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Description
The next in the Terran Protectorate ship evolution series.

The autonomous Aerospace short-range combat weapons platform (AASRCWP), usually refered to far more simply as the "starfighter" has become a foundation of the Terran Protectorate's fleet force projection strategy. This was an unintentional development from the first war between the Protectorate and the Imperial Consortium.

The first Protectorate-wide mass-produced star fighter was the Arrow Interceptor (far left). This small craft was not the first fighter used by the Protectorate, but it was the first one to be uniformly instituted fleet-wide and mass produced. This is because until the development of the Stalwart Cruiser, and later the Archer Carrier, all fighters were based on planets or space stations due to their short range. They were essentially orbital or "inner system" defense craft. In most cases, they were simply lightly armed shuttles.
The Arrow was first given a low priority, until the Imperial Consortium invasion of 2349. A year into the war it became quickly apparent that, while the Consortium outclassed the Terran Protectorate in nearly every category in fleet engagements, the enemy had never dealt with small massed fighter attacks and had a lack of point-defenses for anything other than long-range missiles.
The nimble, intelligently-piloted Arrows, armed with plasma cannons and short-range missiles, flew right into the enemies faces and were able to pierce their electrocounter measure fields and directly attack weapon emplacements, command centers, and generally wreak havoc with enemy battle plans.
Arrow Interceptors were able to prevent the Consortium from landing troops on a number of critical planets, were crucial in stripping enemy cruisers of defenses, leaving them open for the fleet, and once carriers were deployed with entire squadrons, they strangled the Imperial Consortium's supply lines, forcing them to withdraw and giving humanity time to rebuild its fleet and go on the offensive. The Arrow is easily one of the most beloved and recognizable craft in human history.
The Arrow stayed in service for more than a decade following the war.
The Arrow was joined on the frontlines halfway during the war by the Ballista Heavy Strike Fighter, a fighter/bomber design that is still in service. The Ballista was a large two-person fighter/bomber that was designed to inflict heavy damage on enemy capital ships. Since the Consortium was sorely lacking in comparable fighters and point defenses, the Ballista designers were not concerned with protecting it from other fighters, and so it is a poor dogfighter. However, the ordinance officer has a turret-mounted laser cannon to defend the ship from fighter attacks. Its other weapons, including particle beam cannons and anti-ship missiles, are all designed for use against enemy starships. The Ballista also attempted to solve the multitude of problems with fielding a stealth vehicle in space. It had a special skin that shunted heat into internal packs surrounded by cooling units, utilized a gravity drive in stealth mode that eliminates "thruster heat flares" and also used antigravity to bend space partially around it for short periods, giving it reduced detectability by gravity and electromagnetic detectors. However, the systems require a massive amount of maintenance, and were rendered less effective when the ship was fielded in large numbers, which is how the fleet preferred to use them.
The Arrow Interceptor was eventually replaced by the Shuriken Space Superiority Fighter. Although it was never involved in a major conflict, the Shuriken holds the title for the largest fighter production run to date by the Protectorate and is second only to the Ballista for the longest service record. The fighter was a design improvement on the Arrow in several ways. It was faster, more maneuverable, and far more capable of in-atmosphere operations. It was armed with a pair of anti-ship missiles for attacking large targets, four anti-starfighter missiles, and a pair of nose-mounted plasma pulse cannons. It was noted for its ruggedness and low maintenance needs. Since so many retired star fighter pilots were trained on the Shuriken, and because there are so many in surplus, it has become a fighter of choice for mercenaries. The fighter is also the main fighter for the Colonies of the Line, defending human territory from menaces from the Sea of Dead Stars and the Orion Expanse.
Developed at the same time as the Ballista was the Yumi Mk IV Strike Fighter. When production of the Ballista could not meet demands of the war, a few production runs of the Yumi were initiated. However, the ship still did not get much use until two decades later, when it was seen as a cheaper peace-time alternative to the expensive and maintenance-heavy Ballista. The two-man fighter, with its side-by-side cockpit design and lines reminescent of the Arrow, never really took off in popularity in the military, partially due to political maneuvering and in-fighting between various corporations. The fighter did not so much get phased out as it simply faded away from service as the Ballista came back to prominence. Again, mercenaries (and pirates) benefited as the fighter quietly became a surplus item with little oversight on what happened to the fighters once they were decommissioned. In fact, there are still unsolved reports of several cargo ships filled with the fighters disappearing, and of the count on Yumi's in deep storage coming up short.
The current mainline starfighter of the Terran Protectorate is the Crossbow Space Superiority Fighter. It is the fastest production fighter in Protectorate history and utilizes a highly advanced inertial control system which allows pilots to pull more extreme maneuvers than any previously known fighter. The Crossbow is armed with six missiles and two multi-barrelled rail guns. Designers avoided energy weapons in able to horde power for the ships blinding speed and maneuverability. If it has a short-coming, it is that all its weapons have a limited payload, meaning that it does not have the battlefield endurance of many other fighters.
The newest fighter, still in very limited production and undergoing test trials, is the Super Crossbow, a heavy assault variant of the Crossbow. The Super Crossbow is the current pinnacle of human technology. In addition to the maneuverability (though slightly reduced) of the Crossbow, it has increased armor, and multiple additional thrusters for mind-numbing speed and acceleration. It seems as though every inch of the fighter sports a weapon. In addition to all of the standard Crossbow armaments, it has a heavy particle beam cannon, four antimatter, long-range missiles capable of threatening a battleship, and eight short-range LADAR guided rocket launchers that can unleash a payload of 48 HEAP (high explosive armor piercing) rockets. The downside to the fighter is its astronomical expense and the intensive training required to be able to operate it. While it was designed to replace the aging Ballista, which has served well past its prime, production and training limits are likely to limit the Super Crossbow to special operations use for the time being. There have also been discussions about opening training up to top aces and wing commanders as well.

*note, the first two letters of the fighter designation represent the manufacturer and the last two are usually indicative of the nature of the fighter with F(number) for superiority fighters and (number)C for fighter-bombers. The Crossbow breaks this convention because it was designed to be a multi-role fighter, although it has shown itself to perform best as a dogfighter and some have suggested its designation be changed to SF-F11, but some find that to be too confusing.
The leading fighter manufacturers are Kugler-Vaughn Enterprises (whose fighters are designated KV) and Science Frontiers (SF). Hashimaru Aerospace Industries (HAI) was able to squeeze in once with the Shuriken, but has since been squeezed out of the government contract starfighter production field and now focuses on larger starships.

Whew, that was more writing than I anticipated. Hope somebody actually reads and enjoys it!

Description
The next in the Terran Protectorate ship evolution series.

The autonomous Aerospace short-range combat weapons platform (AASRCWP), usually refered to far more simply as the "starfighter" has become a foundation of the Terran Protectorate's fleet force projection strategy. This was an unintentional development from the first war between the Protectorate and the Imperial Consortium.

The first Protectorate-wide mass-produced star fighter was the Arrow Interceptor (far left). This small craft was not the first fighter used by the Protectorate, but it was the first one to be uniformly instituted fleet-wide and mass produced. This is because until the development of the Stalwart Cruiser, and later the Archer Carrier, all fighters were based on planets or space stations due to their short range. They were essentially orbital or "inner system" defense craft. In most cases, they were simply lightly armed shuttles.
The Arrow was first given a low priority, until the Imperial Consortium invasion of 2349. A year into the war it became quickly apparent that, while the Consortium outclassed the Terran Protectorate in nearly every category in fleet engagements, the enemy had never dealt with small massed fighter attacks and had a lack of point-defenses for anything other than long-range missiles.
The nimble, intelligently-piloted Arrows, armed with plasma cannons and short-range missiles, flew right into the enemies faces and were able to pierce their electrocounter measure fields and directly attack weapon emplacements, command centers, and generally wreak havoc with enemy battle plans.
Arrow Interceptors were able to prevent the Consortium from landing troops on a number of critical planets, were crucial in stripping enemy cruisers of defenses, leaving them open for the fleet, and once carriers were deployed with entire squadrons, they strangled the Imperial Consortium's supply lines, forcing them to withdraw and giving humanity time to rebuild its fleet and go on the offensive. The Arrow is easily one of the most beloved and recognizable craft in human history.
The Arrow stayed in service for more than a decade following the war.
The Arrow was joined on the frontlines halfway during the war by the Ballista Heavy Strike Fighter, a fighter/bomber design that is still in service. The Ballista was a large two-person fighter/bomber that was designed to inflict heavy damage on enemy capital ships. Since the Consortium was sorely lacking in comparable fighters and point defenses, the Ballista designers were not concerned with protecting it from other fighters, and so it is a poor dogfighter. However, the ordinance officer has a turret-mounted laser cannon to defend the ship from fighter attacks. Its other weapons, including particle beam cannons and anti-ship missiles, are all designed for use against enemy starships. The Ballista also attempted to solve the multitude of problems with fielding a stealth vehicle in space. It had a special skin that shunted heat into internal packs surrounded by cooling units, utilized a gravity drive in stealth mode that eliminates "thruster heat flares" and also used antigravity to bend space partially around it for short periods, giving it reduced detectability by gravity and electromagnetic detectors. However, the systems require a massive amount of maintenance, and were rendered less effective when the ship was fielded in large numbers, which is how the fleet preferred to use them.
The Arrow Interceptor was eventually replaced by the Shuriken Space Superiority Fighter. Although it was never involved in a major conflict, the Shuriken holds the title for the largest fighter production run to date by the Protectorate and is second only to the Ballista for the longest service record. The fighter was a design improvement on the Arrow in several ways. It was faster, more maneuverable, and far more capable of in-atmosphere operations. It was armed with a pair of anti-ship missiles for attacking large targets, four anti-starfighter missiles, and a pair of nose-mounted plasma pulse cannons. It was noted for its ruggedness and low maintenance needs. Since so many retired star fighter pilots were trained on the Shuriken, and because there are so many in surplus, it has become a fighter of choice for mercenaries. The fighter is also the main fighter for the Colonies of the Line, defending human territory from menaces from the Sea of Dead Stars and the Orion Expanse.
Developed at the same time as the Ballista was the Yumi Mk IV Strike Fighter. When production of the Ballista could not meet demands of the war, a few production runs of the Yumi were initiated. However, the ship still did not get much use until two decades later, when it was seen as a cheaper peace-time alternative to the expensive and maintenance-heavy Ballista. The two-man fighter, with its side-by-side cockpit design and lines reminescent of the Arrow, never really took off in popularity in the military, partially due to political maneuvering and in-fighting between various corporations. The fighter did not so much get phased out as it simply faded away from service as the Ballista came back to prominence. Again, mercenaries (and pirates) benefited as the fighter quietly became a surplus item with little oversight on what happened to the fighters once they were decommissioned. In fact, there are still unsolved reports of several cargo ships filled with the fighters disappearing, and of the count on Yumi's in deep storage coming up short.
The current mainline starfighter of the Terran Protectorate is the Crossbow Space Superiority Fighter. It is the fastest production fighter in Protectorate history and utilizes a highly advanced inertial control system which allows pilots to pull more extreme maneuvers than any previously known fighter. The Crossbow is armed with six missiles and two multi-barrelled rail guns. Designers avoided energy weapons in able to horde power for the ships blinding speed and maneuverability. If it has a short-coming, it is that all its weapons have a limited payload, meaning that it does not have the battlefield endurance of many other fighters.
The newest fighter, still in very limited production and undergoing test trials, is the Super Crossbow, a heavy assault variant of the Crossbow. The Super Crossbow is the current pinnacle of human technology. In addition to the maneuverability (though slightly reduced) of the Crossbow, it has increased armor, and multiple additional thrusters for mind-numbing speed and acceleration. It seems as though every inch of the fighter sports a weapon. In addition to all of the standard Crossbow armaments, it has a heavy particle beam cannon, four antimatter, long-range missiles capable of threatening a battleship, and eight short-range LADAR guided rocket launchers that can unleash a payload of 48 HEAP (high explosive armor piercing) rockets. The downside to the fighter is its astronomical expense and the intensive training required to be able to operate it. While it was designed to replace the aging Ballista, which has served well past its prime, production and training limits are likely to limit the Super Crossbow to special operations use for the time being. There have also been discussions about opening training up to top aces and wing commanders as well.

*note, the first two letters of the fighter designation represent the manufacturer and the last two are usually indicative of the nature of the fighter with F(number) for superiority fighters and (number)C for fighter-bombers. The Crossbow breaks this convention because it was designed to be a multi-role fighter, although it has shown itself to perform best as a dogfighter and some have suggested its designation be changed to SF-F11, but some find that to be too confusing.
The leading fighter manufacturers are Kugler-Vaughn Enterprises (whose fighters are designated KV) and Science Frontiers (SF). Hashimaru Aerospace Industries (HAI) was able to squeeze in once with the Shuriken, but has since been squeezed out of the government contract starfighter production field and now focuses on larger starships.

Whew, that was more writing than I anticipated. Hope somebody actually reads and enjoys it!