GDA Vehicle Data: Coronet Systems

Global Defense Army
Armoured Ground Vehicle
Unit Identification Database
[Revision 2320]

Company: 753rd Aerospace Engineering Shipyards, AGV Division
Official Name: Coronet Fortress
Moniker(s): Coronet Tiger IV, Lumbering Tiger IV, Ultra-22
Role(s): Ultraheavy Defensive AGV/ Ultraheavy Siege AGV

Height:
Length:
Width:

Fire Control System(s):
Primary: Type I Skylight Mod G Derivative FCS.
-(Essentially the Skylight FCS without all the atmospheric correction code. This FCS is mounted directly in the main weapon, as well as in the secure bridge, making it very hard to render the weapon inert through FCS damage.)

Secondary: Type C Independent High-Load FCS
-(C as in the roman numeral; 'Independent High-Load' essentially means there is a large number of guns, but each one is controlled separately on the same channel. This allows for the Fire Control System to battery-fire multiple weapons at once, but allow for individual corrections, or allow for spotter shots: 90% of the battery can be fired under one set of commands while the remaining few guns can have edited firing parameters, allowing the FCS to maintain fire volume, but discover errors or more correct firing parameters on the fly, as well as set up firing traps: it can maintain a predictable firing pattern, and than have a few guns fire slightly off target to catch an incoming enemy as they take evasive action.)

Auxiliary: Mk. VIII Ballistic Trajectory and Telemetry FCS
-(The dedicated FCS for the Coronet Fortress' missile system. Being primarily a defensive unit, the missiles do not require such advanced control as offensive units, and the size of the stores allow for volley firing. The Mk. VIII was selected for these reasons, as it was available in large numbers, took up virtually no space and required little more than a small fan to keep cool. A very simple and aging FCS, it worked just fine for the Coronet Fortress' purposes, keeping missile control virtually invisible despite lacking a satellite control system. Despite being old, the FCS is still widely used as a secondary system in missile units, as well as a primary system for MANPAD systems and non-dedicated units, primarily because it allows for piggybacking. Allied units can tap into the system to save time on triangulation, their own systems being one point, and the Mk. VIII's data being a second. (As well, the Mk. VIII can be used to piggyback without effecting it at all. Most missile units can tap into it and use their own systems to do the heavy work, while the Mk. VIII itself simply provides a separate radar map and standby data. All the home system would need to do is figure out the distance from the Mk. VIII unit, and it is ready to fire.)

Weapon Systems:
Primary Armament: The Coronet Fortress' main firepower- as well as the source of one of its nicknames- is based around the new optical weapons, replacing the old cannon of the Coronet Tiger II. The massive system is called the Ultra-22, and looks like two [-shaped ribs bolted onto a giant L-shaped spine, with a long, thin cone around which the ribs rotate. The ribs rotate opposite one another, generating electrical energy, which is attracted to the cone. After some time, the amount of energy that is orbiting the cone is such that it becomes visible as lightning bolts cracking between the ribs and the cone, and often on the surface of the Coronet Fortress itself. As the level of weaponized energy rises, it begins to leak back into the structure. This forces the ribs to spin faster and faster, generating more and more energy, creating a self-charging weapon. (The rib's motor is quite weak, but is able to ignite this feedback loop in a short time nonetheless.) Within just twenty seconds, the Ultra-22 has attained enough stored weaponized energy to be able to fire, although it usually fires around 30-40 seconds after start-up. Unlike other optical weapons, especially friction-based ones, the Ultra-22 does not have any cooling time. Instead, it is hindered by the uncontrollable expulsion of energy, and the requirement that the motor be shut off- this is because the weapon would take quite some time to stop firing, but after the initial burst, the energy fired would not have any real effect. Despite a more complex downtime, it actually has a faster output rate than most other optical weapons, including the E-Beam. (Unless the E-Beam in question retains its storage chamber, and is firing in a cannon-like manner rather than a beam or rapid-fire manner.)

Secondary Armament: The Coronet Fortress' have a secondary armament suite several orders of magnitude larger than their little brothers. With a much lighter main weapon, and twice the number of support legs as the Coronet Tiger II, the weight allowance is much greater. Despite this, the Coronet Fortress actually uses less armaments with regards to weight ratio. Where the Tiger II requires six of its eight legs in order to fire, the Fortress only needs four- although it needs eight to stand stock still, and ten to move. A Fortress' secondary armament can vary wildly, but the typical unit carries a large number of 60'' guns in double mounts, as well as a large number of 40'' triple mounts, which initially replaced the Tiger-II's array of 18F/S 'Super Flack 18' single-bore Antiaircraft cannons. When it was discovered that the 40-inch guns were not working quite as well, the 753rd set about designing a true replacement for the 18F/S, which resulted in the quad-barreled 'Coronet Fire' gun: four large prototype 88F/S' on a fairly small rectangular shaped mounting. (Sort of looks like :--: with a small mounting stem in the middle. Alternately, take an X-Wing's head-on view and replace everything but the lasers with a big rectangle.) These pack more power than the older 18F/S, and can be fired individually, in pairs, or all at once. (All at once is actually one at a time, but each one fires immediately after the last.) The drawback is the recoil suppression system. The guns are mounted in sliding rails, which contain what amounts to a spring. After firing, each barrel is launched backwards as the mounting block counters the force, preventing it from jarring the surrounding hull and ripping the whole thing clean off. This complicated the loading process, so the 753rd decided to take it a step further: at the end of the track, the gun would lock in place long enough for the loader to fit a new shell inside. This system did not increase the refire rate by any more than half a second, which amounted to nothing in the long run, and actually ended up being perfect: by the time the fourth barrel, on single fire, fired and began its trip backwards, the first barrel had settled into place and was available for firing once more. This alteration increased the recoil of the weapon, as the previous blastback wasn't quite enough to pull the rear of the gun back far enough, but a strengthened base fixed that, and the new, larger stem required for the larger feeding tubes kept the structural integrity at the same level as before. (Rather than the stem staying as is, i.e. much weaker than the mounting or the base. When I say it remained constant, I mean it maintained the strength ratio. Heavier shells required heavier bracing, which was upgraded as needed. On the older base, stem and mounting, it would have caused structural damage when firing, but the equal upgrades made sure that it did no damage, same as before.)

As well, the Coronet Fortress has a very large number of short-range AAA weapons, scattered around the hull. On the underside, however, there is only a token weapon array, consisting mostly of short-range AAA weapons and inverted 88F/S'. This is because allied units would usually cover the blind zone, and the underside is quite heavily armoured, more so than the top. (Because it is more likely to come under fire by ground units. With most artillery being suited for anti-infantry or siege duties, the topside does not need as much armour, because the HE shells would do little more than scorch the paint. The real damaging forces would be aircraft or AP-based artillery, the former of which would be suppressed at range, and the latter of which being few and far between. (Most artillery is not pinpoint accurate, and most AGVs are not such a huge target as a Coronet Fortress, so AP artillery is rarely used.)

Missile Armament: A Coronet Fortress carries several dozen launch silos, situated around the upper hull. These contain upwards of forty to fifty SRBMs loaded with thermobaric warheads, or up to twenty IRBMs with various nuclear warheads, whose yields range from tactical, low kiloton-range to strategic, low megaton range. As well, a Coronet Fortress has a large Hair-Trigger HE Missile System array, which consists of a very high number of small missile ports scattered all around the hull, usually loaded with four or five HTHE Missiles, which are used to combat close-in threats, especially aircraft or armour, which are inside engagement range of most other weapon systems, and post a direct and serious threat to the Fortress and its crew. Nominally equipped with a twenty pound warhead, the last two in each port has a two-fifty pound warhead, and all of them feature a very powerful twin-stage rocket motor, which can propel them from one end of a Fortress to the other in a matter of seconds.

History: The Coronet Fortress is a massive battlestation on sixteen Drive And Stabilization legs, heavily armoured and armed to the brims- almost like a walking Longbow-Class ACV. (Which is literally thirty kilometres of solid armaments on top of thick armour; the guns themselves act like an extra set of armour on top of already powerful armour!) It is a response to harsher and harsher terrain where many armoured units have difficulties moving in, and is derived from the SwarmCarrier in some ways- primary armament being a large, high-powered optical weapon; its secondary armament being a huge array of almost random weapons; its large, defensive missile array (SwarmCarriers pioneered the first such true array, although Delta-II Class SwarmCarriers omit the E-Beam in favour of a huge missile array in the deck armour, turning the entire 144 foot thick, two kilometer wide and nine kilometer long deck into a massive missile silo equipped with an extra defensive array, as well as an expanded offensive array. (Delta-Class SwarmCarriers have a much smaller offensive array, focused on the front face and between the deck flack guns and the E-Beam itself. This is just a token array, however, and at best allows a lone SwarmCarrier to make an enemy squadron think twice of getting close, but in a charge it makes up for it in sheer number of SwarmCarrier units.) and finally, its hangar. The Coronet Fortress is able to carry a few Coronet/Lumbering Tiger II units inside its huge armoured belly (a few more if they're all in treaded mode rather than standing), and can deploy like any other 'Tiger II. Like a SwarmCarrier, it can hold these 'Tiger II's... which can hold their own units! (Similar to a SwarmCarrier carrying several lighter carriers inside of itself, allowing it to deploy the carriers and its own Craft squadrons- which even at that reduced size are often as large as one or two light carriers' squadrons!)

The use of an optical weapon over the traditional cannon was a requirement, as it was to hold a massive number of other armaments plus a hangar, which would have rendered its main ammo capacity the same as a normal 'Tiger II. The self-generating Ultra-22 allowed for a slightly larger hangar, as well as a huge increase in ammo capacity for the secondary and missile armaments, as the Coronet Fortress' entire crew sits in a fairly small area, the rest of the behemoth being ammo capacity and feeding lines, hangar, or circutry. The 'Fortress can take a massive pounding without flinching, and its sixteen legs can walk it straight through direct balistic missile hits like they were spitballs; even a tactical nuclear explosion right in front of it wouldn't stop it for more than a few fleeting seconds- and it is airtight, with massive blast doors and airlocks seperating the crew areas from the hangar and ammo storage areas. The secondary armament is equipped with fast-firing blast caps, enabling them to survive such a point-blank nuclear detonation, although the Ultra-22 is not so fortunate, being little more than a wickedly powerful but very thin metal tower, despite being made from very tough metals and reinforced at points with quantum material, the absolute strongest material in existance. (On the flip side, the Ultra-22 is easily replicated being, of course, little more than a very thin metal tower. The only time-consuming process is the drive motor and feeding lines, as the rest of it is contained inside the 'Fortress itself, and would need a point-blank nuclear detonation on top of its armour plating to disable. (It isn't very deeply placed.)

Even with its Ultra-22 wiped out the Coronet Fortress still plods on. It will continue to march forward, firing with whatever it has left and expending every last shell and missile until it has nothing left to fight with but the furty of its sixteen legs. With a much more powerful engine and strengthened joints, the Coronet Fortress is more capable of moveing than the 'Tiger II- where the 'Tiger II can move more agile, the 'Fortress can dominate the enemy with nothing more than its legs, being able to 'jump' half its body into the air and crash down as easily as a human walks. (Comes with being able to scale mountains, being a hazardous terrain seige unit.) And if prospects of getting out alive are next to zero and it is loosing mobility, a 'Fortress still is a 'Fortress: an ultraheavy battlestation. Often walking straight over enemy lines, it is prone to fire to its underside. Nothing is impervious to damage, not even a 'Fortress. But than again, not very many heavily armoured units are as tall as a 'Fortress, and indeed the Fortress is one of only about ten such heavily armoured units that stands very tall. A 'Fortress in dire straights always has a last-ditch effort to inflict damage: falling. The leg joints are extremly heavily armoured, but not on the outside- inside thy contain a heavy explosive designed for use in the event of a crippling blow to the 'Fortress. They can punch the legs straight off from the inside using the circular mouning rings and the strength of the armour protecting it from accidental discharge to heft the massive things off, and submit the enemy to the full wrath of the body falling straight down on their heads- and whatever environmental disasters that may follow such a brutal impact. As well, the Coronet Fortress' generator is designed to break free after such a commit signal is sent, and is volatile enough- again, on purpose- to detonate with tremendous force when it makes contact with the Coronet Fortress' floor as it hits the dirt. (This not only makes a 'Fortress actually deadlier crippled, but also serves to keep the hulk out of enemy hands on the offchance the GDA is unable to secure the area. This detonation can be temporarily overridden by the crew if they feel they can escape- after all, they may still have one or two extra Coronet Tiger II's in the hangar, and the rear area of a 'Fortress is specially designed to allow a 'Tiger II to shoot its way out to salvage the crew. They would have just ten minutes to scramble down their dedicated service line, kick-start the 'Tiger II, blast down the rear, and get the hell out of the way before the generator's drop signal was sent.)



NEW UPDATE!
Versions: Since their creation, the Coronet Fortress' have undergone a total of four complete upgrades, plus a fifth experimental upgrade undergoing combat trials. They consist of:

Coronet Fortress Mk.I: Base Coronet Fortress with Ultra-22

Coronet Fortress Mk.II: Reinforced Ultra-22 Focus Tower proving increased survivability in combat. (Cannot withstand nuclear detonation)

Coronet Fortress Mk.III: Reinforced Leg Armour + Embedded "S-Mine" Launcher (Due to a structural flaw akin to the inherent design flaw of a Longbow-Class Battlemaster's weaponry acting as armour- which would exponentially raise the power of explosives detonated in any divot- discovered in the upper leg connector and bottommost joint, the legs were reworked and up-armoured. The bottommost joint is still vulnerable, but much less than the Mk.II)

Coronet Fortress Mk.IV: Up-Armouring of major battle surfaces. (i.e. topside armour, forward bridge facing and hangar floor; the rest of the underside was also up-armoured, but only as a token gesture to prevent the tougher hangar from making the rest of the underside a weak point.) The Mk. IV exists in two versions: Mk.IV AAS and Mk.IV HCS; the former is a slightly less armoured version with a weapons rehaul, fitted for Anti Aircraft Specialist1 duties, while the latter retains the full Mk. IV armour durability and is refitted for Heavy Combat Specialist2 duties.

Coronet Fortress Mk.V: Ultra-22 replaced by the prototype Ultra-60, a much more powerful weapon that is capable of charging energy while idle straight through armour, allowing for deployment without warning. The mounting is changed to a sloped bar extending from close to the front all the way to the back, and is given a complete armour rehaul on account of the Ultra-60's charging capabilities- the Ultra-60 can survive a very close nuclear detonation and still function, although a direct hit still results in destruction of the weapon. The Ultra-60 was devised through weapons testing; during one such test, a freak glitch occurred where a prototype Ultra-22 fired during the charge stage, obliterating the target, the protective shield behind it, and bored a two hundred kilometer hole directly through Turtle Mt.'s dense base. While most of the data was lost on account of the prototype partially frying itself the instant it fired, the data extrapolated from the test and extracted from what remained of the Fire Control System as well as the test site's various computers gave birth to the Ultra-60 and its Sunburn Fire Control System. Differences from the Ultra-22's freak shot include: A much lower overall power, blasting through only four protective shields (although it did pierce somewhat through the fifth, as well as it burned clean through the concrete wall- accelerated, actually- before being completely defeated by Turtle Mt.'s dirt and rock faces. Despite solid rock defeating the weapon, it did refract clean off the rock rather than dissipate- nearly turning a high-power radar into Swiss cheese in terms of functionality.) As well, the Ultra-60 does not fry itself after one shot; however, the exact number of shots before complete failure of the weapon is impossible to determine, as testing showed that each individual unit had different limits. As a rule of thumb, commanders can expect roughly fifteen to twenty shots before a burnout occurs, at which point ejection of the weapon is greatly advised. (Some units experienced catastrophic burnout; one such unit's detonation utterly sanitized the interiour of the armoured test chamber, even burning through two inches of the reinforced walls before the failsafe system even detected anything had happened. (Which, ironically, blew out the severly weakened rear wall when it detonated the wall-mounted explosives to counteract the force of the uncontrolled explosion- which by then had already run its course.)

Coronet Fortress Mk.VI: Current prototype model. The Mk. VI program aims to increase the lifetime of the Ultra-60 by at least fifty percent. In addition, the current Mk. VI testing units are equipped with a new drive system, and feature a slightly larger body to accommodate the larger shafts, as well as a separate engine. (The drive shafts are powered by both engines in tandem whenever possible, but the second engine now provides primary power to the rest of the Coronet Fortress, and is much smaller than the original. The aim of the already-planned Mk. VII program would be to streamline the two engines into one engine of roughly equal or greater strength, reclaiming the extra size as well as some extra. A bonus goal is to design an engine and/or redesign the interior to allow for removal of at least two legs, shortening the Coronet Fortress even further. If this is not logistically or physically possible at Stage Seven, it will be planned for Stage Eight.)



~The current combat model of the Coronet Fortress is the Coronet Fortress Mk. V.

Over the course of the five completed Stages, the Coronet Fortress has experienced an overall weight increase of roughly two megatonnes, pushing its weight to fifteen megatonnes; as well as a size increase- due to added armour or extensions) of about three percent. This includes the new Ultra-60, whose mounting system is actually larger overall than the Ultra-22's, which was simply taller.

At the expected rate of expansion if Stage Seven or Eight is unable to reduce body size as planned, the Coronet Fortress may force the 753rd Aerospace Engineering Division to design a new transport ACV, as the Coronet Fortress is expected to rapidly surpass two kilometers in width, the limit of the SwarmCarrier's hangar. In preparation of this, the 753rd is actively designing a modification to the SwarmCarrier to turn it into a giant orbital cannon- a cannon that shoots not shells, but Coronet Linebreakers, which would likely be transported in the place of Fortress'. (SwarmCarriers' hangars are roughly the size of the current Linebreaker's Orbital Hold area onboard an Asteroid Destroyer- much of the remaining space in the huge, circular hold otherwise occupied by cooling systems that the Asteroid Destroyer required in order to fire Linebreaker's at a respectable speed through heavy atmosphere. A SwarmCarrier, however, already has such cooling systems in the form of an E-Beam's plasma coolant lines. The current idea is to remove the E-Beam from a Delta-Class SwarmCarrier, and instead route the coolant lines through the deck armour rather than turn it into a Delta II-Class SwarmCarrier. Lacking the need for the Juggernaut Engine, the SwarmCarrier can thus up-armour the hull of the Juggernaut Engine and use it as a massive coolant ejector. Scale model trials demonstrate such a system to adequately suppress the recoil of the firing system, whereby the SwarmCarrier's four massive NIRTS Thrusters3 can handle the remainder, and its own thruster system can handle recoil stationkeeping.)

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Global Defense Army
Armoured Ground Vehicle
Unit Identification Database
[Revision 2320]

Company: 753rd Aerospace Engineering Shipyards, AGV Division
Official Name: Coronet Bayonet Charge
Moniker(s): Coronet Bayonet, Coronet Linebreaker
Role(s): Ultraheavy Assault Dreadnought/ Ultraheavy Seige AGV


Height:
Length:
Width:

Fire Control System(s):
Primary: Type F Rapid Wide-Area Lock FCS
- One of the most powerful ground-based Fire Control Systems, due to the fact that it is a derivitive of an old experimental FCS that was to be mounted on the Four Quarters Fleet of the IBAE when E-Beam rotational mounting testing was complete. (Which never happened.) Essentially, this Fire Control System makes the upmost use of the Bayonet's very efficient- and fast- Linebreaker mounting system, enabling it to focus fire on a target to its extreme left, and lock right to shift fire before it's even finished on the left. The massive weapon can lurch 180 degrees in three seconds, and the Type F RWAF FCS presents targeting data well before it has to do so, allowing it to turn and target without having to trim at all, maximising combat ability.

Secondary: Model G Dedicated Anticraft Firing Grid FCS
-The Coronet Bayonet utilizes a virtually dedicated anticraft secondary armament, so the requirement for a powerful offensive secondary FCS was omitted. The Model G DAFG Fire Control System works much like the Coronet Fortress' Type C Independent High-Load FCS, except in such a manner to be ultimately useful for anticraft batteries. With a huge number of AC guns, the Bayonet can afford to spray around in programmed grids, rather than direct fire at targets, and the DAFG does just that. Designed as a 'hive mind' FCS for Triple-A and AC batteries, the DAFG emits a short, high-powered radar pulse to determine position of enemy units, and plots out a specified number of firing grids using enemy unit data and battery size. As the Bayonet is large enough and specialized enough to essentially be fielding its own battery, the DAFG has a field day: with a typical selection of four or five grids, the sheer number of guns in the battery allows the DAFG to be quire liberal even against single targets. The size of the battery as well as its mobility and good sightlines allows the DAFG to take extended firing measures, bracketing the enemy units in a bowl-shaped firing pattern rather than a wall or -> shaped pattern. (The former being the most basic AC pattern, and the latter being a much smaller bowl with a line of fire to send units outwards into the final bowl. Used with a smaller number of guns in a battery, as the bowl shape is very risky of the target area is off and enemies get through. The range at which the DAFG can target out to as well as the guns themselves is usually far enough to allow for one more hasty pattern if units get through, but often is the case that the units get too close in for planned firing patterns in too great numbers if the first bowl pattern utterly fails. However, if the bowl pattern is projected in the right area, it leaves very few surviors, as it is designed to fire a wall of flak in such a pattern, at virtually the same time. Such a thick wall is tantamount to flying into the ground for high-speed Crafts, and with the wall often existing right beside them they have no escape options.)

Auxiliary:Mk. VIII Ballistic Trajectory and Telemetry FCS
-Exactly the same Fire Control System for missiles as the Coronet Fortress utilizes.


Weapon Systems:
Primary Armament:
Secondary Armament:
Missile Armament:

Footnotes
1  The Coronet Fortress Mk. IV AAS' topside armament is almost entirely made up of the 88F/S cannons, retaining only the 60-inch dual guns bordering the topside, as well as a slanted, arrow-shaped mounting pad where the remainder of the AAS' 60-inch weaponry lie on. (This slowly slants upwards all the way to the Ultra-22, obtaining a maximum altitude of about forty metres.
2  Essentially the reverse of the Coronet Fortress Mk. IV AAS, the Heavy Combat Specialist retains the 88F/S cannons and other AAA weaponry in a :I: shaped formation slightly forward of the topside's center. (The 88F/S cannons making up the long line stretching side to side, and a single, old-style 18F/S in each of the circles, ringed by smaller CIWS guns, which also form the lengthwise portion of the formation.
3  Need It Right This Second; These massive thrusters are housed close to the bottom of the left and right side corners, and feature a fairly light armoured door that is blown off on command. The thrusters can unpack and deploy in under two seconds, and are capable of hurtling the huge SwarmCarrier about on any axis in a very short time, although it is more commonly used in heated combat to evade otherwise imminent impact if the shields fail or are close to failing. (As the SwarmCarrier is fully capable of ploughing head-on straight through virtually any other ACV of similar or larger size, including a Longbow-Class Battlemaster, without suffering anything more than minor dents- such is the power of its shield system, which only strains to force the rammed object from a full breach after considerable time, whereas even a Line Juggernaut (A 'true' Juggernaut, not the multirole Juggernauts like a SwarmCarrier; in case you were wonder, that means they're a hell of a lot 'weaker' compared to a SwarmCarrier) would be hard pressed to just plough through an asteroid belt without a care in the world- despite most ACV's being able to take several large impacts with objects such as asteroids commonly larger than themselves, they cannot keep that up for too long. A SwarmCarrier moves considerably faster than even a rapidly spinning asteroid, and is well-equipped for ramming, as it sports a very heavy frontal face and 144 feet of solid armour for a deck, powered by one of the largest engine banks ever devised, not to mention holding the potential to fire the Juggernaut Engine right before impact for some serious speed- the Juggernaut Engine was built to counter the recoil strength of the E-Beam, which by the way, could also fire at the same time. Not much can wield such incredible instantaneous power such as an assault-ramming SwarmCarrier.)