Attack Craft

The Imperial Trust uses many types of attack craft, which fall under the categories of Fighters, Bombers, and Attack Boats

## Fighters

#### Guardian Fighter

An ancient void craft from the Dark age of technology, the Guardian is an eighty-meter strike craft. While classified and used as an interceptor, this is not its primary purpose. It was originally intended to act as an escort for bomber wings and is somewhat poorly optimized for its present role. The Guardian carries a surprising amount of pylon mounted missiles but has only a single pair of launchers tied to a modest internal magazine. This increases the amount of firepower it can bring to bear in the opening exchanges of a dogfight, but causes its firepower to drop off quickly as the pylons are expended, soon forcing it to rely upon its secondary weapons. This was presumably a significant weakness in the DAoT.

The Guardians secondary weapons are an array of neutron lasers, two on either side of the fuselage, and one on the nose. Each mounting can take either a heavy neutron repeater or a heavy neutron cannon. While this may be considered subpar by the DAoT, in the modern era this is a staggering amount of firepower for a strike craft. This has enabled it to act as a more general-purpose interceptor in service to modern human powers, relying primarily upon its energy weapons and resorting to its missiles only when in danger of being overwhelmed.

The Guardian is remarkably swift and poses advanced maneuvering thrusters allowing for a rapid change in orientation, enabling it to quickly snap into a new facing should an enemy attempt to fly past it. While it lacks the inertial dampers to use this for truly abrupt changes in headings, the ability to rapidly bring its weapons to bear makes attempting to overwhelm it risky, as it can quickly fire upon attacks attempting to surround it. For its size, the guardian possesses impressive armor and shields, allowing it to shrug off a surprising amount of fire from other interceptors. Due to a brilliant interface, and advanced automation, the craft only needs 3 crewmembers. A gunner, a pilot, and a bombardier to manage its ordinance.

#### Horatius Ace Fighter

An improved variant of the Guardian, the Horatius is intended to serve as a more expensive, and potent fighter. Typically used by elite wings or aces in the DAoT. By design, it is of near-identical size and shape of the guardian, though it has a number of direct upgrades compared to the base model.

The Horatius fighter uses advanced gravitic launchers to accelerate its missiles as they leave the launcher, reducing the amount of fuel needed for them to reach attack speed. This frees up a significant amount of space. Combined with a generally larger per missile budget, this results in notably more effective missiles. Combined with a more advanced set of sensors and targeting cogitators increasing accuracy, the Horatius’s missile complement is far more effective than the guardians. The increased budget also allows for the neutron weapons to possess a greater traverse, using superior materials to offset the weakness a larger degree of rotation induces. This results in the Horatius’s neutron armament being notably more accurate.

The greatest relative advantage it holds over the guardian, however, is its maneuverability. Using repulsors to negate its mass and a more advanced engine array, allows the Horatius far greater speed and maneuverability. Combined with a notable increase in shield and armor quality, this makes the Horatius an immensely deadly dogfighter, able to threaten entire wings of traditional fury interceptors.

#### Wraith Interceptor

The Wraith interceptor is a dedicated strike craft killer, intended to intercept bombers and their escorts. While marked as a stealth craft, they are not intended to fully evade detection. Instead, they are designed to scatter and randomize their emissions enough to prevent an enemy from acquiring a target lock. Able to get surprisingly close before being detected, and possessing both immense speed and maneuverability, they are near perfect for intercepting bombers.

In terms of armament, the wraith interceptor’s primary weapons are a pair of forward-facing neutron mounts, typically carrying heavy neutron cannons. The fighter’s extreme maneuverability and stealth systems make it well suited to lining up precise shots, obliterating their targets in a single well placed shot. In modern times, it has become fairly common to replace one or both with a heavy neutron repeater, as a neutron cannon is often overkill for many modern strike craft. Its energy weapons are supplemented by a pair of missile launchers fed by an internal missile bay. Typically, the wraith will use high powered short-range missiles, intended to destroy larger but slow bombers.

While the wraith has excellent survivability in a dog fight, it is very reliant upon its stealth systems. Its armor is relatively thin, and it’s stealth systems are not compatible with void shields. While thin, its armor is still superior to that of imperial fury fighters owing to more advanced alloys. The wraith has only 2 crew, a pilot, and a gunner.

#### Hood Ace Interceptor

The Hood Ace Interceptor is an improved version of the wraith fighter and incorporates incredibly advanced and expensive stealth technology. This enables a well-piloted hood to approach to within a few dozen kilometers of most targets. To take advantage of this, the Hood is designed to be capable of an immensely deadly alpha strike. In addition to its internal bays, it has a number of pylon mounted missiles. It also possesses a system of supercapacitors and a low endurance cooling system that enables it to effectively double its energy weapons rate of fire for a few volleys. This allows a Hood to slaughter an entire wing of strike craft before the battle even starts.

Aside from the alpha strike, the hood is notably faster and more maneuverable, though it is not notably more durable. While it uses more advanced armor alloys, compromises made to enable its greater stealth and punch reduced the durability. It is nevertheless, notably more survivable in a dog fight than the wraith, due to its greater stealth capacity. While a wraith can often make determining its location difficult, a hood can easily vanish entirely amidst the tumult and noise of a dogfight, enabling them to slip away from attackers and circle around for a surprise attack.

The Hood is, however, immensely expensive. They are in large, piloted by individual aces to strengthen wings of wraiths, or in small task forces meant to carry out the most critical of interceptions.

#### Wasp Interceptor

The Wasp Interceptor is the most agile attack craft produced by humans and packs a substantional punch allowing it to quickly take out even the heaviest attack craft

* **Structure** - The Wasp Interceptor has a very ‘sharp’ design, emphasizing a minimum amount of mass in order to maximize the speed and maneuverability of the Interceptor. It’s also much smaller than the Wyvern and even other Fighters, and it is expected that it should be possible to launch two or even three interceptors where a single bomber would be launched.
* **Reactor** - The Wasp Interceptor uses a Nova Reactor to power its energy-hungry systems, most especially its weapon systems.
* **Engines** - Using advanced repulsors similar to the Horatius Ace Fighter to negate its already low weight, the Wasp-Class can manage absurd levels of acceleration and maneuverability, able to easily alter its velocity and facing to position itself optimally in voidspace.
* **Shields** - While by default the Wasp Interceptor has a shield that covers all angles, it is intended for the Wasp Class’ shield to be concentrated on specific angles, massively improving the effective shield strength in one direction in exchange for vulnerabilities elsewhere.
* **Armor** - The Wasp Interceptor has a rather lightweight armor, a design choice chosen to minimize its size and mass. This does make the Wasp Interceptor rather frail if it is caught off position, though given it is expected to operate near friendly ships it is not too problematic.
* **Stealth** - The Wasp class has a modest amount of stealth system that nonetheless works well with its small size. Its passive stealth systems are intended to minimize its silhouette and apparent size, especially from the forward angle to minimize its apparent threat. Its active stealth system consists of decoys with near-identical signatures to the Wasp intended to draw away enemy fire or missiles briefly.
* **Armament**: The Wasp Class has a spinally mounted Neutron Obliterator, providing a massive amount of firepower at good range that is often enough to rapidly mission kill its intended targets. This is supplemented by two Neutron Annihilators, which in addition to the extra firepower provides a level of accuracy and precision enough to deal with most tricks its targets are capable of.
* **Psychic Architecture** - Tamia has focused her efforts on empowering the main weapon of the Wasp Interceptor with the narrative of interceptors shooting down their target, substantially improving the odds of each shot hitting a critical part of the target ship.

## Bombers

#### Dragon Bomber

A massive craft, the Dragon bombers dwarfs a tau manta, being over one hundred and fifty meters long, the Dragon seems to follow a similar design doctrine as tau bombers. The ship carries a number of heavy neutron turrets on the ventral and dorsal sides, enabling it to return fire upon closing interceptors. While unable to easily evade fire, the dragon is capable of weathering the ordinance of most strike craft in common use. The craft carries three turrets on its dorsal side and three on its ventral side. While the turrets are arrayed that at least two can fire on attackers from any angle, if tIe craft tilts it can often bring three or more to bear upon any closing attackers.

Once the Dragon closes with its target, it will rely upon an extensive series of flares and decoys to distract enemy point defense while it closes to attack range. It is aided in serving its approach by a layed void shield system optimized for deflecting a small number of massive hits, such as direct shots from a starship's massive point defense guns. Between its decoys and durability, Dragon bombers have a fairly high rate of success in breaching point defense fields to deliver their payload. Typically, They will unleash massive melta charges directly into the weak points of their targets. A flight of Dragons can reduce an escort to a blasted hulk, or deal major damage to a cruiser. En mass, they are capable of damaging even the greats of capital ships, though the guns of such leviathans often take a heavy toll upon the bombers.

Despite being a bomber, the Dragon is capable of a surprisingly high straight line speed. While moving at maximum speed would complicate evasive maneuvers, and attack runs, it does enable the craft to return home to rearm far more swiftly than most would expect. The many systems and massive size of the dragon necessitates a full ten man crew.

#### Smaug Ace Bomber

The Smaug is a massively improved version of the Dragon. It possesses vastly more durable void shields, and supplements its neutron turrets with a number of missile tubes. Capable of launching heavy missiles at closing fighters, it is dangerous to even attempt to approach. It's design also incorporates a high degree of passive ECM, mandating attackers get significantly closer than normal to acquire a lock, something the Smaug is more than capable of punishing them for.

Unsurprisingly, it also possesses more numerous and expensive decoy and flares, greatly assisting its ability to penetrate the point defense envelope of its target. While it carries only slightly more ordnance than the Dragon, it makes use of notably more expensive munitions. Often including expensive miniturzed guidance packages to enable pinpoint strikes against key targets. A flight of dragons is fully capable of crippling cruisers, or even destroying capital ships in large numbers.

#### Assassin Stealth Bomber

Eighty meters in length, the Assassin stealth bombers is one of the most expensive bombers in widescale use by the trust. The Assassin relies nearly totally upon its speed and stealth systems. For self defense, the Assassin carries only a token neutron turret on its belly, enough to destroy an isolated fighter, or discourage pursuit, but little more. However, between its great speed and stealth, it is incredibly difficult to intercept, often able to approach a target without even being engaged by interceptors. Though should they find and catch it, the craft will have little recourse.

Assassins are easily able to penetrate most point defense envelopes. Most sensors are not optimized for detecting close in stealth craft, especially not during the confusion of battle. Ideally, the assassin will strike alongside dragon bombers, using the more well-armored craft as a distraction. Compared to the Dragon, the assassins has a notably smaller bomb bay, though they are often able to deliver them with more precision due a less harried approach. Should the target survive the strike, the assassins will be in extreme danger, as the target will often be able to backtrace the munitions to find it, and even its stealth systems will struggle to cover the heat of the hard burn needed to escape. Ideally, assassins will work in a squadron large enough to deal crippling damage to a target, or coordinate with some other element to ensure the target is distracted during the attack run.

The bomber has a crew of eight, with many of the crew needed to ensure the stealth systems are running at optimum efficiency.

#### Fawkes Ace Stealth Bomber

An improved version of the assassin, the Fawkes poses quite possibly the most advanced stealth system of its type known to exist in human hands. Near impossible to detect from any meaningful distance, the Fawkes ace stealth bomber is capable of penetrating all but the most overbuilt of sensor nets, and near impossible for almost any interceptor to catch. While it still possesses only a single neutron turret, the ship also has several drone decoys it can deploy. Buoys that can nearly perfectly match it’s muffled emissions to distract pursuers.

The Fawkes even uses stealth munitions, its bombs fitted with basic stealth systems. This enables it to complete an attack run without giving away its position, with the warning their target receiving being the detonation of the bomber's ordinance. Veteran crews are known to set their bombs drifting on ballistic trajectories, the ordinance not impacting until dozens of seconds later once the Fawks has already vanished. The Fawks is often given the most expensive and potent munitions in the trust arsenal, and are often tasked with delivering vortex or Dark matter munitions to key targets.

#### Skydragon Stealth Bomber

The Skydragon Stealth Bomber combines a cloaking system with a range of other technologies to create something that is hard to detect even in calm conditions, and near impossible in the chaos of battle. It uses this stealth to allow it to deploy its decently sized munitions arsenal at the targets vulnerabilities, making it highly effective against all but the best armed foes. There are currently two issues with the Skydragon, first its vulnerability to psychic detection which could be countered with the right wards and second its cost, with a Skydragon costing almost twenty times the price of a standard Dragon Bomber.

#### Wyvern Bomber

The Wyvern Bomber is notably tougher and more mobile than its predecessor while having an even greater payload

* **Structure**: The Wyvern departs dramatically from the original Dragon Bomber in design. Tranth has designed the superstructure of the bomber to hold extra space for the incorporation of future technology, currently effectively several bits of excess storage space and armoring within the bomber. Also a departure from a typical Tranth design, the appearance of the Wyvern is far more refined, in large part as a side effect of Tamia’s efforts to incorporate a functional psychic architecture.
* **Reactor**: The Wyvern bomber uses an oversized Nova Reactor to power its numerous systems.
* **Shields** - The Wyvern has void shields several times as strong compared to the original, mostly due to Tranth’s more advanced void shields. Consequently, it now inverts the paradigm used by the original, with the shields now intended to handle repeated weapons fire as opposed to single massive hits.
* **Engines** - The Wyvern has incredible thrusters that allow it to reach incredible forward line speed and acceleration. It has only a modest amount of maneuvering thrusters, however.
* **Weapons** - The Wyvern sports a broad coverage of Heavy Neutron Repeaters. These are intended to have a dual purpose, using diverging beams to shoot down missiles or using converging beams to chase away interceptors (or at least making their approach more painful). Supplementing this is an impressive suite of externally mounted heavy missiles to allow the Wyvern, or a group of Wyverns, to create a window of vulnerability in enemy point defense networks via a very distracting massive missile barrage to allow an easier approach to bomb the enemy ship.
* **Gravitic Bomberbay** - Perhaps the largest change from the Dragon, Tranth converted the bomber bay of the Wyvern into a sort of gravitic engine. This lets the Wyvern control the landing of the bomb onto the enemy ship with substantially more control, greatly improving the chance of a critical hit. The cogitators controlling this component are also rather intelligent, able to provide rather deadly arcs for bombs to strike, hitting key areas like weapon turrets much more often than normal.
* In a stroke of elegance, Tranth’s Gravitic Bomberbay also functions as a gravitic engine for the Wyvern. This provides the Wyvern with unprecedented levels of maneuverability in spite of its modest maneuvering thrusters, letting this bomber make difficult movements that are normally relegated to fighters.
* **Psychic Architecture** - Tamia has focused the limited power of her psy architecture design onto this component, calling upon the narrative of bombers dropping bombs guided by gravity from the air. An effort which she found eased by the fact that this bomberbay used gravity to guide the bomb. Amusingly, this means that most Mechanicus people who might otherwise suspect the Bomber of being ‘too intelligent’ will find a ready-made reason for the sheer precision of its strike - Fate magic is literally being used to improve precision, so of course it is more precise than can be expected.
* **Armor** - Wyvern uses external armor plating made of composites which are intended to flake and 'ablate' away when hit, ideal for handling incoming massive amounts of firepower which break through the high-powered void shields. Replacement external armor can be attached by hangers on the home ship if the Bomber survives its bombing mission. Whilst poor for prolonged combat, bombers do not engage in them intentionally.
* **Other** - While the Wyvern does not have dedicated stealth systems per se, it does have various tricks intended to make targeting harder. These range from ECM measures that can ‘blur’ the appearance of the bomber, to displacement effects that can shift the apparent position of a moving Wyvern up to meters away from its actual position. The Wyvern also has access to numerous nearly-blind slavedrones that are directed by the ship into incoming fire, which combined with other measures gives the Wyvern small periods of time where it is phenomenally difficult to kill.

## Attack Boats

#### Aggressor Attack Boat

A large well armoured attack boat equipped with a combination of adamantine drills and powerful melta which it uses to piece though the armour of its targets. It can carry an entire company of infantry and has half a dozen Neutron Cannons to defend itself.

#### Muninn Scout

A fifty meter equipped with powerful engines, a lot of supplies and some of the most advanced sensors and stealth technology known. This is obviously designed as a long range scout and is unmatched in this role.

#### Infiltrator Assault Boat

The Infiltrator Assault Boat is a variant of the Skydragon that replaces its munitions bay with a troop bay and a pair of detachable boarding charges. The boarding charge will be placed on a carefully selected point on the targets armour while the troops disembark, and can be triggered after the Infiltrator has left, allowing for the Infiltrator to escape notice ever after the charges have gone off.

#### Chameleon Stealth Craft

While the Chameleon Stealth Lander lacks the sheer stealth of some of Corax’s designs, it is far easier to produce and therefore can be used for forces other than Jaegers and Astartes.

* **Structure** - Smaller than even the Wasp Interceptor, the Chameleon’s design is built entirely to maximize the stealth capabilities of the strike craft, at the cost of all other capabilities.
* **Reactor** - The Chameleon uses a low-emissions plasma reactor.
* **Engines** - As opposed to a regular stealth engine, the Chameleon uses Singularity Thrusters, which allow the Chameleon to move without releasing any emissions whatsoever.
* **Stealth** - As opposed to regular shields, the Chameleon sports a Cloaking system, making the already small strike craft even harder to detect. These can even be tuned to mimic background voidspace emissions, further increasing the difficulty of detection.
* **Armor** - The Chameleon uses advanced stealth composites that are able to absorb the ship’s already low emissions.
* **Armament** - Similar to the Wyvern Bomber, the Chameleon sports a gravity bay, though this bay is intended to stealthily deploy operatives and agents as often if not more so than dropping bombs on enemy warships. In the latter case, those bombs are often time-delayed, to allow the Chameleon to escape before the enemy is alerted by detonations.
* **Psychic Architecture** - In addition to psychic architecture to emphasize its already extreme stealthiness, the Chameleon has wards intended to protect from psychic detection, often slipping through divination attempts.