Administrator SPA
Name/Type: Administrator SPADesigner/Manufacturer: The New Order
Combat Role: Self-propelled Artillery
Crew: 3 (Driver, Commander, Gunner)
Length: 12m
Weight: 40 tons
Propulsion: Wheels
Max Speed: 90kph
Hull Armor: 50 RU
Countermeasures: Shtora,
Armament: 1 203mm Rail Gun, 2 Concussion Missile Launchers, 2 Laser Gattlings
Cost: 40,000 credits
As the SS rapidly expanded and developed its tank forces at a breakneck pace, generals and marshals across the Empire watched with great interest. For years, marvelous light vehicles such as the AT-ST, 2-M Hovertank and the Chariot Command speeder have served their Imperial designers well, but their heyday is long past. Now, as armies across the galaxy expand and develop their own armored forces, Imperial army commanders have found it becoming increasingly difficult to cope.
As they had hoped, from the project came several different vehicles that hadn’t quite made the SS’s final cut for a wide array of reasons. The general army resumed development of the canceled vehicles, and within months the resulting vehicles, often radically changed from their original forms, were on a par with their SS brethren.
When it comes to indirect artillery support, no vehicle is better than the Administrator SPA. While the vehicle’s armor and mobility are rather limited, the piece’s huge 203mm Rail gun more than makes up for it. Capable of bombarding entire enemy divisions to atoms, the Administrator SPA will undoubtedly serve as a staple vehicle in Imperial armored divisions for years and decades to come.
Armament The primary armament of the Administrator Self Propelled Artillery is a 203mm (8inch) Rail Gun. Capable of hurling a variety shells at a velocity of over 8 kilometers a second for ranges of up to a hundred fifty kilometers, the Administrator SPA is the most powerful weapon of it’s kind ever fielded.
To allow it to perform it’s mission, the Administrator SPA has a wide variety of shells to use, giving it excellent tactical flexibility. Kinetic rounds are the most important. These rounds are solid Tungsten, a metal as hard as lead and ranking well above most metals on Moh’s scale. On impact, sheer kinetic energy alone produces an explosion more powerful than all but the largest High Explosive shells. For emergency close range fights, a small number of Depleted Uranium Kinetic Energy Penetrators, as used on the Corsair, are carried. Capable of bringing down even an AT-AT, no vehicle in the galaxy can stand up to the Administrator’s guns at close range. For dealing with infantry, airburst ammunition and cluster bombs are carried. There are also Ion shells, which cause an Ionization effect four 50m around the impact side and incendiary shells loaded with napalm.
Backing up the main gun is a pair of Concussion Missile Launchers, each with a magazine of six missiles. These are useful for shooting down aircraft and other fast moving vehicles such as speeder bikes, and a sustained barrage by several Administrator SPAs can take down even the heaviest of ground units.
Lastly there is a pair of laser Gattlings mounted on the turret roof controlled by either the vehicle commander or the driver. Though capable of some limited anti-air and anti-vehicle duties (though in the latter case, they are effective only against lightly armored vehicles, such as APCs), their primary purpose is anti-infantry. With their fast firing rate, they can mow infantry down like grass.
Shields/Defenses The Administrator SPA has less armor than it’s cousin, the Corsair. Not a direct combat vehicle by design, though it can serve as one if necessary, it is intended to be behind the line supporting advancing infantry and tanks with it’s heavy artillery fire. Like the Corsair, the Administrator SPA uses composite armor to increase protection. Armor is Hyperbaride backed by a Titanium Matrix containing Titanium Boride ceramic disks and reinforced with Carbon-60 nanotubes. Behind this is a titanium backing plate with microscopic holes in it allowing it to serve as a Faraday cage, protecting the vehicle from Ion cannon fire, and a Kevlar spall liner.
Since it is meant to be deployed behind friendly lines, long range missiles are the greatest threat. Therefore, it carries the Shtora missile defense system, as pioneered on the Corsair. Mounted on the back of the tank’s turret, the Shtora is a defense system designed to neutralize missile’s threat by jamming their seekers with microwave and infrared lasers, causing them to lose their target lock. This system has proven itself 60% effective at ranges under 5 kilometers, and just under 80% effective at ranges over this mark. Naturally, however, as the number of potential missile threats increases, the efficiency of the system decreases. Against single or dual threats, however, the Shtora has proven itself to be very effective.
Sensors The sensor package of the Administrator itself is rather Spartan. Since it is designed to rely upon messages and targeting information from other vehicles and then attack their designated targets at ranges far beyond it’s own sensors, designers saw little need for a powerful sensor package. Therefore, it only has the basics: FLIRs, metal detectors (to detect mines), ground radar, and a laser rangefinder.
Like the Corsair, the Administrator SPA carries two small drones. Called the Eagle eye, when in flight an Eagle eye can fly up to an altitude of 1,000 meters to observe the tank’s surroundings with it’s minimal sensor package, allowing it to detect threats that might need to be avoided or ambushes it might not have been able to otherwise until too late. Thanks to it’s small profile, an Eagle Eye is nearly impossible to detect with most sensors, since it leaves no thermal emission (it is propeller powered) and registers as only a small insect to radar systems. Even if detected and interception is intended, it’s small size makes it nearly impossible to hit, and any attacker would have to do this while avoiding a storm of missiles, guided shells, and Gattling fire from the launching tank below. Administrators can also use their Eagle Eyes to direct their own fire, and pick out independent targets when advancing units don’t need their support.
Communications Since it must be in contact with advancing units in order to perform it’s job, Administrator SPAs carry extensive communication packages. For secure communications, a stealth Comm is carried. Long range transmitters ranging from very high to very low frequencies allow Administrators to stay in contact even in the thickest jamming.
For communication with the “high and mightys,” the generals or admirals directing the operation, both the leader and assistant leader of every unit from squadrons on up have special transceivers designed for encrypted long range communications with both ground units and orbiting vessels, allowing orders to be sent right where they are needed in a secure form and be read and obeyed right away. For standard video and audio communication between vehicles, each tank has standard communications gear and an SS-developed Stealth comm as used on the TIE Phantom II. Even if intercepted (unlikely, thanks to the tight beam unless they’re at close range with the enemy) the transmissions are highly encrypted and all but impossible to break.
To speed and ease communication between tanks, a datalink between all deployed vehicles is maintained, allowing commanders to pull up information about every other deployed tank, including it’s position, assignment, and sensor data, giving commanders at both tank and unit level a valuable tool when considering how to deploy forces. In addition, terrain and data on enemies from orbiting vessels can also be brought up. In addition to easing organization, this system also allows commanders to focus radio conversation only on the important things.
Due to their sensitive nature, the datalink communications are more highly encrypted than even the standard stealth comm transmissions. Based on the sums of two hundred digit prime numbers, Imperial Intelligence claims that even the fastest computer in the galaxy could not crack it before the big crunch and the end of the universe. To prevent the code from falling into enemy hands, it is impossible to access it in the tank’s computer system. It is permanently blocked off and any attempt to remove the blocks, no matter how subtle, will result in the immediate permanent deletion of the code data with no chance of recovery.
Deployment and Tactics While quality is in many cases certainly better than quantity, designers believed quantity has a quality of it’s own. The base Administrator unit, a squadron, is four pieces. One squadron is assigned to every platoon, and three platoons make a company. Three companies make a battalion, and three battalions make a division for a total of 108 artillery pieces.
The first Administrators deployed will be as part of forming panzergrenadier divisions in the Borderland protectorate. With a full division of Administrators, supported by Avenger MBTs (566) and Vengeance IFVs (972), plus twelve thousand infantry, these divisions will be a force to be reckoned with on any world they set foot on. Each division can be loaded onto a single [URL=http://www.therebelfaction.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6451 ]Venator Troopship[/URL] , allowing it to have superb mobility both on a planet and in space.
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