Directorate Officer
Image Source: Spartan Game's Castigator-class Heavy Support Tank
Intent: To provide the Directorate and allies with their own equivalent of the Juggernaut A5 or classic AT-AT
Development Thread: If necessary
Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
Model: Phobos-class Heavy Crawler
Affiliation: Directorate, Directorate allies, Lucerne Lab customers
Modularity: None
Production: Minor
Material: duranium-Duravlex laminated armor plating, ferrocarbon frame, typical vehicle components
Role: Heavy Assault Vehicle / Armored Transport
Height: 5 meters
Length: 20 meters
Width: 8 meters
Weight: 300 tons
Minimum Crew: 1 (driver)
Optimal Crew: 7 (driver, commander, sensor/com operator, 4 gunners)
Propulsion: Tracks
Top Speed: 100 kph
Armaments: 1 heavy particle cannon, 1 turreted dual repeating laser cannon, 1 Sunfire 1000 flamethrower, 2 sentinel-class point defense emplacements
Squadron Count: 2
Passenger Capacity: up to 40 troops or other equivalent
Cargo Capacity: 10 metric tons (with full passenger load) (150 metric tons without passengers)
Misc. Equipment:
-MC1003 Tetra-class Targeting/Tracking system
-HU-OC deflector shield generator
-standard life support systems (sealed environment)
Strengths:
Considerable firepower: The Phobos carries a significant amount of firepower that allows it to successfully engage a variety of targets or threats.
Well-defended: The Phobos is well-protected by the use of heavy duranium-Duravlex laminated armor plating coupled with a HU-OC deflector shield generator.
High Carrying Capacity: The Phobos can carry a large amount of troops, droids, or vehicles into battle. A single Phobos can transport an entire Directorate Marine platoon into battle.
Basic Drive Systems: The Phobos's drive systems use motors powered by hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells. This makes them rugged, simple to repair on the battlefield, and less affected by EMP or ion attacks than more high tech but higher performance engines.
Weaknesses:
Short range weapons: The Phobos's weapons are all short-ranged, with even its massive heavy particle cannon often being outranged by most projectile and many energy based weapons.
Direct fire only: The Phobos does not have any indirect fire weapons, which combined with its exceptional size, often means that clever enemies can simply go places where the Phobos cannot attack them, even if its crew knows where the target is (such as behind a hill, in a narrow valley, etc).
Slow: The Phobos is fairly slow compared to its nearest counterpart, the Juggernaut series, as well as many repulsorlift based vehicles.
Tracked: The Phobos is a tracked vehicle, which makes it less suited for navigating obstacles compared to either speeders or walkers. In addition, its high mass combined with this propulsion can limit the type of terrain it can cross (such as low-weight bearing bridges, certain soft terrain such as swamps, etc).
Description: The Phobos-class Heavy Crawler fulfills a heavy assault and transport role much like the classic HAVw A5 Juggernaut or AT-AT by destroying and weakening enemy defenses before disembarking its troops or battle droids. Nearly all of its systems are focused towards this one goal. The Phobos usually uses its massive particle cannon and flamethrower to destroy or clear defenses, such as walls and other fortifications. The twin repeating laser cannon turret and the sentinel point defense emplacements are typically used to fend off attacks by smaller vehicles, troops, warheads, droids, and the like. All of these weapons are fairly short-ranged, and so the Phobos often relies on a combination of thick duranium-Duravlex laminated armor plating and a HU-OC deflector shield generator to endure enemy fire before it enters its firing range. Once the immediate deployment area is relatively clear of threats, a pair of turadium blastdoors open up from the front of the vehicle to disembark its passengers and cargo. While the Phobos does not use any particularly exotic technology and doesn't cost significantly much, its large size makes deployment from many of the Directorate's smaller warships impractical. For this reason, it generally is not the most common Directorate vehicle on a battlefield.
Technical Explanations:
Crew & Internal Layout: The Phobo can be driven by one person in an emergency, but it is usually operated by a crew of seven: a driver, a commander, a sensor/communication's system operator, and four gunners. All of their positions are located deep in one compartment that sits underneath the crawler's heavy particle cannon turret. This depth generally protects the crew from all but the harshest attacks and allows other crewmembers to quickly take over their stations if they are somehow injured or incapacitated. Each crewmember is cross-trained to run other station in the event of an emergency. The cargo/passenger hold is located just in front of the crew compartment and is sealed off by it by a pair of blast doors. Internally, it borrows much from the modular architecture of Imperial shuttles, with easily rearranged folding seats, straps, hooks, and fittings. This allows the Phobos to carry a pure or mixed loads of infantry, droids, and vehicles into the engagement zone. These passengers and/or cargo deploy through the front of the vehicle through a pair of blast doors. The outer blast doors are composed of the same thick armor that covers most of the hull, while the second set is lightly armored, and acts as a failsafe to maintain the vehicle's sealed atmosphere in case the first door takes a direct hit.
Drive & Power Systems: The Phobos moves about on four separate continuous tracks which use overlapping road wheels. Each track is powered by a separate hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell engine derived from the Lab's previous Myrmidon-class APC. This drive system provides the Phobos with a robust drive system that is capable of navigating through many terrains, though it is not as fast nor as capable of maneuvering around objects as many repulsorlift vehicles. The tradeoff is that the Phobos's drive system is more resistant to electromagnetic fluctuations, making it more resistant to EMP attacks and allowing it to work on worlds with unusual magnetic fields, such as Jabiim. The vehicle uses a quartet of AH-50 disposable high intensity power cell to power its other systems.
Defensive Systems: The Phobos most basic defense its reinforced ferrocarbon frame, which is then covered in layers of duranium-Duravlex laminated plating that is carefully designed to act as sloped armor. Thus the actual arrangement of plates combined with its frame is designed to resist kinetic weaponry, while the plating composition itself is designed to resist explosives and other thermal attacks. This protection is then supplemented by HU-OC deflector shield generator, a slow-charging by highly durable deflector shield system. The "overcharging" system drains power from the vehicle's particle cannon, and thus is mostly used to provide extra protection to the vehicle when that weapon is not in use. Most Phobos-class Heavy Crawlers are covered in camouflage patterns appropriate for the environment in which they are (or will be) deployed. Given their large size, however, these are generally only useful in concealing them from casual observation when still or from great distances.
Offensive Systems: The primary weapon of the Phobos is a turreted heavy particle cannon very similar to the one originally found on the XR-85 tank droid, but this one notably has a much shorter effective range of 2 kilometers. Like other particle beam weaponry, it's beam explodes violently on contact with the target. While this is excellent at producing high powered splash damage, its use is limited by its short-range and poor tracking. It is typically too slow tracking to be of any use against vehicles less than 15 meters long or vehicles faster than its own speed. This means that it is usually used applied against static fortifications, but it sometimes is applied against large or stationary vehicles such as battle tanks and heavy walkers. Mounted alongside this massive weapon is a Sunfire 1000 flamethrower, which is used to help clear areas of hidden enemies and to provide a foothold into buildings and other dense areas which its troops are trying to capture. The vehicle's other weapons are primarily defensive. It has a turreted pair of repeating laser cannons mounted on top of the particle beam turret, which are used to protect the Phobos from enemy aircraft and small vehicles, and a pair of retractable sentinel-class point defense emplacements mounted on the main body between the continuous tracks on either side of the crawler. The point defense emplacements are typically applied against missiles, infantry, droids, and other targets too small for the dual repeating laser cannon. The gunners operating these weapons are aided by the vehicle's MC1003 Tetra-class Targeting/Tracking system.
Primary Source: N/A
