Blue and Red: Stories From Shanxi
The Ballad of Metal Angels: Setting the Stage
"For those among the Citadel, it is easy to discount the importance of the aerospace war over Shanxi, to assume that humanity's obsession with fighter combat has colored its portrayal of history. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"Indeed, it is humanity's history that spawned its obsession with the veritech fighter."
Second Lieutenant Alan "Razor" Sharpe, Halo 21
"First dogfight against turian fighters? Whoo! It was... well, it was incredibly unfair. I actually kinda feel sorry for them.
"Don't get me wrong. They were good pilots; they knew how to fly. But when you're flying a fighter and using tactics all built on the same principles your enemy discarded as obsolete a century and a half ago, you're pretty much screwed.
"As Halo 21, I was leader of second squad when the bonies showed up. We were sent to escort Wrecker Squadron in to hit the turian cap ships with heavy missiles.
"At first, we held our own missiles in reserve. We didn't know what kind of firepower this new enemy would have, and we weren't carrying any dedicated space to space missiles, just the Piranhas in our internal bays.
"In the end, it didn't make a difference. They didn't have missiles, and their guns were underpowered. In the time it would have taken for them to penetrate our veritechs' armor, we were already outmaneuvering them. Hanson even decided to get fancy and grappled one. Show off.
"A couple of them were smart enough to see what happened and jumped to FTL. They FTLed back in, trying for a boom and zoom, but they just didn't have the firepower, and after the third pass, we had their pattern locked down. On the fourth pass, we blew one of them to bits while he was still getting his bearings back from dropping out of FTL. The other one smartened up and didn't try for a fifth pass.
"It was a turkey shoot. We didn't even need to use missiles.
"Can't say the Wreckers had the same luck, though. Turian ships have some pretty impressive point defenses."
Sergeant Petra "Vice" Santiago, Wrecker 13
"I flew with Wrecker Squadron in that first skirmish, Wrecker 13. Our fighters were loaded down with Rampart anti-ship torpedoes: powerful, but they're no reflex missiles.
"The Halos might as well have stayed home for all the threat the turian fighters posed, but their point defense is nothing to scoff at. They might not be designed to deal with the missile or mecha density ours are, but it's all in a single package, those GArDIAN lasers of theirs, which are also designed to tag enemy frigates at close range.
"So to sum up, they've got less point defense overall, but a thicker anti-mecha turret system, one with the firepower to eventually slag a frigate.
"Not fun.
"We lost Carly and Rodeo on the way in, but the rest of us managed to get through the worst of it. The Baldur's a tough little fighter, and we've got better anti-laser defenses, so despite the firepower those GArDIAN lasers had, it still took more than a few hits to take us down.
"Even so, we dove for the target's hull rather than try to maintain the attack run. Going to battloid was a lifesaver. Standing on the hull, we were able to slowly whittle away their point defense in the area until we could take off and hit them with our Ramparts with impunity.
"Not nearly as glamorous as what they show in the vids, but it got the job done."
Lieutenant Commander Keenan Doskias, PFS Defender
"I was Guns on the PFS Defender. Err, that is, Tactical Officer. I wasn't part of Flight Ops, but even I could hear the Air Boss going nuts over his fighters getting slaughtered. With those enemy fighters coming in, I marked them as priority targets for the GArDIAN. I then turned my attention back to working on the main gun's firing solution on the orbital defense platform we were targeting. I had figured that would do the trick.
"I was wrong.
"They were tougher than they looked. The GArDIAN lasers only took two of them down on the initial pass, so I altered the firing pattern for focused fire to compensate, but it was too late. They were already under our defensive fire umbrella. There's an automatic cut out that stops the GArDIAN lasers from firing below a certain incline to prevent it accidentally firing into our own hull.
"Of course, there's a manual override and manual backup controls, but they hadn't been used outside of drills for centuries. Normally, when an enemy fighter gets under the defensive umbrella, we sic our own fighters on them.
"The captain had Helm pull a roll to shake them off. Once under the defensive umbrella, a fighter can just match V and bomb the hull until it runs out of ordnance, but that's a lot harder to do with the ship rolling under you. With our fighters already down, I scrambled gunners to the nearby turrets to manually pick off any that managed to cling on.
"Spirits, the last thing we expected were for those fighters to have transformed into giant robots and actually walk on the hull. That rendered the roll totally ineffective. Half the turrets I'd designated were destroyed before the gunners even got there. The other half didn't last much longer.
"When the torpedoes hit, we had no choice but to withdraw."
"Unfortunately, we were unable to interview any turian fighter pilots who participated in that first battle, as the only survivor on record was shot down and killed less than two years later at the Second Battle of Telos."
Codex: VF/A-20 Baldur Veritech Fighter
The VF/A-20 Baldur veritech fighter is an older model veritech fighter that served during the Relay War. Unlike the current generation VF-23 Sif and VF/B-26 Thor, the Baldur is a fully multirole design, meant to serve both as an aerospace superiority fighter and an attack fighter. In fighter and guardian modes, the Baldur is easily identified by its distinct forward-swept wings, which gives it considerable responsiveness in atmospheric flight. It also uses a virtual cockpit interface that provides the pilot with an unobstructed 360-degree view of his fighter's surroundings, regardless of current mode.
In keeping with its multipurpose design, the Baldur's internal armament is minimal, an array of forty-two Piranha multipurpose missiles and a pair of wingtip-mounted laser cannons. It boasts two undercarriage hardpoints for gun pods, another two undercarriage hardpoints for additional ordnance, two hardpoints on its dorsal surface, and two hardpoints on each wing, for a total of eight hardpoints.
During the Relay War, the Baldur was typically issued with a GU-29 85mm rifled cannon for its primary weapon and a P-3 plasma lance for its secondary, as despite the energy draw of the power hungry P-3, many pilots considered the five meter blade of superheated plasma invaluable for carving holes in turian ships through their conformal kinetic barriers. Advances in metallurgy and the implementation of semi-conformal kinetic barriers have since rendered this tactic obsolete.
The UEDF retired the Baldur from active service in 2172 in favor of the VF-23 Sif and VF/B-26 Thor, both of which integrate mass effect technology from the ground up. Despite the lack of space for mass effect cores to provide inertial damping and kinetic barriers, the Baldur is still popular among CDMs.
Codex: UEDF Mecha Squadron Organization
The United Defense Force utilizes a uniform organizational structure for nearly all mecha squadrons across all branches, though some specialized units, of course, differ from the standard. The standard UEDF mecha squadron consists of fifteen mecha, broken down into one command team of three (numbered 01-03) and two squads of six (numbered 11-16 and 21-26). Each squad is further broken down into teams of three (11-13, 14-16, 21-23, and 24-26). When serving independently, the three-mecha teams typically adopt a color callsign and renumber (1-3).
This structure provides UEDF mecha squadrons with both redundancy and versatility, allowing them to handle a wide variety of situations even if one or more mecha are unavailable, whether due shortages, maintenance issues, or combat losses. It also allows the formation of ad hoc squadrons of mixed mecha for specialized missions with minimal confusion.