Back to Mars

[AeroplaneDriver]

Some of you may remember my Talon Mars Assault Lander from a few months ago.  http://www.whatifmodelers.com/forum//index...opic=6485&st=30

Since the Talon's story ended with the emergence of an alien force I thought it was time we learned a little more about our future history...

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In the Martian Spring of 2119 several vicious attacks on remote outposts had the Colonial Forces of the United States, China, Britain, France, and Russia on high alert.  All factions denied responsibility, and with each new attack suspicion grew that the carnage was not the result of human activity.

The discovery of the ancient alien city at Cydonia had shown mankind that he was not alone in the universe, but the city was over a million years old, and the prospect of an alien force at work on Mars NOW was a disturbing one, especially considering the obviously hostile intent of whatever had destroyed the settlements.

The enemy was finally revealed in July(M) of 2119.  A Chinese Shenyang X-CBN-109 patrol ship detected and pursued an  unknown ship in high Mars orbit.  The Chinese ship and her crew were lost, but not before holographic footage of the pursuit was downloaded.  It showed a ship of almost organic design.  When the Chinese attempted to intercept the alien ship it was annihilated by a directed energy weapon.

Further encounters ended similarly, and by the end of July(M) two more small settlements had been wiped out.  Mars was on the verge of panic, with the colonial population plummeting by almost 30%.  Every civil transport was virtually empty outbound to Mars, and full to capacity inbound to Earth.  Riots broke out at Port Jules Verne in early August(M) resulting in the death of 89 colonists and 13 police.

As it the nations of the world faced up to the reality that we were on the brink of a war with a force so different, so unknown our own conflicts melted away.  Suddenly Antarctic boundaries and water rights in Nigeria seemed petty squabbles.  Mankind faced a fight for survival like no other before.

As more information was gathered about the aliens a clearer picture emerged.  They were obviously more advanced than us, having developed some type of FTL or Warp propulsion.  Still, the fear that they were millions of years more advanced than us were unfounded.  Instead of the rapid extinction or Mankind, we were facing a war with an adversary more advanced than us, but only slightly so.  

The aliens did not use advanced propulsion inside the Solar System, instead relying on an ion drive system not entirely different from our own Nuclear Ion engines.   (Around this time propulsion engineers and physicists were theorizing that warp drive was unusable inside star systems due to the vast gravity wells.  In time this theory proved accurate when our first usable warp drive was tested 12 light hours outside the orbit of the Deep Space 3 research station in 2203.  This test was significant in being the first to decouple space/time inside the warp matrix, allowing for light speed travel in hyperspace without the undesirable time dilation effects previously encountered)

Their weapons were different from our own, seemingly based on a plasma burst system, but our shield technology did provide some defense.  Perhaps more importantly, our weapons were not entirely ineffective against their ships.  

In late August(M) a USCMC Talon patrol ship destroyed an alien ship approaching a Virgin Galactic 949 cargo ship.  A combination or COIL laser fire and rail gun rounds destroyed the ship as effectively as it would a Chinese craft.  Moral surged as we saw that this would be a fight, not an extermination.

Soon it was discovered that the aliens had established a base on Titan and were launching attacks from there.  A larger fleet or support and supply ships had taken position outside the Solar System.  It was estimated that a force of 75-100,000 alien shocktroops along with the associated hardware were in place on Titan awaiting a presumed invasion of Earth.  With Mars in alignment with Earth and Saturn our first colony planet would become our picket line in the war.

As Earth's nations united against the new threat a new strategy of ship design emerged.  A common modular approach to ship design was adopted, allowing a British landing craft crew to dock at a Chinese mothership, board a US escort ship armed with Chinese weapons and fly a support mission ending at a French base where they would board a French reconnaissance vessel for a patrol out towards Titan.

One of the more successful ships to come out of this design philosophy was the Boeing/BAE Systems/Shenyang TAE-27(M) Crusader IV.   With the forward fuselage and cockpit of the popular Talon patrol ship adopted as the standard for this size of ship it was easy to adapt role-specific aft fuselage modules for accommodation, propulsion, sensor, and weapons.

For the Crusader IV the basic fuselage structure of the Chinese "Yeti" fighter was turned around to create the aft fuselage.  The Yeti's N-I drives were removed from the Yeti's twin nacelles and replaced with methane turbines in the aft section and MICA (Modular Interchangeable Common Armament) pods in the forward section.  The MICA system uses a common weapons pod that can be changed in under 30 minutes.  Each pod can carry either a 22 MegaWatt COIL cannon, a 75mm EM Railgun, or a missile launcher with a magazine of 28 SPAM (Standoff Projectile-Advanced Multi-purpose) missiles with either HE, EMP, armor penetrating, fission, fusion, or anti-matter warheads.   Extra-atmospheric propulsion was provided by  twin Westinghouse N-I drive units on nacelles mounted above the fuselage enabling the ship to reach .24c.

Though used thoughout the war in roles ranging from light transport to reconnaissance to surface bombardment, the Crusader most often served in its intended role as a heavy escort.  In this role it normally carried its fixed armament of a 20 MW COIL cannon in the nose and two rail guns in the wing roots (50mm left, 30mm right was the standard fit), plus a COIL MICA unit in one nacelle and a SPAM MICA in the other.

While the war would be long and bloody, with over 2 billion humans killed, we eventually prevailed and saved out planet.  To this day many historians view the Crusader's role in that victory in the same way that they view the Spitfire's role in the survival of Britain in the mid-twentieth century.


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The model is made from the front of a 1/48 A-10 and the rear of a 1/72 SR-71.  This is still early construction with the weapons pods to be fitted in the nacelles and the Ion drive nacelles (1/48 A-10 engines as in the Talon) mounted above the rear fuselage.

More to come in the next few days I hope...

[cthulhu77]

Cool, cool, and cooler !!!!  Very nice stuff you are producing there...great backstory, great models...wow !

[AeroplaneDriver]

The next sci-fi project will be the Chinese Yeti fighter....


basic concept is:

[John Howling Mouse]

gaa....g....gah....gaaaaaaa

[stupified drooling sounds of styrene fascination and adoration]

     

[lancer]

Oh my.....    
Beautiful looking craft and a superb backstory. How about some descriptions of the aliens as well.

[Patrick H]

cooooooooooool, think I'm going to take up Sci Fi building one of theses days.



Patrick

[PolluxDeltaSeven]

Some of you may remember my Talon Mars Assault Lander from a few months ago.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS !!!!! I dooooooooooo !!!!!!!!!!        



And the new one looks great and cool!! I LOVE the back story!!



What is fun is that I spend the last weeks to find an idea for a Mars Chinese Fighter, as you were speaking about... And I found nothing credible...

And few days later, you come with 2 other beautiful projects!!!

"Bravo mon gars!!" as we say here

[BlackOps]

Very cool! I totally love the idea for the Yeti,   that is a project I don't want to miss!


Jeff G.

[mwf4nut]

It is just amazing how the A-10 seems to fit perfectly to the SR-71!  Amazing stuff!

[gooberliberation]

niiice.. it reminds me of those old blackbirdish GIjoe toys, but cooler.  

[Gary]

Nifty-ola

Love her

[Tophe]

  Thanks again, dear Creator, Master...

[AeroplaneDriver]

Crusader IV cockpit:

The flight crew of Pilot and Flight Systems Officer sit seperate canopies.  Additional crew members such as Weapons Officer, Reconaissance Officer, etc. sit in a jettisonable compartment aft of the cockpit.  The main crew compartment with galley, bunks, etc is aft of the "working area" of the ship with a mission adaptable compartment aft of that housing a cargo module, passenger module, etc.

The cockpit crew can board through the canopies when a boarding ladder is available, or they may board through the auxilliary airlock door below the left side ofthe cockpit, or more commonly through the main docking/boarding elevator below the ship.  The seats are lowered and raised electrically to accomodate the differenct means of boarding.  The picture shows the seats in the raised position for canopy-boarding.

Each seat has an ejection handle.  When pulled the ship's onboard computer determines the best method of crew egress, either an atmospheric seat-only ejection or a crew compartment jettison.  The seats are MB-Goodrich MK.103C CACES (Common Atmospheric Crew Egress System) ejection seats.  

Normal crew complement is 4 for combat missions.  In the transport configuration the ship can carry up to 12 passengers or 10 combat troops, though the lack of a rapid deployment capability makes the ship a poor second choice to the Talon for ground assault drops.



I modifiedthe kit panels to have LCD-type screens instead of steam guages.  Teh pilot has two stick controls on the left and right consoles for flight control and thrust.  The aft cockpit has a single sidestick control on the left that can be selected for ship attitude control, weapons control, sensor control, etc.  The FSO's auxilliary display is shown in the extended position on the right side of the cockpit.

It's not the best quality cockpit, but I was hurrying to get it done so I can close up the bottom of the ship and start painting today.

 

[John Howling Mouse]

My response is simply more of the same, I'm afraid (but good for you, anyhow):

gaa....g....gah....gaaaaaaa

[stupified drooling sounds of styrene fascination and adoration]

       

[BlackOps]

Cockpit looks great! that's a whole lotta knobs, buttons, switches, etc. but I seem to be having a problem reading the lcd screens...are you sure the power is switched on?  


Jeff G.