B-52 Hound Dog variant
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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R02: FEDERATION PROPOSALS:
B-52 Hound Dog variant
One system the USAF B-52 had as an optional payload was a huge, nuclear warhead cruise missile called the Hound Dog. The B-52 could only carry one under each wing, they were that big. Similarly, the Soviets had, back in the day, titanic cruise missiles, fully the size of MiG-15 fighters, that their long-range bombers could carry and launch against US Carriers.
(I'm thankful, of course, that the feared Hot War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact never happened...)
It did get me thinking. Massive missiles like the ones above. Could the Type-H Drones be an analogy for them?
If so, could you imagine a bomber variant carrying Type-H Drones into action?
It's with that in mind that I would like to propose a "Hound Dog" variant for the Federation B-52; a Heavy Bomber whose main job is to carry a pair of these huge, jumbo-honkin' MONSTERS up in defense of a planet.
In most respects, these bombers would be little different from most Canon SFU B-52 models...
... They go at maximum Speed 6.
... They are armed with 2xP2-FX.
... They take 32 Damage Points to kill (Degraded at 16, crippled at 21)
Where they are different is in their weapons load-outs. These "Hound Dog" B-52s carry a pair of Type-H drones in exchange for their photon torpedoes and two Standard (Type-1) Drones EACH.
No Photon Torpedoes and only two standard (Type-1) and two Spacewinders (Type-VI) drones in addition to the two Type-H drones.
As per (FD21.5), these monsters canNOT be reloaded during a scenario and the connection points for the Type-H drones can NOT be used to carry other (smaller) drones, so once the Type-H drones have been launched, the Hound Dog B-52 is less capable than other B-52 models. This is a deliberate weakness to compensate for the squadron being able to launch a dozen Freakin' Type-H Shipwreckers awfully darned fast; a weakness that led to the program eventually being cancelled in favor of more standard B-52s.
(Although I do see potential for Klingon and Kzinti bombers having a similar experiment done.)
Anyway, this is a proposal to reflect a real historical weapon, honor the people who faced the possibility of having to use these terrible weapons in war, and maybe encourage more use of a system that hasn't gotten a whole lotta love. 
What do you all think? Good? Bad? Ugly?
Lock this man up.
Brig time?
What charge or charges should we log?
And, for the record, I also once proposed a hound dog variant rule modification.(dang, 15 years ago. )Where does the time go?
Why carry a missile if you can't reload....
Just make a Suicide fighter out of it....
Follow the bomber with a cargo PF and beam out the crew then set it...
ie see the B-17 program that Kennedy was killed in...
Joseph P. kennedy, jr.
Just incase anyone isn’t familiar with the Kennedy family.
Okay, this does not appear to have been warmly accepted. That's okay; I just felt that it was something that some beers should have been downed while throwing the idea around.
"`Tis better to have proposed and been rejected than to not have proposed at all..."
Jeff Anderson:
I'm curious to your motivation here, as well as the perceived need.
Hard limit to speed 6? When would this bomber be theoretically 'generally' available to the intended customer? My guess would be Y181-Y183ish
This sounds like a hard sell for planetary governments, especially compared to more traditional DefSats, Ground based defenses, and cheaper utilitarian fighters.
Unless my understanding of Federation Heavy Bombers is incorrect, by the time the basic Buffs are around, the general space-superiority fighters all have megapacks available and even Gunboats are around for most other empires. That makes a speed 6 delivery bus very high risk, Two or three top shelf fighters and three or four Bread&butter fighters of the era could take down one of these each turn without turning to their rails.
Obviously, I'm missing something here, so let me know where I have it wrong.
Jeff G. has a very good point - I think having it without reduced speed as an additional option for using the very under-utilized type-H drone would be more interesting and something that would be funded versus something so slow. Limiting it to a bomber chassis means its overall impact on the game will pretty pretty limited no matter how good (or not) it is.
GOOD question, Jeff.
I used the Master Fighter and Shuttle Chart from my copy of Captain's Module J2. It lists the B-52 as having a speed of 6 and a YiS date of Y167. Similarly, the rules for Type-H Drones say they have a YiS of Y165.
Booster Packs and Mega-Fighter Packs weren't developed until the late Y170's; a time frame which I assumed the concept would have been abandoned.
I know that an article somewhere in an issue of Captain's Log does talk about faster/more advanced B-52s, but IIRC, these also forefitted the Photon Torpedoes to gain the extra speed, and part of the proposal for this bomber variant was to sacrafice the heavy weapons in favor of the monster drones.
I admit I've never owned a copy of J2 (Its on the list of things acquire) and its not currently available digitally (I looked this morning) or Id' have probably grabbed for reference before posting. Self-own ignorance on my part here.
I was thinking the B52 was a Contemporary with the F111 which itself is contemporary with Interceptors/PFs which is where I drew my interpolation from.
A Y170 timeline makes a difference in survive-ability of the bomber and the speed becomes less of an issue even if Medium speed drones would give it fits.
Y170 is just an interpolation of the effects of uncommon, unusual, underused, under-served, and/or plain old unwanted weapons systems being farmed out to pasture to places where they might actually see use. This being based on the variant being dedicated to ground bases and for system defense from capitol ships. To my mind's eye it would clearly be several years before it would come down in price enough to entice the governments that would buy it, that or be in the 'clearance isle' at DefenseMart on closeout after StarFleet proper declined to adopt it in numbers. Maybe something for a National Guard unit product...
And I just had a thought that will earn be a spot in the booth next to you, what if the Orion's stole a shipment of the birds and their H-drone weapons.... Nope, too dangerous, I shan't risk the Wrath of KhanSteve.
Its an interesting thought experiment though. It also leads me to note that I will have some additional reading to do in J2 on the Late-middle/Early-late era with regards to fighters.