Multi-Role Fighter

"A Multi-Role Fighter is something we desperately need. Keeping our fighters standardised is the key to keeping costs, manufacturing time and maintenance down, and having a single craft that can fill many roles does this" - Dr Fredrick Smith, an engineer on the XF-45 Lightning III development program, speaking to the EPU Admiralty about the need for a Multi-Role Fighter in the EPU's fleet, 2056.

Characteristics

Multi-Role Fighters, or MRFs, are the middle ground between Light Fighters and Heavy Fighters. Capable of carrying considerably higher payloads than that of Light Fighters, they can fit most roles into a single package, though they are not as effective as a dedicated craft. They possess enough equipment to perform lone operations, however they are typically designed for and used in squadron operations. Some models even have to potential to intercept torpedoes, but this is often more dependent on the skill of the pilot than the quality of the ship.
MRF's are used throughout the galaxy, thanks to their versatility and ease of manufacture. This combination makes them a prime choice for an empire's strike craft, being the only type of such craft used in the EPU and relied on heavily in the Keplarian Imperium Navy. This ease of production, however, also means the pirate forces find an easy time getting their hands on them. Some of the larger groups, like the Ravagers of Dosrah, can even manufacture their own from salvaged wrecks or captured ships.

Classification History

Human History

Multi-Role Fighters have been a key part of the Human military doctrine from as early as 1939 at the start of The Second World War, with the first iterations of Fighter-Bombers being developed. These served as the basis for all Multi-Role designs into the late 20th Century and early 21st century, culminating in the United States of America's Joint Strike Fighter Program, which aimed to combine several roles into a single platform. The program had two competing prototype fighter designs, the X-35 and the X-32. The X-35 came out on top, and eventually became the F-35 which entered service in 2015.
The problem presented by the F-35 was that it was simply not as good at the roles of the craft that it had replaced. This was made especially apparent during the Great Resource War in 2027. The Middle East had become a centre of turmoil, tyranny, corruption and humanitarian nightmares. In 2026, Iranian spies discovered evidence of an oil field in the contested border territory with Iraq, an increasingly rare find. The ensuing conflict was another Vietnam for the United States and its NATO allies, especially in aerial combat. The Iranians were supplied with Russian 6th generation Air Superiority Fighters, which proved far superior in both dogfighting and long range engagements than the F-35. Although the war was won in 2030, it was not without great cost for the NATO Coalition forces. F-35s had only managed to score 20 aerial kills, whereas the Iranian MiG-53s had destroyed at least 40 Coalition aircraft. The inability of the F-35 to act as an Air Superiority Fighter was enough for the United States to begin searching for a new Multi-Role Fighter, though that's not to say the F-35 was not a good Close Air Support platform, its payload capacity and revolutionary heads-up display technology (allowing the pilot to see through the plane in all directions) made it extremely effective at Strafing runs and Bomb strikes.
The Lightning 3 Program was opened in 2031, which aimed to not only replace the ageing fleet of F-22s the United States was fielding, but also possess some capacity to perform multiple roles as the F-35 did. Three competing prototypes were finalised by 2035, the X-45 developed by the newly formed North American Avionics, the X-48 developed by a formerly Russian aerospace firm called Putov & Yanovich Aerospace Industries, which was bought out by an American Billionaire in 2033, and the X-43 which was designed by British Aerospace Corporation (BAC). The X-45 was an especially unique candidate for the program. It made use of a new technology known as "Dark Matter Manipulation". It utilised Dark Matter Fuel as a means of generating lift instead of the wings themselves generating the lift. This allowed the X-45 to use more of its surface area and internal compartments to carry payloads while maintaining excellent manoeuvrability. The X-45 completely outclassed the X-47 and X-42 in flight testing, and so NAA was awarded a contract to build 3 squadrons of 6 trial craft under the designation of the XF-45 Lighting III, with PYAI being awarded a subcontract to build their experimental GB-01 Vectored Plasma Engine for the project. The reason the command staff of the Lightning 3 project were so reserved to put the craft into full production, hence the XF designation, was that of the untested nature of the Dark Matter Field. It was eventually deployed to the United Nation Centurion Peacekeeper Squadrons (UNCPS) in 2042, mere months before the Global Liberation Front's massive attack on multiple Middle Eastern countries in early 2043.
The XF-45 was to become the primary fighter craft of the Emergency Planetary Union after the Keplarian Invasion of 2045. Its operational success during the Invasion did not go unnoticed by the EPU admiralty. The XF-45 Lighting III Multi-Role Fighter became a legendary fighter over the course of the Interstellar War, both with Human and Keplarian troops. The XF designation stuck to the Lightning III as it was never official deemed a production model right up until the end of the Interstellar War, and by that point, there had been over 500,000 XF-45s built. Its ability to carry heavy payloads of rockets, bombs, missiles, anti-starship torpedos and even cruise missiles was unmatched by anything humanity had ever fielded before. It was only slightly less manoeuvrable than Keplarian Light Fighters, allowing it to hold its own in a dogfight even when fully laden with payloads. Its engine allowed it to operate in both Atmosphere and the Vacuum of Space effectively, and later iterations of the Dark Matter Field gave it the ability to act as a close air support gun platform, much like the AH-64 Apache Helicopter Gunship.
After the Interstellar War, the XF-45 was replaced by the V-120 Pheonix, which was heavily based on the airframe of the X-32, pictured in the cover art. The V-120 featured the same wing and fuselage structure but did away with the massive air intake on the ventral hull, instead streamlining the airflow around the hull to allow it to fill the role of a Hypersonic Strike Fighter, which was not fulfilled by the XF-45, which meant the EPU had to use another craft, the L-107 Hurricane, as their Strike Fighter. It had complicated supply lines and restricted the mission profiles of some light carriers, as the L-107 was not as advanced or versatile as the XF-45. The V-120 incorporated the best parts of the XF-45 and the Hypersonic top atmospheric speed of the L-107. The design of the V-120 was also made to be very modular, to allow for different avionics and subsystems to be installed for different types of missions. This was a feature the XF-45 lacked, which instead crammed all the possible avionics and subsystems into a single package, meaning the V-120 was much cheaper and easier to construct than the XF-45.
During the Human Civil War which began in 2182, V-120s were fielded in large numbers by the Human Stellar Union. The Nationalist rebels did have their own squadrons of captured V-120s. The rebel-controlled regions were largely made up of industrial colonies, which allowed the rebels to keep up to some degree with the industrial capacity of the HSU, but they did not have access to the raw materials that were needed to build their own V-120s. The V-120 proved to be a formidable fighter to face in an atmosphere, due to its incredible manoeuvrability and speed. Even when a recon configuration, a single V-120 could easily deal with any atmospheric based aircraft or missile threat. The rebel forces relied heavily on the L-107b, which was an air-to-air configuration of the L-107 designed by the rebels themselves. It was completely outclassed by the V-120 in all areas except speed. Many rebel pilots were inexperienced, having only had as few as 14 flight hours, compared to the HSU's average beginner having flight hours upwards of 50 before going into active service.
MRFs have been a very important part of Human military history, allowing militaries during the unrest years to keep multiple kinds of threats at bay, giving the EPU a valuable counter to a large number of Keplarian Imperium Navy strategies and tactics, acting as a deterrent during the post-war years and helping to keep the peace in the Wild West of human space during the Human Civil War.

Keplarian History

Multi-Role Fighters played a very small role in Keplarian armed conflicts. Keplarian Doctrine has always favoured overwhelming firepower instead of surgical and precise strikes, which completely contrasts with Human Doctrine. Most MRFs designed by the Keplarians either remained prototypes or went into limited production. However, there were exceptions.
The first ever Keplarian MRF was designed and built in 1708 AD, the KM-1. It used a triangular basic wing to provide lift in an atmosphere and provide a surface area for external mounts for payloads. However, it was never put into active service, as at the time the Keplarian Imperium had just made peace with the Sengali Kingdom after a 20-year war, and the need for defence spending was much less. In 1845 AD, the KML-09 was built in response to the Imperiums search for a replacement to the KDI-X3 Light Fighters, which were over 100 years old at that time. The KML was very light and manoeuvrable for a Multi-role fighter, as it was designed to combine the numerical advantage offered by light fighter swarm tactics with the payload of a Heavy Fighter. Although in concept the KML was an excellent candidate for replacing the X3, it lacked the cheap production costs offered by its Light Fighter competitors. In addition, the Imperium's then in-service Heavy Fighter was still relatively new, and so they did not wish to waste money on building a replacement to it so soon.
By 1940 AD, while humanity was in the process of discovering the power of MRFs, the Imperium was beginning to see the uses of MRFs in

Power Generation

Miniaturised Fusion Reactors
Fission Reactors

Propulsion

Plasma Engines
Dark Matter Fields
Impulse Drives

Weapons & Armament

Autocannons
Pulse Lasers
Beam Lasers
Hybrid Cannons
Railguns
Gauss Autocannons
Bombs
Rockets
Guided Missiles
Torpedoes
Cruise Missiles

Armor and defense

Shields
Thin Armour layers (5-40mm thick)
ECM Counter Measures
RADAR Jammers
Stealth plating
Point Defence Lasers
Thermal Counter Measures

Communication Tools & Systems

Radio
Targeting Computers
Guidance Computers
Coordination Computers

Sensors

RADAR
Thermal Imaging
Night Vision Imaging

Additional & auxiliary systems

Oxygen circulation
Ejection Pods

Hangars & docked vessels

None

Used by

• XF-45 Lightning III

Nickname

MRF

Price

Millions of $/ Thousands of Keplarian Jeys

Rarity

Common-Legendary

Beam

Between 7-20m

Length

Between 10-20m

Height

Between 5-10m

Weight

Varied Tonnage

Speed

Between 0.5 Mach and 6 Mach

Complement / Crew

1-2

Cargo & Passenger Capacity

Very Little