Corsair Bomber

**The Corsair Bomber** is a large aircraft used throughout the Astartes Legions during the Great Crusade, Icarion Insurrection and continues it's service today. With it's large airframe it could fit a number of munitions on board that allowed it to fit many mission profiles. Mainly used as an in-atmosphere bomber it could be outfitted with several anti-ship torpedoes for void warfare, and had several gun emplacements to ward off attacks from smaller craft. Along with the impressive armament the Corsair boasted a Iota-Nominal Plasma Reactor normally used in Warlord-Class Titans, providing an incredible amount of thrust and maneuvering capability both in and out of atmosphere. Throughout it's service life it has proven to be a reliable and deadly asset to Astartes commanders, levelling entire armies or even making titan kills against xenos (And later traitor) warmachines.

## **History**

During the early years of the Emperor's Great Crusade the Corsair saw it's use amongst the fledgling legions in multiple theatres against many threats. Xenos strongholds unassailable from the ground had their shields buckled and their defences broken by the various munitions wielded by the Corsair and it's pilots. While a dangerous card to have in any commander's deck they were of an ancient design, even by the crusade's beginning, and were complex beasts. Multiple instances of machine-spirits rebelling against new pilots made the achievement of bonding with one a rare occurrence, and in such cases, rewarded with a loyal machine that could fly into the mouth of the warp and back.

Many sub-variants of the corsair began to pop up as each legion also modified them to their particular style of warfare, these ranging from extensive stealth systems to the incorporation of void shielding or even taking out the bomb bay all together for the ability to carry assault troops to be dropped or even teleported behind enemy lines.

During the later years of the Crusade and at the beginning of the Insurrection The craft had declined in use, partly to the invention of smaller and cheaper craft to fill it's role as well as the picky nature of the Machine Spirit itself. Those that remained in service still proved to be valuable assets, with some elements of the Fire Keepers modifying their Corsair's with heavy-duty armour plating and extra anti-air turrets. Forgoing the advantage of speed to turn it into a mobile air-fortress that saw them through both the Insurrection and the Solar War.

Still in use to this day they are still a rare sight on the battlefield due to the high requirements of the machine spirit and the maintenance that is needed to keep it operational, but when it is used it is sure to turn the tide of any battle.

## **Design**

Contrary to a lot of Astartes vehicles and their blocky design the Corsair uses one of the simplest shapes humanity has taken advantage of since the stone age, the arrowhead. A stocky central body smoothly sweeps into to long, elongated wings and a pointed nose, with various control surfaces along their edges. These smooth lines eventually leading into a stocky and powerful engine at the rear. Due to the large nature of the Corsair and it's design it cannot take off vertically, and either must use a runway or be launcher from magnetic rails from a ship. Although as an alternative it can be mounted external to the ship itself and use retro-thrusters to move away before engaging it's main drive.

### Armament

* 2 internal bomb bays situated in the belly of the craft, allowing for ordnance up to a maximum limit of 68,000kg's (150,000lbs) with the standard configurations detailed below:
	+ 4x Anti-ship Torpedoes
	+ 24x (3000kg/6600lb) Apocalypse Missiles mounted in rotary launchery assemblies
	+ 36x (1800kg/4000lb) Large Guided Plasma/Melta Bombs mounted on large bomb rack assemblies
	+ 144x (450kg/1000lb) High Explosive/Incendiary Bombs mounted on bomb rack assemblies

### Control Systems

The cockpit houses the 5 main operating stations of the bomber, with the Pilot and Co-Pilot's position taking up the majority of the room. These two consoles are redundant with the entire craft being able to be controlled from either in the event one is damaged. Both stations are replete with large MUI interfaces, feeding sensory input from the various outstations and any allied forces to allow for a full battle-picture of the local airspace.

The Bombardiers position is supported by a slaved servitor monitoring conditions in the local area such as weather and helping calculate bombimb solutions. This station allows for a set amount of munitions to be dropped in controlled waves as well as inputting targeting solutions for enemies below; whether general, or being used in conjunction with ground-based targeting devices.

The Defensive Systems Operator is in charge of the local airspace around the aircraft, taking in data from radar and visual inputs and designating any engagement parameters for the defensive turret systems. He is also in charge of programming electronic countermeasuresdepending on the enemy present in the strategic area. As a secondary job role they are also in charge of communications, passing orders from HQ or bombing coordinates from allied ground forces.

As the overseer of the whole operation, a Techmarine will be present to monitor the ship itself and help with any emergency repairs needed. Their main task is to oversee the safe operation of the Corsair's plasma reactor, maintaining it so that the aircraft can reach it's target and get the job done.

### Defensive Systems

Through various combined method of armouring, the Corsair manages to maintain a fair balance between armour and manoeuvrability that is distinct of Astartes craft. An Adamantium airframe is covered in dense layers of Armaplas plates interlaces with a Thermoplas fibre mesh before finally being covered in a mixture of Ceramite plating with more moulded thermoplas to strengthen the bonds between the different layers. The combination of these methods means any projectile may defeat one type of armour but struggle or fail all together against the others in the layered composition.

Countermeasures, both electronic and non are placed around the craft, with several inset banks containing flares or basic electronicdecoys can be activated individually. The electronic decoys can be pre-programmed for a variety of enemy munitions and should be changed according to those enemies present.

The main defensive system available to the Corsair is the 4 close-in weapon systems (CIWS) to defend itself from any hostile engaging it. These four turrets are mounted at various positions around the aircraft; with one on the top of each wingtip, one under the nose and the final turret mounted ontop to allow for full coverage of the airspace around the bomber. Each turret consists of twin-linked Hydra Long-Barrel autocannons which are belt-fed from magazines deep within and controlled by individual weapons servitors slaved to the console within the cockpit.

### Engines

With a sizable Iota-Nominal plasma reactor powering the Phanta-XII Rocket engine the Corsair can output enough power to be able to move a small starship given a couple hours. Even with the Corsair as heavily armed and wieghty as it is, it can easily maintain speeds of Mach 1.45 and can be pushed to Mach 1.6 when used in conjunction with the secondary ramjet engines in atmosphere. Smaller manoeuvring thrusters have nozzles placed around the craft and are used to aide in evasion tactics or for making delicate manoeuvres in the void through short bursts from the plasma reactor. The reactor can also reliably allow the aircraft to reach any destination on a given planet, only limited by the need to land occasionally to bleed off excess reactor heat and recharge it's coolant systems.

## Legion-Specific Patterns

### Steel Legion 'Horus' Pattern

Through the installation of various sensor turrets around the body of the air plane, all of which providing thermal/night visions, auspex and magnetic detection suites, the Steel Legion Horus prides itself on having 100% awareness of the skies around it. This level of complexity in it's detection systems allow it to bypass even the famed holofields quipped on Eldar aircraft, allowing for a higher kill-percentage. The sensors are intensive in their power consumption and use, even needing a second Techmarine to man the Defensive Systems Operator position, which is now fitted with a heavy-duty MUI interface to properly control it. A secondary benefit of these improved sights is the ability to scan high-resolution data of the planet and send disseminate it amongst allied forces.

The Close-in weapons systems have had their long-barreled autocannons replaced in favour of a missile pod with both anti-fighter and anti-missile strike capability. These missile pods are a smaller system consisting of an external pod with 12 missiles housed inside, with no way to resupply them until the aircraft lands or docks. With the system being entirely external and not needing ammunition feeds running throughout the craft, it leaves more space. This extra space allows an additional 2 turrets to be mounted on the underside of the wingtip, mirroring those on top.

A Further upgrade is to the munitions themselves, specifically the in-atmosphere ones. All bombs and missiles that are loaded from Steel Legion armouries have recieved cogitator upgrades that can be activated by the bombardier's station when the munition parameters are set. Munitions will have an optional function to be linked to the Symbios, and either through the sensor turrets or through Steel LEgion ground forces, help guide the bombs to their target. This has a marked increase in the overall accuracy of almost 300%, meaning almost every munition is guided with pinpoint accuracy.

### Void Eagles 'Voidbreaker' Pattern

Throughout the ships body the normal manoeuvering thrusters have been taken out and replaced with an extensive plasma shunt system, allowing plasma energy to be redirected to small-scale exhaust ports dotted around the airframe. The purpose of this system is to aide in manoeuvering as a short burst from these exhausts can be used to drastically change the orientation of the aircraft. While the system itself is powerful it can easily be underestimated and any pilots must train extensively to achieve perfect control. When this is achieved they can throw the bomber around the sky with such skill that it could be mistaken for a fighter due to the speed and accuracy of it's movements.

A simple system to increase the potential killing capacity of the aircraft is to simply add more bombs, the problem being space. The bomb bay can only hold so many bombs, so the Void Eagles have found a way around this by adding additional hardpoints onto the underside of the wings. These 4 hardpoints (2 on each wing) may increase the aircrafts radar signature, but it means it can house additional weapons as listed below:

* 1 hardpoint can accomodate:
	+ 1x Anti-Ship Torpedo
	+ 4x Apocalypse Missiles in a missile pod
	+ 9x Large Guided Plasma/Melta Bombs on a bomb ejector rack
	+ 36x High Explosive/Incendiary bombs on a bomb ejector rack

The final change made by the Void Eagles was a fundamental one to the basic Corsair chassis in the bomb bay. The normal bomb racks and rotary assemblies were stripped out entirely, reinforced with titanium struts and fitted with a multitude of docking clamps all centered around one device; The White Obsidian. This single massive missile is both a delivery vehicle and large guided bomb itself, as the main body houses 120 individual bombs along with one large warhead at the front of the missile. With the typical Void Eagle style the bombs are loaded with phosphex, radiation or nuclear munitions to cause the maximum amount of devastation amongst the enemy

The normal deployment of a White Obsidian missile consist of several key phases. Phase one is when the bomb is pre-loaded with data of the target area by the bombardier, giving it a target to guide itself onto in the event it drifts off course. Phase two is when the missile is dropped and reached approximately 10km above the target, it them opens the protective cowling around the main body and deploys the bombs within. The final phase is when all the bombs have been deployed. The body of the missile uses the drag from the deployed cowling to slow it's descent, allowing the bombs to hit their target first. After a set amount of time the missile them accelerates, using up the last of it's fuel to impact the ground before detonating. Needless to say this method of multiple waves of destruction hitting enemies has broken many and army and bunker wide open, leaving nothing but dust, burning phosphex and deadly, radiation-scarred earth behind.

### Scions Hospitalier 'Albatross' Pattern

While many legions choose to alter the vehicles within their armoury, it is usually to make them deadlier or help facilitate that goal. The Albatross is an example of the latter as it has had most of it's offensive capability remoned, essentially turning it from a bomber into a super-vehicle transport.

The Scion's saw the potential of the Corsair and took it in their own direction, seeing fit to repurpose most of th e bomb bays, replacing them with extensive additions to the adamantium skeleton of the craft and extending it to the entire underside. This extension of the aircraft's underside has been reinforced with adamantium spars, thermaplas plates, docking clamps and support connections, all facilitating the transportation of the various submarines used by the XIXth Legion. Through cabling and connection information and power can be passed from the Albatross to the units being carried, and even allows for targeting data to be fed to any relecant weapons systems the submarine can bring to bear while being transported. Due to the nature of support systems needed as well as the extra superstructure the aircraft operates at a much-reduced speed than the standard pattern. This is then reduced further when loaded with vehicles, while it still remains impressve, a fully laden Albatross is reduced to a third it's normal speed. (**Cruise Speed**: 720kmh (477mph/Mach 0.6) **Max Speed**: 900kmh (559mph/Mach 0.7))

In support of the maratime operations that are a staple of the Ninteenth Legion what little remains of the bomb bay has been repurposed, adding an ejection system based near the rear of the craft where munitions are dropped. With a delayed delivery system the remnants of the bay are loaded with a mixture of sonar buoys or sea mines, depending on the mission profile.

#### Sea Mines

The Sea Mines are cylindrical in shape, using it's own weight to sink to the sea floor and await activation. Each culinder is 3 metres tall and 0.5 metres in diameter and armed with a multitude of sensors and equipment, including magnetic detection and a friend-or-foe designation system. At the top is a 1.5m block of plastic explosives, while the bottom has a rocket powered motor. The mine is designed to detect any ship witha large enough amount of metal to set off the magnetic detection sensor, at which point it will engage the rocket motor and launch towards the target.

#### Sonobuoys

The sonobuoys, once deployed, float down to a set depth, determined by the mission parameters input before launch, aiming for likely depths where the enemies are believed to be. It makes use of both passive and active sensors to find targets in an area with thorough sweeps. Attached to small transmitters by a length of cabling, these transmitters float on the surface, sending back the information picked up by the buoys to an antennae on the underside of the aircraft.

The final set of upgrades are more major changes to the aircraft to allow it to complete it's role as a super-heavy vehicle carrier. The first replaces most of the Armaplas plates on the upper surface of the craft to reduce it's overall weight. This does mean the upper half of the aircraft is distinctly reduced in it's defensive capacity, having to rely on defensive turrets and escorts for survivability. This lack of protection works in conjunction with several small ballast tanks and extensive waterproofing, to allow the aircraft to land in water and stay afloat, where it can deploy any submersibles docked underneath it. From this position in the water it can accelerate and take off again like other water-landing craft if it has enough room to do so. The second upgrade consists of etensive expansion of the existing countermeasure pods. Tripling the amount of decoy launching pods on board allows for a widerange of counter-measures to be stocked, both physical and electronic.

### Fire Keepers 'Strato-Keep' Pattern

Known for their proficiency in siege warfare the Fire Keepers saw the Corsair as a chance to take that methodology to the skies themselves. Boasting increased defensive capability in both armour and defensive weapons it sports a salvo of devestating graviton warheads capable of levelling mountain ranges.

As is typical with more Fire Keeper designs the Strato-Keep swaps out the ceramite armour for plates of solid adamantium moulded with armaplas into the airframe. Ceramite is used specifically on the outer layer of the aircraft, with several thick sheets lining the fuselage and small ablative plates layered over the wings and around the cockpit. The entire surface of the craft is then covered in a layer of reflective paint that helps dissapate energy attacks with very high efficiency. The use of multiple layers of differing armour types allows the armour to defeat a wide range of weaponry and blunt the effects of anti-vehicle attacks such as lascannon blasts. With all this added weight it drastically reduces the speed of standard variant relies on, only being able to move half as fast as the original (**Cruise Speed**: 900kmh (559mph/Mach 0.7) **Max Speed**: 1000kmh (621mph/ Mach 0.8))

The amount of defence turrets have been increased providing more survivability as well as killing potential against enemy aircraft. 3 more twin-linked Hydra Long-Barrel Autocannon turrets turrets have been installed with 2 on the underside of each wing, and one above the cockpit. With all these turrets linked together with a system of multi-feeds that lead to them, allow the turrets to switch between Flak, Armour Piercing and Plasma-tipped ammunition. The versatility this provides allows the defensive array to be devestating against almost any aircraft fielded against it. Additionally one single large turret is mounted on the underside of the fuselage, mounting a single MkIII Synne Volcano Cannon. The array to mount such a formidable weapon as well as the power required are so great that the gun must be mounted directly to adamantium frame and rest for 3 full minutes between shots to recharge from the plasma generator. To operate the weapon the bombardier is given control of the weapons system and able to target it using a seperate console. Though accurate targeting requires skill and usually some sort of assisstance from ground forces in the case of a moving target like a titan. This does mean less munitions to drop on an enemy from the bomb bay, but when the Strato-Keep can reliably score titan-kills from the upper atmosphere, it is seen as a necessary trade-off.

The final change in the design the Fire Keepers made was a specialist munitions loadout, transforming the bomb bay to fit a salvo of cruise-missiles with a special graviton warhead at the top of each one. To accommodate the missiles the munitions bay is fitted with two rows of clamps on top of one another, in total able to hold 10 missiles in total. Named the '**Redemption**' Missile after the Primarch's personal hammer it has shown it's destructive power many over against both entire armies and once-thought impregnable fortress'. The graviton warheads work on the principle of creating a large field of gravity around the point of impact, making everything within the blast area to weigh so much that it crushes troops, tanks and causes foundations and walls to crumble under their own weight. The Warheads can be altered by the Techmarine managing the munitions before they're loaded into the bomber, allowing it to compensate for the local world's gravity and to vary the radius of effect if precision is needed. Due to the powerful nature of the warheads they can only be kept in limited amounts on the aircraft as the graviton projection devices inside the warheads can interfere with some of the more delicate machinery within the cockpit. This rarely leads to occasional system malfunctions but the effect is lessened as the payload is dropped as there is currently no way to shield against the combined gravitational effects.

### The Drowned 'Puppeteer' Pattern

The Drowned, like many of their tactics after being reunited with their liege lord, saw the adoption and subsequent alteration of the Corsair bomber into their armouries. Developed to enhance the speed, accuracy and lethality of precision strikes, the bomber had been altered so much that it is technically no longer a bomber. Instead functioning as a deployment platform and command vehicle.

The first and main alteration made to the base Corsair design is the refitting of the bomb bay. Taking out all of the support struts and internal weapon pylons, that empty space has been turned into a teleportarium instead. The installation of such a complex and powerful piece of equipment demands both an extreme amount of power and an abundance of support systems to make sure it operates properly. With the bulk of the device being on the bottom of the aircraftthere is a large square bulge on the underside, increasing drag dramatically. Alongside this, power consumption, even when idle, places strain on the Plasma Reactor, drawing away much of the power normally allocated to the engines, reducing the speed to 66% of a baseline Corsair. (**Cruise Speed**: 1200kmh (745mph/Mach 0.9) **Max Speed**: 1320kmh (820mph/Mach 1))

To accurately target the teleportation device a complex and ancient set of scanning and targeting devices are housed ona ball turret on the belly of the craft. This optical package, nicknamed Medua, can designate teleportation targets through line-of-sight if there is no homing beacon present. This is considered far more risky than using a homer due to it's inaccuracy, but is very effective as it does not rely on ground troops being present, and allows the Drowned to maintain the element of surprise. A backup system in the case that the Medusa isn't available, it consists of several small external mounts for guided munitions, but in place of an explosive warhead a teleport homing beacon is embedded. While this does provide a fallback in the case Medusa isn't available the munitions themselves are nowhere near as accurate as the Medusan optics. The bombs themselves are also very costly munitions to create, both in terms of technology and resources, to this end they are only used if absolutely necessary.

A second Techmarine oversees the operation of the teleportarium alongside a handful of legion serfs who maintain the subsystems that power and control the device, but there is also a member of the Adpetuc Mechanicus who supports the operation as well.

Lining either side of the teleportarium itself are to banks of bays, replete with charging stations, repair tools, diagnosters and cogitators for the repair, encoding and deployment of the XVIth legion battle-automata. The limited space can only hold 4 squads of automata, but these range in size from the small Thallax, the venerable Vorax design all the way up to Castellan class automata which are deployed in the war-zone below.

while these battle-automata are capable of complex tasks and solving problems they are by no means as smart as their Dark Age of Technology brethren, and so their operations are overseen from the aircraft as it flies above the battlefield. A command room is placed adjacent to the cockpit which allows for a marine operator to oversee basic troubleshooting requests from the maniples, while overall command is given to a Consul Praevian. Master of the battle-automata the PRaevian effectively guide the robots, updating various elements of their functions, changing any engagement parameters, search functions and using the firepower and abilities effectively. The control room itself consists of two large chairs with heavy-duty MIU interface ports as wlel as a bank of screens displaying the camera feeds from the automata and the overhead camera view from the aircraft. Cogitators allow the interface between the commands being input on the ship and are sent down to the waiting receivers of the robots via a high-powered comms link. A disadvantage of this system is that if there is heavy clouds, blocking line-of-sight the communication link cannot maintain a connecction. In this case the Drowned Praevian would have to pre-prepare commands for multiple scenarioes and be ready to assess the situation and issue the appropriate commands in the instant contact is re-established. While the system overall is a delicate one, the ability to use Puppeteer as a mobile deployment platform/command vehicle provides a focused strike at an enemy, with minimal epediture of munitions.

Due to the extreme overhaul of the airframe the normal role of the Corsair as a bomber has become a secondary mission role, with most Drowned commanders choosing to use it as a method of stealthily inserting decapitation strikes. While still secondary though, the Puppeteer does retain the ability to transport and deploy heavy ordnance, but instead of the storage being interal, it's external. Along the underside of each wing are 2 pylons that can support the normal variation of weaponry abailable to the standard Corsair. Externally mounting the ordnance does mean to drop in airspeed and an increase in you radar signature, but this is negligible due to the power output of the reaction. Each of these four pylons can house additional weapons as listen below:

* 1 Hardpoint can accommodate:
	+ 1x Anti-Ship Torpedo
	+ 4x Apocalypse Missiles in a missile pod
	+ 4x Hydra Cluster Bombs
	+ 9 Large Guided Plasma/Melta bombs on a bomb ejector rack
	+ 36x High Explosive/Incendiary bombs on a bomb ejector rack

The notable inclusion of the Hydra Cluster bomb to the list has been specifically designed and built by the Drowned for their legion's personal use. The Hydra Cluster bomb consists of a main body, equipped with a limited amount of guidance through several control funs mounted of the rear. The front of the munition consists of the main housing, to reveal the cluster munitions that opens into 3 sections. to reveal the cluster munitions beneath. Under the housing are 80 small bomblets, arranged in a cylindrical mounting. Each of these individual bomblets -each roughly the size of an astartes grenade-can be any type of munition, but those favoured highly by the Drowned such as phosphex through or radition are the standard configuration. The latter third of the bomb are made up of the flight control system and the deployment configuration system, the latter of which controls the specific pattern that a user wants the bombs to fall in. Thee patterns range from a cone shape, a straight line, randomly scattering or even be set to work in airburst mode, which has proven particularly effective in tandem with phosphex munitions. These commands are all all input by the Bombardier within the cockpit before deployment along with any desired coordinates for the target.

## Famous Wars and Battles

Altai II Campaign - Under the Godslayers

The Vremalkyr Incursions - Under the Void Eagles

The Siege of Macragge - Under the Warbringers

The Siege of Madrigal - Under the Warbringers

The Salvation of Scythae - Under the Halcyon Wardens

The Ark Reach - Under the Halcyon Wardens

The Schism of Mars - Under the Halcyon Wardens

The Qarith Crusade - Under the Scions Hospitalier and The Drowned

The Schism of Mars - Under the Fire Keepers

The Defeat of WAAAGH! Skullkrak - Under the Fire Keepers

## Notable Corsair Bombers

* ***Král' Neba*** - Of the Godslayers 3rd Brotherhood

* ***Fate's End*** - Steel Legion 134th Airborne Element

* ***Skybreaker*** - Personal Corsair of Acao Culica of the Void Eagles 2nd Fleet

* ***Król Husycki*** - Of the Warbringers 4th Principate

* ***Regulus Prior*** - Of the Halcyon Wardens Order of the Shield

* ***Daecomasika*** - Of the Halcyon Wardens Order of the Shield

* ***Tridents Point*** - Of the Scions Hospitalier 17th Battalion

* ***Onyx Scale*** - Personal Corsair of Thirgen of the Fire Keepers Tribe Barinthus

* ***Knife's Edge*** - Personal Corsair of Drethil Hammerhand, Shoalmaster of the 92nd Tendril