Fireball SG Armored Fighting Suit |
Gallery Article by Kaan Gök
on
Jan 4 2004
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"...any planet,
particularly those capable of supporting their own population, should not be
bound to an alien government against its will."
- Earth Declaration of
Independence, 2882
"Offenbar wird eine erhöhte
militärische Anwesenheit angefordert, um annehmbare Bürger vor diesen
mercenaries und Anarchisten zu schützen."†
- SDR response, 2882
†Clearly
an increased military presence is required to protect decent citizens from these
mercenaries and anarchists.
Click on
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World War IV ravaged
the planet and made it uninhabitable. By 2855 the planet was safe enough to begin terraforming and planning for
colonization.
What was once
humanity's only home became a backwater colonial planet, and a haven for
criminals, mercenaries, persecuted, migrants, farmers, laborers, and many more
seeking refuge. Earth was largely ignored by the Galactic Federation until 2877,
when control of the planet was given to the Strahl Demokratische Republik.
The resulting war that soon
followed between the SDR and the rebel Earth forces—commonly known as the
Mercenary Army—fielded an incredible array of new technology. The armored
fighting suit, artificial intelligence, and antigravity propulsion all made
their first mainstream military appearance.
Powered
Armour
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Knowing
that the Germans had military orbital facilities for a while before they
did, the Allies saw more use for powered armour in space than the
Germans did. For a start, while powered armour was slower and less able
to take damage than fighters could, they could be used to assault space
facilities quite happily, and plant demolition charges where fighters
couldn't. As a result, a fair amount of research went into Allied space
powered armour, and three main types of suit were developed as a result.
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The Fireball was the
first suit, and performance wise, it was very similar to the
German Fleige. Based on the SAFS, the suit didn't have any glass
front plate, and was armed with a laser from the outset, making it
a decent long range fighter.
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The Mercury was an
experiment in developing a long range and fast suit, potentially
useful for convoy raiding. It was an interesting experiment,
although never entirely successful, and spawned two additional
variants. The Mk I was fast, but unarmoured and thus unliked by
the pilots. Any hit would effectively destroy the suit, and
powered armour was too small to mount rescue devices. So, unless a
friendly ship was already in the area, the pilot was doomed to a
slow death if the hit didn't kill them straight away. The Mk II
attempted to correct this by mounting armour, but the only way to
do this was to lose a lot of fuel, and thus the suit had to be
carried into action by another ship. The Mk III was a variant of
the Mk II, but removed the laser and Telsa coil and mounted a
conventional weapon. While the fuel was still the same, with no
laser to recharge, the fuel went a lot further. |
The Fireball SG was the
final powered armour suit, and attempted to learn from the lessons of
the original Fireball and the Mercury. Slower than the Mercury, but more
manoeuverable than the Fireball or Mercury, the SG was well liked by the
pilots. The only flaw was the lack of fuel (as on all laser armed
suits), and thus a Mk II was developed substituting a conventional
weapon for the laser. Opinions were mixed as which was better. The Mk I
had better damage and range, but the Mk II had greater staying power.
More info:
http://www.maschinenkrieger.info/
http://staff.bus.bton.ac.uk/fesg/meinpanzer/index.html
http://staff.bus.bton.ac.uk/fesg/hv/index.html
http://staff.bus.bton.ac.uk/fesg/sf3d/index_original.html
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Kaan Gök
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