Harpy

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The Harpy is a multi-roll fighter used by the Gudersnipe Foundation. Originally commissioned as a long-range bomber, the Harpy's high degree of utility made it the primary fighter for the entire Foundation.

Harpy.jpg

Design History

While Gudersnipe School has a long history of producing new technologies for the Foundation, when something really needs to be done right the first time, they turn to the Crimson Blade Corps of Engineers. The Harpy project was originally considered too mundane for school involvment, despite possing a handful of interesting design challenges.

Lieutenant Commander Harlem Beck of the CBCE was placed in charge of the project. Bombers were nothing new, the Foundation had been operating varying designs since the heady days of the old Gudersnipe Army, and essentially had two requirments: the ability to carry bombs and to survive enemy defenses long enough to delever those bombs to a target.

The old Horseman-class of long-range bomber had been phased out a decade earlier, following only a 50-year service run. The Horseman had been an engineering disaster, but proved the need for a long-range bomber. Short, and mid-range bombers already in operation came with a variety of setbacks that made them problematic. Traditional bomber-carriers carried their payload in radles arranged perpendicular to the forward-axis of the ship. While bombers could typically be launched at speed, the carriers only had a 30PSL flank. With the large payloads required at the time to be effective, conventional bombers came with a long acceleration curve.

However, a new type of weapon had recently been developed: the N2 warhead.The requirments specified for the Harpy indicated that it must carry an equivalant payload to the Gargoyle-class mid-range bomber, but be able to launch from the catapults carried on fighter-carriers.

This seemed like an impossible task at the begining, but Lieutenant Commander Beck immediatly brought fourth an important breakthrough. Before joining the CDCE, Beck studied military history for tw years. He knew that the catapults still in use aboard fighter-carriers still conformed to standards established Ages before, specifically a standard that allowed them to carry the Condor-class reconnaissance fighter, phased out over a millenia earlier.

This allowed the ships to launch a caft over 40% larger than the Hawk-class escort fighter typically carried. The extra room in the design window made possible a fighter capable of meeting and exceeding all the requirments, especially when coupled with the new N2 technology.

Design Features

The Harpy's design was unique and innovative, abandoning many long-standard conventions.

Engines

The Harpy is propelled by two bi-directional Ion vacuum drives designed specifically for it. Previous fighters relied on Bussard Ramjet engines for main acceleration thrust, making the Harpy the first fighter/bomber to rest exclusively on the Ion-vacuum drive.

Numerous advancments in small-scale Ion-vacuum technology made durring the late Fifth Age were encorporated into the Harpy's engine design, along with a few new tricks. A revolutionary feature at the time was the unequal bi-directional engine.

Starship-scale equal bi-directional engines had been in wide use since the beginning of the Fifth Age, which allowed a spacecraft to reverse direction without turning around. The system worked by simple running the engine backwards, turning the forward intakes into motors and the rear motors into intakes. This of course required a significant re-design of the engine, but was still a very useful advancement. Since each end of the system essentially had to function as both an intake and a motor, they became substantialy more complicated and bulkier.

This was a minor trade-off for a starship, where extra mass was fairly inconsequental, but would have been crippling to a fighter. The solution employed by the Harpy was unequal bi-direction; essenially the forward intakes could act as motors but only provide 30% thrust equivalant to the rear, while the rear motors acting as intakes could only draw about 20% equivalant to the thrust. This meant the Harpy could not effectively 'fly backwards' without burning additional fuel, but allowed it to whip around at high speed.

Essentially, the Harpy designers had taken an element intended to allow large starships to change directions without turning, and employed it to make their spacecraft turn very fast.

Armament

Offensive Payload

An unusual decision was for the Harpy's payload to consist of missiles instead of bombs. Traditional bombers carried proximety-fused magnetic bombs, that once released would be pulled towards the target. The Harpy instead carried a payload of N2 missiles. This allowed it to launch its attack from much further away, and ensure more direct hits as the missiles had some ability to manuver where magnetic bombs moved in a straight line.

Additionally, an attack launched at close range would allow the Harpy's payload an even deadlier impact, as the fuel stored in the rocket motors could act as a secondary to the N2 warhead.

The final advantage, and reason for the decision, was that this allowed the Harpy to use its payload for defense as well as offence.

Defensive Payload

The Harpy was designed with two modular compartments in each wing, intended to hold a defensive projectile weapon of some sort. Those were the exact words of the design team, "of some sort". During the design process, the defensive weapons had not yet been settled on.

The original generation of Harpy was manufactured with railguns, produced in various factories and shipped to the carriers seperately from the fighter frames. The Foundation contracted a number of outside firms to develop alternate defensive payloads for the modular bays. Ostensibly, this was done to provide economic stimulation during the war, though a number of systems were produced and went into service with high degrees of success. Various types of beam canons, pulse lasers, compressed energy weapons, and even a laser Gatling gun saw action.

The number of armament choices contributed to the Harpy's success; pilots felt less confined by their defensive payload, and mission planners had the ability to to very armaments more widely.

The most common and favorite weapon was a type of plasma gatling gun very similar to the one used on the Nimbus frieghter-escort-fighter. This weapon required some modification to the Harpy and was slow to adopt. The gun siphoned dry plasma from the engine for ammunition, which was advantageous from a turn-around standpoint as it did not need to be reloaded. The downside lay in higher fuel consumption. Eventually, a hybrid variant that combined the plasma gatling gun with a railgun was offered, which allowed the pilot to switch between armament according to fuel and amunition needs.

Other Systems

Active jaming and ECM systems are prevelent, though power consumption makes them tricky to operate. ECM large enough to defend a fighter required enormous power, which the Harpy simply did not have. Active jaming systems were also imperfect.

The Harpy's high degree of speed was its primary defensive assett. If a missile was fired, standard operating procedure was simply to accelerate.

Look Back/Shoot Back

A key problem facing most starfighters is the Look Back/Shoot Back capacity, which was mssing from all but the most specialized starcraft for much of recorded history. Seventy PSL+ fighters are especially vulnerable.

The Harpy was designed with Look Back functionality from the start, in the form of a dedicated, high-frequenc LIDAR-system mounted on the back. The distinctive "tail-fin"-like protrusions mounted over each engine contain the emitters, while a small bulge in the back includes a very sensitive receiver. While the system has a shorter range than the main sensor array and is poor at detectinge low-observable stealth spacecraft, it is none the less preferable over simply having a gap in the rear.

As soon as the starcraft began to function as a fighter, pilots demanded the addition of shoot-back capability. Any number of suggestions were submitted, up to and including a manned ball turret gunner. A few Harpy variants were produced with un-manned turrets to provide better close-in defense, but the shot-back problem was solved very easily: they simply turned some of the missiles around.

Even the stock Harpy had limited shoot-back capacity in the form of guided missiles. The very first solution ever issues was a software patch that allowed the missiles, once released, to use their guidance thrusters to turn around before igniting the main engine. The second, and permenant solution involved re-designing the bomb hard-points to accept a missile facing either direction. On high-threat missions, as many as half of the weapons payload can be set to fire in reverse-mode.

Power

Perhaps the most ingenious design aspect of the Harpy was its lack of an onboard power generator. Instead, the ship uses the mechanical motion of its fuel reactor to generate electricity for onboard systems.

Cold-start power is supplied by a buffer charged from the carrier or base's main power source. The buffer is then recharged by the engines as soon as they are operable, much like the battery starter in an internal combustion engine.

FTL Drive

The Harpy carries a small Faster Than Light drive which is a scaled down version of the type powering big ships. The stated use of the drive is for evacuation in the event the carrier is destroyed, though they have been used in attack on numerous occasions. The drive is limited to only FTL Factor 4 and is capable of very short jumps because of fuel consumption and the Harpy's lack of an onboard power generator. For long range missions that infolve FTL, underway refueling is required.

Look Back/Shoot Back

A key problem facing most starfighters is the Look Back/Shoot Back capacity, which was mssing from all but the most specialized starcraft for much of recorded history. Seventy PSL+ fighters are especially vulnerable.

The Harpy was designed with Look Back functionality from the start, in the form of a dedicated, high-frequenc LIDAR-system mounted on the back. The distinctive "tail-fin"-like protrusions mounted over each engine contain the emitters, while a small bulge in the back includes a very sensitive receiver. While the system has a shorter range than the main sensor array and is poor at detectinge low-observable stealth spacecraft, it is none the less preferable over simply having a gap in the rear.

As soon as the starcraft began to function as a fighter, pilots demanded the addition of shoot-back capability. Any number of suggestions were submitted, up to and including a manned ball turret gunner. A few Harpy variants were produced with un-manned turrets to provide better close-in defense, but the shot-back problem was solved very easily: they simply turned some of the missiles around.

Even the stock Harpy had limited shoot-back capacity in the form of guided missiles. The very first solution ever issues was a software patch that allowed the missiles, once released, to use their guidance thrusters to turn around before igniting the main engine. The second, and permenant solution involved re-designing the bomb hard-points to accept a missile facing either direction. On high-threat missions, as many as half of the weapons payload can be set to fire in reverse-mode.

Variants

A wide number of Harpy Variants were developed and deployed, designed with more specific uses. Since so little modification was usually required to make a successful varient, many of these modifications were hacked together away from base.

Dedicated Superiority Variant

Shortly after the Harpy's initial success, a need was recognized for a dedicated combat-superiority fighter. In layman's tersm, a fighter designed to kill other fighters. Unfortunately, the versiltity of the original model was what gave it such a high success rate. Escorts were loaded with special payloads through the first century of the Kamian Succession Wars.

The superiority-variant was introduced with decreased weapon's payload and increased power of manuvering thrusters.

Trainer Variants

The Harpy is a two-seater requiring a pilot and copilot to operate. The unique nature of the craft gives these two operators very different roles. Though the control interfaces are identical, each console will typically be configured differently as the needs of the person in that seat change.

While flight simulators were widely used for training, it quickly became clear that traditional instruction techniques would not work for the Harpy. A pilot could log thousands of hours in the simulator and still not do well in actual flight. Because of the drastically different and highly essential rolls of the pilot and copilot, it was nearly impossible to learn how to pilot one while copiloting, and vice-versa.

A four-seat training model was quickly produced, which included an entire second cockpit behind the first. The second cockpit's controlls were slaved to the first, allowing an experienced team of pilots to instruct a less experienced team. The slave cockpit could also be given primary control by a simple switch, allowing the more experienced team to cary out difficult manuvers, then give easier tasks to the new fliers.

The trainer, like the main, was so successful that it fell into a number of rolls. Trainers were actively employed in combat where the less experienced flight team might carry out the dull, simplistic portion of the mission, then give control over to the main team for hard part. This left the experienced, skilled pilots less fatigued and able to fly more sorties in a given time frame.

Another use was as a "long endurance" fighter, where one team could sleed while the other flew, thus allowing the small spacecraft to have expanded range and operate in an increased window. This was, however, less effective than the true long endurance variant.

Long Endurance Variant

One version of the Harpy built off of the trainer variant replaced the second cockpit with a small cabin. This included bunks, toilet facilities, extra chairs, and food storage. This variant could accomodate a crew of four, who would rotate in 12-hour shifts. A second variant added space for 2 more crewmembers, increaseing the maximum to 6, though in extremly cramped conditions.

The purpose of the long endurance variations of the Harpy were to allow the spacecraft to function in short-distance escort roles where a carrier was unavailable, and to act in a capacity similar to the Corvette as a patrol and reconasance ship. Though effective enough, this pushed the limits of the Harpy's operating window, and compromised it's escape systems. The compartments were extremly cramped and uncomfortable, especially in the six-man variation. Ultimately, the long endurance version saw very little use and was mostly kept in reserve for when better-suited spacecraft were unavailable.

Command Variant

A variation designed for a wing or squadron leader was produced that added a third seat(in a second cockpit module like the trainer) for a communications officer to help coordinate the attack. This was specifically meant for large, multi-squadron sorties that would be attacking far afield of the carriers.

Multi-Variant

Because the Harpy's cockpit is essentially a removable module(as part of the escape system) a form of multi-variant was eventually introduced with inter-changable modules. This design could be any one of the variants that only required the small change-over, and a carrier could easily keep numerous modules in it's stock and change them out for specific missions.

Underway Refueler Variant

One variation replaced the bomb compartment with a series of antimatter storage tanks and equipment to change out tanks with active harpies. This was extremly effective in increasing the operating window, and had a number of added advantages. The refuelers looked exactly like ordinary harpies, had the same speed, and the same manuverability. They simply lacked the ofensive payload.

In one mission, long endurance harpies were combined with refuelers to make a long-range surprise attack in a sortie that lasted seven days. In another mission, refuelers were used to tow Gargoyles at FTL for a surprise attack; the Harpies towed them to the edge of the system, the gargoyles launched the assualt, completed the objective, and returned to be towed away again by the harpies, all without a single carrier or capital-class ship needing to enter the system.

Torpedo Variant

One particular version replaced the bomb bay full of missiles with a magazine-fed torpedo tube. Though it carried a smaller payload than it's missile-laden brethren, the torpedo-variant was much better at taking down enemy capital ships.