[sasahar17]

Originally Posted by wavehawk

Dammit, now I've got the idea in my head and it won't go away. Just you wait, I'll write up that short story I'm thinking of and post it here.

Yayfications! When do you plan on having it done?

Originally Posted by John117xCortana

I like the culture shock of this chapter. I'm looking forward to Ivanova's showdown with A-01.

Hey Goose! Look at this comment! Lolz.

Oh man, John117XCortana... you have no idea.

Spoiler for ML:DYRL, Boening F-15E-OT Over Eagle Writeup:

Boening F-15E-OT Over Eagle

The first TSF developed by Project Valkyrie, the F-15E-OT Over Eagle is a powerful variant of the F15 series of TSFs, and an all-time favorite of many Gunsweeper specialists. Designed as a cheap, easy to maintain upgrade of the F-15E Strike Eagle using parts that could be found anywhere, the Over Eagle was very beloved among pilots and maintenance crews alike, although it earned a special hatred by logistics personnel for the astounding rate it consumed ammunition and fuel.

Background

Despite its fame as the most lethal variant of the F-15 ever fielded, the Over Eagle was originally envisioned as a self-imposed challenge by Project Valkyrie Chief Engineer Vincent Lowell and was never intended for actual use in the field. Vincent was convinced he could increase the combat effectiveness of a TSF with nothing more than existing technologies and his technical knowhow. Seeing as how the F-15 series was the most prevalent TSF fielded worldwide, Vincent chose the Strike Eagle as his test bed. Originally just a proof of concept machine that would be used to gather the data needed to create an actual production level TSF in the future, the Over Eagle’s involvement in the Ireland Raid and the Red Shift Incident lead to widespread awareness and interest in the machine, resulting in its actual deployment in battlefields.

Development History

The Over Eagle was designed with three things in mind. Firstly, to increase the combat effectiveness of a single TSF beyond what is normally believed to be its limit. Secondly, to use only components that can be normally found in forward bases so that the Over Eagle, or at least parts of it, can be used as a quick field upgrade to existing Eagles. Thirdly, to make the Over Eagle modular, enabling it to be adaptable to many different mission types.
Vincent some studied the most successful TSF designs, including the YF-23 Black Widow, A10 Thunderbolt II and even the A6 Intruder. He concluded that while weaponry was the most important factor for a successful TSF, but maneuverability and speed couldn’t be compromised in the event that a tactical retreat was needed. After a week of messing with some blueprints, what emerged was an F-15 variant like nothing the world had ever seen before.

Although the Over Eagles were developed as developmental test machines with the idea of using nothing more than using spare equipment to quickly increase the firepower of existing Strike Eagles, the popularity of the Over Eagle eventually meant Vincent designed specific weapons and systems for the model to exploit its full potential.

Design Features

The most famous part about the Over Eagle is its myriad of weapons. Fully armed, it has more short term firepower to rival three, perhaps even four, A-10 Thunderbolt IIs. Also, given that Lowell wanted these upgrades to be quickly implementable in the field, many ‘Semi-Over Eagles’, Strike Eagles with only a part-way conversion to an Over Eagle, were found in the militaries of the world.

Four Mount Pylons/Turrets: Taking a page out of Northrock’s YF-23, the Over Eagle has four Mount Pylons. While Mount Pylons are normally intended to act as ‘holsters’ for unused weapons and occasionally as an auxiliary arm, but Vincent intended for these to be used as primarily as turrets that could be either controlled by an automated targeting system or a co-pilot. This allows the Over Eagle to use six 36mm caliber weapons simultaneously, four of which have omnidirectional fire arcs. Indeed, some Over Eagles used by Gun-sweeper specialists have done away with the Mount Pylons altogether and simply mounted Assault Cannons with drum magazines on the auxiliary arms as permanent fixtures.
+ The easiest of the upgrades to implement, all it required by Lowell’s modified OS and two more Mount Pylons that can be spared. Until the introduction of coil gun type Assault Cannons, tests by Project Valkyrie showed the top loading high capacity magazine of the Type-87 Assault cannon worked best with the Over Eagle due to its compact size. When their findings were published, The Empire of Japan suddenly found itself swarmed with requests to purchase Type-87s from the various militaries of interested nations.

Head Mounted .50 BMG Machine Guns: Directly inspired by Yui Takamura’s use of a M82 to kill a Tank BETA, two .50 BMG machine guns with as many as 500 rounds each are mounted inside the TSF’s head. These .50 BMG MGs were intended specifically to pick off Tank BETA that had swarmed all over another TSF. The .50 BMG round is large enough to kill Tanks, but small enough not to endanger the TSF it is trying to rescue. However, since Over Eagles rarely encounter this situation in the field, or at least ones where rescuing the swarmed TSF in this manner was still possible, most Over Eagles choose to use these weapons to pick off smaller BETA and save their larger caliber ammunition for more resilient targets.
+ Although .50 BMG Machine Guns such as the GAU-19 were the intended component for the head mounted weapons, many field upgrades saw some unlikely components being substituted depending on what was available. A particularly infamous example from the French Foreign Legion saw a PGM Hecate II Sniper Rifle with a fail prone, jury-rigged mechanism to work the bolt installed in one of their Over Eagles. Not quite what Lowell had in mind when he designed the upgrade.

Internal Weapons Bay: The Over Eagle has two internal weapons bays, one in each foreleg, that can carry a myriad of weapons. Each weapons bay can carry anything from 12 micro missiles, additional magazines for its assault cannons, additional fully functioning chain-guns, to a hellfire rocket launcher. It is this particular feature more than anything else that has given the Over Eagle its destructive reputation.
+ This upgrade has given the Over Eagle the appearance of larger forelegs. This, and the fact many UN Space Force ‘Chicken Divers’ use Over Eagles, has resulted in the Over Eagle gaining the affectionate nickname ‘Turkey Eagle’.

Hip and Shoulder Mounted Hard points: The Over Eagle also has hard points on the shoulder pauldrons and the hips for additional weapons. Typically Over Eagles load micro missile launchers on their shoulders hard points and leave their hip hardpoints empty to save weight, however, weapon loads can change depending on mission parameters.

ECA: All this extra weaponry comes at a cost, and that cost is weight. To maintain maneuverability and speed, Vincent stripped armor off the Eagle’s shoulders, knees and forearms to reduce the load. To make up for this he included an Energy Conversion Armor system located in the upper back of the TSF in to offset this, meaning that the armor reduction is negligible as long as the ECA is active. However, the ECA is a huge power drain, and as most Over Eagles use conventional turbofan engines to power this component, this has resulted in the Over Eagle having very poor fuel economy when the ECA is active.

Improved Engines: To ensure there would be no loss of speed or agility, the Over Eagle uses upgraded Engines and jump units from the F-15ACTV to offset the weight. Should those not be possible Vincent drew up the option of his ‘quad’ engine, where he put two F-15E Pratts & Witney FE100-PW-220 engines together in a reinforced jump unit to provide the required thrust. While these engines certainly deliver in the field, this configuration, especially compounded with the drain from ECA, is why the F-15E-OT is a considered to be a fuel hog and especially hated by the logistics personnel.

Operational Usage

A fully upgraded and outfitted Over Eagle is design full of tradeoffs. Sometimes referred to as a ‘poor man’s A-10’, the Over Eagle nevertheless has found its own niche on the changing face in modern warfare. The fact that it has impressive firepower without sacrificing speed allows the Over Eagle to keep up with regular Strike Eagles in battle, opening up a wide variety of roles for it to fulfill.

Over Eagles are regularly seen in the company of other TSFs to fulfill the role of Gunsweeper, bringing their massive firepower to bear against their unwitting victims. Others use the Over Eagle as an emergency deployment force. A group of Over Eagles used in this manner would be kept in reserve until they are needed, at which they would be called in to throw up a wall of suppressive fire to cover the escape of a friendly unit or to halt a BETA charge in its tracks. The final example is with the Space Forces, who have equipped many units of their Orbital Divers with Over Eagles. Given their usual mission parameters, the Orbital Divers require a high performance machine with plenty of firepower, irrespective of costs: a need the Over Eagle was all too happy to fulfill.

This is of course, not without some drawbacks. While it is a force to be reckoned with in the field, supplying the Over Eagle with enough fuel and ammunition is a labor in itself. The large number of weapons, multiple types of ammunition its weapons require and poor fuel consumption made the Over Eagle a logistics nightmare. Until TSF scale TE engines and jump engines and Assault Cannon class coil-guns reached full scale production, the Over Eagle could cost as much as four conventional TSF to resupply for a single mission. While pilots only cared about the Over Eagle’s performance on the battlefield and mechanics often liked to tinker around and experiment with various modifications despite the additional workload, logistics personnel across the board absolutely hated the Over Eagle.

The Over Eagle was also woefully equipped for melee combat. Although it carried a large amount of firepower into battle, the Over Eagle was no better equipped than the Strike Eagle for hand to hand combat. Worse, the removal of much of its physical armor made the Over Eagle reliant on the ECA for protection, further increasing its fuel consumption. In the event the ECA becomes inoperable in battle due to damage or malfunction, the Over Eagle is distressingly unarmored and vulnerable to harm and impacts a Strike Eagle could be able to sustain. Also, the internal components of the Over Eagle were found to be more vulnerable to impact damage from collisions from the BETA and environmental damage the reinforced joints and structural frame.

It was these limitations that prevented the Over Eagle from completely supplanting the Strike Eagle. Indeed, many ‘Semi-Over Eagles’ existed for this reason: A Strike Eagle that was partway converted to an Over Eagle. It would have lower performance than a true Over Eagle, but also prevent the Over Eagle's disadvantages from becoming too crippling. However, once the requirement for petroleum fuels and conventional ammunition was removed in 2004, largely due in part to TE engines and next generation Assault Cannons, the full conversions to the Over Eagle became much more prevalent.

While a vast majority of Over Eagles and Semi-Over Eagles were simply upgraded versions of existing Strike Eagles, Boeing manufactured large numbers of Over Eagles for anyone who was willing to purchase them. The UN Space Forces in particular had many of these ‘factory fresh’ Over Eagles delivered directly to their orbital deployment platforms.