Victory Helicarrier

## Tactical Analysis

* **Release the Swa-...err...:** The Victory Helicarrier certainly isn't going to be throwing any vast storms of aircraft into the air. It instead launches a single super-gunship, the Composite-Longbow(S), a modification of the famed attack helicopter equipped with more and harder hitting missiles, a larger cannon, heavier armor, and a new engine; though it's range is reduced, making it dependent on the carrier. If the helicopter is destroyed, more await inside the ship's hull.

* **Damage control!:** In desperate situations, the victory can shut down it's flight deck and focus entirely on repairs, reducing it's susceptibility to harm and allowing the crew to patch up damage with remarkable speed. It is however, otherwise defenseless.

* **So where's that Chopp-oh.:** Being only able to operate a single helicopter at a time, the Victory is in for a rough time should it be caught with the helicopter away on a mission, meaning that escort is absolutely vital. In addition, heavy enemy anti-air or air superiority assets can render the Victory impotent.

* **Two is double the trouble!:** Experienced Victory Helicarrier crews are capable of coordinating two Helicopters at a time with no loss in efficiency, allowing for double the danger as with a wingman, these helicopters have a better chance of getting to do some damage and can strike at enemies far harder. If the Helicopters themselves attain distinction, they gain electronic warfare suites that help thwart enemy attacks, especially those of missiles.

## Background

"*Helicopter away, good luck Khali's Blood.*"

"*I will roger that, Rajah's Fist."*

- Conversation between a helicarrier and its crew.
In an odd reversal of the norm, as far as the Navy is concerned, the Frontier Corps is the one that gets the smaller equipment. The Commonwealth Navy, with its cruisers, and even a number of battleships and aircraft carriers, keeps all the biggest ships to itself. The Frontier Corps is expected to do most of its fighting inland, and as such was equipped primarily with ships that could cross rivers while still being able to traverse the ocean. As such, its greatest vessel is a humble helicopter carrier. Not even a particularly large helicopter carrier, in fact. Designed as a mobile helicopter base that could follow the troops inland while still being affordable by the French, the *Victory* is the Frontier Corps' long range strike vessel.

Once France deemed the *Victoire* obsolete, India surprised many by ordering all the surviving vessels as well as the license to produce more as needed. In need of money to maintain her increasingly-tenuous grip on her colonies, France agreed. The newborn Frontier Corps quickly fitted the ships according to their needs and started production on more of them. Soon, wherever the Frontier Corps' navy set out, the rechristened *Victory*-class would be at the helm, coordinating naval assets and dispatching helicopter support to wherever it was needed.

When WWIII came, India's first priority was the containment of the Soviet Union and its allies. The battle against communism was hard fought, but ultimately something of a limited war; with nearly all of its adversaries being separated by mountain or sea, the war was a distant affair and one that had relatively limited need for its ships. India's struggle against the Red Menace was quickly cut short, however, by an unexpected threat; the Empire of the Rising Sun. Japan had long desired the wealth of India, and now they were going to seize it by any means.

The Indian fleet would receive its first true test against the largest navy in the world, the Imperial Armada. Though the Imperials were spread all across the world, even attacking places as far west as Gibraltar, the force that struck at India seemed as vast and limitless as any other; with Imperial floating fortresses disgorging vast hordes of enemy soldiers and locking down the seaways of the Indian Ocean.

Here the *Victory* would have to prove its worth in a baptism of fire. First deployed along with a few other assault ships to destroy the Japanese garrison in the Andaman Islands, the helicarriers showed promise early on when their Composite-Longbows successfully repelled tanks, ships and transports from heading towards Burma. Even when a Seawing ambush took out a few of their helis, the Victory's escorts were able to mop up enemy defenses, and repeated helicopter attacks took out the rest. When news of this victory reached the forces in the Commonwealth mainland, Frontier Navy admirals called for so many helicarriers to be deployed in major river systems in little time that it seemed that some of them had to carry ultralight helicopters instead of Longbows.

Even with ultralights, the *Victory* helped in keeping the Empire at bay. When a helicarrier took heavy damage, the ship's crew and even the helicopter pilots picked up tools and patched up the holes. In a larger scale, when sepoys or Rama tanks got eliminated, the Longbow crew took it to themselves provide covering fire. Upon Japan's surrender, Frontier Navy commanders noticed the tight-knit bond between the ship and helicopter crews, where many preferred to remain in the same ship or helicopter than move somewhere else. Their requests were approved (out of pragmatism), and are now in the forefront of the African Horn War, where the coordination between helicopter and helicarrier help in taking down GLA warbands and League war derricks. It goes without saying that where India lacks in sophisticated technology, they make up for with esprit de corps.