TC-970 Mallard

**Weapon Systems**

None. The Mallard is unarmed; however the dorsal hull and deck has numerous mounts for light to heavy weapons such as machine guns and grenade launchers.

**Airlords Aerodyne PLC TC-970 Mallard**

The Mallard is used by the Pirate’s Guild to transport small amounts of fighters and ground troops.

It uses ten huge turbo-prop engines in the atmosphere which in space fold up and are stowed away to reveal huge turbo jet engines.

**History**

The Mallard has served with Pirate Guild military forces since 4920 C.E and has been manufactured from that time to present. Older retired models can be found being used by various military and civilian agencies with large portions being sold off to Sargasso Deeps.

**Development**

Active research and development began in 4908 with the initial design taking place in early 4909 and was completed in mid-4910 with the first non-operable prototypes being manufactured in late 4911 and the first operable units in early 4912 with design/concept proofing taking place until mid-4919 when the vehicles final testing began with final approval occurring in late 4919 with production beginning shortly thereafter in 4920.

**Variants & Upgrades**

The TC-970 has three main variants –

970A – served with the Pirate Guild military from 4920-5420 C.E. and had half as many of the AiAe-72-60 thrusters and only able to support a platoons of infantry.

970B – served with the Pirate Guild military from 5421-5921 C.E. and doubled the number of maneuvering thrusters as well as gaining an upgrade to the life support system to sustain an additional two platoons.

970C – served with the Pirate Guild military from 5922 C.E. to present and underwent another life-support upgrade allowing it to carry a full company of infantry as well as mounting pylons for removable manned weaponry.

**Design**

The Mallard has a fat body with a tapering pointed bow with an upper launch deck for fighter craft and large wings with three turbo-prop engines each and another pair near the bow and two near the aft section.

The lower most part of the bow has a ramp to disembark troops.

The craft is powered by 144 HBT cells and has ten AiAe-515-103 plasma shock expansion engine that also feeds various thrusters across the craft’s body as well as having seventy-two additional AiAe-72-60 engines for finer maneuvering.

The craft has a standard operating range of 3,600 hours during standard patrol profiles but this drops to approximately 900 hours during pursuit and situations where speed and maneuverability is required as well as if needing to land troops or launch craft. The craft has a built in environmental system good for at least 300 hours.

The craft has a top speed of 515 KPH with everything being operated off of 144 standard HBT cells with six 24-cell energizers mounted in banks in the lower engineering space.

Finally the craft uses an Anaheim Arms AS-5/7-53 Sensor & Communications package which includes Pulse Doppler Radar Array, Multi-Spectrum Digital Camera System, Laser Terrain Guidance System, a warning system, flare launchers, and a gravitic planetary guidance system, as well as a multi-band digital communications.

The craft has a crew of twenty-five and can sustain standard operations for an infantry company [250 men] and fifty pilots/air-crew for up to a weeks’ time.

There is enough storage and deck space for ten aerospacecraft of fighter size as well as a below decks area for up to 25 AIFV size vehicles and the ship can carry up to 1,200 metric tons of cargo total.

**Armor**

The frame is 1mm thickness Dibitanium Ceramatite with an overall plating thickness of 10mm of Dibitanium Ceramatite which combined can shrug off up to 220 kJ of kinetic energy every round with the windscreen being 1mm thickness ceramo-glass and able to shrug off up to 15 kJ of kinetic energy.

The TC-970 Mallard also has a force screen system powered by 5,983 AN-M05V particle shielding system able to shrug off an additional 625 kJ of kinetic energy with a refresh rate of every twelve seconds giving the vehicle an overall defensive rating of 845 kJ of resistance before critical failure to any one point.

**Armament**

The TC-970 Mallard is unarmed save for its ability to mount light to heavy portable weaponry on pylon’s across the craft’s hull and deck.

**Operators**

The TC-970 is used exclusively by the Pirate Guild Military with anyone else using them generally as used craft.

**Other Troop Transport Craft**