Unknown System, Outer Edge March 24th, 2008
At the very edge of the stellar system an unnoticeable subspace rupture began to form. Once the rupture had reached an appropriate size, the first ships of the Terran strike force began to emerge.
At the forefront of the force were the battlecruisers Nimitz, Yamamoto and Togo. While they were only described as battlecruisers on paper and were the size of modern frigates and destroyers, with their heavy missile armament and ability to carry 16 F-302 Mongoose Strike fighters, they were still one of the most effective units in the fleet.
At the center of the task force were the heavy units of the Task Force. Two large Montana-class battleships, the Montana and Yorkshire cruised silently and stealthily their emissions almost non existent
At over six hundred meters long, they were twice the size of the Daedalus-class units and required close to two thousand personnel to operate them in battle. Designed to stand up to Wraith hive ships nearly six times as large, these ships were designed to be able take heavy punishment and dish it out in return.
Armed with no less than twelve double-barreled improved Asgard energy weapon turrets on its hull, its main armament was a fearsome sight to behold. And although, much of the battleship was designed with alien technology, the development of these particular weapons was actually of human origin.
Before this, Tollan, Goa'uld and even the Asgard used energy weapons that fired ellipse like rounds at their targets. When designing the energy weapons that would be incorporated into Montana-class, Terran engineers from BAE and General Dynamics asked their Asgard and Tok'ra colleagues why this was the case. To the humans it seemed very inefficient to fire a pseudo sphere of energy at an object when one could just as easily focus it into a narrow beam and possibly achieve even more damage?
The Terran engineers reasoned with the rudimentary equation of pressure equals force over area. They proposed that if one could focus the blast into a smaller blast area, then one could achieve even more devastating results with less firepower and energy expended and could have a higher chance at overloading the Ori battlecruiser's near impenetrable shields.
Having no answer to this the Asgard and Tok'ra scientists decided to test this theory out to satisfy the constant questioning of the Terrans, who they still believed to be primitive and inferior. However the results were shockingly right and after continual tests one after another it indicated that focusing energy salvoes into a small tight beam increased the destructive potential of the blast by 500.
In addition to its main guns, which were suited for close range combat. They carried a massive missile loadout allowing it to engage enemies from long range. As well as its high yield antimatter warhead, each missile was armed with a short ranged one-time use hyperdrive that was capable of making a micro hyperspace jump, making it capable of destroying enemies at extreme as well as short range.
While it did not have the ability to carry fighters, the sheer number of missile tubes on board prevented the ship from having any hangar bays large enough to carry fighters. Numerous railguns stationed on hard points all around the hull, made sure that any fighters attacking the ship would have a very bad day. The railguns also served a secondary purpose and provided point defense against any projectiles fired at them.
Unlike previous Terran capital ships like the Prometheus-class and the Daedalus class, the Montana class was the first class not to have its combat information center positioned on top of the hull for everyone to see. Thus, providing a very large bulls eye that absolutely begged to be fired upon by any enemy ship.
Instead, the CIC was placed deep in the center of the hull. This meant that the command staff was safe from direct enemy fire, meaning that the enemy could not focus all of their firepower at an exposed CIC in hopes of killing the command crew and effectively decapitating the ship. This also meant that one did not have to wear vacuum suits during battle while stationed there since one had to literally tear the ship apart to be able to breach the atmosphere of the CIC.
While this meant that the battleship's officers would have to rely on external cameras to get a visual of what was going on, the trade off was deemed favorable enough by her designers to implement it.
While the two guided missile battleships, or BBGs as the Navy designated them were one of the heaviest and most important capital ships in the entire Navy, neither of them served as the flagship of Admiral Collingsworth, the Senior Officer of Task Force 12.
In between the two massive behemoths, was the Supercarrier Simon Bolivar CVS-1, the pride of the Terran Navy. At 800 meters long she was even longer than the Montana-class BBGs and had a tonnage that was nearly twice as much. It took over four thousand personnel to operate her and an additional eighteen hundred for her embarked fighter group.
While the basic design of the carrier was revolutionary, she still incorporated some design elements found in her aquatic bound ancestors. Like the aircraft carriers of the pre Ori war era, the hangar was placed deep inside the hull. In addition, Flight Operations were run in a structure mounted on top of hull for better visibility and coordination. However all similarities to previous carrier designs stopped at that.
The catapults of the inside the hull with the end situated at the very fore of the ship. This allowed the fighter to be protected from enemy fire until last second as it launched off of the carrier and into battle. The design of the catapult was electromagnetically based, similar to the railguns in use by the TFN and allowed it launch a fighter every fifteen seconds. The Bolivar had twelve of those, allowing it to launch a whole squadron at a time and could launch its entire complement quickly.
One the sides of the vessel two small landing bays were placed to allow the fighters to land. These bays were one of the most heavily shielded areas in the carrier for obvious reasons. The openings of the two landing bays were retractable into the hull, allowing them to be closed and inaccessible on the outside off when they weren't in use.
The Bolivar's massive and cavernous internal hangar allowed it to be able hold up to 300 fighters in its hull. However even with half of the fighter squadrons originally assigned to the Daedalus-class battlecruisers and the sole surviving squadron from the De Gaulle transferring over to the Bolivar to join the fifteen squadrons already stationed there, a total sum of 22 squadrons and 254 fighters, her cavernous bays still remained under full capacity.
Currently the Terran Federal Republic had fewer than 1500 trained pilots in its arsenal and while they were more than willing to take the fight to the enemy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with the President and his cabinet were hesitant at sending more than 20 of their naval forces, the only real assets that they currently possessed away from their home system.
Until the Space Force got itself fully organized and established, meaning that there were sufficient amounts of Orbital Weapons Platforms and Fortresses completed to adequately protect the Solar System, specifically Earth and the hydrogen refineries in orbit around Jupiter, the Navy would have to keep most of its assets at home to guard against any possible Ori attack.
While this issue was the sore point in the relations between the Free Jaffa and the Tok'ra there was nothing they could really do about it. While it had one of the biggest armies, the Terran Federal Republic had one of the smallest navies which even after the influx of Asgard castoffs was still grossly undermanned and under strength.
To make matters more delicate, out of all of the major allied powers, the Terran Federal Republic had the biggest industrial base out of all of them and made up over 80 of the war effort, producing much of the weapons and munitions used by the allied forces The majority of that being the personal weapons used by allied troops. If Earth was lost, so was the rest of the galaxy.
Like her third generation sisters, she had her CIC and Flag Bridge stationed deep inside her hull. Despite being nearly 2.5 times as large as the Daedalus-class Battlecruisers, her onboard armament was only slightly more powerful and was mostly armed with railguns to ward off any fighter attacks. However, the designers considered her fighters to be her primary armament as mobile batteries capable of attacking the enemy at long and short range. If one factored them directly into her armament, the Bolivar would be considered the most heavily armed ship in the entire Navy.
Unlike the battleships, her function in Terran Naval doctrine was drastically different. While the Montanas and other, battlecruisers, cruisers, destroyers and frigates would be in the fore of the battle directly engaging the enemy in close ship-to-ship combat. The Bolivar-class Supercarriers and Hartmann-class Fleet Carriers still under development would stay back from the thick of battle and launch their fighters from a point of safety while accompanied by a number of capital starships, which would deal with any enemy vessels that broke through the front lines.
At the very rear, the battlecruisers Kuznetsov, Nelson and Zhukov served as the vanguard for any enemy who wished to attack from behind, their guns and missile tubes eager and ready to target anything that the detected the Task Force.
Flag Bridge, TFNS Simon Bolivar CVS-1
"Sir. We've just exited hyperspace," reported Vaughn.
"Inform all units to power down their drives and all superfluous systems. We're running quiet and I want us undetectable," ordered Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Collingsworth as he looked at the holo projector displaying real time tactical information and the status of everything in the Solar System.
Shortly after the arrival of the Bolivar and her escorts, Collingsworth was declared as the permanent Commanding Officer of Task Force Twelve and had been given the appropriate rank for his job, thus giving him star number two on his collar and another stripe on his sleeve. While some in the Navy and the Ministry of Defense grumbled about giving him yet another promotion and putting him in command, he was a competent officer and had seen action against the Ori, a uncommon for a naval officer but would not be such a rarity for long.
As the Commanding Officer of the Task Force, he did have a choice to which ship he chose to fly his flag on. While the Togo was a good ship, she was a little small and cramped for a command ship. Seeing that bigger ships with more protection and shielding were present, Collingsworth moved his Flag and his staff to the Bolivar where he could command the Task Force more effectively.
"Status on the Task Force?"
"They're ready to go."
"Execute Phase One of Operation Taranto."
"Sir. You know we can always stop now and return to Dakara. One we launch those fighters, we are going to be committed to this strike," remarked Chandra, playing devil's advocate for his Admiral to present the widest choice of tactical options even though he was one of the biggest supporters executing the strike.
"Noted. However, as the Americans say, we're going all in. The die is cast. All we can do is sit and wait," Collingsworth said as he turned himself away from the holo projector and sat down on one of the chairs, knowing full well that everything rested on his shoulders.
Launch Bay, TFNS Heihachiro Togo BC-4
"Sir. She's all ready to go," reported the Chief Petty Officer who was in charge of maintaining his Mongoose.
"Thank you Chief," Sundov replied, visually inspecting his newly F-302A multipurpose Strike fighter.
"Bring back some scalps for us sir."
"I will."
The flight crew had done a magnificent job at getting it prepared in time for the strike. Spotless and resplendent, she was right out of one of the Lockheed Martin Strike fighter plants in Detroit and dazzled everyone that laid their eyes on it. In the short amount of time that they maintenance crew was allotted, they were even able to stencil his name under the canopy and paint his two kill markings underneath.
The relief convoy, in addition to containing additional ships, Strike fighters and personnel had also brought a squadron's worth of F-302A Mongoose Strike fighters, the newest model which had just gone into mass production.
Knowing that his pilots and squadron commanders were going to fight amongst one another to see who would get to pilot the new craft, Admiral Collingsworth had decreed that the new fighters would go to the twelve pilots in the Task Force who had scored the most kills.
This served a double purpose. While it did enable to the Task Force's most deadly pilots to become more capable, it also spread them out amongst the Task Force, making sure that the combat capacity of the squadrons remained nearly equal. While this did make logistics hell for the flight crews, the A model and the original had 80 parts commonality with one another, making it less of a hassle than what they originally believed.
Although the A model was in many ways similar to the original version, there were some obvious differences. While it resembled the original model and used the same parts, it was actually 20 bigger. The extra size had gone to adding a shield system, the first ever to be deployed on a fighter and more reliable reactionless engines that allowed it to bypass the laws of physics. Thus, creating a highly protected but maneuverable Strike fighter that was able to take on whatever fighter craft the Ori chose to put it up against.
While the F-302 still had the ability to carry missiles, its increased size allowed it to have six missile racks instead of four like the original model, allowing it to carry a weapon loadout one and a half times that of the older model.
The 20mm projectile cannon was also replaced. In its place a rapid-fire energy cannon was implemented instead. While it was not nearly as powerful as those used by their Jaffa and Tok'ra allies, it could fire nearly four times as fast. Thus making the odds of hitting enemy fighters higher and enabled them to strafe enemy targets more effectively than before.
After he finished the external inspection, he grabbed his helmet and climbed into the cockpit to perform the pre flight checklist.
When Task Force 12 was first assembled, Terran military planners wanted to send two squadrons per battlecruiser in order to pack as much punch as possible into the Task Force. However there was a slight problem.
The hangar bays of the BC-304 Flight II units, could not hold 24 F-302s and retained the capacity of only carrying 16 like the Flight I. While still incorporating some advancement in shields and weapons, the Flight II was just a slight improvement over the Flight I and quickly began construction right after the start of the war. The Flight III series, designed later on and had more time allotted to their development could carry two full squadrons however they were either still under construction or undergoing trials when the order to deploy to Dakara was sent.
Knowing their dilemma, the logistics officers decided to full up the hangars with sixteen fighters anyways. Two squadrons, each at two-thirds strength of eight fighters each would occupy the hangar bays. With the foreknowledge that there were going to be numerous casualties, military planners knew that over time the two squadrons on each battlecruiser would probably form into one in order to keep a reasonably sized formation in place and would send the remaining third of each squadron to the front lines to keep the remaining formation at full or near full strength.
After the arrival of the relief convoy, the plans changed since the planners did not factor the presence of the Navy's sole operational Supercarrier into the relief force. In addition to its fighter complement, the Simon Bolivar had brought along the third flights of the already deployed squadrons, bringing up all the squadrons to full or near full strength.
To make room for the new arrivals, over half of the fighter squadrons stationed of the battlecruisers would be transferred to the Bolivar, freeing up the needed space for an entire squadron. This was blessing to Sundov for now he had two bays to operate out of instead of one and had much more space to work with.
After finishing his checklist he attached his flight helmet to his head, strapped himself securely and hit the button on his cockpit that closed the canopy, sealing him inside the fighter.
Realizing that he was ready to go, he keyed his COM to the frequency used by the Togo's flight ops. "Flight Ops, this is Jolly Rodger Lead. Requesting permission to take off."
"Jolly Rodger lead, this is Flight Ops. Permission granted. Kill the bastards for us."
"Rodger wilco." Sundov taxied his fighter in preparation for launch.
Unlike the catapults that were installed on the new carrier and would be standard issue on every new fighter equipped vessel in the fleet, the pilots stationed on the older model starships still had to launch themselves off of the flight deck. While some part of him wished to be stationed on the carrier, he was glad that his squadron had the ship to themselves and did not have to share the pilot's lounge with any other unit.
Putting his engines to full power, he launched his fighter out of the flight bay and into the celestial void, commonly known as space. He proceeded along with his squadron to form up with the rest of the strike force, which was assembling at that very moment.
Flag Bridge, TFNS Simon Bolivar
"Sir. We've just launched the last of the fighters," reported Vaughn.
Collingsworth stood up from his command chair and walked towards the projector once again. "Open a secure com channel to the rest of the Task Force," he ordered.
"Yes sir," responded, the communications officer stationed on the Flag Bridge. "They're ready for you," she said.
Collingsworth picked up one of the COM devices and turned it on. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Task Force, this is Admiral Collingsworth speaking.
"Today will be a major event in Galactic history. Today we fight not as members of our former nations or even as members of human species. We fight as members of a grand alliance of species across the galaxy determined to drive the Ori invaders from sacred land.
"Since the beginning of this war, we have been on the defensive, reacting to the Ori and playing by their rules. For the first time, we will take the fight to the enemy and will set the initiative, forcing them to fight on our terms not theirs.
"We may be outnumbered, we may be outgunned but we will never surrender if we still have a breath in our lungs, or any weapon in our hands. Under no circumstances will we surrender our unalienable rights of liberty and freedom.
"Terra expects her sons and daughters to do their utmost. Good luck to us all and may providence shine upon us. Collingsworth Out."
His speech finished, he calmly put down the COM.
Hyperspace
Sundov relaxed in the cockpit of his Mongoose strike fighter as it sailed through hyperspace during its five-minute micro-jump across the system. The timer on his HUD stated that there was still a few minutes left before he entered real space.
Knowing that he couldn't do anything while in hyperspace, he turned his attention to a photograph attached to his control panel. Taking careful not to damage it he removed it and began to stare at the photo containing his wife and infant daughter taken shortly before the war.
They'd been a happy family, well as happy as they could be with him being stationed in Siberia as part of the Russian F-302 wing stationed there. Siberia didn't offer much other than its vast isolation and its freezing cold winters.
When the attacks came, his direct family was spared. Living in a top secret Siberia meant that one was far away from any major population centers and during the Ori Incursion, any major targets.
However his extended family was not. Originally from St. Petersburg, he still called it Leningrad out of habit; the city was one of those unfortunate to be hit by the Ori. While the Ori battlecruiser was destroyed shortly after arriving, it was still able to get some shots off before it was destroyed. One of them hit the apartment complex where his parents had been living, killing them instantly.
He stared intently his daughter. According to the chronometer she would be turning one today. According to the latest mail from his wife, she had just mastered walking and was becoming quite a terror at their newly acquired government provided base housing at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida, where his squadron was based. Florida's hot and humid climate was a sharp contrast to the icy coldness of Siberia.
The timer beeped, signaling that reversion to real space would occur in less than a minute. In the same manner that he removed the picture, he placed the photograph back in its original place on the control panel, ready for action at a moment's notice once more.
"Thirty seconds until reversion," the Mongoose's on board computer told him. Happy Birthday my dear Natalia, this is for you. He thought as he prepared himself for emersion into real space.
Ori Shipyards
The subspace rift opening disrupted the relative calm and tranquility surrounding the area. Out of the rift, emerged over 300 strike fighters of the Terran Federal Navy, fully armed and ready.
Their primary target was the single Orbital Fortress in geosynchronous orbit around the terrestrial shipyards below, guarding it from attack.
The Orbital Fortress was designed to defend the yards against any surprise attack and was fully capable of holding its own against multiple starships. However the station still had a single vulnerability. The Ori still did not view small craft like the F-302 to be a threat and thus did not have any means to effectively engage them.
While they could have easily bypassed the fortress and gone for the shipyards on the surface directly, the fortress would be able to call for reinforcements quickly; reinforcements that would slaughter them as they reentered space attempted to jump back to the Task Force.
In addition, according to intelligence reports obtained by a Tok'ra agent, the Fortress was the only one of its kind guarding the yards from external attack and possessed the single FTL communications device in the system. Thus meaning that if the station was destroyed; the yard would be cut off and helpless under the guns of any attacking force.
The Admiral's plan was a risky three-fold plan. If it failed, then Earth would loose a large amount of its Space Navy and would be forced to commit even more resources from its already fragile economy to recoup the losses from this catastrophe. However if successful, Earth would be able to strike a decisive blow towards the Ori and boost its already sagging morale. Collingsworth was putting not only his career on the line but in addition the security of Earth.
"We're going in. All units stay sharp and remember your assigned targets. We need to take out that fortress immediately," ordered Captain Taylor the Bolivar's CAG and senior pilot in charge of the strike group over the general com frequency.
"Jolly Rodgers, you're with me. Switch to squadron frequency," he commanded, wanting to communicate over a clear com channel.
"Rodger that," responded his wingman Lee, somberly. His sister had been on the De Gaulle and the realization of her death had hit him hard, causing him to loose his carefree and vibrant personality.
As they sped towards the fortress, the units equipped with a strike package opened fire against the fortress, now that they were in range. Sundov could see the contrails of the missiles soaring towards, the target.
"Come on," he breathed, watching. If the fortress was not destroyed, then the whole raid would end up a failure.
The Fortress rocked as the missiles' warheads detonated. While the majority were naquahdah-enhanced warheads, a sizeable number had antimatter. Over half of the missiles were able to hit the Fortress' hull directly before the Ori managed to get their damn near invincible shields up.
A warning note began to blare. He checked his sensors and swore. The fleet had just lost the element of surprise and the Ori were beginning to retaliate. "We've got multiple contacts launching from the surface and the fortress. Split off into wing pairs and engage. Jolly Rodger two, form up on me," he ordered as he vectored towards the incoming Furies.
"Aye aye Skipper," replied Lee, his Mongoose right behind his Commander's.
Flag Bridge, TFNS Bolivar
"Admiral! The fighters have emerged from hyperspace and have begun their attack!" exclaimed a youthful Lieutenant at the communications console, young enough that he was unable to keep his voice normal in times of great stress.
"Is the Fortress destroyed?" he asked immediately.
The Lieutenant paused, his headphones listening in on the reports made by Collingsworth's squadron leaders. "No sir. They were able to severely damage the fortress, however the Ori managed to get their shields up before the last salvo."
Bloody Hell! He thought, trying to keep his composure in front of his officers. It wouldn't do to appear panicky, for his men out there expected their Admiral to remain calm and unfazed at all times and not doing so would incite panic.
"Orders sir?" asked the junior officer.
He paused, knowing that the orders that he issued now would determine whether or not the raid would be a success or not. "Lieutenant, inform Captain Taylor to have the fighters transmit the coordinates of the fortress," he ordered.
"Yes sir," responded the Lieutenant before hastily operating the communications array.
"Sir?" asked Chandra, puzzled at the Admiral's sudden order and again providing the voice of caution to Collingsworth.
"Commander, once we get the coordinates, the Montana and Yorkshire will be able to fire their hyper missiles at the Fortress, allowing us to destroy it for good."
"Understood," Chandra nodded now understanding the reasoning behind Collingsworth's thinking.
Ori Shipyards
"Enemy energy weapons fire tracking us sir," reported Lee.
"I see it," responded Sundov. Some of the surviving weapons batteries were doing their best to track the fighters in hope of destroying them. While the large weapons batteries on the Fortress were designed to take out massive capital starships had a low chance of hitting a small and nimble strike fighter, Sundov was in no mood to take any chances. A single hit would be more than able to cause his Mongoose to disappear, and even flying near the emission had a high chance of shorting out the Mongoose's electrical systems.
The two executed textbook perfect barrel rolls that would have made their flight instructors proud as they pursued a lone Ori Fury, the Ori ship speeding towards the fortress in hopes of evading the two human fighters.
However it was to no avail. His helmet beeped as the targeting system on his helmet-mounted heads up display changed from red to green, indicating that he had a lock.
Immediately Sundov pulled the trigger, and watched as the bursts from his new rapid fire energy cannon tore the fragile Ori fighter craft apart, killing its occupant instantly.
"The poor bastard never had a chance," he remarked nonchalantly after the brief but violent explosion faded away, knowing that he had just killed another human being.
"All's fair in love and war," responded Lee bloodthirstily, quoting an old maxim and was glad that the Ori pilot was dead.
"True," he conceded.
"One more down and twelve hundred more to go," the Lieutenant remarked as they veered towards another Fury. While the Terrans were better pilots than the Ori in respect to quality, right now they were outnumbered a little over six to one. While they were arguably the best fighter force in the galaxy, six to one was a bit of a stretch and the Ori weren't pushovers either. If they couldn't find a way to destroy the Fortress anytime soon, then the raid would go up in smoke.
Banishing his worries from his mind, he once again focused at his task at hand knowing that he was unable to do anything but shoot down as many fighters as possible. In the back of his mind, he hoped that someone higher up in the chain of command had a plan up his or her sleeve.
Guys I know I am slow on the update. At the same time, I am also editing the previous chapters to make it flow with the story a little better so the older chapters that have incorrect term in them will be fixed shortly. So in order to appease you guys, I have decided to give you a little treat. Here are the tech specs on the Wittmann Main Battle Tank discussed in the previous chapter. Let me know if you want more tech specs included in the story.
M4 Wittmann Main Battle Tank
Primary Users: Terran Federal Republic, Pangaran Republic, Langaran World Union, and many others
Manufacturer: Krauss-Maffei
Height: 1.83m
Width: 4.27m
Length: 7.32m
Crew: 4 (Commander, Gunner, Secondary Gunner, Driver)
Armor: Tritium-Chobham Alloy
Primary Armament: Rheinmetall 240mm Electromagnetic Railgun
Secondary Armament: 1 X Coaxial General Electric GAU-17 7.62mm X 51mm minigun, 2 X Heckler and Koch M312 .50 BMG Light Machine Gun or Heckler and Koch M307 40mm Grenade Launcher mounted on Kongsberg Defence Remote Weapons Stations, 1 X RAFAEL Trophy Active Protection System mounted on the top of the turret
Engine: Rolls Royce MT70 4500 hp hybrid hydrogen naquahdah engine, BMW E50 Transmission
Reactor: General Electric T1G Naquahdah Reactor
Operational Range: Unlimited
Maximum Speed: Road: 144km/hr, Off-road: 121km/hr
"My Lord Prior, my warriors and I are devoted to Origin to the death. We have crushed the proud Jaffa, broken the will of the Sodan, withstood the heretical might of the Asgard and defeated the once powerful Lucian Alliance. There is nothing we will not do to fulfill the will of the Ori. We fear nothing save one thing; the Tau'ri and their accursed tanks!" An anonymous Ori Commander reporting to a Prior during the Liberation of Orban.
"Armored warfare was nothing like what we had ever seen and had let alone heard of. The Terrans armed with a centuries worth of knowledge of this deadly art and armed with the best technology this galaxy could get its hands on quickly proved the lethality of this new doctrine, echoing what was to come. An echo that shook the foundations of the entire Galaxy and changed the face of warfare forever." – from the memoirs Field Marshall Tanis Reth, Chief of Staff of the Pangaran Military 2038.
In 2006, in the aftermath of the First Ori assault on Earth, the newly created Terran Federal Military realized that it needed to upgrade its military to that of galactic standards. While it could upgrade contemporary Main Battle Tanks with advanced Asgard and Tok'ra technology such as the American Abrams, the British Challenger, and the German Leopard, this was seen as only a temporary solution.
The Terran Federal Republic needed a Main Battle Tank that could stand up to whatever the Ori would throw at it. Krauss-Maffei, renowned for its line of high quality armored vehicles was contracted for the task. With the assistance of Asgard and Tok'ra engineers and scientists and incorporating the advice of former Russian, German, Israeli and American Armored Officers who would take them into combat, the Company diligently worked on the Tank that would be known as the symbol of liberation across the galaxy and would mark the rise of Earth to a galactic power. The finished product was nothing like anyone had seen before.
The basic design of the M4 was radically different from what had been the norm in the Main Battle Tanks that preceded it. Unlike pre-war tanks, the M4 Wittmann did not have a large turret and instead contained the smallest remote controlled turret that could house its 240mm main gun and its coaxial GAU-17. In addition, the Wittmann incorporated four independently operable tracks as opposed to four to enable the tank to function even if half the treads were inoperable and were mounted on the sides of the hull instead of directly underneath to give the Wittmann the smallest profile possible, thus making it harder to identify and target.
A large emphasis was placed on the survival of the crew. The Terran Military knew that with the Ori outnumbering the Terrans by at least 20 to 1, they needed every trained soldier that they could get their hands on. While the loss of a tank might be regrettable, it was far more practical to replace a tank than a tank crew.
The crew would reside in the armored hull of the tank surrounded by the best armor Earth could build. The newly developed Trinium-Chobham electric armor was developed by English scientists and was more effective than the three substances alone, allowing it to survive nearly everything the enemy could throw at it. Like the Merkava, the Wittmann had its engine placed in front of the tank which gave additional protection to the crew and the access hatch was placed in the back to the tank allowing the crew to bail out quickly in the case of the tank becoming disabled during combat. However in order to even dream of scoring a direct hit on the armor, one had to overload the Asgard designed energy shields that were capable of withstanding multiple hits from an Ori Archangel's main weapon.
The most striking feature of the Wittmann was its active camouflage system. Perfected by Terran scientists, it allowed the tank to blend into its surrounding environment, making it very elusive to the enemy. The camouflage system incorporated a form of smart paint that allowed it change its pigment to its natural surroundings and did so in not only the human vision spectrum but the ultra violet and infrared spectrum as well. Many Ori soldiers were killed simply by walking straight into the Wittmann's range and were killed even before they knew what hit them.
The Wittmann was armed with a 240mm electromagnetic railgun as its primary weapon. The Asgard and Tok'ra scientists who were working on the project were puzzled at this, since once could incorporate a more powerful energy weapon and thus believed that it would be more logical to deploy in combat. However the military replied that while it wanted a high tech weapon, they also wanted something that could be readily repaired in the field since the nearest factory was light years away from the battlefield and did not wish to strain logistics to an even higher point than was needed.
Complementing the 240mm main gun was the GAU-17 minigun that was mounted coaxially on the turret. Historically heavy armor was combat ineffective against enemy infantry due to its armament and was vulnerable to anti tank weapons carried by said foes. With the GAU-17 capable of 2,000 to 4,000 rounds per minute, the Wittmann could easily hold take own enemy infantry.
While the Terran Military heavily stressed the combined arms doctrine, where different types of units would be put in the battlefield in close proximity to one another in order to complement each other, the military also emphasized redundancy in order to overcome situations were one was put in not so benign circumstances.
While designed to engage enemy forces on flat prairie like terrain, the Wittmann was also optimized for urban combat. The commander and secondary gunner of the tank operated the remote weapon systems mounted on the hull allowing them to selectively target individual enemies without exposing themselves to enemy snipers. The Kongsberg Remote Weapons systems were very versatile allowing the crew to operate a variety of weapons ranging from the M240 7.62mm Machine Gun to the Powerful M307 40mm grenade launcher.
The M4 Wittmann was first deployed during the last stages for the Battle of Chulak and saw major action during the last days of the campaign. While it was deployed too late to make any large effect, it quickly proved itself in Operation Celtic Hammer during the Liberation of Hebrida where a single mechanized brigade under the command of then Colonel Michael Sanders held on an entire Ori armored Corps as it raced to exploit a salient in the allied lines, which would have spelled disaster for the allied efforts at liberation.
The M4 Wittmann served for the entire duration of the first Galactic War. Even after newer, more advanced tanks were produced, Allied Field Commanders still heavily requested the M4 over any other allied tank. After a half century of service, the last M4 was finally retired in 2056.