Clearly showing the pterosaur influence of its late Cretaceous namesake, the Ferrodraco is a dedicated bomber, both for anti-surface and anti-ship operations.
It mounts four warhead bays – one on each wing, and one either side of the fuselage. These warhead launchers appear to be a modification of those seen on the Pterodactylus fighter; a single tube with two forward loading hatches either side. However, the Ferrodraco’s bays each have additional dorsal bay doors. These allow the bomber to be loaded with missiles too large to be fired through the forward tube or even for traditional gravity-dropped bombs.
Each tube has a Standard Warhead Capacity rating of 7. This gives the Ferrodraco a much wider range of potential munitions than either the Pterodactylus or Dimorphodon interceptor. Standard doctrine appears to suggest the wing launchers are typically loaded with anti-fighter torpedoes, and the lower bays anti-starship torpedoes; typically fourteen standard 30TXq-yield Herosine Arms Mk 30 torpedoes and ten BSE-manufacture AST-450 Hammer anti-ship light torpedoes (100TXq yield). An equivalent missile loads would be eight SRASHM-1111 Viper missiles (or six Vipers and four MRASHM-1119 Sunspots) in the wing bays and six 100TXq-yield ASHAS-1209 Seadog or four Vitrious Conglomerate ASHAS-1184 Buccaneer anti-ship missiles.
Analysis of the wing bays suggests that, despite the Standard Warhead Capacity Rating, they are not quite big enough to accommodate the largest missiles in use with the GTSR, such as the ASHAS-1184 Buccaneer or the LRASH-142 Zero-X, though these would comfortably fit in the lower bays. It would be theoretically possibly to mount a single, larger missile in the wing bays if the bay doors were left open, this seems unlikely to be useful in practise.
This impressive payload comes at a significant cost. Aside from its warhead bays, the Ferrodraco only carries a pair of 20TXq lazer cannons. Like most bombers, it is also a poor dogfighter. The Ferrodraco’s engines are optimised for swift passing strikes on relatively static targets; the opposite of the Pterodactylus’. The Ferrodraco thus produces acceleration which above average for a bomber (34.1mc) but its manoeuvrability is notably worse, rated to only 320 MEUs. However, it has substantial shields, rated to 170TXq which somewhat mitigate this performance. In addition, the large warhead payload potentially mean it can shoot down enemy fighters before they get into range, and still have sufficient payload to perform its primary mission. Like the Pterodactylus, the Ferrodraco is equipped with a hyperdrive, which enables it to make strategic strikes.
The use of many components already in production and readily available suggest that production can be accelerated quickly and the Ferrodraco is expected to be a common sight in GTSR fleets in the coming years.
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Range: Grand Terran Sovereign Republic
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