Designation:VF-14 Tomcat (A,B,D,E,F,J,R,S) Veritech Fighter |
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| Fighter | Guardian | Battloid | |||||
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| Total Length: | 19.10m | 14.81m | - | ||||
| Total Depth: | - | - | 5.80m | ||||
| Total Height: | 4.88m | 11.18m | 17.80m | ||||
| Total Breadth: | - | 10.20m | 10.20m | ||||
| Total Wingspan: | 19.55m | 19.55m | - | ||||
| Dry Weight | 17,440kg | ||||||
The armor on the Tomcat is the current state-of-the-art development in low-mass composite-materials Chobham plating that became the standard for all Terran mecha after its application to the VQ-6A Vandal. Aside from the respectable protection provided against projectiles, missiles, and other kinetic weapons, this armor is also resistant to plasma globes (annihilation discs), lasers, and to a lesser extent, particle guns, owing to the fact that the armor can flake off and evaporate in layers under fire from such high-energy weapons, taking much of the weapon's energy and converting it into the latent heat of sublimation in the armor. The Tomcat carries the highest-resistance armor profile ever carried by a fighter aircraft.
The armor stops all small arms fire, heavy infantry weapons fire, and light mecha-mounted weaponry; and provides fair to excellent resistance to medium mecha-mounted weaponry, such as the GU-11's 55mm APFSDS round, and poor to fair resistance to heavy mecha-mounted weaponry, such as the VHT's 105mm smoothbore shells.
The VF-14 life support system provides full protection from nuclear, biological, and chemical hazards, using an overpressure cockpit environment activated by radiation and hazardous chemical sensors, or manually when such warfare conditions are anticipated. The internal consumables supplies can provide atmosphere for 36 hours maximum.
In 2058, the fledgling New Republic was looking for a new Veritech design to take over in the frontline fighter and interceptor role, and capable of combating some of the large mecha in development by smaller rouge nations on Earth and in other parts of the galaxy. The Gamma, designed by the Robotech Research Group's Tiresia office attached to the Robotech Expeditionary Force, was the frontrunner until it was determined that a larger mecha might have some advantages in close combat without necessarily reducing its overall combat survivability. It was also assumed that a fighter too small precluded the use of an effective FAST Pack set, evidenced by the FAST boosters developed for the Alpha. That booster set, the NB-BP-22, had to be ejected before transformation to Guardian or Battloid. Republican Navy pilots and their commanders also disliked the relative disposability of the Alpha boosters and preferred a set more in line with the original Super Valkyrie FAST Packs.
Final requirements were for a separate forward cannon, intended to save the ammunition of the gun pod for Guardian and Battloid combat; the ability to carry a diverse range of gun pods; storage for additional gun pod munitions; combat persistence in fuel supply and total missile load; support for a FAST system like that developed for the Valkyrie; armor protection and firepower equal to or greater than that of the Beta; and speed and maneuverability comparable to the Alpha. The requirement given was now for a mecha marginally larger than the VF-1 Valkyrie, and the ideal platform for these requirements was to be a single fighter, as opposed to a set like the Alpha/Beta combination.
The Republic's small stock of forty or so F-14P Tomcats with Beta turbines, particle cannons, and a Protoculture fuel system had been used during the three-month war against the new Soviet conglomerate for control of the Aleutians in 2057, and the subsequent Red Christmas operations against the Invid Solugi Hegemony in the South Pacific. They performed admirably, considering that they were practically carbon copies of fighter designs from nearly 80 years previous! This led Republican planners to consider designing a Veritech version of the Tomcat, initially codenamed the Protocat. The design and production contract was slated to be handed to Teledyne Continental in January of 2058, but Grumman Aerospace still held the license for the F-14 fuselage. For about a month, the legal dispute between the Republican Department of Defense and Grumman delayed any sort of planning; this was awkwardly resolved by naming Grumman the principal contractor while retaining Teledyne as a subordinate contractor to Grumman. Teledyne management was furious and backed the company out of the Veritech Tomcat project completely; they instead focused on producing the complete F-40 Skyray II and supplying the Skyray turbine for use in the General Galaxy F-41 Viper.
Grumman began preliminary design work, beginning with a complete fuselage; full transformation between all three modes was developed at this stage. The mechamorphosis systems were designed next and surprisingly quickly; but most components were adapted from the machinery in the Valkyrie. The DoD requested -A, -D, -J, and -S models as, respectively, enlisted and NCO issue, trainer, junior officer issue, and senior officer issue. The power plant and turbines were next; these were off-the-shelf General Electric F-162s and the same Protoculture energizer as used in the Beta. These were given different afterburner boosters for certain models. Its Protoculture and reaction mass capacity are the largest carried by any Earth-designed mecha. First flight came on June 28, 2058 and was a smashing success. The test pilots reported that the new Tomcat handled better than anything they had ever flown-to quote one pilot: "it did not fly like the bathtub it appeared to be".
The Tomcat's avionics package was also put together off the shelf, utilizing radar sets and optical packages designed for the Republic's only new production units of the Beta. The weapons fit proved to be the most labored-over aspect; Grumman recommended a Vulcan cannon mounted in the nose instead of an energy weapon, and a new model based on the old M61 had to be designed and prototyped. The work on this gun was farmed out to GE as well. Republican DoD planners had specified that one energy weapon had to be installed, and an older Colt-manufactured laser cannon designed by the defunct RRG Monument City office was procured by Grumman for the head lasers. Unfortunately, refining the cannon to the size and accuracy desired by the Navy proved very troublesome. Tomcats would not even receive head lasers until 2062, as a matter of fact; although earlier run fighters were set up so that the cannon modules only needed to be inserted and connected to the Tomcat's systems.
The Tomcat was intended to receive the new GU-16 gun pod designed the year before, which was already replacing some older gun pod models used by both Army and Navy mecha. Grumman made one significant departure from traditional Veritech design in storing the gun pod backwards. This meant that the pilot had to rely on his internal cannon and (after 2062) head lasers for combat in Fighter mode. However, this did give the pilot the possibility (however marginal in effectiveness) of fending off pursuing enemy targets.
Missile armament was provided for in no less than ten hardpoints; two on each wing designed to pivot as the wing changed sweep, one under the wing glove on each side of the plane, and four under the main fuselage between the engines arranged in a square. The latter group was mounted on the arms in Guardian and Battloid modes; certain models of gun pod prevented the use of these hardpoints at times. The wing and glove hardpoints accepted standard multiple ejector racks; but a new series of low-profile high-capacity MERs were designed for use on the Tomcat. The largest of these racks even provided for the mounting of another standard rack! It was possible to mount an unprecedented 78 air-to-air or multipurpose missiles to the Tomcat at maximum capacity; however, the majority were short-range Starburst missiles.
By October, the final prototypes were fully operational and functioning largely to specifications, and the Republic authorized the purchase of a first run of 450 planes. This was soon followed by another order for 850. By December, the first aircraft were rolling off the production lines and had been delivered to the NF-103 Jolly Rogers and NF-42 Damn Yankees.
In early 2059, Republican territories in space and on Earth were threatened and subsequently occupied by the remnants of the previous Pan-Terra government, commonly referred to as the Establishment. Establishment fighters, primarily Valkyries, Eurofighter and 'Flanker'-series clones, A-16 Executioners, and a few Alphas began to strafe the member state of Britain from bases in inland Europe, while dispatching troop carriers to establish beachheads on British soil. Fifteen squadrons of Tomcats were immediately dispatched to land bases in Scotland and northern Britain to reclaim the skies, as part of the task force sent to secure the island. The first kill by a Tomcat was obtained by Kilroy of the Damn Yankees, flying a VF-14S over the English Channel with a confirmed kill of two Eurofighters. The Tomcats performed extremely well; the only unsatisfactory aspects of their performance were the lack of head lasers, unfortunately combined with pilots constantly running out of Vulcan cannon shells in target-rich combat zones. Tomcats also operated from a number of Republican spacecraft in the war against Establishment space power.
After the defeat of the Establishment, an upgrade program for the nose cannon was initiated; the Worthington corporation, noted for their railroad locomotives, was called on to produce a particle weapon capable of replacing the Vulcan entirely. Worthington also took on the head laser project; completing both in mid-2062. A 'Wild Weasel' version of the VF-14 was procured in 2064 as the -F model, replacing all other fighters used in the roles of anti-radar and suppression of enemy air defense. About the same time a new electronic warfare model was also requested by the Navy in order to replace older VE-1 Elintseekers and VE-12 Stalkers. This manifested itself in the VF-14E which was a fighter modified to carry ECM and AWACS gear and other electronic warfare systems, rather than a dedicated electronic warfare aircraft in the Tomcat fuselage.
In 2064, war broke out between the Tirolian Socialist Bloc and the Republic. The first action in which Tomcats were engaged by Tirolian mecha of various kinds was the infamous Factionalist Control Zone raid, where Republican naval forces were substituting for the Zentraedi and Karbarran fleets originally deployed. The Tomcat fought it out against the relative lightweight Geraun'es Battlepod, several models of Bioroid, Andar fighters, and Alpha Veritechs built for the previous Democratic Tirolian State. Barely 24 hours later, Republican Tomcats were challenged by Tirolian raids on Republican moon bases and the naval yard in Allegheny City by a similar mix of mecha. Tirolian forces provided the Tomcat pilots with a more challenging opponent; while the new laser and particle cannons made air combat more deadly for Tomcat opponents, close combat was somewhat less impressive and the limitations of using such a large mecha were made quite apparent. However, the Tomcat was able to slug it out toe-to-toe with Bioroids and rack up a substantial amount of Bioroid kills without incurring the ridiculous numbers of casualties that similar Bioroids had inflicted on Southern Cross forces thirty years previous. Battlepods presented only marginal threats to the Tomcat, although aggressive Tirolian tactics and an increase in the size of typical Battlepod formations have largely balanced the situation on the battlefield.
Grumman designers proposed improvements after analyzing the early combat results against Tirol; improving the speed of the enlisted issue model, improving overall agility in Battloid for all models, an increase in forward cannon, and giving junior officers the same command support avionics as senior officers. These were manifested as the -B and -R models, which made their debut in 2065. The new versions showed the performance and command capability improvements expected and are likely to finish the war; however, there are still numerous -A and -J models for them to replace. It is expected that those existing -A and -J models will slowly be rebuilt into -B and -R models, respectively; beginning with those retaining the Vulcan cannon.
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Content by Derek Ralph