Star Wars equivalent of an A-10

[thedemonapostle]

i think we're getting off track of the topic with the service viability, effectiveness, whatever, etc., etc., etc. of the A-10. and as i recall from my own time in the service, everything in the real world militaries revolves around politics more than combat effectiveness. what im really trying to get here is a discussion and the refinement of a swu equivalent of an A-10 style fighter. something slower than an x-wing, more durable than one too, lots of bombing capabilities and all based around one really big gun.

vanir, everyone else seems to have tried to make an swu version of the A-10. you seem to have an extensive knowledge of avionics, whats your take on a starfighter scale A-10 style fighter?
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Thedemonapostle Star Wars Crossovers

[ZzaphodD]

[Fallon Kell]

[CRMcNeill]

That makes it OK for a strike fighter, but due to the vagaries of the D6 scale system, this starfighter doesn't have a precision weapon to use against ground vehicles (walker or speeder scale), which would be the primary mission of an A-10 clone.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[thedemonapostle]

using the Star Wars D6 Ship Price Calculator at http://www.jtgibson.ca/sw/shipgen.htm the following is true based on the length of 16.25 meters

Name: A-10 Thunderbolt II
Craft: Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
Type: heavy strike bomber
Scale: starfighter
Length: 16.26x17.53x4.47m (LxWxH)
Skill: starfighter pilot
Crew: 1-5
Crew Skill: varies
Passengers: 0-50
Cargo Capacity: 15kg - 50 tons
Consumables: 0 days - 1 month
Cost: varies
Hyperdrive: none - x1
Hyperdrive Backup: none - x1
Nav Computer: no-yes
Maneuverability: 0D-6D (speed dependent)
Space: 1-15
Atmosphere: 210; 600 km/h - 505; 1,450 km/h
Hull: 0D+2 - 6D+1
Shields: 0D - 4D
Sensors limit unknown/ 0D-6D

Weapons (100 emplacement points)
Assault Cannons (25 emplacement points each)
Multiple Warhead Launchers (6 emplacement points each)


so using the per-established guidelines we can have a ship as useless as:

Name: A-10 Thunderbolt II
Craft: Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
Type: heavy strike bomber
Scale: starfighter
Length: 16.26x17.53x4.47m (LxWxH)
Skill: starfighter pilot
Crew: 5
Crew Skill: varies
Passengers: 0
Cargo Capacity: 15kg
Consumables: 0 days
Cost: unreasonable
Hyperdrive: none
Hyperdrive Backup: none
Nav Computer: yes
Maneuverability: 0D
Space: 1
Atmosphere: 210; 600 km/h
Hull: 1D
Shields: 0D
Sensors
Passive: 5/0D
Scan: 10/0D+1
Search: 15/0D+2
Focus: 1/1D
Weapons - none

or as so over powered as:

Name: A-10 Thunderbolt II
Craft: Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
Type: heavy strike bomber
Scale: starfighter
Length: 16.26x17.53x4.47m (LxWxH)
Skill: starfighter pilot
Crew: 1
Crew Skill: varies
Passengers: 0
Cargo Capacity: 150kg
Consumables: 1 month
Cost: unreasonable
Hyperdrive: x1
Hyperdrive Backup: x2
Nav Computer: yes
Maneuverability: 6D
Space: 15
Atmosphere: 505; 1,450 km/h
Hull: 6D+1
Shields: 4D
Sensors
Passive: 500/5D
Scan: 1000/5D+1
Search: 1500/5D+2
Focus: 50/6D

Weapons (100 emplacement points total)
2 Assault Cannons
1 Light Ion Cannon
4 Multiple Warhead Launchers

so i guess what im saying is, that i wouldnt mind some kind of guideline to look at besides the previously listed website or the .pdf on ship construction by Grimace & Krapou
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Thedemonapostle Star Wars Crossovers

[CRMcNeill]

Well, if you want a guideline, maybe this will help. In response to this thread, I went back and updated the stats for my Z-Wing, based on the discussion that had occurred up to that point. Here it is:

Z-Wing Atmosphere Combat Starfighter

Craft: Modified Incom/Subpro Z-95 I3 Headhunter
Affiliation: General / Rebel Alliance
Era: Rebellion
Type: Close Support Combat Starfighter
Scale: Starfighter
Length: 11.8 meters
Skill: Starfighter Piloting: Z-Wing
Crew: 1
Crew Skill:
Starfighter Piloting 3D+2
Starship Gunnery 3D+2
Starship Shields 3D+1
Cargo Capacity: 40 kilograms
Consumables: 2 days
Cost: 65,000 as modified. Not Available For Sale
Hyperdrive Multiplier: x2
Nav Computer: Yes (limited to 2 jumps)
Maneuverability: 1D (4D in atmosphere)
Space: 6
Atmosphere: 520; 1,500 kmh
Hull: 4D
Shields: 1D
Sensors:
Passive: 15/0D
Scan: 25/1D
Search: 40/2D
Focus: 1/2D
Terrain Following Sensors: +1D to Piloting rolls if at or below 50 meters of altitude, and +1D to Gunnery rolls if target is at or below 50 meters altitude.
Weapons:
2 Laser Cannon (Fire Linked)
Fire Arc: Front
Skill: Starship Gunnery
Fire Control: 2D
Space Range: 1-3/12/25
Atmosphere Range: 100m-300m/1.2km/2.5km
Damage: 5D
2 Triple Blasters (Fire Linked)
Fire Arc: Front
Scale: Speeder
Skill: Starship Gunnery
Fire Control: 2D
Space Range: 1-5/10/17
Atmosphere Range: 100-500/1/1.7 km
Damage: 4D
2 General Purpose Warhead Launchers
Fire Arc: Front
Skill: Starship Gunnery
Fire Control: 2D
Space Range: 1/3/7 for missile and torpedoes, 1/2/5 for rockets and bombs
Atmosphere Range: 50-500/1/5 km if a missile, torpedo or rocket, 30-100/300/700 if a bomb
Damage:
9D if a concussion missile or proton torpedo is used
10D if a heavy rocket is used
11D if a heavy proton bomb is used.

Capsule:
Close Air Support is a mission that is often overlooked in the development of aerospace combat, and yet it is one of the most potent applications of starfighter combat power. The Empire's fleet-based starfighter pilots deride their Army Support Wing counterparts as second-rate fliers, not up to the standards of fleet combat, while the Alliance has made token efforts in the area of close air support, in the form of the T-47 combat airspeeder.

The Battle of Hoth was a wake-up call for Alliance Command. While the T-47 was well suited for reconnaissance and light combat against Imperial Army Line and Mobile units, it was clearly outmatched by the heavy guns and armor of the AT-AT units. Losses were high and much valuable equipment was abandoned, unable to be loaded onto the transports in time for the evacuation.

Alliance Command devoted intense study to the harsh lessons of Hoth, wanting to insure sure such a defeat never happened again. One of their conclusions was that the Alliance needed a combat vehicle that could successfully engage Imperial Walkers and other armored units, providing effective cover throughout the course of the evacuation, and then extract itself from combat, rather than waiting to be loaded on a transport. These same features would also permit the vessel to act offensively in support of the ground assault combat that would become necessary when the Alliance advanced to the liberation phase of the rebellion.

A common feature of most Alliance technical innovation is that, if something is needed, it is more cost effective to modify an existing vehicle than to design and build one from the ground up. Although the X-Wing, A-Wing and B-Wing were purpose built craft, the Y-Wing was a Clone Wars era military starfighter, and much of the Alliance's ground equipment and capital ships were either military surplus or converted civilian vehicles. Following this trend of converting existing vehicles, the Alliance selected the Z-95 Headhunter for conversion, and the Z-Wing was born.

The Clone Wars era Z-95 Headhunter was a successful fighter in its prime, but now, twenty years later, it was outclassed by more advanced Alliance and Imperial starfighters. With the introduction of the X-Wing and A-Wing, the Z-95 was rapidly being relegated away from front-line duties, or taken out of service entirely. As a result, there was a surplus of Z-95's available for conversion once the fighter was selected as the base template for the Z-Wing.

The Z-95 proved to be the perfect ship for the job. It was aerodynamic and maneuverable, durable and well armed, and easily accepted the modifications required to convert it into the Z-Wing. Major modifications included replacing the Z-95's stock repulsorlift system with a much more powerful model pulled from a combat cloud car, the addition of a lightweight hyperdrive with a basic navcomputer, and the addition of general purpose warhead launchers capable of delivering a greater variety of ordnance than the stock concussion missile launchers, as well as augmenting the existing triple blaster cannon with a pair of fire-linked laser cannon for greater weapon versatility.

A key component of the new Z-Wing (as well as one of the main components of its system upgrades) is the addition of a pair of outrigger wings on either side of the Z-Wing's nose. The stubby wings contain the maneuvering components of the upgraded repulsorlift system, the mounting points for the ship's terrain following sensors, and also serve as the new hardpoint for the ship's stock triple blasters (which have been replaced by laser cannon at the wing tips)

In space, the Z-Wing is still outclassed by modern starfighters, but it is in the atmosphere where the Z-Wing truly comes into its own, with the speed and maneuverability of an A-Wing combined with the durability of an X-Wing, complimented by a very versatile and lethal weapons package. Since the ship's stock triple blasters lacked the power to penetrate the armor of the AT-AT, as well as other Imperial Army GAVs, the Z-Wing was upgraded with a pair of laser cannon, as well as a pair of general purpose warhead launchers, enabling the Z-Wing to carry a wide variety of ordnance that more than makes up for that shortfall, from standard proton torpedoes and concussion missiles to heavy rockets, cluster bombs and sub-munition dispensers.

When used defensively, Z-Wings generally deploy from a surface base and engage attacking enemy fighters and ground vehicles, usually just to give the base personnel enough time to evacuate. The Z-Wings provide cover throughout the course of the evacuation, then fly out in formation with the final transports, with X-Wings or A-Wings providing protective escort. The Z-Wings will then jump out of the system to a preprogrammed rendezvous location, where they will land aboard a transport and continue on to their next assignment. In offensive combat, Z-Wings are generally deployed with an escort of A-Wings or X-Wings to protect them until they enter the atmosphere of the target planet, at which point the Z-Wing is more than capable of looking after itself. Z-Wings are commonly deployed on a planetary surface for extended periods of time in support of Alliance ground operations. Their simple and rugged design permits them to operate in harsh conditions with minimal support and personnel, often little more than a clearing covered with camouflage netting and a few crates of tools, spare parts and ordnance reloads.

After Endor, the Z-Wing truly came into its own as the Alliance shifted into offensive operations, performing more and more invasion operations where the Z-Wing proved its worth time and time again. It's a tribute to the ingenuity of the original designers of Incom and Subpro that their aging starfighter is still operating successfully in front-line combat situations decades after the design first came off the drawing boards.

Author's Note:
I wrote this up in homage to the US Air Force's A-10 Thunderbolt, arguably the greatest CAS aircraft of all time. However, as things progressed, it ended up being more of an homage to the A-1 Skyraider, which saw extensive use as a CAS platform, even though that was not the mission it was originally designed for.

Disclaimer:
These stats reflect several variations from the RAW that are unique to my campaign:

1). Cloud Cars are Starfighter-Scale

2). IMC, Walkers and Starfighters are in the same scale bracket

3). Pursuant to the plot, as well as the mission for which many of the starfighters I post stats for are designed, I allow non-hyperspace capable starfighters (such as Z-95s or other Clone Wars era models) to be upgraded with a basic hyperdrive (x2, with a 2 jump navicomputer).

You may not agree with my rule changes, and in your SWU, that is your right. However, in my SWU, this is how it works.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

If you look at the ships i posted, each has one of the 30 mm chain guns, and they are walker scale... Maybe cutting what you are placing on this A-10 back the same would make it a little more paltable.
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[ZzaphodD]

[vanir]

First let me say whilst responding to Fallon specifically in this one, the purpose of these posts has been to somewhat gently try to revise demonapostle's general perception of the GAU-8/A as an artillery piece and the A-10 as a flying tank.

Fallon, when I talk about the GAU effectiveness against the T-55 as opposed to the T-72 I'm quoting from the pilot training manual for the A-10.

WRT to A-10 manoeuvrability, the F/A-18 tops out at 7G, I say the A-10 sticks to 2-3G manoeuvres but with what you've posted I'm just going to direct you to aviation websites. Sorry to put it that way but I don't have a flight manual handy to upload for you, but they are on the web as I've read them before. Try the Eagle Developments website as they did the DCS sims and do military contracts, or other aviation sites with flight manual documentation. edit, I found some documentation, the angle of attack limitation on the A-10 is 15 degrees with a 21 deg absolute (emergency) limit. It's 24/28 on the F-16. Even at slow speeds with low G how are you going to match a turn rate when you can't match his Alpha? Then you've got the FCS of the F-16 with automatic leading edge flap control and body lift, really it's a totally different kind of flying with these two birds or types of birds.

The GAU-8 was designed to take down IFV, SPG, APC, mobile SAM and mobile AAA that move with tank armies. They're about 70% of the problem about a tank army, are armoured but nothing like MBT. The GAU-8 is devastating against these. Use Mavericks for MBT. It can take out T-55 with high shots at the rear or side armour, but not T-72 for these you need low shots at the armouring behind the tracks to ensure a tank kill. This is written in the pilot training manual used by the USAF for the A-10.

As I said ballistically it's not that much more powerful than old German 3cm anti-armour aerial guns from WW2, and it's no more powerful than many other 30mm guns in service today.

The GAU-8/A API (depleted uranium) round is 425gms and exits at 988m/s muzzle velocity, for a rather high 207,000 joules of muzzle energy. Using the 234gm FMPDS (standard AP) round it exits at 1,150m/s and returns 155,000 joules of muzzle energy.

An old WW2 German MK101 using 355gm APCR (tungsten core) rounds exits at 960m/s mv and returns 163,600 joules of muzzle energy. The Germans found it useless against WW2 MBT after 1942, it was fine against early cruiser tanks like the Challenger, but against the heavy Infantry tanks like the Churchill, or against a Sherman, it was no good and so they adapted the 5cm FlaK and 7.5cm PaK guns for aerial use against MBT.
And trust me a T-72 is a lot harder to kill than a WW2 Churchill or Sherman, so is a T-55 for that matter but it's got thin top and sides for speed. A T-80 is better armoured again.

Interestingly the cartridges used by the GAU-8/A (30x173) were originally developed for and used by the Saab Viggen Swedish multirole fighter/interceptor, for use against aerial and ground targets. Just a bit of trivia, in case you thought this was a purpose built cartridge for shooting MBT.
Same round is used by the Mauser MK30 and the Bushmaster AFV. For soft targets and AAA. Antitank missiles are used for defence against tanks.

The gun is really meant for light armour. It's only a 3cm gun. I've seen footage of A-10 shooting up an armoured column before but keep in mind that's four tanks and four AFV, eight APC and two tracked-mobile AAA/SAM. The MBT are likely to be fine but taking out the other armour there is just as big a priority and the GAU will do that beautifully.

You know what's in the combat record for the Battle of Berlin? 3 King Tigers, tough but still WW2 tanks, they didn't have the same metallurgical quality that tanks do today, modern MBT at 45tons are as tough as the heaviest WW2 assault tanks at 60+tons.
Anyway three 65 ton king tigers were escorting a bunch of refugees away from the Soviet lines to surrender to American troops, so the story wound up in the war records. At one point the Soviets saw them crossing a field and opened up with criss crossing antitank fire, I'm talking 3" field guns and 120mm assault guns here. Nothing, didn't dent them but killed a bunch of the refugees. So the Soviets opened up with their heavy artillery, all the big building smashing guns into the field. When the smoke cleared one Tiger was knocked out but the crew were fine, one was disabled but only a track was knocked off, and the third was still rolling along, and made it with a handful of refugees to surrender to the american forces outside Berlin. Thus the legend of the King Tiger was enhanced, indestructible they called it.

And you're saying a 30mm aerial gun with fairly similar ballistics to an MK101 will blow them to bits? I think through commercial media, manufacturer advertising claims and just popular enthusiasm people have an awry perception of just what the A-10 or its gun really are and what they're used for.

Hey it's a great plane, well armoured where modern warbirds aren't armoured at all in the slightest. But in that regard it's not much different to bringing back one of the old WW2 strafers back into service, they were tough to take down with gunfire too.
And the gun, hey it's a great and powerful gun, but still a 3cm piece and nothing like what you can get from a 5cm piece or a 3" naval or field gun. And even a very high velocity 5cm gun is a little undersize to take down MBT.
Have a look at the gun they put on tanks themselves, for killing other tanks. 120mm and smoothbore so they can fire antitank missiles through the barrel to better ensure a kill.

3cm is really AAA territory, not really antitank territory. Now if you view the GAU-8/A in that context, it's a really awesome gun. The trick here is context.

I support essentially what garhkal posted, wrt to 30mm chain guns firing projectiles being walker scale. That puts the GAU-8 more into context and personally I tender it only gets that far by ROF alone. An MK103 would be speeder scale, good damage but speeder scale for its ~660rpm.

[thedemonapostle]

vanir i like the fact that you have all this knowledge. but it sounds like its all been learned in books and from the internet. while good and useful in by the book discussions, i have to say that in my own experience the military manuals will say one thing whereas the object the manual says everything about, will do something completely different. its what happens why the engineers write the manuals and not the people that use the objects in question.
for example, my brother was a helicopter pilot on the army. math says they shouldnt fly. he should me that math and it was over my head, but even those that design the things say that the math says they should not fly. the military manual also says that should the engines die that the helicopter will crash. my bro showed me footage of a training exercise where they turned the engines off and 500 feet altitude, they glided down slowly and bounced off the skids a few times for a smooth landing. the secret he said is that you can detach the rotor from the engine with the transmission, kinda like putting it in neutral but not.

another example, they told us in the army the m-4/m-16 has an effective range of 500m. and the m-249 saw has an effective range of 1100m. but the 5.56x45mm round has an effective range of just over 300m...

later in my military career during an exercise in how to improvise explosive devices, we learned that the books says that nothing in the arsenal of any current opposition force is capable of penetrating the armor of an abrams tank, yeah bs i know, but we then learned how to use some undetonated munitions and a coffee can to blast a hole through the armor of an abrams tank. manuals say this doesnt exist and is not possible. sf demolitions boys always taught the best classes.

my point is that all the books in the world will tell you that something is only capable of doing one thing, kinda like saying that players dont come up with ingenious ways to defeat a long thought out and prepared quest thats supposed to take hours of gaming to get through and theyre able to defeat it in 5 minutes.

another thought is, that while an A-10 strafing run over the tank might not destroy it and kill everyone inside, that 30mm armor piercing depleted uranium round will do enough damage to the exterior to render the vehicle combat ineffective. the tank might still be able to track along, but it wouldnt be safe in any way to fire the main gun, and youve pretty much just turned the tank into an up-armored road block...
(btw the barrel of a tanks main gun is not armored to the same level that the rest of the tank is, too much and it breaks when it fires, too little and small arms fire renders the barrel too damaged to use. the barrel needs to flex on all axis in order to be able to deliver an accurate shot.)
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Thedemonapostle Star Wars Crossovers

[vanir]

Certainly there is a normal variation (a scientific maxim) between what an engineering manual or in this case military manuals say and what happens in the field. My own studies are both combat records and primary documentation, my projects such as the daimler engined Ta-152 series for the mod version of IL2 took a year of dedicated research involving primary documentation from Focke Wulf and Rechlin test centre, pilot reports of preproduction prototyping and engineers projected performance, histories of engine and airframe development, speaking with celebrated authors and transcripts of conversations with surviving aces who flew the aircraft.

I posted the ballistics on the MK101 using tungsten cores as slightly superior to the GAU using standard AP rounds, those aren't fiction. And it is the German war record which shows the 3cm MK101 using that ammunition was no longer a viable antitank weapon once allied tanks were more armoured than the cruiser tanks, armoured cars and scout vehicles they were using in the early war. It was no good against heavy infantry tanks that aren't anywhere near, really nowhere near as tough to penetrate as any MBT in the world since the 1950s. The only reason the GAU is so effective against something like a T-55 is because they're light 40ton tanks designed for mobility, based on the T-38. All the armour is on the front glacis and nowhere else to keep the weight down, but hey it'll literally get airborne leaping trenches at 30mph and has a very low profile so for anything but a plane is real hard to hit.
Rest assured military operators, maintenance and technical manuals are without question the best rating of how a piece of equipment works within normal variation, in the field and how it is supposed to be used without breaking or killing your own people. They're written that way, because materiel is a weapon, and you want your weapon to not only be better than the enemy's but to be used better, with less attrition and higher serviceability than the enemy's.

Trust military manuals, don't trust the 200 page book you bought at the supermarket on fathers day special price. That would be the way to go.

I have the complete Rechlin test results compilation for all German aerial guns (and AAA) used throughout the war, the actual results from testing against various grade steel and aluminium plate at various deflection angles.
Just because I downloaded that book off the web, the Handbuch Rechlin 1934-45, doesn't mean it's not what it is: primary source documentation in a handy compilation.
You can download all sorts of primary documents, the USN flight evaluation of the A5M5 comparatively against the FM2, F6F and F4U-1 and it's scanned actual wartime documents, uploaded and hosted by an aviation enthusiast. Here, click this link and tell me it isn't invaluable primary source documentation being hosted.
Learning off the web sort of depends how you do it.

My RAAF service number is 121023 by the way.

Listen all I'm saying is put your obvious enthusiasm and appreciation of the A-10 and GAU-8/A into the correct context. With your own service background as you say, then you should be aware of developing a firm conception of light guns, field guns, heavy guns, you should understand 3cm guns are in one class, 5cm to 3" guns another class, 105 to 5" guns another again and bigger than that you're talking siege weapons.

And tank guns, guns designed to kill tanks fall in the 105 to 5" range. 3cm guns are in the AAA category. Just the fact the GAU ~can~ circumstantially kill an MBT, makes it an awesome weapon mostly provided by the ROF. But it still doesn't change its class, doesn't mean MBT are its breakfast. It's still a light armour weapon, really a dual purpose aerial gun. The antitank armament of the A-10 is its Mavericks, make no mistake about that.

The round was originally designed to bring down Soviet bombers.

[CRMcNeill]

[ZzaphodD]

[Fallon Kell]

Vanir, the A-10 is a straight-wing, low thrust plane. It develops a lot more lift than a cropped delta at low AOA. It doesn't have the power to sustain hard turns, but it can turn hard. I've seen them turn past 6G in person. Much of my information, that which is not personal experience, comes from historical and pilot accounts from the first Gulf War, where A-10 pilots reported seeing secondary explosions pop the turrets off of columns of T-72s as they strafed them.

The flight ballistics of a 30mm API round are not significantly different from other aircraft cannons, but the terminal ballistics are. The force of 2/3 of a pound of DU hitting an area the size of a penny at 3,500 feet per second is unparralelled in flown guns. Remember that DU is harder than steel and nearly twice as dense as lead. It just pokes holes better than WWII-era antitank guns, or any other 30mm round for that matter.

The 120mm cannons on a tank are designed for short range kills on the frontal armor of other tanks, and kills of 4000m to 8000m, depending on ammo. An Avenger cannon is designed to be used at 1/2 to 1/4 of that range and against the top turret armor.

EDIT: Sorry guys, I didn't see the request to take it to PMs until after the message was out. I'm happy to do so.
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Complete Starship Construction System

[thedemonapostle]

i feel as though an apology is necessary to vanir. i feel as though i started to attack you in a more personal manner regarding youre knowledge, i got a little over passionate over the topic at hand began to lose sight of the actual topic. so i am sorry for any perceived slight against you.

all that being said