BARD PAPER: VERA3009 | Home | Traveller | BARD | VERA |
Sunfire Grav Tank
design by Lewis Roberts
BARD PAPER: VERA3009 | Home | Traveller | BARD | VERA |
design by Lewis Roberts
The Sunfire is the main tank of the Solee armed forces. It was designed to keep up with the large numbers of relic vehicles that the Empire has reclaimed from the Naval base. The 20-ton hull is required to provide enough space to hold the large engines that propel the tank. Unsurprisingly the Sunfire is not as capable as relic Trepidas, its armor is weaker, its weapon has a shorter range and slower rate of fire. Though compared to other TL-9 tanks, the Sunfire does much better. The Sunfire is almost twice as fast as the Oriflamme Hammer Grav tank and its weapon has a range of 935m for an armor piercing round compared to the Hammer's 740m. The Sunfire's higher speed and greater range allow it to set the terms of engagement. The Sunfire has less armor than the Hammer and this is due to the amount of weight the fuel for the turbofan engines takes up.
A coaxial automatic grenade launcher provides a graduated response to less well armored targets. It fires standard 4cm RAM grenades. It has four switchable magazines that allow it to switch between four types of ammunition with no delay. These are usually, HE, HEAP, Flettchette and White Phosphorus. The HEAP rounds allow it to engage lightly armored vehicles and bunkers, while the rest are of more use against personnel.
The vehicle is equipped with the Shooting Star defensive system. A computer controlled rotary gun equipped with a a state of the art point defense computer is capable of destroying incoming artillery rounds, missiles etc. This along with 10 decoys gives the Moonbow increased survivability on the battlefield.
The Sunfire is an extremely sleek design with components flowing into each other rather than sharp angles.. The front is radically sloped, while the sides and rear are moderately sloped. It is a teardrop shaped base with a small turret mounted on the top. The turret holds the hypervelocity cannon and the coaxial automatic grenade launcher. The Shooting Star defensive system is mounted aft of the turret. The tank is powered by four high-bypass turbofan jet engines with afterburners. The engines are mounted on the sides of the tank on small winglets.
The vehicle has two full sized computers, which reduce the maintenance demands by a factor of four. Though expensive these computers drastically reduce the upkeep cost of the vehicles over their projected lifetime. They also provide large amounts of computing power to aid the crew. This aid includes enhanced image processing, threat analysis, and tactical surveys. None of the recent Solee designs have command versions. Modifying vehicles for command, makes it possible to identify those single out those vehicles, and if the command vehicle is taken out, then the second in command has fewer resources to command the unit with. Instead Solee provides all of its vehicles with communication systems capable of interfacing with orbiting support craft. The full sized computers also provide assistance the commander.
Sunfire Grav Tank
| Weapon | ROF | C-B | Damage | Pen Rtg | Danger Space | S Range | Weight | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9cm HE | 1/5 | 20-31 | 7C | 701m | 51kg | 405Cr | ||
| 9cm HEAP | 1/5 | 13-16 | 101C | 701m | 51kg | 555Cr | ||
| 9cm Flechette | 1/5 | 2d6/1d6 | 1-Nil | 140x35 | 701m | 51kg | 1605Cr | |
| 9cm APFSDSCI | 1/5 | 20d6 | 319-309-299-279 | 935m | 102kg | 2210Cr |
| Weapon | ROF | S Range | Indirect Max Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grenade Launcher | 5 | 281m | 4.2km |
| HF: | 168 | TF: | 168 |
|---|---|---|---|
| HS: | 72 | TS: | 72 |
| HR: | 72 | TR: | 72 |
| Deck: | 48 | Belly: | 48 |