Valkyrie Gunship

The **AV-35 "Valkyrie" Gunship** is a Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) airborne assault craft used primarily by the Dark Angels Air Force as both a ground support gunship and a transport for airborne combat squads.

## Specifications/Overview

### Military Usage

Valkyries are heavy-duty gunships used as anti-infantry and anti-vehicle air support in battle. They are usually preceded and accompanied by AV-14 Hornets and AT-99 Scorpions. Valkyries are an invaluable aerial asset. Their armaments allow them to carry out hit-and-run strikes and strafing runs on ground forces whilst swatting enemy flyers from the sky.

Heavily armed and armored, Valkyries are also agile carrier-gunships with experienced crews. Their pilots weave them through enemy fighters and ground fire to deliver their payload of soldiers, dropping them from high altitude via grav-chutes or hovering at lower levels while the troops jump out to storm the landing zone. Sporting a troop transport capacity of 3 squads (12 men), the Valkyrie is often used to swiftly redeploy squads of infantry.

### Weapons/Armament

The Valkyrie's primary armament is nose-mounted **Lascannon**. The powerful lascannon is a formidable laser weapon whose energetic beam of coherent energy is capable of penetrating most armored vehicles. Beside the cockpit are 4 **Multi-Lasers**, which are rapid-fire heavy laser weapons, ideal for destroying lightly-armored vehicles or infantry formations. While the standard Lascannon is a semi-automatic weapon (one squeeze of the trigger fires one shot), the Multi-Laser is fully automatic; it fires laser beam after laser beam as long as the trigger is held down. Mounted beneath its wings are two **TK-411 WAFAR** (Wrap-Around Fin Aerial Rocket) Air-to-Ground rocket pods with each pod carrying 238 rockets for a total of 476 rockets. These rockets can be swapped out with the even more devastating **AG-MFM 332 thermobaric warheads** for mass incinerations.

Four **Hellstrike Missiles** are also carried under its wings. These are solid-fuel air-to-surface anti-armor missiles outfitted with a high-explosive warhead intended for use during ground support airstrikes. It is a guided weapon equipped with an on-board Cogitator or artificial intelligence known as a "Logis-Engine." Sensors in the missile's nose transmit information on the location and movement of the target and the surrounding environment to the Logis-Engine, which alters the trajectory of the missile in flight by manipulating its stabilizing fins, allowing it to match the target's movements and avoid any obstacles.

The Valkyrie is also equipped with two door-mounted **Heavy Bolters** that are each manned by one gunner. This weapons configuration allows the Valkyrie, when using its VTOL capabilities, to stay on station once its troops have been dropped and provide air support or covering support fire during a difficult insertion. The Valkyrie can replace its Hellstrike Missiles with 2 extra external fuel tanks for extended range operations or 2 Multiple Rocket Pods. The aircraft can also be equipped with ejector seats, extra armor plating for the cockpit, flare or chaff launchers, **FLIR** (Forward Looking Infra-Red) targeting systems, and illumination flares.

Weapons fire is constrained by an **Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) Lockout system**, which prevents friendly fire incidents in complex engagements with multiple aircraft and targets. Essentially, any of the weapons refuses to fire if the projected probability cone of a friendly vehicle’s flight path will put it in the trajectory of the bullet downrange. All air vehicles in Angelian service can track each other in a battle theater in real time, using IFF beacons, and this data is integrated into the weapons systems via the IFF Lockout System.

### Design/Propulsion

The Valkyrie Gunship is a maneuverable, well-armed, twin-engine attack craft. The durable armor and versatile payload of the Valkyrie chassis combined with the aircraft's powerful engines and stable handling make it a popular choice for a broad spectrum of battlefield roles. These gunships use atmospherically-sealed cockpits and omni-combustible Promethium in their vector-turbojets, allowing them to be deployed against enemy flyers in the upper atmosphere and against ground forces on even the most hostile worlds.

With vectored engines permitting vertical take-off and landing, these versatile aircraft can twist and turn through the rigors of low-altitude dogfights, or hover while troops rappel from their holds. In addition, every Valkyrie is equipped with sufficient **Grav-Chutes** for all passengers, allowing expedient, if hazardous, high-speed deployment into the thick of combat.

### Valkyrie Variants

* **Vendetta** - The Valkyrie Vendetta is a Valkyrie modified to carry 3 Twin-linked Lascannons which allow it to operate in the role of a dedicated tank buster and anti-armor asset while still mounting the two Heavy Bolters at its doors. Some variants also replace 2 of the Twin-linked Lascannons placed on its wings with 2 **Hellfury Missiles** instead that are specifically designed to destroy armoured vehicles by unleashing an incendiary fury that cooks the vehicle's crew within its armored shell or can be used to drive enemy troops from cover in lieu of their wing-mounted Lascannons.