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Mashona Light OmniFighter

The Bashkir’s popularity within the Snow Raven’s touman meant that a successor had to be designed and instead of designing a completely new craft, the Scientists overhauled the Bashkir to produce the tiny Mashona OmniFighter. Because of its larger fuel tank, the Mashona’s fuselage is broader than the Bashkir and the 220 XL fusion engine now vents from a pair of exhausts rather than the single large thrust nozzle of the Bashkir. This and other changes to the wings and control surfaces make the Mashona visually quite distinctive from its older stablemate.
These changes did eliminate some of the flaws with the Bashkir including the excessive wear on the fighter’s frame around the ‘neck’ where the cockpit section met the wing spar. Unfortunately, these changes significantly altered the fighters centre of gravity and this in turn badly affected the prototypes handling in an atmosphere.  This lead to several more re-designs as well as the introduction of folding canards on the nose and the relocation of the larger fuel tank and other internal changes.

The weapons configurations were also extensively tested so that their weight wouldn’t affect the COG in combat and this did delay the introduction of the fighter into service, making it one of the last of Project NELSON to come into service with Clan Snow Raven despite it being seen as the easiest to build.

Although the 4-ton fuel tank was smaller than was liked, the Scientists simply couldn’t fit a larger tank into the fighter without compromising on its payload, making it less well armed than the craft it was to replace. To extend the fighters range they commonly carried a pair of conformal fuel tanks under their wings, these would be used during the initial take off and climb stage of a flight. Any remaining fuel would be used at cruising speed before the tanks were emptied and ditched. Still possessing the same blistering speed and agility of the Bashkir the Mashona’s greater endurance made it more suitable for WarShip deployment rather than acting as a ground based short-range interceptor.

To increase their endurance, most configurations of the Mashona feature energy weapons, and despite its small size the fighters firepower make it a dangerous interceptor and fast attack craft.
The Prime configuration removes the Bashkir’s Streak SRM-2 and replaces the weapon and its ammunition with a Medium pulse laser whilst retaining the wing mounted ER Medium lasers. The Alfa configuration is designed as a ground attack craft, carrying a single ER Medium laser and two SRM-4’s fed by a single ton of ammunition. The near identical Bravo replaces the SRM-4’s with a pair of LRM-5’s although in both configurations their limited ammunition storage is a major limiting factor.
The Charlie configuration is a bit of an oddity, instead of  many smaller weapons, it features a single ER large laser, giving the agile Mashona a potent long range punch which can shear through the armour of far larger craft. The Delta configuration is armed with a blistering array of eight ER Small lasers, four mounted in the nose and two in each wing. The Delta is capable of dangerous strafing runs and as there’s very few fighters that can outrun or out turn the D, it can cripple larger craft with laser fire into their rear arc in moments.

The Mashona was widely exported in various trade agreements with other Clans, making it quite popular outside of Snow Raven service with the largest users being the Cloud Cobra’s and Steel Vipers closely followed by the Ghost Bears. It became even more common when Clan Diamond Shark won the right to produce the fighter in the build up to REVIVAL and they then started trading the design to any who would take it, much to the anger of the Snow Ravens.

Afridi heavy OmniFighter

One of Clan Snow Raven’s more frustrating admissions was that they never got the production rights to the popular and successful Visigoth OmniFighter with the Falcons only making them available through trade. But with Project NELSON underway the Scientists of Clan Snow Raven decided that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery and based a heavy fighter on the aging Visigoth to match its performance and carry a similar payload. Whilst shaping it to match the Clan’s views on aerospace combat.

Massing 60-tons and powered by an XL 300 rated fusion engine the NAME had impressive performance for a craft its size and significant changes to the crafts aerodynamic frame made it more stable at all altitudes but these changes did make the fighter have a higher landing speed which pilots had to get use to.
Protected by 10.5-tons of Ferro-Aluminium armour and carrying a 5-ton fuel tank the NAME could take significant damage and had a longer mission duration than many other fighters like the Wolves Jagatai or the Jaguar’s fearsome but also very short ranged Sabutai.

Capable of carrying up to 32-tons of weapons and cooling systems the NAME didn’t waste any tons on fixed heat sinks unlike the Visigoth. This did slow down reconfiguring the fighter somewhat and would require a full hangar facility to upgrade the cooling systems it did make the fighter more flexible. Conceived as a heavy interceptor and fast strike craft the NAME has a potent combination of speed, firepower and protection. Although outgunned by the Jagatai or Sabutai, it has better protection than the larger craft despite massing ten to fifteen tons lighter.

First deployed en-mass aboard the CSR Bloodied Blade  the Nightlord class Battle-carrier helped defend the Raven’s holdings in the now vital system of RDB/0411 which had been passed up during the attack on the Tanite worlds by the Clans. The battleship and her fighter group were not challenged by the other Clans as the Snow Raven’s and Ghost Bear’s split the system and its easily accessible resources between them.

Although there were five common configurations, the flexibility of the NAME’s loadout meant that Warriors could and often did tinker with them and many higher ranking Warriors had their own preferred loadouts.

The Prime configuration was designed to operate and long to medium range, a pair of ER Large lasers being its main weapons during the closing stage of an engagement. As the range dropped a LB-10 autocannon and then Streak SRM-4’s could be brought to bare whilst a single ER Medium laser covered the fighter’s tail. The Alfa features a trio of Artemis augmented LRM-15’s whilst eight tons of ammunition ensure the missile launchers do not run dry. A trio of ER Medium lasers and a pair of small lasers provide additional protection whilst a single ER small laser provides somewhat anaemic protection to the craft’s rear quarters. But NAME pilots are trained to use their fighters speed and maneuverability to avoid fighters tailing them and their firepower is usually enough to decide a fight before they can be tailed.

Bravo configuration only carries four weapons, but two of those are Gauss rifles, each fed by 3-tons of ammunition. Two nose mounted ER medium lasers provide additional firepower but the fighter has no rear facing weapons and its pilots must rely on its gauss rifles to cripple or destroy an opponent as quickly as possible. Charlie configuration is designed for the ground attack role and can deliver murderous fire with its trio of large pulse lasers followed up by a pair of Streak SRM-6 launchers. Like the Bravo it features no rear firing weapons but its firepower lets it quickly win an engagement.
Delta configuration operates largely as a heavy interceptor and has murderous firepower at short to medium range. A single ER large laser lets it joust with targets as it closes but it is at short range where the fighter comes into its own. Six medium pulse lasers, two Streak SRM-4 launchers and a complex targeting computer make the D configuration lethal once it is in range. Although its guns don’t have the heaviest punch, its weight of firepower and the weapons accuracy is more than enough to cut through other craft in short order.