All right, to clear my head from this weekend's marathon Rifts game, I'll throw up a complete failure in R&D and production. We've been looking at the CS a lot, mainly because I hate magic vehicles since everyone just seems to hand-wave "Oh, it's magic" and magic vehicles annoy the hell out of me. But, I'll give it a try.
TMV-3382 "Skyjammer"
Tolkeen knew war was coming for nearly 20 years. Attempts to negotiate with the CS were fruitless, both sides had idealogical differences that made them completely incompatible at coexisting, military advisors were making the serious mistake of guaranteeing the civilian leaders that a diplomatic resolution could be forced through military action. The biggest problem with a lot of advisors is they look at the narrow picture, and many assume that everyone is rational actors. War has many different causes, and few wars can be pointed at and said "This caused it" with any reality. The Tolkeen CS conflict was such a war. From resources, to idealogy, to decades of propaganda, to military actions to force diplomatic solutions, to just plain overestimating themselves and under-estimating the enemy, war was unavoidable without one side or the other surrendering unconditionally.
During the build-up to the war, Tolkeen needed vehicles that could take on the CS with a hope of winning. Most people looking at the CS consider the CS military a moving junkpile, since products from such vendors as Naurani and Atlantis can match them, but they fail to appreciate that there is a huge difference between a 10 year mercenary and a career CS soldier. With that in mind, the Tolkeen R&D began attempting to produce a suit of magical armor that could match the SAMAS for air superiority.
For the most part air elementals, dragons, and other flight capable supernatural creatures were going to be the backbone of the Tolkeen Air Superiority plan, and that plan had a multitude of supporters, while the idea to produce technowizardry vehicles was scoffed at as "trying to beat Mr. CS Junkman at his own game" with propenents of the idea of technowizardry air superiority often publically humiliatied.
So the Skyjammer project was started in 83 PA, without much funding, without much access to resources, and basically back-burned so that the few influential people who supported TW forces would be placated.
The designers wrote a simple spec-sheet on what they would need, based on 1 to 1 dogfights with SAMAS.
Ground Speed: 60 mph minimum
Leaping: 15 feet high, jet assisted 100 feet high and 200 feet long
Flying: 300 mph, 150 mph combat speed
Altitude: 500 feet
Flight Time: 10 hours of combat flight time
Hieght: <10 feet
Width: 6 feet or less
Length: 6 feet or less
Weapon Systems: Equal to the C-40R, 2 shot minimissile pack
Armor Rating: Class III
It looked simple. The project was mocked even during the "brainstorm" phase by mages claiming that Armor of Ithan, Impervious to Energy, and a simple flight spell, packing a Wilks Laser Rifle, was equal to a SAMAS. (This mistake was in part due to the majority of the 'military command' of Tolkeen having little to no actual formalized military training or experience, as well as not understanding the difference between Standard Operational Procedure and Maximum Performance) Dragons mocked it, considered Armor Rating Class IX creatures with magic, breath weapons, claws, and the like.
Videos available were either CS propaganda or where a CS patrol of 2-4 SAMAS were jumped by overwhelming odds, meaning that out of the gate researchers had a low opinion of the SAMAS.
The first design was little more than a crystal harness with a lightning bolt spell rod and armor of ithan spells. The volunteer pilots (many deserters from the CS who claimed much more experience than they had, if they even had any combat experience) found these agile opponents difficult. The TW "Flight Combat Harness" was produced in low numbers, volunteers (all creatures who claimed hundreds of hours of combat against the CS) were outfitted with it, and they left to intercept known patrol routes of the CS and engage them in combat while observers watched the field trial.
Right here military weaponry enthusiasts will notice that the Tolkeen R&D system had already failed. They were making the data fit their assumptions, which is something that happened even to trained professionals, as well as not looking at the data dispassionately. Those of you familiar with vehicle data sheets from more professional militaries, including Pre-Cataclysm military databases, probably see where this is going to go.
All 22 were engaged and destroyed by SAMAS operators in less than 3 minutes.
Three minutes were all that the "Flight Combat System" lasted, including the 61 seconds that the SAMAS pilots persued fleeing members.
Worse, the local commander broadcast the "fight" from the suit data recorders, where the initial sighting was met with "What the hell is that?" to the laughter of the CS pilots in between their constant combat chatter. This was in 83 PA, when many spell using creatures didn't understand exactly what they were hearing. While the Tolkeen R&D program recorded the initial battle as well as received copies of the CS data, they really didn't understand everything that went wrong was less about the equipment and more about the fact that the users had not trained together, did not know how to use the system, did not operate as a team, and underestimated their foes.
Back to the drawing board. In 84 PA the "Freeflight Mark II" (Freeflight being the name of the project) was created.
This 'armor' used light MDC non-environmental armor, added Armor of Ithan, a lighning bolt thrower, and spell enhanced strength to handle the NG-101 railgun and the ammunition pack. It looked like a suit of Huntsman Armor with crystals glued to it, some hotglue smeared on it, a medallion on the chest, and a carved stick on the shoulder, along with the NG-101. Flight trials showed it could reach up to 350 MPH, and the Freeflight Team took the armor out and held speed trials.
One thing a military and technological designer can tell you is that just because something can go real fast doesn't necessarily mean it should, and the Freeflight Team and its volunteers found out why. At 350 mph the wind both dropped the operators into hypothermia as well as began suffocating them. Eight grew disorientated and were lost in the distance. 2 suits were recovered months later, found up in trees with skeletons still inside the armor. The six remaining were ordered to make a hard left turn.
Where the cross currents ripped the NG-101 out of their arms. But that wasn't the worst, the high speed, high-G turn made them black out.
Eight suits entered. All of them crashed and burned.
It took four more trials before they added a magical pressure sleeve (which crushed the initial users to death upon activation) to compensate. It could fly nap of earth, perform high G turns, and the designers figured it was ready to try "high altitude flight" and added in magical lift to the system. The first six suits equipped and field tested immediately shot upwards and vanished, never to be seen again. The spell was carefully redesigned to have a maximum 'ceiling' of 650 feet, and the next trail was performed.
Where the operators hit the 650 foot mark and slammed into an invisible 'barrier' and were crushed to death. It took mages going up and retrieving the armor to get it back, where it was stuck to mid-air like flypaper. So the spell was reworked, and tried again, but a mistake in the mystical calculations accellerated them to MACH 6.5 and then came to an instant stop, reducing the occupants to jelly. The spell was reworked again, but the spell then just slowly floated them upward to 650 feet where they just bobbed around like bubbles. The next set allowed the 'pilots' to move up and down as well as make turns and do 'normal' power armor-esque flight.
During a test of 20 of these 'armor systems' a passing CS patrol of 4 SAMAS suits saw it and tore into the 20 suits, suffering no casualties while destroying all 20 suits and killing the operators, some of the observers, and two of the technowizard researchers. The worst part was one of the SAMAS pilots laughed the entire thing over his loudspeaker, even as he disappeared into the distance after popping off his flares.
Things were not going well for Project Freeflight.
By this time Project Freeflight was being ridiculed. CS and Triax developers could have told them that this was pretty much par for the course with new technologies, and would have understood that they were making good progress. Not so the Tolkeen R&D establishment, which was mostly just taking existing technowizardry and magical 'technologies' and 'improving' them with advice from Atlantis and other long standing R&D programs.
The Freeflight Program took everything back to the drawing board. (Hint for future researchers: Always back up your data.) They discarded the off the shelf Huntsman Armor and built their own suit, added 'ablative layers' of Armor of Ithan, Breathe Without Air, Impervious to Energy, Superior Invisibility, strength enhancement, two lightning projectors, a 250 PPE battery (that would power armor and weaponry for supposedly 4 hours of combat), Eyes of the Eagle, and Temporal Magic for faster reflexes. The armor was capable of taking 2 direct hits from a Glitterboy main gun, three if there was enough time for the operator to reactivate the armor spells, the lightning projectors were capable of disabling or killing the operator of standard heavy CS body armor in two direct hits, and the enhanced reflexes allowed for operators to deal with the fast and furious pace of combat. It was projected that the armor could stand up to the SAMAS suit in combat.
Irritated with the delays the head of the R&D program was replaced, and a new head researcher took over, who immediately discarded all the previously recorded data as his now-disgraced rival had overseen it and he had 'no interest in details of failure', and the newest suit was pushed through with almost no testing.
The project built fifty suits for testing in 88 PA and immediately gave operators a 3 day crash course training program and sent them out to engage CS forces who were performing field exercises in the area to 'prove that the project was a success under [his] leadership.' The 20 suits of 'advanced technowizard armor' engaged a force of 10 SAMAS apparently just cruising around in circles. This immediately turning into a high-G dogfight where 2 SAMAS were forced to land and fight on foot. Only two Freeflight Operators survived, although one was captured and field executed by the CS forces.
The head of R&D blamed the current researchers for the failures (meanwhile the CS was going over every scrap of combat footage and seeing a very real and very capable suit of TW flying armor that was just used ineffectively and couldn't face armors using Flight Combat Control Systems) and completely discarded everything but the armor itself. Redesigns of the spells resulted in casualties, explosions, and deaths, but eventually new armor spells were designed, the flight spells were adjusted properly, and the armor was ready for another field trial.
The armor could withstand 3 direct hits from a Glitterboy Railgun, 5 if the Armor spells were activated in the correct sequence, it had strength comparable with a Glitterboy, had a fireball launcher on the right shoulder that hit harder that a CS standard plasma rifle, and a lightning thrower on the right arm that could match the firepower of a a particle projection cannon. Field testing took place, along with computer simulation, and the armor was declared a success.
Six thousand of them were crafted over a period of 3 years, and once they were all finished, training of pilots began. Most technowizards and ley-line walkers were not interested in the armor, many of them seeing the armor melt or become covered in blood just looking at them, but there are always volunteers to fight no matter how bad the weapon is. The datasheet showed a suit of TW power armor that was superior to the SAMAS in every way.
Tolkeen Datasheet for TMV 3382Head: 100 MDC
Main Body: 350 MDC
LEgs: 200 MDC
Arms: 125 MDC
Wings: 125 MDC
Force Field: 100 MDC (3 activations)
PPE Storage: 600
Ground Speed: 90 mph
Leaping: 75 feet high, magical assisted 250 feet high and 500 feet long
Flying: 450 mph, 250 mph combat speed
Altitude: 750 feet
Flight Time: 20 hours of cruising speed, 12 hours of combat flight time
Height: 8 feet
Width: 4.5 feet (8 feet with wings deployed)
Length: 3 feet
Weapon Systems:Fireball Launcher- Range: 150 feet
- Damage: 6d6 MD
- Rate of Fire: 2 per round
Lightning Thrower- Range: 500 feet
- Damage: 3d6 MD
- Rate of Fire: As operator attacks
That was the official datasheet presented to the Tolkeen military.
By this time the CS had just unveiled their new war machine, but the R&D team was convinced that the Freeflight Project was a success. However the R&D director was of the opinion that one SAMAS was the same as the other, and scoffed at all reports of the CS making signifigant upgrades to the venerable old US Army SAMAS as rumors, as he saw it merely sporting cosmetic changes that probably weakened the system all around. He insisted that properly deployed that the Skyjammer (the name he insisted the armor be saddled with) could take on even the new SAMAS suits in a 1:2 ratio and still be capable of combat while mission killing the two CS armors.
The test pilots were replaced after their complaints about the armor, and the new pilots were trained for only a few months before the Tolkeen War began. The Skyjammer Power Armor was deployed against the CS SAMAS teams. Broken into 20 man teams the Skyjammer Corps quickly sped in to attack the CS forces advancing on Tolkeen, setting up forward logistics bases and forward operation bases, and fire bases. The pilots were confident in their TW armor and the spells woven into it, and sped quickly into combat against the CS troops.
Out of 1,200 deployed in the first 24 hours of combat, not one returned. However Air Command insisted that the Skyjammer Armor had achieved up to 1:10 casaulty ratios against the CS air support and insisted that the armor had proven itself in combat. A second wave was ordered on the third day, with orders to engage SAMAS troops wherever found. This was had only 500 troops, divided into teams of 5, and spread out across the front, with orders to attempt to attack rear areas, supply depots, ammunition dumps, and the like.
Forty pilots returned, another 328 returned over the next several days on foot, most of which had no armor.
The recriminations started pouring in.
First of all, the PPE system drained rapidly under high speed flight, as the testing rarely had the armor up for longer than an hour, or doing low speed flight for distance near ley-lines so that observers on TW wing boards could follow along and observe the armor. Under high speed flight with nap of earth manuevering, the PPE batteries drained in under two hours. The crystal that was supposed to change color as power dropped in the PPE reserve was little more than colored glass (it was added to shut the pilots up, and then the actual crystals and the layered spells were decided to be too expensive and too big of a pain in the ass to install, so the glass was left in the suits) Without warning the suit would suddenly completely and totally lose power, which would kick in the emergency systems, which would eject the pilot, destroy the armor, and the pilot would float gently to earth.
Being shot at by CS troops.
Secondly, the CS doctrine appeared to have radically changed. Rather than close in combat that the CS seemed to engage in prior to the war, SAMAS pilots acted more like jet pilots of old, keeping a distance from their opponents and often attacking at maximum range of their weaponry. By the time Skyjammer armors could engage they were heavily damaged and often were suffering a total shield depletion.
Third, the armor apparently had a MASSIVE radar signature that was easily detectable from miles out. While the standard approaching under the invisibility spell was followed, apparently the invisibility didn't count toward radar or the seeking peniads of the missiles that tore so many apart a mile out or further from CS troops. Some of the surviving pilots reporting running face first into CS AA systems and seeing their entire team obliterated in a matter of seconds.
Fourth, the Impervious to Energy seemed to intermix with the lightning spells after a few firings under high stress combat conditions, causing one, the other, or sometimes both to fail. Worst of all, many of the pilots asked "What the HELL were you thinking" as the SAMAS suits used KINETIC weapons, not lasers, meaning that the only thing it seemed to protect from was CS troop ground fire. That is, until they started using their grenade launchers to shoot them down.
Fifth, the fireball launcher was all well and good, but at attack speeds in excess of 200 MPH if the operator fired the fireball launcher the pilot would end up slamming into the fireball himself.
Sixth: All weapons were forward facing, and outstretching one's arm to fire at an opponent on the left or right invariably dislocated the pilot's shoulder, which caused the armor to eject the operator in roughly 50% of the occurances.
Seventh: For an air combat armor, it seemed to lack the most basic anti-missile systems. While the standard doctrine of "Shoot them down" sounded good, missiles fired by the CS seemed to like to go for a rear impact, a top down hit, or explode to the right or left and hit the armor with multiple penetrators. There were no flares, no chaff, no spoofing, no nothing.
Those were bad enough, but pilots reported that they had to rely on their eyes, and there was no targeting system in the armor. While that was perfectly fine for one on one or even two on one battles, the lack of sensor systems and targeting systems the pilots kept losing sight of their opponents, couldn't see incoming missiles, got disoriented during combat manuevers and sometimes crashed into the ground, and worse, the CS pilots seemed to figure out quickly and would let the Skyjammer pilots get behind them, pop smoke or magnesium flares, and let on Skyjammer pilot slam into the other.
Some of the survivors were very vocal in the protections, speed, manueverability, and capability of the armor was vastly overstated, accusing the R&D group of flat out lying about their results.
Regardless of the pilots fears and accusations, the rest of the armors were committed against the CS a few weeks later, with orders to mass attack one of the larger CS air bases.
It resulted in a total loss of all pilots and less than 20 SAMAS suits shot down. Less than a dozen pilots got close enough to even see the air base.
Only 12 returned on foot.
Examination of the Skyjammer revealed the followed
real specifications.
Tolkeen Datasheet for TMV 3382Head: 35 MDC
Main Body: 150 MDC
LEgs: 50 MDC
Arms: 35 MDC
Wings: 15 MDC
Force Field: 50 MDC (3 activations)
PPE Storage: 100 PPE
Ground Speed: 5 mph
Leaping: 25 feet high, magical assisted [DO NOT DO!]
Flying: 450 mph, 50 mph max combat speed
Altitude: 600 feet
Flight Time: 20 hours of cruising speed, 2 hours of combat flight time
Height: 8 feet
Width: 4.5 feet (8 feet with wings deployed)
Length: 3 feet
Weapon Systems:Fireball Launcher- Range: 50 feet
- Damage: 5d6 MD
- Rate of Fire: 1 per round
Lightning Thrower- Range:[/b] 150 feet
- Damage: 2d6 MD
- Rate of Fire: Four per round
Any Skyjammer armors are either hidden somewhere near the battlefields, abandoned in the woods, or in CS custody.
The armor suffered from nepotism, shoddy magical research, forcing fact and exercises to fit expected results, over-estimating the armor's effect, under-estimating the enemy equipment, not involving people who understood military hardware, and ignoring tester feedback.
Had Tolkeen survived the war, they would have discovered that
every single problem with the armor had been reported by testers and test-pilots during the development and trainup of the forces. SAMAS armors that faced off against the Skyjammer during testing had their software, firmware, and hardware artificially inhibited, and exercises were designed in such a way that the Skyjammer had the advantage, no matter how unrealistic the scenario was, and only the scenarios where the Skyjammer was victorious were used as baselines.
Additionally the head of R&D was a major opponent of Technowizardry trying to breach the gap between the CS's high tech advantages and a fierce proponent of magic superiority. The head of R&D envisioned the war not breaking out for nearly 10 more years, and often publically discounted the idea of the CS ever actually attacking Tolkeen, feeling that Tolkeen's magic might and obvious profiency would deter the CS from attacking, due to "magic's superiority over technology" that he saw as obvious to anyone who cared to look.
Additionally when the head of R&D took over he immediately fired anyone who didn't have the same belief, including the only members with experience in military operations, discounting the former CS Major who had defected due to falling in love with a DB woman. The Major had 15 years of experience with SAMAS and air operations, and had been at immediate loggerheads with the new head of R&D.
The entire Skyjammer and Freeflight Project was nothing more than an expensive boondoggle that failed to produce anything worthwhile for combat operations, and is a lost footnote of the CS/Tolkeen War.
"The Tolkeen War was a disaster. Yes, we achieved victory, but we exposed grievous errors in our training doctrine and unit METL's. We must seek to address these issues, we must rethink what we know or this nation will perish from the Earth. Should we not learn from the hard lessons of the Tolkeen War, our bones shall be ground to dust."-Ross Underhill