CF/A-17 Wraith Fighter

(Version 1.00 - Last Modified: 10/05/2005)

CF/A-17 Wraith Fighter introduction When the Terran Confederacy designed and built their fleet of space ships, they envisioned space battles occurring at massive distances, where long range lasers and missiles would keep ships too far apart for small, relatively short-range fighters to have an impact. But as civil unrest increased, the military leaders of the Terran Confederacy decided to refit the Behemoth Class Battlecruisers to include support for planetary invasions. This including having them carry a large number of army troops, military equipment, and drop ships. However, the military realized that it was impractical for the ship to carry atmospheric fighters as they would require the ship to enter an atmosphere to launch them and launching them in an atmosphere would require too much space then the designers were willing to spare to planetary invasion missions. While the first solution to this problem was to have the ships carry atmospheric fighters that could be transported in pieces in a drop ship and then assembled on a planet, the fighters would still require extensive planet-based facilities that would be available in a prolonged deployment, but not in the swift planetary invasions they designers envisioned. The solution finally presented itself in a little noticed design called the CF/A-1 Wraith Fighter, a single person, trans-atmospheric fighter.

The original Wraith Fighter had been rejected by the military, but not because of any design flaws, but because of the lack of any perceived need for the fighter. The design and the completed prototypes sat in a military warehouse for decades before the refit of the battle cruisers caused it to resurface. The Wraith's design was updated with new a sensor suite and a changed weapons load, but it remained fundamentally the same when it entered service as the CF/A-4 Wraith Fighter. Since the fighter was just as capable of operating in space as in an atmosphere, the military developed new tactics on how to deploy the fighters to assist the battle cruisers in space. While there was still the problem of attacking enemy ships deployed far away from the battle cruiser, the fighters provided an excellent counter-missile screen. Even better, when the Terran Confederacy encountered the Zerg and the Protoss, both races deployed their own fighters or equivalent units, providing the Wraith fighter with ample targets.

Over the years, the Wraith fighter received numerous upgrades and refits, but it's basic design and layout remained unchanged, a testament to its original designers. Although the number of positions of its weapons would change with the upgrades, the fighter maintained two offensive weapon systems: laser cannons and missile launchers. The laser cannons were primarily designed for use against ground-based or close range targets, as the designers sacrificed a great deal of the weapon's range in favor of higher damage. The missile launchers were designed to be used against other fighters, reinforced ground-based targets, and later, other spaceships. Taken together, the CF/A-17 Wraith Fighter packs a large amount of firepower and maneuverability in it's small, compact frame.

Only a few years before the collapse of the Terran Confederacy, military scientists working for the government made a significant breakthrough in their research into developing energy shields. The scientists were unable to reproduce the energy shields used on all Protoss vehicles and ships, but they were able to create a distortion field that could rend an object invisible to sight and all but the most powerful sensors. However, as the scientists continued their research they discovered that the energy required to create the distortion field grew exponentially based on the size and mass of the object the field was to cover. Given the reactor technology available to the Terran Confederacy, to generate enough power to cloak even the relatively small Valkyrie Class Missile Frigates would require a reactor twice the size of the Valkyrie frigate. Fortunately, the energy requirements for covering something as small as a Wraith fighter were well within the output capacity of the reactors that could be placed on the Wraith fighter.

With the creation of a cloaking device that could be easily placed on a Wraith Fighter, the leaders of the Terran Confederacy's military ordered a new version of the fighter be designed, the CF/A-17. The improved fighter mounted two additional laser cannons, one on each wing, and was loaded with more powerful missiles in its two missile launchers. Unfortunately, the military's ability to upgrade old CF/A-16 Wraiths and produce new CF/A-17 Wraiths vastly outweighed its ability to produce the cloaking devices, so a large number of the new fighters were deployed without the new devices installed. The plan was to steadily upgrade the Confederacy's disparate squadrons a little at a time, distributing newly built cloaking devices as needed. As fate would have it, the large Alpha Squadron, which had received none of the new fighters with built in cloaking devices, received a large shipment of them ready to be installed just days before Alpha Squadron's leader General Edmund Duke joined the Sons of Korhol against the Terran Confederacy.

Vehicle Information:

M.D.C. by location:

Speed:

Statistical Data:

Weapon Systems:

  1. Burst Laser Cannons (3)
  2. Missile Launchers (2)

Special Systems:

  1. Electronic Warfare System
  2. Cloaking Device

Standard Systems:

  1. Life Support System
  2. Communication Systems
  3. Sensor Systems
  4. Targeting Computer System

Combat Summary: