Freelance Traveller

designed by John T. Kwon

The mission of the IT-201A Virtus I and IT-201B Virtus II is to provide long range, adverse environment capability to orbital drop and land personnel and equipment in support of Solomani special operations forces. The IT-201 conducts infiltrations into politically denied/sensitive defended areas to resupply or exfiltrate special operations forces and equipment. These missions are conducted in all environmental conditions at low-level and long range. The IT-201 is supported with organic depots for the ship, radar, radome, and mission computer. All twenty-four ships have been delivered.

Features

These ships are equipped with frontier refueling equipment and refiners, an elaborate ECM system, an advanced long range electro-optical sensor system, a missile system which can also launch decoys, and a high-speed orbital drop capsule delivery system.

The special navigation and drop capsule delivery systems are used to locate small drop zones and deliver people or equipment with greater accuracy and at higher speeds than possible with standard landing craft. The ship is able to penetrate hostile space under conditions of low observability and crews are specially trained in hostile environment operations. The ship is rated for landing on frontier/unimproved surfaces.

The IT-201 is equipped with a modified ship's boat, which is used for recovery operations if the IT-201 is not going to conduct the landing itself. The ship's boat is equipped with a rapid pulse Z fusion gun in a chin turret. The cargo door of the boat is equipped with a swing-out mount for a VRF Gauss gun with 10,000 rounds of on-board ammunition. The IT-201 features highly automated controls and displays to reduce crew size and work load. The bridge and cargo areas of the ship and its boat are compatible with night vision goggles. The integrated control and display subsystem combines basic ship flight, tactical and mission sensor data into a comprehensive set of display formats that assists each operator performing tasks.

The pilot and co-pilot displays on the bridge instrument panels and the navigator/electronic warfare operator console, on the aft portion of the flight deck, have two holo displays and direct neural interface ports. The electronic warfare operator has one holo display dedicated to electronic warfare data.

The primary pilot and co-pilot display formats include basic flight instrumentation and situational data. The display formats are available with symbology alone or with symbology overlaid with sensor holo. All sensor input can be displayed via holo, video, or direct neural interface. The navigator uses jump space map displays, system ephemeris and situational overlay, planetary map displays, forward-looking infrared display, tabular mission management displays and equipment status information. The electronic warfare operator's displays are used for viewing the electronic warfare data and to supplement the navigators in certain critical phases.

During clandestine operations, the IT-201 plays a vital role. In addition to ODA operations, the ship can launch and guide decoys, perform psychological operations, strike targets with its missiles, or perform combat search and rescue. The IT-201B has an improved terrain following/terrain avoidance radar with increased MTBF. The lack of spares and repairable assemblies for the current system has complicated management. An upgrade will significantly increase the reliability and maintainability of the ship's sensors by increasing the MTBF. The acquisition strategy is to award a sole source contract. Reliability and maintainability upgrades for the sensors include a package compilation of fixes to field reported problems, qualifications testing and lab testing fixes identified under the main IT-201 production effort. Modifications are form, fit and function replacements for current sensor components. All 66 sensor equivalent ship sets will be retrofitted by the contractor. These 66 ship sets are comprised of 24 ships, six hot mock-ups, two sets in lab testing at the contractor facility, and 34 spare sets. The program funds will be used to procure the upgrade kits and perform the actual retrofit. The installation schedule will be driven by failure rates. This was originally a single year buy, now spread over three years.

The Comm/Nav Upgrade Program integrates a new model of meson communicator to provide support for clandestine transmission of data.

Another upgrade program modifies IT-201 ships to add external fuel tanks and improved drop capsule ejector. The modification provides plumbing and Operational Flight Program (OFP) update.

Other special features include:
low berths for stabilizing wounded or transporting extra ODA personnel
on-board machine shop/armory for weapon and equipment repair
racks/donning area for 12 suits of battledress or combat armor
4 kiloton thermonuclear scuttle device

USP
 IT-4152592-000000-00005-0 MCr 375.500 400 Tons
Bat Bear               1   Crew: 18
Bat                    1   TL: 15

Cargo: 8.000
Fuel: 220.000
EP: 20.000
Agility: 2
Operators: 12
Drop Capsules: 1 (plus 10 Ready)
Craft: 1 x 20T Ship's Boat
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification

Architects Fee: MCr 3.755 Cost in Quantity: MCr 300.400

Detailed Description

HULL
400.000 tons standard,
5,600.000 cubic meters, Needle/Wedge Configuration

CREW
Pilot, Navigator, 2 Engineers, Medic, Gunner, 12 Operators

ENGINEERING
Jump-5, 2G Manuever, Power plant-5, 20.000 EP, Agility 2

AVIONICS
Bridge, Model/9 Computer

ARMAMENT
4 Triple Missile Turrets organised into 1 Battery (Factor-5)

CRAFT
1 20.000 ton Ship's Boat

FUEL
220.000 Tons Fuel (5 parsecs jump and 28 days endurance)
On Board Fuel Scoops, On Board Fuel Purification Plant

MISCELLANEOUS
9.0 Staterooms, 10 Low Berths,
1 Drop Capsule Launcher with 10 Ready Capsules,
8.000 Tons Cargo

COST
MCr 379.255 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr 3.755),
MCr 300.400 in Quantity

CONSTRUCTION TIME
82 Weeks Singly, 65 Weeks in Quantity

P-12 Falcon (Away Boat)

The P-12's primary wartime mission is combat search and rescue, infiltration, exfiltration and resupply of special operations forces under all conditions. The P-12 Falcon provides the capability of independent rescue operations in combat areas up to and including medium-threat environments. Recoveries are made by landing or by alternate means, such as rope ladder or hoist. Low-level tactical flight profiles are used to avoid threats. Night Vision Goggle (NVG) and Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) assisted low-level night operations and night water operation missions are performed by specially trained crews. The basic crew normally consists of three: pilot, co-pilot, and crew chief. The boat can also carry eight to 10 troops.

Falcons are equipped with a rescue hoist with a 200-foot (60.7 meters) cable and 600-pound (270 kilograms) lift capacity. The hoist can recover survivors from a hover height of 200 feet above the ground or vertical landings can be accomplished into unprepared areas. The hoist can recover a Stokes litter patient or three people simultaneously on a forest penetrator.

The boat has limited self-protection provided by a chin-mount UAC-550 rapid pulse Z fusion gun. Falcon is also equipped with two crew-served VRF Gauss guns mounted in the cabin doors.

Mission systems on the P-12 make it ideally suited for operations with special warfare units. Combat-equipped personnel can be covertly inserted and/or extracted in any terrain with precise navigation accuracy. A variety of insertion and extraction techniques are available, including landing, hoisting, fastrope, rappel, gravdrop, McGuire or SPIE Rig, and CRRC.

Additionally, Thruster Visit Board Search and Seizure (TVBSS) operations may be conducted using gravpack or thurster pack insertion/extraction techniques. TVBSS missions are designed to take control of a ship considered to be a Contact of Interest (COI). The ability to interdict or 'take down' shipping during enforcement of a naval blockade requires precise planning and execution. During these operations, special forces operators leave the exterior of the boat on a vector to board ships which may not be expecting a boarding party. Special portable explosive penetrators are used to open multiple simultaneous entry points in the target ship's hull, and the team takes the ship.

Gravchute operations are used for inserting troops when the boats are unable to land with a minimum free-fall drop altitude of 2500 feet AGL (above ground level) at 1G.

Ship: P-12
Class: Away Boat
Type: Pinnace
Architect: Kwon
Tech Level: 15

USP
       P-0106A12-000000-05000-0 MCr 14.475 20 Tons
Bat Bear                 1      Crew: 13
Bat                      1      TL: 15

Cargo: 0.100
Fuel: 2.000
EP: 2.000
Agility: 0
Marines: 12
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops

Architects Fee: MCr 0.145 Cost in Quantity: MCr 11.580

Detailed Description

HULL
20.000 tons standard,
280.000 cubic meters, Needle/Wedge Configuration

CREW
Pilot, 12 Marines

ENGINEERING
Jump-0, 6G Manuever, Power plant-10, 2.000 EP, Agility 0

AVIONICS
Bridge, Model/1 Computer

ARMAMENT
1 Single Fusion Gun Turret organised into 1 Battery (Factor-5)

FUEL
2.000 Tons Fuel (0 parsecs jump and 28 days endurance)
On Board Fuel Scoops, No Fuel Purification Plant

MISCELLANEOUS
13 Acceleration Couches, 0.100 Ton Cargo

COST
MCr 14.620 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr 0.145),
MCr 11.580 in Quantity

CONSTRUCTION TIME
11 Weeks Singly, 9 Weeks in Quantity