R-51 "Stingray" starfighter

## Offensive and defensive specs

### Armament

4 40mm Autocannons, 2 Strike Grade “Hawk Wyvern” Missile Launchers (24 Missiles)

## General information

### Additional systems

Class 4.0 Short Range Quantum Drive

The R-51 “Stingray” starfighter is the KTG’s latest space superiority fighter and is the successor to the R-47 “Venray”. While the older Venray fighters the Trade Guild had been fielding for decades were reliable and adequate for their military needs, the Katians wanted something more to remain competitive on the galactic scene. Though it doesn’t make the Venray wholly obsolete, it does boast a few notable improvements that make it a superior fighter overall. These upgrades include a stronger miniature fusion reactor and engines which allow the Stingray greater speed and agility than the Venray while also retaining the same amount of armor. Like most Katian craft, the Stingray lacks any form of shielding making it more fragile than contemporary craft with its armor protection alone considered average. Unlike most Fighters, the Stingray sacrifices anti-warship ordinance like torpedoes in exchange for a large number of missiles. This, along with its above average speed and maneuverability, encourages Katian pilots to avoid tangling with enemy craft up close and attack from a distance. Though it fights best at longer distances, the Stingray is still fully capable of engaging up close if forced into such dogfights. While not necessarily an improvement over its predecessor, rather than sticking to the flying wing design of the Venray, the R-51 goes for a shape more reminiscent to that of a conventional jet fighter like those used during the Katia Interplanetary War.

## **History**

In early 2565, when looking to upgrade their fleet of fighter craft, the Katian Navy tasked the same group who made the Venray, the Raynar Aerospace Company, to put together designs for the new ship. Raynar Aerospace would propose two designs to the Katian Navy, these were the R-51 “Stingray” and the R-49 “X-ray”, both of which showed promise. The Stingray stood as the logical step forward. It was simple, safe, modern and based on tried and proven aerospace fighter designs. The X-ray was more daring, stuck closer to the Venray’s flying wing silhouette, and incorporated a set of x-shaped S-foil wings like the Rebel Alliance’s galaxy famous X-wing. Some even proposed equipping shields to the craft. This would make it the first ever mass produced katian fighter with energy shields. While the Katian Navy was both intrigued and tempted by the R-49, they saw the X-ray as being too ambitious and expensive for what they needed. Thus the Stingray was the chosen design and put into testing and small scale production as the R-51DTP or “Deployment Test Prototype”. When the Reaper Invasion began in 2566, efforts to speed up the Stingray’s testing were tripled. This wasn’t enough, however, with the Trade Guild’s fighter force sustaining catastrophic losses during the early phases of the invasion, they needed the new craft immediately.

The Trade Guild rushed the completion of the Stingray’s trials, with many mechanical issues and design flaws being overlooked in the frenzy to get the craft to the front in large numbers. These issues would become immediately apparent in the Stingray’s first deployments. On the DTP model of the R-51, the missiles were stored in the wings and the launchers were designed as sleek, thin, long, hump-like protrusions that flowed with the wing’s curve. These were meant to allow more space in the central hull for stronger engines. While these engines did make the craft faster, the wings simply didn’t have enough internal space to store an adequate number of missiles for the way in which the craft was meant to fight. Additionally, the DTP’s aft landing gear was placed roughly where the missile launchers would be on future models. This made the craft rear heavy when landed with the rear legs themselves also being quite brittle with a tendency to break on less careful, rapid landings. These issues, among many others, partly contributed to the high number of casualties the fighters sustained during the Reaper War.

Despite this extremely rough start, the knowledge gained from the Stingray’s blunt and bloody trial by fire proved invaluable towards the end of the war where the Trade Guild started working out their kinks enough for them to truly show their potential. The proper, finished model known as the R-51 “Stingray”, had rearranged the landing gear and missiles to a better configuration while stamping out most of the other issues the craft had. The relocation of the missile launchers did come at a small cost in the form of the fighter’s engines needing to be made a bit smaller and less powerful, thus reducing its speed somewhat. This sacrifice would be ultimately inconsequential, however. After the Reaper War’s conclusion in 2568, the Stingray would get another chance to prove itself during the Recovery Period in the wake of increased activity from pirates and raiders’ following the weakening of the galaxy’s major powers. In these small-scale skirmishes, the Stingray performed spectacularly and conclusively cemented its place as the KTG’s new main fighter. Since then, it has been issued to most squadrons across Katian space.