FSS-1052J Tantō Exoatmospheric Multirole Strike Fighter

== Development ==
== Design ==
== Operational History ==
== Hull/Armor ==
While the designers focused on making the Tantō lightweight in order to give it the agility and speed needed to effectively dogfight against the fast yet well armed Covenant single ships and fighters that it was desgined to fight, they also tried to balance this with a light but still effective armor scheme.
The airframe is constructed on the basis of a elastic material, called plaststeel, that combines the many qualities of steel and superplastics. This was fused with a nanocrystal polymer, which itself was reinforced with high strength carbon fibers, and a laminate of Titanium-Aluminide weave. Through this combination, a high strength, flexible, lightweight crystal-fiber mesh airframe was formed, backed up by non-Newtonian shock absorbers. 
As for the actual armor itself, it's made of a five layered composite. 
First is the very outer layer, which is a polarized shell that provides the proper protection needed for orbital reentrys and provides some resistant to directed energy attacks. This was painted with RADAR/LIDAR absorbent polymer-like materials that both made the Tantō nearly invisible on RADAR and distorts LIDAR and laser rangefinders, along with a liquid glass resin that has a dual perpose. First is to act as radiation shielding and to deflect UV signals. Alongside the infra-red dampeners, RADAR/LIDAR absorbent polymer paint, liquid glass, qnd reduced cross section, gave the Tantō excellent stealthyness on all spectrums. 
The next layer is a EARN applicant. Made of energy reactive nanomaterials, this applicant forms a superconducting layer that catches directed energy attacks and absorbs it before dispersing the energy, and its accompanying heat and thermal energy, safely across a wider section of the hull, reducing the chances of a breach. Though the EARN can also use the absorbed energy to vaporize incoming kinetic projectiles. 
Underneath this mainly anti-directed energy layer is the primary defense layer of the Tantō, Titanium-Tungsten Polycarbonate Ballistic Armor Belt. This layer is made up of Polycarbonate Ballistic tiles, formed from bonding Titanium and Tungsten ceramic powders together, before further interweaving them together with thermoplastics containing carbonate groups. While the tiles were lightweight and thin, they were still durable and could decently defeat most fighter grade kinetic projectiles and energy bolts but to truly work well as the primary defense of the fighter sandwiched in-between these were super thin overlapping ablative carbon-ceramic plates, that retained a lightweight while still offering good dual anti-kinetic projectile and anti-directed energy, and were laser welded together with the tiles, and gravity compressed. This forms a excellent primary defense layer that struck a fine balance between ablative and ballistic defense, especially when reinforced with single walled carbon nanotubes, but was still light enough to barely effect agility and speed. 
In order to help deflect stress from the outer layers and the middle and inner layers, the exterior plating was built on top of a non-Newtonian shock absorbing foam-gel compound that hardened when impacted with kinetic energy while absorbing it. 
The middlelayer was a resin bonded ablative mixture, made from chromium metal foam-silicon disulfide-vanadium steel that was arranged in a series of pyramids. These pyramids were designed to catch and split shaped charge jets and kinetic penetrators, protecting the inner layers and airframe. Just under this is an environmental layer, which regulates iternal and external heat, preventing layers from outright melting or freezing, including the occupant. 
Sealed in and around the iternals of the EMSF was a elastic polymer. Highly resistant to heat and capable of absorbing thermal energy, this inner layer acted as protection for the strike fighter and its occupant, not melting on reentry and absorbed any thermal energy that wasn't dispersed by the other layers. 
The cockpit itself was situated in a armored 'tube' of Titanium-C1. This light but super dense metamaterial gave decent protection against ballistic and directed energy attacks though was mainly meant as a final defense layer. Thin armored tiles made of the same alloy were located around the engines, and weapon hardpoints, also giving decent protection. 
== Powerplant ==
== Propulsion ==
With constant improvements ofthe UFN/UNSCs Antimatter production facilities, producing the fuel needed to power thousands of antiproton rockets became much more feasible. As a result, when designing the engine units for the Tantō, Fenrir had Tribute create the AL-203Y4 propulsion units.
Based on early concepts for Antimatter fueled drives, the AL-203Y4 operates by injecting antiproton particles into a reaction chamber filled with hydrogen. This resulted in a Matter-antimatter annihilation reaction that was tightly focused, using advanced micro magnetic arrays, through magnetic muzzles which further channeled the reaction, resulting in a jet-like "beam" that provides the Tantō unmatched acceleration.
Thanks to this, the Tantō can travel through both void and atmospheric conditions at high speeds, along providing a highly efficient cruising speed.
Following standard Post-War Fighter design, the engines are fitted with Infra-Red dampeners and a multi-axis thrust vectoring system that combined with the second generation neural-linked COFFIN system and the EMSF's light weight, allows unparalleled direction control and agility.