulse-coded directed energy to seduce or jam EO or IR sensor heads through intense over-radiation. Single polarization flexible optical fiber arrays are embedded into the aircraft's skin and are connected to Hellcat's laser heads and optical systems which generate the signals. Both a short wave/long wave pumped laser and a long-wave laser pumped array are used. The sensor-initiated Active Protection hard kill system provides a last ditch point defense from incoming munitions and is cued by conformal Doppler X-band Thin Radar Array (XTRA) panels on the airframe that search for, classify and track threat signatures within 1,000 meters of the hull to avoid detection. The radar can track missile velocity and direction with an accuracy of ±1 millirad and incorporates a multi-band electronic counter-countermeasure (ECCM) utilizing digital polarization cancellation to prevent noise jamming and spoofing by electronic countermeasures (ECM) carried by an attacking guided missile. Hellcat also mounts an ADS Protection AMAP Hard Kill Active Defense System for a second layer of defense against unguided projectiles, such as rocket-propelled grenades, defeating these threats with redundant high-energy transfer lasers, providing a 360-degree cone of protection below the helicopter and 60 degrees of horizontal arc around the aircraft as well.

Hellcat mounts the same central computer and fly-by-light system as the Shadowcat and Divine Wind aircraft, providing a quadruple-redundant, EMI-resistant and EMP hardened central processing suite that combines the aircraft's high resolution sensors and EW suite with data provided by the MADL/MAGSNET network into a single fused battlespace picture. A network-central C5I picture is obtained, fused both from Hellcat's onboard sensors and the Multifunction Advanced Datalink and Mobile Air/Ground Subscriber Network. (MADL/MAGSNET) With this communication suite onboard using stacked solid state plasma antennae for high-bandwith transmission with low risk of detection,
Hellcat can share its high-precision, high resolution situational awareness data with every other allied aircraft or vehicle equipped with either MADL, MAGSNET or both while remaining stealthy and allowing for high speed transmission of 256-bit full AES standard encrypted data with an extremely low risk of detection. MADL and MAGSNET both use random shifting-frequency transmission standards that shift frequencies 500 times per second and send encoded data packets in random order, encorporated in a broadband electronically-scanned array to send and receive communications. It is estimated that a non MADL/MAGSNET-compliant device with the correct encoding has a less than one in ten billion chance of receiving an entire transmission, sequencing the encoded packets and decoding the transmission.


Powerplant:
The Type-66 uses a pair of MTD-1215VG non-afterburning boosted twin-spool turboshaft engines in a compact low-bypass configuration. These engines operate at maximum efficiency by adjusting the pitch-angle of the primary low-pressure compressor to adjust for altitude, airspeed and various atmospheric conditions, along with fuel delivery. A "no-expense-spared" design philosophy was taken in designing the 1215VG turbofan, using carbon/carbon composite fanblades and monocrystalline titanium compressor blisks. Extensive use of titanium and inconel, ceramic coatings and carbon/carbon composites in the turbines make for quiet, cool-running responsive engines that are fully FADEC-controlled and constantly optimized in realtime for changing conditions. The quiet, reliable power provided by the MTD-1215VG's is transmitted to the contrarotating mast and its six broad, lightweight all-composite blades via a continuously-variably hydraulic/mechanical transmission that picks up power from the two engines free power fans connected to ultra-lightweight titanium shafts which spin the rotors by short, direct-drive planetary gear arrangements in a compact, armored box between the two turbofan engines. This combination of high technology and efficient, compact design maximizes crewspace area while minimizing heat signature and fuel consumption, providing class-leading speed and agility to Hellcat and making this helicopter one of the most advanced and deadly threats to enemy forces in service anywhere.

[Marquesan]

MTD Type-37, "Sarissa" Strike Bomber.
Price: Three Hundred Thirty Million NationStates Dollars.

A development of the Marquesan/Erjunite Defense Consortium.


Role: Long Range/High Speed Strategic Strike.
Crew: 4. (Pilot, Co-Pilot Electronic Warfare Officer, Weapons Officer.)
Length: 36 m.
Wingspan: 31.6 m.
Height: 7 m.

Empty Weight: 71,600 kgs.
Maximum Payload: 38,000 kgs.
Maximum Fuel: 90,400 kgs.
Maximum Take-off Weight: 200,000 kgs.

Combat Range: 8,000 km.
Ferry Range: 12,000 km.
Maximum Altitude: 23,000 m.

Dry Thrust: 155 kN (15,800 Kgf.) per engine.
Wet Thrust: (Ramburner) Classified.
Thrust-to-Weight (Mil-Power) Ratio @ Max Takeoff: 0.31:1.
Supercruise: Mach 1.6.
Dash Speed: Mach 3.3.
Rate of Climb: 270 m/s.


Overview:
The Type-37 "Sarissa" Strike Bomber is a very-long-range supersonic 5th generation stealth bomber in service with the Marquesan Gendarmerie and manufactured by Myrmidon Tactical Design. The design of the Sarissa centers around its engines, a set of four RTA boosted twin-spool turbofans which are at the rear of the aircraft, below its tail section. Forward of that, three weapons compartments are aligned transversely across the width of the airframe directly amidships. On each side of the weapons compartments, reinforced wing boxes sit atop serpentine ducts for the Sarissa's four engines and control the geometry of the aircraft's variable-sweep wings. Forward of the weapons compartments and all around the aircraft in every possible location, fuel tanks have been placed including in the aircraft's wings to provide maximum fuel-carrying capacity, interrupted only by the aircraft's structure, systems and the crew compartment, forwardmost in the aircraft.

This lifting-body/variable sweep hybrid flying wing layout is extremely aerodynamically efficient, very clean for the purposes of radar cross-section and provides a large amount of interior room to fit the aircraft out with its payloads. Sarissa's role is as a strategic strike bomber, capable of a maximum speed of mach 3.3, although it is most effective as a long-range penetrator at subsonic speeds where its four turbofans can efficiently cruise just below the aircraft's mach threshold without sacrificing stealth. With an extremely sophisticated electronic warfare suite and the capacity for 38,000 kg of internally-carried payload, Sarissa is a deadly strike aircraft capable of engaging a huge number of targets with a high degree of autonomy.

Part of Sarissa's role is as a maritime defense aircraft. From home stations in territorial Marquesan, Sarissa's 12,000 km combat range means that it can patrol huge swaths of coastline and carry enough anti-shipping missiles to destroy entire fleets of hostile vessels at great speed with a very low probability of detection or intercept. This allows Sarissa to entirely replace smaller coastal defense ships in the role of coastal defense and provide a very sophisticated imaging and radar suite in the sky with an instant strike option up to and including nuclear ordinance.


Armament:
3 Internal Weapons Bays w/ 8-Shot Modular Rotary Launchers, 38,000 kg. internal capacity.
*24 Nuclear Standoff Missiles, Cruise Missiles, Large Guided Bombs, or 72 225 kg-Class Munitions.*
- Air-Sol Moyenne Portée *NUCLEAR* Standoff Missiles. (Variable Yield, 150/300 Kt, Mach-3, 300 Km.)
- MBDA CVS401 Perseus Ground/Naval Attack Supersonic Cruise Missiles. (800 Kg. Mach-3.)
- Rafael SPICE GPS/EO-Guided CBU-105 Wind-Corrected Cluster Munitions. (450 Kg.)
- Rafael SPICE GPS/EO-Guided CBU-107 Passive-Attack Cluster Munitions. (907 Kg.)
- Rafael SPICE GPS/EO-Guided Thermobaric Bombs. (907 Kg.)
- Diehl HOPE GPS/EO-Guided Penetrator Bombs. (1,400 Kg.)

The Type-37 Sarissa Strike Bomber's principal armament is in the form of three bomb bays at the rear of the aircraft sitting between the serpentine intake ducts for the craft's four turbofan engines. These three bomb bays laid side-by-side are long enough to accomodate 9m long munitions such as hypersonic cruise missiles or ASMP standoff nuclear weapons. Each bomb bay accomodates an eight-munition rotary launcher, electronically datalinked to the weapons officer's station in the crew compartment.

When a munition is chosen by the WO, the appropriate rotary launcher rotates the weapon into position, fuels, arms and loads the munition with targeting data. As soon as the command to fire is given, a set of hydraulic arms push the weapon downward as the sawtoothed bomb bay doors thrust open. As soon as the weapon is clear of the doors, the doors will automatically shut and the next weapon is rotated down into firing position. In total, 24 precision strike munitions of up to the 1,400 kg class can be carried, or up to 72 of the 225 kg. class, up to 38,000 kg. of munitions or twice the maximum combat load of the Shadowcat Penetrator/Interdictor.


Construction:
The Type-37 "Sarissa" bomber is among the fastest combat ever produced; to deal with this, a complete rethinking of conventional aircraft construction had to be done. Sarissa's frame is an extensively stress-modeled composite monocoque of carbon/carbon honeycomb structures, rather than a simple aluminum girder arrangement as most aircraft are. Instead of building the aircraft around the frame, Sarissa's frame is designed to reinforce stress points of the design and to absorb heat from the aircraft's skin and carry it inward to reduce the aircraft's thermal signature in flight. Rather than reinforcement with steel, lightweight but extremely strong titanium diboride ceramic is used to reinforce the frame at critical junctures, partly for its extreme resistance to temperature but mostly for its fantastic strength. Taken as a whole, this monocoque frame is many times lighter than a traditional aircraft frame and leaves much more interior room in the aircraft for fuel, electronics, crew and ordinance, but also makes Sarissa many many times stronger and more rigid than comparable aircraft.

The aircraft's skin also deals with the heat issue; the inner layer is an IR and Radar-deadening carbon nanofoam blanket that backs a 5mm thick layer of Farehyde aramid composite, chosen for its light weight, resilience to shock, impact and abrasion and its resistance to deformation in heating. Aerodynamic leading edges and control surfaces are made from precisely-formed sheets of titanium which are cold-formed and swaged into the aerodynamic line of the skin. The entire skin of the aircraft is then coated in a high-temperature microwave-absorbent ceramic paint and finally in a high-temperature IR-deadening camouflage paint. This has the effect of producing an entire aircraft from materials whose purpose it is to absorb both infrared and radar energy, which helps to mitigate air friction heating in hypersonic flight and helping the aircraft to quickly cool itself after dropping out of hypersonic flight, making it less visible to infrared-seeking missiles.

Sarissa is the only Marquesan aircraft with a variable-sweep wing. This design was chosen to assist the lifting-body hybrid wing aircraft in having greater agility during low speed flight. In supersonic flight, the wings are swept back flush with the body to minimize drag but during low speed flight, they can be extended outward to provide additional lift and and greater control surface area for tight low-speed maneuvers, as in landing or in nape-of-the-earth flight. All flight control surfaces are actuated via a precise triple-redundant hydraulic interface, controlled by a triple-redundant "fly-by-light" fiberoptic interface that is processed by the aircraft's central computer.

Type-37 is designed in such a way that its body provides a large amount of lift during flight, though it also has an extremely smooth body shape and very low radar cross-section during flight. Although its engines are more exposed in rear underside nacelles and therefore more visible to infrared detection from below than other Marquesan aircraft, this is mitigated by sophisticated engine heat shielding and cooling by allowing some air to bypass the entire engine assembly which passes through the nacelles and out, diffusing the thermal signature of the engines and providing a slight airgap to facilitate minimization of skin heating on the nacelles.

Internally, the aircraft is extremely roomy, allowing for a massive amount of fuel and ordinance to be carried, since no interior room is taken up by the aircraft's massive engines. This conifguration imparts extreme range onto the bomber and in combination with its blended hybrid flying wing "lifting body" design, allows a massive amount of ordinance to be carried in a bomber that still manages to be extremely fast and agile.


Crew Compartment:
The Type-37 "Sarissa" Strike Bomber fully encapsulates the crew in a separately-armored aramid monocoque shell that is made up of two layers of 25mm thick Farehyde aramid woven fabric, hard-epoxied over a nanotube-impregnated nanocrystalline titanium spaceframe. Inside this shell, a full CBRN containment system is employed to keep the crew compartment pressurized and free of contaminants. All wiring and ducting passes through the spaceframe, leaving maximum room for the four crewmembers inside the compartment. This layout is both lightweight and exceptionally strong, meaning that the crew compartment is engineered to survive direct hits from up to 23mm cannon rounds without penetration of the compartment.

In the event of an ejection, a minimum of two of the four crewmembers pulling their ejection handles will activate the escape system. Four rocket boosters, one in each corner of the crew compartment will engage and explosive bolts will free the capsule from its rigid frame inside the aircraft. Once this occurs, the capsule will lift off and a system of airbags below the capsule will deploy to cushion its impact and provide flotation for the crew. A system of four parachutes will deploy to stabilize the compartment's level descent and a pair of deceleration parachutes will deploy from the rear of the compartment; this system has been tested as effective from the aircraft's maximum speed and as low as 400 meters in altitude or as high as the aircraft's maximum ceiling. Inside the ejection capsule are four days worth of food and water and as long as the cabin remains pressurized, the onboard filtration system can run on solar and battery power for up to four days in a CBRN-contaminated environment.

During flight operations, the four crewmembers enjoy the benefits of the most modern integrated information system ever fielded on a production aircraft. Each crew station employs a direct retinal projection helmet system identical to the one used on the Type-21 "Divine Wind" ADF. Each crew station employs a pair of high-resolution LED-backlit capacitive multitouch screens, 51 cm by 51 cm in size. These screens relay all relevant information to the crewmember. For the pilot and co-pilot, a user-configurable aircraft diagnostics screen and a moving map overlaid with blueforce tracking, mission planning and targeting data from MADL/MAGSNET communication links are shown, while the EW officer has full control of the aircraft's electronic warfare suite including radar and threat prioritization from his screens. The Weapons Officer has active control of a realtime tracking suite that reacts to his helmet's DRP takes an integrated threat picture from Sarissa's own sensor suite and from MADL/MAGSNET communication links. The Weapons Officer's station prioritizes threats and targets of opportunity and allows the WO selection of the aircraft's weapons systems, but can also select targets to relay to other allied forces that may be in the area and provides precise GPS/INS targeting coordinates for broadcast to other assets.

All crewmember seats are heated and ventilated in addition to being shock-dampened and padded with vibration-attenuating memory foam, while interior temperature is regulated by the crew capsule's life support system, under the control of the co-pilot. Crew communication is provided by in-ear uplinks and a high-definition microphone imbedded in the helmet.



Electronic Warfare:
Sarissa's offensive/defensive Electronic Warfare suite is second to none. As the Type-37 does not include any kind of physical defensive armament, its EW suite has been designed not only for defending the aircraft from incoming guided and unguided missile threats, but can be used to actively disable enemy aircraft in flight. Sarissa's primary radar system, instead of housing one large central AESA as many aircraft do, utilizes the large interior space of the aircraft to mount five smaller arrays; one in the nosecone and four networked radars facing each diagonal. This means that the resolving power of Sarissa's electronic warfare suite is unparalelled and its ability to jam and overload enemy radar is roughly equivalent to that of an AWACS designed for regional battlespace management.

Each sensor is an AX-085 AESA, identical to the primary radar in the Type-21 "Divine Wind" Fighter. An AESA radar, or active electronically scanned array, represents the latest in radar technology, allowing the aircraft to broadcast powerful radar signals with a very low risk of detection. By changing its frequency with every pulse, while also randomizing the frequency to which it changes, an AESA makes traditional radar warning receivers (RWR), which depend on searching the radio spectrum for abnormalities in the background noise (either through broadcast frequency or the repetition of a pulse) useless at detecting it. As a result, jamming against an AESA is also quite difficult, as finding the frequency on which it operates becomes a moot point.

As the latest in radar technology, the AX-085 can change frequency more than 1000 times per second, allowing for an incredibly low probability of detection while simultaneously allowing for far more data to be gathered. The entire module is cooled by a 5,000 BTU coldplate, keeping its solid-state electronics operating at optimum efficiency. The AX-085's carbon nanotube beam-formers cover wide RF bandwidths, produce multiple simultaneous beams, operate at high speed and are smaller, lighter and more power efficient than most currently available analog and digital systems. Improved functional capabilities include greatly increased control of jamming beams, which provides improved effectiveness, increased number of jamming assignments and reduced fratricide.

Solid-state radar exciters provide ultra-wide band direct digital synthesis, enable software-defined techniques and incorporate integrated cueing receiver/digital radio frequency memory functionality for highly effective and flexible techniques generation. Shadowcat's onboard radar exciters offer increased effectiveness and number of jamming assignments, greater adaptability to counter emerging threats and improved spectral purity for reduced fratricide. The AX-085 has a range of more than 400 km and an extremely low probability of detection, allowing it to remain on for long periods of time while detecting, tracking and classifying more than 300 simultaneus targets. A sophisticated onboard processing suite prioritizes threats and provides aircraft identification which is relayed to the electronic warfare officer.

Type-37 integrates a sensor-fused Distributed Aperture system, called an AX/AAM-121. The role of the AX/AAM-121 is twofold, firstly providing a comprehensive high-resolution image of the battlespace in microwave emissions, visible light, infrared and ultraviolet by "staring" in all directions, detecting and delcaring allied and hostile aircraft within 200 km of the Sarissa without a limit to the number that can be simultaneously tracked. Its secondary duty is to provide an offensive/defensive electronic warfare suite powerful enough to dominate the battlespace for the next thirty years.

Sarissa's DAS provides for the survivability of the aircraft against radar guided, unguided, laser guided, CCTV and heat-seeking missile threats, can blind an enemy aircraft's sensors or jam an enemy air defense station to the point of overloading and destroying the hostile radar. Sarissa accomplishes this with a highly-integrated sensor and data processing suite, including L-band radars on the leading edges of the wings and lifting body for enhanced detection of stealth aircraft, an array of four solid-state stacked plasma RF antennae spaced throughout the aircraft for receipt and transmission of encoded data and also for SIGINT/unguided weapon detection, an array of six "Sunspot" high-resolution IRST sensors, which can passively detect and identify individual aircraft by their thermal signature alone at more than 150 km away, eight ultra-high (250x250 resolution UV sensors in the 190 nm to 400 nm range, eight 100-megapixel, 1,500 fps visible light CMOS sensors and eight extremely long-range continuous wave IR cameras, capable of facial recognition through glass at three kilometers away. This networked sensor-suite combines with the five AX-085 AESA's and an offensive/defensive suite of eight 1-gigawatt diode-pumped solid state lazer dazzlers and four AID-66 infrared contermeasure units to complete the AX/AAM-121 DAS.

This Sensor-Fused Distributed Aperture System provides a comprehensive sphere of threat classification and interdiction against incoming missiles and aircraft and simultaneously counters multiple pulse, continuous wave, pulse Doppler and monopulse threats; detects, denies, disrupts, degrades and evades lethal threats and provides multi-spectral (radio frequency, infrared and laser) situational awareness. When a threat is detected on any sensor, the corresponding AESA, IRCM and Laser-Dazzler most capable of intercepting the threat are cued up and begin "staring" at the target. In combination, this system is designed to overload the sensors of laser, infrared or radar guided missiles, but are switched off when no threat is present to minimize power consumption, heat and signature. As an intergrated unit, the AX/AAM-121 is capable of defeating most known threats immediately after detection at ranges of up to 5 km and radar-only at 10 km.

When the aircrew encounters a threat emission, the AX/AAM-121 DAS establishes the threat range from the mission aircraft. If an aircraft is in lethal range of the threat, the AX/AAM-121 initiates its integrated instantaneous response, breaking missile lock through RF countermeasures, and cues the use of chaff and flares. As the aircraft’s survivability suite controller, AX/AAM-121 coordinates the response for laser and infrared threats, providing a truly integrated approach to aircraft self-protection. The system is an integrated RF electronic countermeasures system designed specifically for the Type-37 Sarissa aircraft and is designed to detect and counter all modes of radar based weapon systems and also provides a tail warning function to detect and counter incoming missiles from the aft sector. The system provides 360-degree simultaneous receive and jamming coverage against a large number of concurrent threats. The ECM system sorts threats by priority and reacts against them automatically while allowing for “man-in-the-loop” intervention.

For penetrating airspace protected by early warning RADAR and SAM batteries, the AX/AAM-121 works together with the aircraft's onboard processing suite to invade and hack enemy radar sites in all weather and atmospheric conditions. Utilizing state-of-the-art deceptive and repeater jamming techniques, Sarissa can create false targets, shut down enemy radar sites or overload enemy computers to the point of inoperability and overheating, paving the way for other aircraft to pass through a "tunnel" of unprotected airspace. An EOTS (Electro-optical Targeting System) is mounted directly below the aircraft's nosecone that combines a 300w targeting laser/rangefinder, high-resoluton 100 megapixel FLIR and 1,500 fps CCD television camera, mounted below and slightly aft of the nosecone, allowing Sarissa to discriminate targets on the ground for guiding precision munitions with in-flight updates at a very high resolution, while minimizing RCS.

Sarissa's central computer is a comprehensively ECM/EMP hardened and armored "black box" unit engineered to withstand shock, vibration, humidity, temperature extremes, dust, flammable atmospheres, electromagnetic pulse radiation, electrical surges, gunfire and battle damage. The unit consists of a ruggedized single-board computer driven by a general purpose control processor based on a radiation-hardened quad-core system-on-chip architecture manufactured on a 35nm process. Memory is supplied by magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM) chips, complemented by a quad-core digital signal processor, dual-cell broadband engine, high resolution multimedia and vector graphics processors that all drive subsystems. The network topography is a triple-redundant MilCAN compliant databus carried on shielded and armored fiberoptic cable with full support for automatically recovering battle damage. The Black Box computer includes four solid-state 800gb secure-encrypted storage drives on non-volatile chips, slaved in a Raid-1 array with a total data transfer rate across the entire network of 8.5 gb/s.

The aircraft's processor suite processes all information in realtime and displays relevant data, warnings and statuses on the crew's displays, filtered to each crewmember's role, with constant diagnostics performed whenever the aircraft is operating and entire operations are recorded and stored so that every aspect of the fighter's operation can be played back for after-action reviews or fed into a simulator to recreate the mission. The Type-37 incorporates a network-central C5I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Collaboration, and Intelligence ) matrx that interconnects Sarissa's fused sensor channels and Positional Navigation data suite with the Inertial Reference System using fused Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System, (GPS/INS) fiber-optic gyro rate sensors and digital electronic compass inputs, along with two tandem secure datalinks, the Multifunction Advanced Datalink and Mobile Air/Ground Subscriber Network. (MADL/MAGSNET)

These two systems work together to combine RF, EMF, IR and EO tracking data that the aircraft's fused onboard sensor suite provides. With this communication suite onboard using stacked solid state plasma antennae for high-bandwith transmission with low risk of detection, Sarissa can share its high-precision, high resolution situational awareness data with every other allied aircraft or vehicle equipped with either MADL, MAGSNET or both while remaining stealthy and allowing for high speed transmission of 256-bit full AES standard encrypted data with an extremely low risk of detection. MADL and MAGSNET both use random shifting-frequency transmission standards that shift frequencies 500 times per second and send encoded data packets in random order, encorporated in a broadband electronically-scanned array to send and receive communications. It is estimated that a non MADL/MAGSNET-compliant device with the correct encoding has a less than one in ten billion chance of receiving an entire transmission, sequencing the encoded packets and decoding the transmission.


Powerplant:
Sarissa is carried aloft by the most advanced and powerful thrust-generation system ever devised for a combat aircraft. A set of four MTD Type-3025X RTA Turbofans is mounted to the underside of the aircraft in two large nacelles with s-duct intakes that ensure that fan-faces do not reflect radar energy back to an enemy radar source. These four turbines, which operate as "Revolutionary Turbine Accelerators" use a variable-position, variable-geometry shock cone in the intake path to increase or decrease the bypass ratio of the engine, as much as 100%. At its maximum setting, the intake air completely bypasses the turbines, being combusted in an aft-positioned "ramburner" which produces an immense amount of thrust. In normal operation, these extremely powerful boosted twin spool engines use variable geometry, 3D thrust-vectoring, variable-geometry "iris" exhaust nozzles and variable-geometry carbon/carbon composite primary fan blades along with stratified fuel injection (SFI) delivery and full realtime FADEC control to produce an immense amount of thrust at military power and exhaust it as much as 30-degrees off-axis, making Sarissa abnormally manueverable for an aircraft of its size and role. This unique powerplant and the speed with which the aircraft can maneuver allows the Type-37 down as low as 70 meters in nape-of-the-earth autopilot.

In fully-bypassed "ramburner" mode, the Sarissa Strike Bomber achieves a near-hypersonic mach-3.3 "Dash" that with the bomber's extreme range means that intercontinental strikes can be launched in only slightly less time than it would take a ballistic missile to reach a target within the bomber's range, but without setting off ballistic launch warnings or being in danger of ABM/ASAT networks. Despite the immense amount of thrust produced, full-power Ramburner mode is remarkably fuel efficient, a full 15% more efficient than a traditional afterburning turbine would be at these speeds due to losses in the turbine. It is estimated that once airborne, a Type-37 bomber can reach its maximum speed in under ten minutes. While the actual amount of produced thrust is classified, the highly-efficient blended lifting body of Sarissa means that even at great speed, its coefficient of drag stays low and the airframe produces up to 60% of the aircraft's lift with the wings swept back. Sarissa is the the largest combat aircraft in service with the Marquesan Gendarmerie, but it is remarkably fuel efficient and agile as well, a versatile workhorse that will remain the king of the skies for decades to come.

[Marquesan]

MTD Type-27, "Hoplite" Multirole Fighter.
Price: Ninety Five Million Nation States Dollars.

A development of the Marquesan/Erjunite Defense Consortium.


Role: Light Multirole Fighter.
Crew: 1. (Pilot.)
Length: 20.6 m.
Wingspan: 13.3 m.
Height: 4.3 m.

Empty Weight: 11,200 kgs.
Maximum Payload: 5,700 kgs.
Maximum Fuel: 8,100 kgs.
Maximum Take-off Weight: 25,000 kgs.

Combat Range: 1,500 km.
Ferry Range: 3,500 km.
Maximum Altitude: 20,000 m.

Dry Thrust: 110 kN (11,200 kgf.) per engine.
Wet Thrust: (Afterburner) 186 kN (19,000 kgf.) per engine.
Thrust-to-Weight Ratio @ Max Takeoff: 1.52:1.
Supercruise: Mach 1.8.
Dash Speed: Mach 2.8.
Rate of Climb: 410 m/s.


Overview:
The development of the Myrmidon Type-27 "Hoplite" revolved around two central concepts, stealth and speed. With this in mind, the Hoplite developed from a requirement for a high-supersonic, lightweight point-defense interceptor that could climb to ceiling at full afterburner rapidly from either a scramble or from a low-altitude "stalk" from which the aircraft would be nearly undetectable. Thermal and radar signatures took very high priority in the aircraft's construction, which centers around its two boosted twin-spool, variable-geometry turbofans. Extensive use of area-ruling and a high priority placed on materials which are both signature-deadening and temperature-absorbing means that, compared to other fighter aircraft its size, Hoplite is both violently expensive and extremely lightweight. This meant a sacrifice in its carryping capacity as compared to other fighters of its size and weight class, but also a significantly lower signature and outstanding aerobatic ability. On the whole, Hoplite represents a new standard in lightweight 5th generation fighter aircraft.


Armament:
1 Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-30-2 Dual-Barrel Gast Cannon (Mounted in low-RCS housing, starboard wingroot.)
*600 Rd. Magazine.*
- High Explosive Fragmenting Incendiary Tracer, (HEFI-T) 30x165mm.

1 Ventral Internal Weapons Bay w/ Modular Rotary Launcher, 5,700 kg. internal capacity.
*4 Large/8 Medium/12 Small Missiles.*
- Diehl IRIS-T Short Range Air-To-Air Missile. (Mach-3, 25 km Range.)
- MBDA Meteor Medium Range Air-To-Air Missile. (Mach-4, 100 km Range.)
- CATIC LD-10 Anti-Radiation Missiles (Mach 4, 21 km Range.)
- Raytheon GBU-53/B Small-Diameter Bomb II. (Guided Glide Bomb.)

Providing offensive capability to the Hoplite fighter is a single ventral weapons bay placed on the bottom of the aircraft's forward fuselage. Using trapezoidal openings to conceal the bay provides that the aircraft will have a minimal radar signature and vastly reduces parasitic drag as compared to externally-mounted weapons and hardpoints, increasing the aircraft's aerodynamic efficiency. Inside these two bays are mission-configurable modular rotary launchers. These magazines are electrically powered and when a missile is locked into the launcher, it registers with the onboard computer so that a pilot's selection of one of the four carried missile types automatically rotates that missile into firing position, arms the missile and loads it with tracking information. The launcher is divided into four sections that can house one, two or three missiles dependent on the size of the missile and each section can be configured on the ground to hold different payloads. When a missile is selected for firing, at the moment of deployment, the weapons bay doors open and the selected missile is released for firing, pushed out of the bay by three hydraulic arms, the entire process taking less than a half-second to accomplish. As soon as the missile clears the bay, the doors shut again to minimize drag and RCS. An average mission profile calls for the loading of four MBDA Meteors and four Diehl IRIS-T air-to-air missiles, but optional loadouts may include CATIC LD-10 Anti-Radiation Missiles or Raytheon SDB-II bombs.

Adding to this offensive capability is a 30x165mm chambered dual-barrel cannon. Utilizing the Gast principle, the firing of a round in one barrel loads the other barrel, maximizing cyclic rate of fire. In this way, the Type-27 carries the equivalent of four 30mm cannons. These guns are mounted in the aircraft's starboard wingroot in a low-RCS housing that only opens to expose the muzzle when guns are selected by the pilot and close as soon as they are no longer selected, thus reducing drag and RCS. The cannon is fed from a six hundred round magazine loaded with high explosive fragmenting incendiary rounds which incorporate a tracer function, ideal for the destruction of hostile aircraft in a dogfight situation.


Construction:
Designed to be ultralight, the Type-27 fighter is constructed from state-of-the-art composites and extensively modeled and stress-analyzed to eliminate hotspots and weaknesses in the aircraft's construction even at extreme velocities and g-forces. Hoplite's frame is a monocoque carbon/carbon honeycomb monolithic structure reinforced where necessary in titanium diboride ceramic that runs from the nose to the tail. With tremendous ability to absorb and conduct heat, this structure both saves weight and gives the aircraft tremendous ability to absorb damage while remaining airborne. The aircraft is skinned in two layers, first a blanket of carbon nanofoam to act as a deadener to infrared and radar but also to keep down the thermal signature of the aircraft, the second layer being a four-ply aramid weave called Farehyde which makes for a lightweight and resilient skin for the Hoplite fighter.

Relying on a heavily area-ruled stealthy design, the Hoplite is dominated visually by its extremely bare, Spartan design with separate structures for each engine nacelle and the fuselage, its diamond-shaped trapezoidal wings, "butterfly" tail and open exhaust channels creating a distinctive appearance while mitigating both transonic drag and thermal/radar signatures.

Hoplite is a highly coupled and highly unstable vehicle aerodynamically to allow for maximum agility in flight. It is artificially stabilized by the central computer and employs a series of aerodynamic control surfaces that are fly-by-light controlled and fully integrated, meaning that any surface can be used for any control task. Maneuvers are accomplished by moving all the surfaces in concert for a result rather than the traditional method of having a dedicated control surface for a particular task. For example, the leading edge flaps can be used differentially, to roll the aircraft in concert with other surfaces; in unison, to provide lift for landing and takeoff or high AoA maneuvers, or to dump lift and brake the aircraft on landing rollout.

A control surface can perform at least 3 functions at once: supplying maneuver control vectors, cancelling unwanted off-axis effects from other surfaces (e.g. yaw input from the v tails when pitch is required), and maintaining constant flying stability. As a consequence, the aircraft has no separate dedicated airbrake. Braking is provided by deflection of the trailing edge wing flaperons while the inner main flaperons can be deflected hard down while the outer secondary flaperons are deflected hard up, or vice versa. In terms of specific control input tasking: yaw control is controlled by the V-tails (the trailing edge wing flaps compensates for roll caused by the V-tail). Roll is controlled by differential deflection of the flaperons and pitch is controlled by deflection of the V-tail. Hoplite's central computer maintains zero side-slip unless commanded otherwise by the pilot.

To provide feedback to the computer, the nose of the aircraft features flush air pressure sensors. AoA static ports are located top and bottom on the centerline of the nose. Differential pressure recorded by the ports provides angle of attack information. Sideslip static ports are located on the nose offset to the centerline. Differential pressure provides angle of side-slip. Combined pressure from both sides provides static pressure for airspeed and altitude computation. An air data calibration check is commenced by the computer on take off roll at approximately 45 knots, comparing airspeed, wheel spin, and INS velocity.


Crew Compartment:
The single-seat cockpit of the Type-27 "Hoplite" is a fully-integrated all glass cockpit with the functions of the aircraft displayed on three wraparound capacitive touchscreens that surround the pilot, are sun-shaded by carbon fiber shields and incorporate an anti-reflective, anti-glare coating on Corning "Gorilla Glass 3" chosen for its native resistance to damage. Pilot interactions with the touchscreens can be made with gloves on and haptic feedback give the pilot a physical confirmation of his inputs. All three screens are fully user configurable and include all aircraft diagnostic information, moving maps with overlays from the MADL/MAGSNET communication networks, weapons loadout profiles and integrated information from the aircraft's own sensor suites. The cockpit uses a classic left throttle/right stick layout slaved to a fly-by-light quadruple redundant fiber optic relay system, with the pilot wearing an integrated Direct Retinal Projection helmet, eliminating the need for a heads-up display (HUD) in the cockpit and giving the pilot excellent, unrestricted visibility from the cockpit. The DRP helmet displays targeting information, navigational waypoints and vital information without the need for the pilot to look down into the cockpit to see the most important data.

The pilot's seat is a heated and ventilated memory-foam padded unit with its basic shell made from a single piece of 30mm-thick cast titanium, modeled after automotive racing seats for long-endurance comfort and maximum support during high-g maneuvers. During ejection, the seat employs a high-power solid-fueled rocket booster to provide escape for the pilot. The rear of the seat employs a pair of slow-descent parachutes and underseat storage provides two gallons of purified water in stainless steel bottles and four days worth of provisions including food and a first aid kit, a radio and a Type-1103 submachine gun chambered in 6.8x38mm flechette with 100 rounds of ammunition in magazines. The cockpit area itself is in a self-contained titanium "bathtub" 30mm thick at all points and capable of stopping repeated hits from up to 23mm cannon rounds with zero penetration of the pilot area. The canopy is a single-piece, 10mm thick acrylic bubble, lined in gold foil to minimize radar penetration into the cockpit area, with explosive bolts and detonation-cord liners in the canopy to shatter the canopy in event of a low-speed ejection and blow the remainder out away from the aircraft and the path of the exiting pilot. This combination provides the pilot a state-of-the-art electronics suite, a highly comfortable position to command from, class-leading protection from small arms and a highly integrated battlespace picture all at the disposal of the Hoplite pilot.


Electronic Warfare:
Hoplite carries an Electronic Warfare suite unmatched by any aircraft in its class. The primary sensor is an AX-085 AESA identical to the primary sensor of the Divine Wind ADF, an electronically phased solid-state array which broadcasts powerful radar signals with a very low risk of detection. By changing its frequency with every pulse, while also randomizing the frequency to which it changes, an AESA makes traditional radar warning receivers (RWR), which depend on searching the radio spectrum for abnormalities in the background noise (either through broadcast frequency or the repetition of a pulse) useless at detecting it. As a result, jamming against an AESA is also quite difficult, as finding the frequency on which it operates becomes a moot point. AX-085 can change frequency more than 1000 times per second, allowing for an incredibly low probability of detection while simultaneously allowing for far more data to be gathered. The entire module is cooled by a 5,000 BTU coldplate, keeping its solid-state electronics operating at optimum efficiency. The AX-085's carbon nanotube beam-formers cover wide RF bandwidths, produce multiple simultaneous beams, operate at high speed and are smaller, lighter and more power efficient than most currently available analog and digital systems. Improved functional capabilities include greatly increased control of jamming beams, which provides improved effectiveness, increased number of jamming assignments and reduced fratricide.

Solid-state radar exciters provide ultra-wide band direct digital synthesis, enable software-defined techniques and incorporate integrated cueing receiver/digital radio frequency memory functionality for highly effective and flexible techniques generation. Shadowcat's onboard radar exciters offer increased effectiveness and number of jamming assignments, greater adaptability to counter emerging threats and improved spectral purity for reduced fratricide. The AX-085 has a range of more than 400 km and an extremely low probability of detection, allowing it to remain on for long periods of time while detecting, tracking and classifying more than 300 simultaneus targets. A sophisticated onboard processing suite prioritizes threats and provides aircraft identification which is relayed to the pilot..

Type-27 integrates a sensor-fused Distributed Aperture system, called an AX/AAM-60. The role of the AX/AAM-60 is to provide a unified sensor suite, processed through the aircraft's central computer that gives Hoplite the ability to identify, track and prosecute targets, navigate and maneuver in zero-visibility conditions while leaving radar switched completely off and maximizing stealth. AX/AAM-60 also provides enhanced jamming and electronic warfare capability over the Divine Wind's AX/AAM-50 DAS.

Hoplite's DAS provides for the survivability of the aircraft against radar guided, unguided, laser guided, CCTV and heat-seeking missile threats, can blind an enemy aircraft's sensors or jam an enemy air defense station to the point of overloading and forcing a shutdown of the hostile radar. Hoplite accomplishes this with a highly-integrated sensor and data processing suite, including L-band radars on the leading edges of the wings for enhanced detection of stealth aircraft, a pair of broadband liquid plasma RF antennae in the aircraft's fuselage for receipt and transmission of encoded data and also for SIGINT/unguided weapon detection, an array of four "Sunspot" high-resolution IRST sensors, which can passively detect and identify individual aircraft by their thermal signature alone at more than 150 km away, four ultra-high (250x250 resolution UV sensors in the 190 nm to 400 nm range, four 100-megapixel, 1,500 fps visible light CMOS sensors and four extremely long-range continuous wave IR cameras, capable of facial recognition through glass at three kilometers away. This networked sensor-suite combines with the AX-085 AESA and an offensive/defensive suite of four 1-gigawatt diode-pumped solid state lazer dazzlers and four AID-66 infrared contermeasure units to complete the AX/AAM-60 DAS.

This Sensor-Fused Distributed Aperture System provides a comprehensive sphere of threat classification and interdiction against incoming missiles and aircraft and simultaneously counters multiple pulse, continuous wave, pulse Doppler and monopulse threats; detects, denies, disrupts, degrades and evades lethal threats and provides multi-spectral (radio frequency, infrared and laser) situational awareness. When a threat is detected on any sensor, the corresponding AESA, IRCM and Laser-Dazzler most capable of intercepting the threat are cued up and begin "staring" at the target. In combination, this system is designed to overload the sensors of laser, infrared or radar guided missiles, but are switched off when no threat is present to minimize power consumption, heat and signature. As an intergrated unit, the AX/AAM-60 is capable of defeating most known threats immediately after detection at ranges of up to 5 km and radar-only at 10 km.

When the aircraft encounters a threat emission, the AX/AAM-60 DAS establishes the threat range from the mission aircraft. If an aircraft is in lethal range of the threat, the AX/AAM-60 initiates its integrated instantaneous response, breaking missile lock through RF countermeasures, and cues the use of chaff and flares. As the aircraft’s survivability suite controller, AX/AAM-60 coordinates the response for laser and infrared threats, providing a truly integrated approach to aircraft self-protection. The system is an integrated RF electronic countermeasures system designed specifically for the Type-27 Hoplite aircraft and is designed to detect and counter all modes of radar based weapon systems and also provides a tail warning function to detect and counter incoming missiles from the aft sector. The system provides 360-degree simultaneous receive and jamming coverage against a large number of concurrent threats. The ECM system sorts threats by priority and reacts against them automatically while allowing for “man-in-the-loop” intervention.

For penetrating airspace protected by early warning RADAR and SAM batteries, the AX/AAM-60 works together with the aircraft's onboard processing suite to invade and hack enemy radar sites in all weather and atmospheric conditions. Utilizing state-of-the-art deceptive and repeater jamming techniques, Hoplite can create false targets, shut down enemy radar sites or overload enemy computers to the point of inoperability and overheating, paving the way for other aircraft to pass through a "tunnel" of unprotected airspace. An EOTS (Electro-optical Targeting System) is mounted directly below the aircraft's nosecone that combines a 300w targeting laser/rangefinder, high-resoluton 100 megapixel FLIR and 1,500 fps CCD television camera, mounted below and slightly aft of the nosecone, allowing Hoplite to discriminate targets on the ground for guiding precision munitions with in-flight updates at a very high resolution, while minimizing RCS.

Hoplite's central computer is a comprehensively ECM/EMP hardened and armored "black box" unit engineered to withstand shock, vibration, humidity, temperature extremes, dust, flammable atmospheres, electromagnetic pulse radiation, electrical surges, gunfire and battle damage. The unit consists of a ruggedized single-board computer driven by a general purpose control processor based on a radiation-hardened quad-core system-on-chip architecture manufactured on a 35nm process. Memory is supplied by magneto-resistive random access memory (MRAM) chips, complemented by a quad-core digital signal processor, dual-cell broadband engine, high resolution multimedia and vector graphics processors that all drive subsystems. The network topography is a triple-redundant MilCAN compliant databus carried on shielded and armored fiberoptic cable with full support for automatically recovering battle damage. The Black Box computer includes four solid-state 800gb secure-encrypted storage drives on non-volatile chips, slaved in a Raid-1 array with a total data transfer rate across the entire network of 8.5 gb/s.

The aircraft's processor suite processes all information in realtime and displays relevant data, warnings and statuses on the pilot's displays, filtered to present critical data on the pilot's helmet display, with constant diagnostics performed whenever the aircraft is operating and entire operations are recorded and stored so that every aspect of the fighter's operation can be played back for after-action reviews or fed into a simulator to recreate the mission. The Type-27 incorporates a network-central C5I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Collaboration, and Intelligence ) matrx that interconnects Hoplite's fused sensor channels and Positional Navigation data suite with the Inertial Reference System using fused Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System, (GPS/INS) fiber-optic gyro rate sensors and digital electronic compass inputs, along with two tandem secure datalinks, the Multifunction Advanced Datalink and Mobile Air/Ground Subscriber Network. (MADL/MAGSNET)

These two systems work together to combine RF, EMF, IR and EO tracking data that the aircraft's fused onboard sensor suite provides. With this communication suite onboard using broadband liquid plasma antennae for high-bandwith transmission with low risk of detection, Hoplite can share its high-precision, high resolution situational awareness data with every other allied aircraft or vehicle equipped with either MADL, MAGSNET or both while remaining stealthy and allowing for high speed transmission of 256-bit full AES standard encrypted data with an extremely low risk of detection. MADL and MAGSNET both use random shifting-frequency transmission standards that shift frequencies 500 times per second and send encoded data packets in random order, encorporated in a broadband electronically-scanned array to send and receive communications. It is estimated that a non MADL/MAGSNET-compliant device with the correct encoding has a less than one in ten billion chance of receiving an entire transmission, sequencing the encoded packets and decoding the transmission.


Powerplant:
Hoplite is powered by a pair of MEDC Type-2025 VG3D low-bypass afterburning turbofans. Developed for the much larger and heavier "Divine Wind" ADF, this pair of compact and powerful boosted twin-spool low bypass turbofans are fully FADEC-controlled with main fan-blades fully adjustable for pitch. Ultra-lightweight componentry and high-precision machining are utilized throughout the engine with carbon/carbon composite primary fan blades, extensive use of inconel in the engine and cryogenically-machined totanium compressor blisks. Hoplite's power package boasts unusually high thrust-to-weight ratio, record-breaking climb rate and high-efficiency operation at a wide range of altitudes and airspeeds. Intake vanes in the aircraft's serpentine ducts are infinitely adjustable and computer controlled, while variable-geometry "iris" nozzles coated in heat/acoustic dampening ceramic complement each turbofan engine and incorporate a stratified fuel-injection afterburner that boosts power 76 kN from full military power, while maximizing exhaust gas velocity and efficiency. The two jet exhausts open into open troughs lined in titanium diboride tiles which absorb the heat of the engine and mix jet exhaust with standing air, reducing the heat signature of the aircraft dramatically. All optimization and control functions of the engines are controlled by a high-resolution FADEC computer that monitors load conditions, air temperature, humidity, density and pressure in realtime and adjusts the engines infinitely according to optimization protocols that are set by pilot behavior, throttle position and mission parameters.

The engines breathe using very simple, underslung, fixed geometry air intakes which snake inwards and upwards from the leading edge of the wing. The intake geometry is optimized to provide the necessary shock waves for slowing engine air to subsonic speed (when flying at supersonic speed) without the use of variable geometry ramps. Thermal shock and associated air turbulence at the engine face is averted by bleeding off boundary layer air. Boundary layer air extraction at the air intakes is accomplished by a large finely holed gauze panel located on the roof of the intake at its mouth. There is a secondary vertically-oriented gauze panel located on the inside of the inner wall of the intake, aligned with the rear of the main panel. This excess air is ducted overboard though two exit doors and a flush-mounted exit located on the top of the wing. The Boundary Layer Control System (BLCS) controls thermal shock and boundary layer interaction on the engine inlet ramp during supersonic flight. The exit doors are controlled automatically by the onboard computer, but there is a manual option for the pilot. The curve of the intakes is sufficient to mask the engine fan blades from being detected by radar directly ahead, but there is a hotspot where the blades could be detected line-of-sight at an approximate vector angle of 18° outwards and 13° downwards, but at all other vectors the fan blades are masked. The jet exhaust troughs are lined with square-shaped 5x5" titanium diboride tiles laid in a right-angled matrix on the floor of the trough, and on the sidewalls, aligned with the downward sloping top edge of the trough. Some of the tiles have a trapezoidal shape where the slope met the floor, and the extreme trailing edge tiles are parallelogram-shaped. The tiles work on the principle of transpiration cooling, and shield the carbon/carbon structure below from excessive heat. The troughs are cooled with air bled from the engines, which flow down via three pipes, one for either wall and one for the 'floor' of the trough; towards the rear inside the tail structure, to exit via a series of very small holes under the extreme rear of the underside of the troughs. The extreme trailing edge of the rear fuselage and jet troughs are blunt, or radiused and the overall design of the rear section is optimized to minimize IR signature from the rear lower quarter view.

[Marquesan]

MTD Type-790, "Chimera" Main Battle Tank
Price: Thirty One Million Nation States Dollars.

Basic Information:
Weight: 67 Tons.
Length: 9.05 Meters.
Width: 3.70 Meters.
Height: 2.55 Meters.
Crew: 3. (Commander, Driver, Gunner.)

Power & Propulsion:
Powerplant: Variable-Geometry Turboshaft Hybrid, Li-Ion/Supercapacitor Array.
Transmission: Infinitely-Variable Mechanical/Hydraulic - Synchronous Generator.
Propulsion: Two 980 Hp. Permanent Magnet Electric Motors, Cryo-Refrigerated.
Suspension: Triple-Redundant Magnetorheological, Infinitely Adjustable.
Brakes: Electrorheological Clutch-Type, Electro-Hydraulic Regenerative.
Steering: Skid-Type Electro-Hydraulic Regenerative, Double-Pin Steel/Rubber Tracks.

Speed, Forward: 78 km/h.
Speed, Reverse: 78 km/h.
Power/Weight Ratio: 29 HP/Ton.
Range, Battery: 200 km.
Range, Hybrid: 550 km.

Construction:
50mm B4C Spaceframe, Carbon Nanofoam/Aramid/Cementious Foam Skin, 20mm.
B4C/TiB2/DU/Farehyde Fiber/Metal Laminate Armor Suite, 120mm.
Non Explosive Reactive Armor, Hexagonal, Field-Replaceable, 20mm.
Nickel/Titanium (Nitinol) Perforated Track Skirts, Full Length, 50mm.
CF/S2 Resinous Coating, Anti-RCS/Anti-Thermal Self-Healing, 10mm.

Electronics Suite:
Tetsudo Hard-Kill/Soft-Kill Active Protection System.
Battlefield Information Collection & Distribution. (BICDS)
Mobile Air/Ground Subscriber Network (MAGSNET)
Crew Compartment Management System. (CCMS)
Powertrain Controls Management System. (PCMS)
Electronic Driver Information System. (EDIS)
Intravehicular Information System. (IVIS)
Integrated Fire Control System. (IFCS)

Armaments:
Primary: 120/L50ETCI-Myrmidon Cannon, 120x890mm, 50 Calibers w/ Linear Compensator.
Rate of Fire: 6 Rounds-Per Minute.
Max Elevation/Depression: 30°/10°
Traverse: 40°/Sec.

Secondary: 30x165mm Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-30-2 Gast Cannon, Dual Barrel, ORWS-Mounted.
Rate of Fire: 3,000 Rounds-Per-Minute.
Max Elevation/Depression: 90°/40°
Traverse: 160°/Second.

Ammunition:
*User-Selectable 600 Rd. Magazines. (1 Per Ammo Type, Per Mission, Dual Feed)*
- High Explosive Fragmenting Incendiary Tracer, (HEFI-T) 30x165mm.
- Depleted Uranium Fin-Stabilized Sabot, Armor Piercing, 30x165mm.

*User-configurable loadout based on mission profile, up to 48 rds.*
120x890mm APFSDS-USP.
120x890mm STAFF.
120x890mm LAHAT.
120x890mm MPAT.
120x890mm APAM.

---

BACKGROUND & DESCRIPTION:
The Chimera Main Battle Tank evolved from combat experience gained in the Marquesan/Crontor war of 2012. In force-on-force combat situations between two technologically advanced militaries, the advantage often goes to the force best able to project its power deep into the conflict region. It was with this in mind that the Marquesan government commissioned Myrmidon Tactical Design to create a tank that balances overwhelming firepower, extremely long range and unprecedented survivability with the very latest in cutting-edge military technology and hardware. From this requirement was born Chimera; a Main Battle Tank that places the survival and comfort of its three-operator crew foremost, but brings to bear devastating firepower and at combat effective ranges previously unthinkable in a tank of its class. While expensive to manufacture, Chimera is inexpensive and easy to maintain. Its layout is both comfortable and efficient, allowing its crews to travel hundreds of kilometers and for weeks on end in comfort and safety with great speed. In combat, Chimera's agility and ability are second-to-none, with class-leading firepower and a better than 97% hit ratio in real-world testing. With few real analogues and even fewer true competitors, Chimera stands alone among Main Battle Tanks everywhere.

---

DESIGN:
The Chimera Main Battle Tank was designed to be the foremost, class-leading main battle tank in active combat service and the most advanced such system ever fielded. In such a vehicle, interior space is always at a premium, but the three-member crew of a Chimera is provided with the absolute maximum in comfort and safety in which to perform their mission. Entrance to the tank is from a clamshell hatch in the rear between the two electric motors driving the track sprockets. The left side of the tank houses a chemical toilet, storage lockers for first aid supplies, up to two weeks of rations, 200 liters of water, a small kitchenette including a hotplate, microwave oven, refrigerator and ice dispenser pioneer tools and a weapons locker. A central passageway runs the full length of the crew area and the right side of the tank contains three hemispherical "alcoves" in which the crew sits. The three-operator crew, a driver, tank commander and gunner all sit in independently suspended, vibration damped, heated, ventilated and padded titanium armor seats with head-and-neck restraints and full backs, maximizing protection and comfort. The entire cabin interior is lined in acoustic deadening foams, closed-cell gel membranes, viscoelastic padding, anti-microbial cotton filler and butyl rubber matting to silence the crew cabin for maximum comfort. All interior surfaces have a final coat of interior paint in a cool, off-white acoustic-dampening paint to attenuate any loud noises. Because of this effort, Chimera is said to be the quietest and easiest tank to operate. Each alcove has a 360° armored cupola with flushed-in armored glass to allow the crew to see outside of the tank while remaining protected, recessed, "ambient" LED lighting, speakers for communications or entertainment, 110vac grounded, EMP shielded, power conditioned and fault protected outlets for recharging of personal devices, climate control intakes and vents and temperature-controlled water lines. Each crew station is complete with a multifunction glass panel interactive touch display that can be used with gloves on and joystick, touchpad and keyboard controls that are independently configurable and enable the crew to accomplish complex tasks easily and maximize interconnectivity.

The crew cabin's climate control system employs an extensive air scrubber system that precisely regulates cabin air temperature with both heater and refrigeration units, forced air ultrasonic humidification and peltier heat pump dehumidification units, produces additional oxygen through a cold plasma ozone generator, employs a negative ionic air purifier, controls odor with an activated charcoal system, utilizes a 0.03 micron CBRN filter and a final wet air scrubber system to produce cleanroom-grade atmosphere under armor, a system considered the best in the world and the most advanced air scrubber array ever fielded in a vehicle. The tank's climate control system utilizes one way, positive-pressure exhausts and recirculates compartment air completely every thirty seconds. In the event of a compartment breach or an opened hatch, the system automatically switches to an "overdrive" mode that maintains the positive-pressure environment. Integral to the vehicle is a thermoionic process desalinization/membrane nanofiltration/reverse osmosis water disinfection/treatment system with 200 liters of drinkable filtered water stored in a compartment forward of the crew area above Chimera's turbine engine, powered by waste heat from the turbine. This water purification system intakes water from a special concealed opening on the bottom of the vehicle and is capable of taking brackish or CBRN-contaminated groundwater, seawater and wastewater beyond the potable standard, regulating PH balance and producing absolutely pure distilled water for crew use.

The lower hull is a constant-curvature V shape to deflect blast energy away from the crew compartment and out of the armored area, while the only hatch is the ingress/egress hatch centered on the rear of the tank. Chimera's hatchless design minimizes vulnerability to top attack munitions, while also reducing the vehicle's radar return and protecting the crew from airborne contaminants. The space-efficient layout of the tank maximizes crew space and ammunition storage, with two armored and separated 24-round magazines for 120x890mm ammunition allowing 48 ready-to-fire to be stored and brought up to the autoloading cannon from two drum magazines in the turret bustle. A single 1,200-rd. vertical stack power-conveyor magazine in the space on the outside of the 155mm magazines in the bustle directly feeds the secondary cannon's remote weapons station with 30x165 ammunition.

---

POWERTRAIN:
Chimera MBT is powered by a hybrid powerplant. A small, efficient variable-geometry high bypass boosted twin-spool turboshaft engine with full high-resolution FADEC control spins a synchronous drive, permanent magnet high-output generator through an infinitely variable hydraulic/mechanical transmission. Fuel for the turbine is housed in an interstitial space between the crew compartment's floor and the V-shaped blast hull in an array of fuel cells. The array is comprised of two banks of twelve 36-gallon, conformal self-sealing tanks with triple redundant feed systems, computer-controlled to ensure constant supply even in the event of a catastrophic hit to the tank's lower body. The tanks themselves are triple lined in farehyde with self-sealing foam and independent halide fire suppression systems, vastly decreasing the chance of a fuel fire or total loss. Chimera's Power Array sits in the space above the fuel tanks and comprises the floor of the crew area. The Power Array is a network of twelve 2.5kWh lithium ion battery packs and eight 75kW supercapacitors, storing enough power to propel the vehicle at full speed 200km on battery power alone of 550km on hybrid power, using the turbine engine to maintain charge level. The engine and generator both sit forward of the crew compartment in an armored, shielded and isolated compartment with separate filtered and diffused intake and exhaust ports to minimize thermal and visual signature.

Propulsion of the Chimera MBT is provided by a pair of neodymium permanent-magnet solid state electric motors, wound with high-temperature superconducting Amperium wiring and an internal cryo-refrigerator. These motors develop 980 horsepower apiece at up to 3,600 RPM, driving the tank's rear sprockets directly. In addition to smooth, powerful and efficient power delivery, this hybrid powerplant is notable for its very low fuel consumption and silent operation under battery power, unique among main battle tanks. In situations where acoustic signature is of vital importance, the engine can be switched completely off and the vehicle can remain stationary for up to two days without charging or up to three hours in motion at its top speed of 78 km/h. Trials have shown a powerplant lifespan of 800,000 kilometers without major maintenance thanks to the high quality of construction and powerplant monitoring.

Steering is electronically-controlled and accomplished through a skid-type electro-hydraulic regenerative, infinitely variable system with in-board electrorheological clutch-type brakes using Urea coated nanoparticles of Barium Titanium Oxalate suspended in silicone oil, charged with variable electric current for precise and instantaneous braking while inherently absorbing driveline harmonics and vibrations, resulting in smooth and quiet power delivery. These clutch-type progressive lockup brakes are arranged in tandem to alloy steel sprockets with replaceable hardened long-wear steel gear-tooth rings attached to lighter hats and idlers. Rubber-tired double aluminium alloy road wheels drive steel double-pin type tracks with detachable nitrile rubber pads or single piece nitrile rubber continuous band tracks with bonded steel reinforcement dependent on anticipated terrain conditions. High-wear components such as bearings are superfinished and DLC-coated chromium and molybdenum microcarbide steel. Chimera's suspension relies on a redundant system of three single tube infinitely-adjustable magnetorheological dampers per road wheel, utilizing dimorphic nanowire suspension fluids, actuated by computer control in real time.

---

PROTECTION:
Chimera MBT is built from the beginning with survival of the harshest combat conditions in mind. Starting with nanocrystalline boron carbide 50mm solid barstock, pulsed-current sintered from finely-regulated powder, the spaceframe takes shape on a five-axis rotating jig using robotic plasma arc welders to ensure complete bonding and an incredibly rigid frame. The internal skin of the tank encases both sides of the frame and all the vehicle's shielded and armored wiring and cabling woven in with the frame in the interstitial space, which is then filled with a lightweight cementious foam for maximum insulation and vibration transmission resistance. Each side of the frame is covered in a carbon nanofoam blanket sandwiched with a four-ply aramid weave of Kevlar KM2, Dyneema, Nomex and Technora called Farehyde. For hard protection from the threats of the modern battlefield, the entire tank is covered in 120mm of alternating 5mm thick layers. Depleted Uranium, Farehyde and a mixture of titanium diboride ceramic and boron carbide sintered together into a composite called Ultra repeat 8 times, layered on the tank in alternating hexagonal and wedge-shaped computer modeled panels with a very low degree of internal seam lineup. Each Fiber/Metal Laminate (FML) section undergoes final lamination before installation on the tank under extreme heat, pressure and hyperacoustic agitation to bond the layers together.

A second layer of protection comes in the form of field-replaceable 120mm wide, 20mm thick hexagonal NxRA, or Non-Explosive Reactive Armor panels. These NxRA modules consist of parallel perforated thin titanium alloy plates sandwiching a flexible sheet of non-explosive energetic material, made up of sodium nitrate oxidizer microspheres, FE203 (Crystallized hematite) catalyst and silicone binder fuel. This filler reacts to impact by generating a huge amount of gas that accelerates and bulges the NxRA plates, exerting a sheering force that disrupts and defeats penetrators and shaped charge jets, protecting the armor beneath it without triggering adjacent modules. Flexible armor track skirts are made from 50mm thick perforated Nickel-Titanium (Nitinol) panels which provide a high degree of protection to the track from explosively-formed penetrator (EFP) munitions and up to 30mm cannon fire in addition to drastically reducing the tank's dust, acoustic and radar signature from the moving tracks.

The final layer of protection for Chimera is a 10mm thick, self healing resinous coating. Incorporating carbon nanotubes, S2 glass/epoxy plastic resin matrices and nanoceramic granules, the matte-finish camouflage coating absorbs and attenuates radar energy, dramatically lowers rate of return and deadens the tank's exterior to acoustic vibration and heat transfer from interior and exterior sources. When struck, the self-healing coating begins the process of eroding long rod penetrators and resists delamination from small arms fire, providing a stealthy and resilient package that maximizes survivability.

---

ARMAMENT, PRIMARY:
The primary armament of the Chimera Main Battle Tank is a high pressure, high velocity 120mm Electro-Thermal Chemical Ignition (ETCI) smoothbore cannon, 50 calibers in length. Designed to withstand the extreme pressures of a new generation of high-power 120x890mm ammunition developed exclusively for the 120/L50ETCI-Myrmidon cannon but reverse-compatible with 120mm Rheinmetall ammunition as well, this new weapon is a deadly new addition to the battlefield with unprecedented capability and utility for a new generation of Main Battle Tank.

The long barrel, 50-caliber gun receiver, action and autoloader are housed in an unmanned, low-profile turret, actuated by solid state, all electric servos that precisely stabilize the weapon and provide for millimeter-accurate traverse and elevation. The gun can operate in line-of-sight, (LOS) non-line-of-sight, (NLOS) and beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) modes, allowing the tank to decrease its exposure while increasing its hit percentage, detecting and destroying enemies outside the range of their sensors and ability to return fire. Ignition of the gun's second-generation solid propellants is by electrothermal-chemical pulsed power (ETCI) operation, injecting superheated plasma into the chamber with variable input between 39-110 kJ, allowing the tank's computer to automatically optimize the ignition process for each individual round with selectable chamber pressures, temperature compensation, acceleration loadings and the ballistic profile of each and every shot.

Recoil is mitigated with a hybrid impulse mitigation mechanism consisting of a mid-barrel pneumatic sleeve recuperator and electrorheologically-controlled concentric retarder coupled to a monotube, helically-sprung hydropneumatic shock absorber. In combination, this system is extremely compact, allowing for compact installation inside the turret bustle and allowing more room for ammunition inside the turret. The 120/L50ETCI-Myrmidon cannon uses a linear compensator in place of a traditional muzzle brake, directing muzzle blast forward of the tank, reducing dust signature especially when firing from defilade and defeating muzzle climb to allow quicker followup shooting and hit/miss identification. The linear compensator also protects infantry in the open around the tank from the firing pressure blast of the gun.

Chimera MBT's cannon automatically uses a laser-collimator dynamic muzzle reference system to enable the firing control to adjust for any warp or bend in the barrel, which it does with the system check every time the tank is started. The barrel is a three-piece system, with a liquid-cooled farehyde sleeve using isopropyl glycol to drive integral heat exchangers around an insulating layer of polyetheretherketone (PEEK) and S2 fiberglass surrounding a titanium diboride ceramic midwall that houses a replaceable chromium sleeve, superfinished and coated full-length in diamond-like carbon. The overall barrel design is light, very strong and provides a low thermal signature, even when heated from repeated firings. Over 40% lighter than conventional-design 120mm guns, the gun is capable of a very high traverse rate of 40°/sec and responds excellently to stabilization from the turret. A maximum of 30° of elevation of the gun and mantlet is possible, and the gun is capable of firing while the tank is in motion, due to its fully-stabilized operation, isolated from the effects of pitch, roll, yaw and jolt in the tank's maneuvers by digital servos actuating the gun laying drives.

At a typical electrical input of 101 kJ from the plasma injection system the gun accelerates a 8.4 kg projectile with a muzzle energy of 26 MJ and muzzle velocity of 2,500 m/s at sea level (Mach 7.55) at a propellant temperature of approximately 50°C. Using advanced penetrators the cannon is capable of defeating a maximum of 2200 mm in rolled homogeneous armor equivalent (RHAe) at a range of 4,000 meters. Chimera's central computer actuates all aspects of the gun's fire, from ammunition selection and loading to servo control and stabilization, fire control and situational awareness, allowing Chimera to detect, engage and defeat multiple targets rapidly at maximum battle ranges and outside the effective range of lethal counter-fires.

The autoloading RAILS system is based around a dual feed bustle linear ramming-action, which uses a fully articulated robotic transfer unit behind the recoil path of the cannon that extracts, reorients and loads selected ammunition at any elevation or azimuth. It is unique among autoloaders because it does not require the barrel to return to the index position for reloading. It feeds from dual drum magazines located in the turret bustle, each holding 24 ready-to-fire rounds in a high-density, double-row closed loop linkless chain of blast resistant and fire-retardant canisters. No rounds are stored in the hull to free space and gasses generated during firing are automatically vented outside the turret to avoid contamination of the crew compartment. A back-up flex drive mechanism is incorporated for manual reloads of the gun and is controlled from inside the turret basket by any of the crew. Two loading ports are provided on the turret roof with ramp doors on the bustle allowing unattended resupply or offload to/from a transloader vehicle. An automated roller conveyor brings rounds directly into each magazine operating at a reload rate of 6 rounds per minute.

---

ARMAMENT, SECONDARY:
Local target supression and vehicle self-protection is provided by a trainable Overhead Remote Weapon Stations (ORWS) mounted on the turret roof. The unit incorporates a high elevation powered traverse, elevation and depression platform for suppression of low level air threats and infantry in defilade and multi-story buildings. The ORWS is self-contained with a gyro-stabilized electro-optical sight with continuous digital zoom and video auto-tracker, and 1.54 micron eye-safe laser rangefinder in a ruggedized fragment-protected box mounted coaxially with the armament tandem to a 50w HID weapon light that can be switched on and off remotely by the gunner. The weapon interfaces to the vehicle electronics suite over a MilCAN serial interface and can be controlled by any crew member under armor from their station in the fighting compartment. In present configuration, the ORWS is equipped with a Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-30-2 Dual-Barrel Gast Cannon chambered in 30x165mm cannon rounds, providing devastating secondary fire capable of making independent kills on even moderately-armored modern tanks on its own with 18.5 times the total muzzle energy of a .50 BMG round at combat ranges up to a mile, supplied with ammunition by a dual-magazine, user-selectable powered feed system, housing a total of 1,200 rounds under armor.

---

AMMUNITION DETAILS:
155mm Armor-Piercing Segmented Long-Rod Penetrator, Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot. (APFSDS-USP)

The standard tank-killing armament is a 120x890mm sub-caliber sabot round weighing 32kg complete including its GEN II propellant charge. The round is housed in a combustible casing surrounding a graphite fiber sabot and a high-density 37mm heat-treated tungsten alloy long-rod penetrator. The projectile has a ballistic steel tip and six bladed zirconium-toughened alumina fins bonded by injection molded polymer to the body to reduce in-flight ablation. The sub-caliber kinetic penetrator is an elongated monolithic cylindrical rod with sintered zirconium circumferential reinforcement bands swaged in place along axially-spaced channels, which interlock to increase collective strength. The bands stiffen and strengthen the penetrator, making it more effective at perforating the densest armors at oblique angles and overcoming sheering forces from explosive-reactive armor. The zirconium bands ignite pyrophorically during plastic deformation, providing an after-armor incendiary blast effect against the interior of the target. When fired, this round delivers up to 32 megajoules at 2,500 meters per second and can defeat up to 2,200mm of RHAe at 4,000 meters or 1,800mm of RHAe at 6,000 meters, with a CEP of 1 meter at maximum ranges. Testing has demonstrated the ability of the APFSDS-USP round to perforate any class of armor including steel-encased depleted uranium (DU) mesh, semi-infinite and finite-plate rolled homogenous armor (RHA) steels, spaced armor arrays and ceramics. In layman's terms, this 37mm wide rod, once fired, can cover nearly three miles in just under two seconds and at that distance penetrate more than seven feet of steel with the force of being hit with 32 tons at 100 mph.

120mm Smart, Target Activated, Fire and Forget (STAFF) Guided EFP Cartridge.

This round is a top-attack munition that defeats armor in defilade, whether static or mobile, and slow/low-flying aerodynes using a radar-cued non-axis symmetric explosively formed penetrator (EFP) especially effective against explosive reactive armor (ERA). The projectile is launched like any other tank round and follows a ballistic path to the target before it is roll-controlled through the use of fluidic-controlled jet nozzles located in the rear fin assembly to align the warhead for firing of the lethal penetrator. The STAFF round uses a semi-active laser seeker for cooperative and up to 45° off-boresight targeting, and a millimeter wave (MMW) seeker to autonomously acquire and track static or mobile targets at beyond the line-of-sight. STAFF is often employed using "off-set designation" where third-party friendly designators paint a target by laser to minimize exposure for the firing tank, and warning to the enemy tank or helicopter that they are being attacked.

120mm Laser-Homing, Anti Tank Gun-Fired Missile. (LAHAT)

A full-bore gun launched missile that produces long range accuracy to a stand-off distance of 13,000 meters, a distance far beyond the range of direct fire weapons. The missile features bi-static direct and indirect semi-active laser targeting, a wide-angle laser seeker for off-boresight targeting, lock-on-after-launch capability and a embedded active protection system. To maximize surprise against a target the missile flies at low height levels where it can be masked by terrain and performs a ‘pop-up’ maneuver (top attack) before impact. The missile weighs 14 kg excluding its composite sabot for launch from a gun tube, and is handled, loaded and fired like any other tank round. The missile is soft launched from the muzzle and uses a solid fuel sustainer motor for acceleration up to 700 m/s and four steering fins to track fixed and mobile targets. LAHAT attacks its targets using a triplex High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) warhead. The round flies a top attack high impact profile against thinly-armored turret roof armor. This consists a reduced diameter precursor charge that pre-detonates and penetrates up to 400 mm in rolled homogenous armor equivalent (RHAe) and 300 mm in explosive reactive armor (ERA), followed by tandem full-diameter charges with the capability to penetrate up to 800 mm in RHAe behind ERA. The LAHAT round has a low launch signature and the missile’s trajectory can be set to match either armored fighting vehicles and ships out at sea (pop up, top attack) or a helicopter or aerodyne (high angle, direct attack) engagement. To minimize target awareness LAHAT uses its lock-on-after-launch capability, target designation being required only for the final phase of the flight. This also allows a tank to launch from defilade against a target in defilade using off-set or off-board designation for maximum protection from observation/detection and counterfire.

120mm Multi-Purpose Anti-Tank. (MPAT)

A sub-caliber, discarding sabot round featuring a multi-mode programmable base detonating fuse and blast fragmenting target penetrating warhead. Using a selectable airburst, point or time delay fuse MPAT is effective against soft targets and low-flying aerial threats. Fused as a direct-fire hardened penetrator MPAT can penetrate double-reinforced concrete walls and masonry, earth and timber bunkers, or reduce rock and earthen obstacles when fused with a time delay detonation.

120mm Anti-Personnel/Anti-Materiel. (APAM)

This round compliments MPAT and neutralizes the threat of anti-armor teams, infantry in defilade and dismounted troops by scattering six submunitions above a target to produce a lethal-fragmentation kill zone 50 meters long and 20 meters wide. It can also be fired as a unitary high explosive round with no submunitions scattered to defeat urban terrain and obstacles including bunkers of sand and timber construction or earthworks, and destroy light materiel targets including armored personnel carriers.

---

ELECTRONICS:
A Chimera MBT houses one of the most advanced and interconnected vehicle electronics suites ever fielded. Centered around a network of three redundant watercooled compact supercomputers, Chimera's processing and resolution capability is totally unmatched among combat ground vehicles. Each supercomputer is a cluster of 64 hexacore processors each with two terabytes of onboard memory and six terabytes of data storage. Watercooling is driven from the purified crew compartment storage and returned to the inlet side of the water purification system once used. Each "black box" computer is an extensively hardened, armored and redundant unit engineered to withstand shock, vibration, submersion. temperature extremes, flammable atmospheres, electromagnetic pulse, radiation, electrical surges, gunfire and battle damage. Processors are based on non-volatile 35nm architecture and memory is on magneto-resistive chips, complemented by dedicated signal processing, a dual-cell broadband engine, high-resolution multimedia, physics and vector graphics processors. Network topography is a triple-redundant MilCAN databus carried on shielded and armored fiberoptic cable. Every aspect of Chimera's operation is recorded for detailed simulation and playback during after-action reviews.

Chimera's C5I matrix interconnects the vehicle's integral sensor suite s with fused global positioning/inertial navigation systems along with digital compass inputs and data from the Mobile Air/Ground Subscriber Network (MAGSNET) to provide a comprehensive picture of the battlespace. The complete situational-awareness picture is displayed to the crew on their displays and relayed to friendly forces on an encrypted, jam-resistant low detectable datalink via three networked liquid plasma broadband antennae, allowing allied assets to share information across the battlespace and communicate via an ECM-resistant, anti-gam, anti-spoof, frequency agile, LPD/LPI network secured by encryption and compression algorithms, unrelayed, up to 50 km and further via an embedded low profile SATCOM antenna used as an emergency backup. Information from onboard sensors is matched to topographical database information provided through MAGSNET and the battlespace picture is displayed in a moving map, iconic format with user-selectable route planning and waypoints including steer-to navigation and integrates factors like, supply train availability, obstacle detection and collision/threat warning/fire control cues, fuel state, battle damage, ammunition supply and crew health to prioritize waypoints and displayed data.

Chimera''s sensor suite incorporates 360° awareness with high-resolution daylight 50 megapixel/300 frame-per-second CCD imagers with passive night vision, 0.9-1.7 micron near infrared/short wave infrared image intensifiers, thermal, acoustic, magnetic, laser, lider, doppler and multiphased/multiband and millimeter wave radar. Included in the sensor suite is a boom-elevated sensor array with a panoramic CCD camera that can take a live-feed, distortion free 50 megapixel image 12 meters above the turret roof for use in hull-down or defilade situations. All lenses are laser protected and have fine mesh screens to protect them from mud, dirt, debris, rocks and shrapnel. When necessary, Chimera can flood the near field in 360° with light from eight 70w HID floodlights recessed into the hull with armored fold-over covers when not in use, or can activate just the two front-facing lights for use as headlights.

The Chimera MBT's driver has complete control of the vehicle's powertrain, suspension and climate control. A high level of automation and optimization is conducted millisecond-to-millisecond without user input, maximizing vehicle efficiency and crew comfort over any terrain and while completing any task, freeing the driver to concentrate on the task of navigating the tank using moving map, realtime augmented reality overlay including iconic waypoint and sensor data, threat perception, rangefinder distances and navigation data, all controlled through an integrated, redundant drive-by light/drive by wire system.

The vehicle commander's station provides realtime diagnostics for every aspect of the tank's operation, including a detailed moving map with integrated iconic overlays and full-suite communications relays, including text instructions and blueforce tracking data. Signature management, fire and explosion suppression, fuel and charge levels and maintenance concerns are prioritized and displayed on the commander's screen by the central computer, while any sensor or combination of sensors can be shown as a unified, high-resolution, zoomable image on the commander's screen with extremely low noise and very high speed due to the massive processing capability of the vehicle's computers.

Chimera's gunner operates the vehicle's Fire Control system, which can track and simultaneously lock and prioritize up to forty stationary or mobile targets and engage up to ten targets at one time. IFCS, or Integrated Fire Control System provides automatic target recognition, interrogate friend-or-foe (IFF) queuing threat prioritization and automatic gun laying and firing, requiring the gunner to only set an aiming reticle on the target to activate the system with an optional 60x continuous digital dynamic zoom and image stabilization. A full-solution ballistic computer calculates gun offsets using data from a battery of inputs such as target distance, azimuth and elevation, angular position and closure/departure velocity, cant angle, barrel deflection and wear, pitch, roll and chassis jolt, ambient temperature, humidity, air pressure and wind velocity, ammunition selection, propellant temperature and gun chamber pressure. Precision gun laying drives, smart barrel actuators, triple laser rangefinders and eye safe, all weather Coherent Doppler/Lidar (CDL) work together to optimize the performance of Chimera's primary and secondary armaments, achieving better than a 97% hit ratio in real-world testing. The CDL system is mounted on an armored barbette above the turret mantle that is slaved and bore sighted to the main gun; with it, a three-dimensional volumetric "snapshot" is produced, using energy back scattering to measure obstacles and targets. The high speed and low power of each pulse renders it near impossible to detect or jam and operates at frequencies capable of penetrating fog, oil smoke and other environmental effects on the battlefield without loss of resolution. Target acquisition utilizes a tandem triple-redundant laser rangefinder, each beam providing an 80mJ, eyesafe 635nm wavelength beam at 20 pulses per second with less than .3 mrad divergence, all of which are compatible with MILES 2000 gear for realistic force-on-force training scenarios . The input of the three rangefinders is averaged for accuracy and is sensor-fused with CDL for a fully day/night capable system that can be used to a maximum of 40km in staring mode, even while using infrared/visible light sensor fusion to see through obscurants. Using CDL to positively identify a target and the rangefinders to determine distance, the fire control system to compute ballistics and electric drives to precisely lay the main gun, a Chimera MBT presents a whole new level of deadly and precise mobile gunnery to the battlefield.

---

SELF-PROTECTION:
During its development, Chimera MBT’s engineering team developed a highly advanced Active Protection System called Tetsudo. Tetsudo acts as both a soft-kill and hard-kill protection system: its modules can both disrupt the attack via infrared countermeasures and laser dazzlers or defeat the attack directly by utilizing directed energy to destroy the target. Designed as a series of overlapping modules, the system is controlled by Chimera’s onboard computer network and actuated by a sensor suite that automatically searches for incoming attacks at all times by heuristic processing and then once a possible threat has been identified, directs all sensors in range to “stare” at the threat, maximizing accuracy. Tetsudo is capable of dealing with a variety of threats, from buried mines or improvised explosive devices to shaped charge explosively-formed penetrators, kinetic energy penetrators, mortar rounds, rocket propelled grenades or anti-tank missiles, the highly versatile system giving Chimera great flexibility in responding to threats before a direct hit to the tank is imminent.

Tetsudo’s arrangement creates a full-dome, 360 degree hemispherical envelope of protection, allowing Chimera to respond to and defeat multiple simultaneous threats. As Tetsudo is a fully DE (Directed Energy) system, it has no moving parts, is agnostic to the vehicle's or turret attitude and its modular design is field-replaceable, lowering its cost. Average response time of the system in real-world tests was less than 500 microseconds, which enables Tetsudo to respond to very close-range threats under ten meters from the vehicle at first detection. Additionally, the use of energy rather than projectiles minimizes fratricide and collateral damage risk and also far increases the number of threats it can counter, with a theoretically limitless threshold for response, as long as Chimera’s Power Array holds a charge.

For mine detection, a hyperspectral imager on the front of Chimera’s hull uses a focal plane array visible light and long-wave infrared imager to recognize subtle color differences against a background to indicate disturbed soil. Distributed across Chimera’s hull and turret are all-bearing, staring type infrared/laser warning receivers and electro-optical trackers designed to detect and classify laser rangefinders and designators, infrared search lights, missile launch signatures and even muzzle flashes. An omnidirectional dicone antenna detects millimeter wave radar signals from attacking missiles and acoustic sensors detect, classify and localize small arms, mortar, artillery and rocket launch signatures. Conformal Doppler x-band thin radar array panels on Chimera’s turret classify and track threat signatures within 500 meters of the hull and tracks missile velocity and direction within ±1millirad. An integral electronic counter-countermeasure suite uses digital signal processing to prevent noise jamming or spoofing from affecting Tetsudo’s performance.

Tetsudo’s Soft-Kill suite incorporates a radio frequency jammer that defeats radio command detonation signals for improvised explosives or mines. Electronic countermeasures (ECM) operate continuously and can jam VHF, UHF, Cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth signals out to a range of 30m while specifically ignoring allied MADL/MAGSNET transmissions. The Soft-Kill Suite also incorporates six diode-pumped solid state AL-20 1GW (one gigawatt) laser dazzlers, and six AID-66 diode-based infrared laser countermeasures, used to “blind”electro-optical or laser guidance sensors through intense over-radiation, effective at distances up to five kilometers against both guided missiles and launching platforms, such as hostile aircraft or tanks.

The Hard-Kill suite uses liquid-cooled five kilowatt multicore ribbon high energy fiber lasers to produce pulse-coded directed energy, inducing low order burning and deflagration reactions in explosives or fragmentation in kinetic kill munitions at a standoff distance. A disrupted munition may still strike the vehicle with fragments or concussion, but it will not do so with its full force and is extremely unlikely to damage the tank. Mines or buried explosives can be prosecuted by this system at depths of up to 1m. A series of 20 distributed laser heads connected by multi band fiber bundles and single polarization flexible optical fiber arrays are embedded into the hull and generate both short-wave/long-wave pumped laser and long-wave laser pumped energy to destroy multiple threats from multiple directions at extremely high velocities simultaneously, as close as 10 meters and as far away as 100 meters.

[Arthurista]

Sir/Madam,

The Arthuristan People's Navy and Air Force require AWAC platforms survivable in a high threat environment. As such, we would like to purchase the DPR for all variants of the Dagger Aircraft for $7.8 billion, the Shadowcat bomber for $5.4 billion and the Divine Wind fighter for $3.8 billion.

Sincerely,

Michael Cochrane,

Minister for Defence,
People's Republic of Arthurista

[The Freethinkers]

OOC Hi there.

I'm curious, how did you create those ships, from shipbucket?

[Marquesan]

OOC Hi there.

I'm curious, how did you create those ships, from shipbucket?

OOC: The ship images I found by pouring through google search. Unfortunately, I'm no good at drawing such things and probably couldn't draw them to save my own life. The full-sized images credit the original artists.

[Shalum]

Shalum wses to purchase
1 (Type-100 "Great Hawk" Battlecruiser)

[Marquesan]

(Image)

Sir/Madam,

The Arthuristan People's Navy and Air Force require AWAC platforms survivable in a high threat environment. As such, we would like to purchase the DPR for all variants of the Dagger Aircraft for $7.8 billion and the Shadowcat bomber for $5.4 billion.

Sincerely,

Michael Cochrane,

Minister for Defence,
People's Republic of Arthurista

. T A C T I C A L . D E S I G N . C O N S O R T I U M .

Mr. Cochrane,

Thank you for your order! As our first customer, we would like to express our deepest gratitude for your faith and trust in a new company! While the company may be new, our products are well-proven in combat trials and the technologies in service have been extensively tested, re-tested and developed to maturity. We here at Myrmidon have the utmost confidence in our product, the same confidence in our products that you will have as they serve your armed forces.

Myrmidon Tactical Design has approved your purchase request at the amount of $17,000,000,000.00 NSD unconditionally and will begin immediate shipment of material and engineering teams to integrate with your own teams immediately; our first engineering team will leave Gambier Prefecture, Marquesan at 0700 hours Western Sondria Time monday morning.

As our first customer, we would like to send you a gift of four line production Shadowcat Penetrator/Interdictors and eight Divine Wind Air Dominance Fighters for field trials, these aircraft will arrive at an airfield of your choosing no later than thursday evening. Thank you again for your generous trust in Myrmidon, you can rely on us!

With warmest gratitude,

- Jean Recantreaux,
Chief Financial Officer,
Myrmidon Tactical Design.

[Marquesan]

Shalum wses to purchase
1 (Type-100 "Great Hawk" Battlecruiser)

. T A C T I C A L . D E S I G N . C O N S O R T I U M .

To Whom It May concern,

Thank you for your order!

Myrmidon Tactical Design has approved your order unconditionally and we have elected to fulfill your purchase from existing stock on-hand. MSV Adamant (Pennant No. 11/15-2XIAZ21) will leave port at Caol Ila, Mahina Prefecture, Marquesan, Sondria for your nation on wednesday with a transfer crew and will take two weeks, three days estimated travel time to reach Shalum.

Thank you for your trust and confidence in Myrmidon Tactical Design; we look forward to continued business!

With warmest gratitude,

- Jean Recantreaux,
Chief Financial Officer,
Myrmidon Tactical Design.

[Marquesan]

Friendly bump. There's a new product available, the Type-37 "Sarissa" Strike Bomber!

[Marquesan]

. T A C T I C A L . D E S I G N . C O N S O R T I U M .

To All Whom These Presents May Come, Greeting:

For integral early assistance in the design process, the People's Republic of Arthurista is hereby awarded Domestic Production Rights for the Type-37 "Sarissa" Strike Bomber.


Cordially,

- Jean Recantreaux
Chief Financial Officer,
Myrmidon Tactical Design.

[Arthurista]

Sir,

The Arthuristan People's Army requires a new attack helicopter to replace the venerable Mi-24 Hind. As such, we would like to purchase the DPR to your Type-66 Hellcat gunship, for a total of $5.8 billion.

For your information, we plan to integrate the aircrafts with Lamoni's Havik ATGM currently in Arthuristan service.

Sincerely,

Michael Cochrane,

Minister for Defence,
People's Republic of Arthurista

[Marquesan]

A bump!

[Marquesan]

Bump for the brand new Type-27 "Hoplite" Light Multirole Fighter. Now available for the low price of $95,000,000 NSD!

[Korrodos]

TO:Myrmidon Tactical Design
FROM: Fieldmarshall Eric von Korrden, Under Minister of War, Korrodosian Empire
ENCRYPTION: BUSINESS MODERATE

Greetings,

The Imperial Korrodosian Empire would like to purchase the following DPR from your company. We look forward to seeing you add additional designs to your inventory and are much pleased with the current stock.

DPRs:
Type-32 Shadowcat Penetrator .27x200=54bn Dollars
Type-64 Whisper Helicopter .40x200=80bn Dollars
Type-66 Hellcat Helicopter .29x200=58.0bn Dollars
Type 100 Great Hawk Battlecruiser 6.8x200=1,360bn Dollars

(54+ 80+ 58+ 1,360=1,498bn Dollars)

Payment over 10 years 150 Billion Dollars.

Sincerely,
Fieldmarshall Eric von Korrden
Under Minister of War
Empire of Korrodos

[Marquesan]

TO:Myrmidon Tactical Design
FROM: Fieldmarshall Eric von Korrden, Under Minister of War, Korrodosian Empire
ENCRYPTION: BUSINESS MODERATE

Greetings,

The Imperial Korrodosian Empire would like to purchase the following DPR from your company. We look forward to seeing you add additional designs to your inventory and are much pleased with the current stock.

DPRs:
Type-32 Shadowcat Penetrator .27x200=54bn Dollars
Type-64 Whisper Helicopter .40x200=80bn Dollars
Type-66 Hellcat Helicopter .29x200=58.0bn Dollars
Type 100 Great Hawk Battlecruiser 6.8x200=1,360bn Dollars

(54+ 80+ 58+ 1,360=1,498bn Dollars)

Payment over 10 years 150 Billion Dollars.

Sincerely,
Fieldmarshall Eric von Korrden
Under Minister of War
Empire of Korrodos

. T A C T I C A L . D E S I G N . C O N S O R T I U M .

To: Fieldmarshall Eric von Korrden,
Under Minister of War,
Empire of Korrodos.

Thank you for your decision to produce and employ Myrmidon products throughout your armed forces. We know you will be very pleased with the outstanding qualities of the Shadowcat, Hellcat, Whisper and Great Hawk as they serve your military arm wherever you send them. Whether in harm's way in far-flung corners of the world or at home, Myrmidon's tactical equipment will sharpen the "tip of the sword" with superior firepower and ability. We have approved your request to domestically produce Shadowcat, Hellcat, Whisper and Great Hawk and further accept your payment plan at the mentioned rates. An integration team has been dispatched to Kor with all necessary design and construction information and hardware to help you begin construction. While building a suitable fleetyard with the proper equipment may take longer to construct and reach operational status for Great Hawk, we expect production facilities for Shadowcat, Whisper and Hellcat to be operational within a year.

Good luck and godspeed! Thank you again for your trust and confidence in Myrmidon.


Cordially,

- Jean Recantreaux
Chief Financial Officer,
Myrmidon Tactical Design.

[Plemonic Knights]