Post by glennwilliams on Apr 10, 2020 15:17:31 GMT -9
This is the fluff that will be included in the Retro Speeder Production Package.
A Brief History of the BT-400 Speeder
a Planetary Defence Journal Exclusive
by Lis de Nemo, RJ
The Bering-Tulare 400 was the ultimate racing speeder of its day. While not as nimble as its more modern competitors, the BT-400, marketed as Red Lightning, could leave them in the dust on straightaways. That speed drew the attention of the planetary defence force procurement staff (PDF/PRO); although, truth be told, it was a cabal of junior officers and their racing buddies who were the spur under Procurement’s saddle.
At first the BT-400 was used in bog standard straight from the factory Red Lightning condition–in fact, the first BT-400 to serve in a combat unit was the private vehicle of a young lieutenant who slopped some gray green paint on his speeder, hopped on and raced ahead. With aerial drones were being shot down by the dozens, Soon his fellow scouts were using their own speeders in pairs to streak beyond the forward lines to find and report enemy dispositions.
Unfortunately, the BT-400's Tyson 1250 engines were too loud for effective reconnaissance. Soon, PDF/PRO was back at the Bering-Tulare factory with two seemingly inconsistent demands: more speed and less noise. BT engineers took a factory production model, ripped out the Tyson engines and installed a pair of SynGen 40s. Longer than the Tysons they replaced, the SynGen engines required a shroud protruding from the rear of the speeder. A test run proved the new engines to be most quiet ... but the speed! The test pilot returned from her first run white-faced with a racing heart. “It was terrifying,” she wheezed. “Can I do it again?” The next day, PDF/PRO officials were shown the BT-400SG and immediately bought a dozen for trials.
Four months later PDF/PRO officials were back at the BT factory. A pair of BT-400s had been ambushed. With no weapons, they had little choice but to flee. Only one made it back to friendly lines. Could the BT engineers add guns? Indeed they could ... easily. In fact, by the afternoon they had cobbled together a multi-barreled gun in a makeshift shroud. By the next week, the gun pods were in full production with crates going to the units using the BT-400SG, where maintenance engineers quickly installed the guns on the nose sides.
Alas, less is not more. New anti-speeder aerial drones and enemy speeders began to appear on the battlefield. Some were even faster than the BT-400SGs. Back to the factory went the Procurement officials, who were disappointed to learn that more powerful engines would not fit in the BT-400's fuselage. “But,” came a soft voice from the BT-400 design team. All eyes turned to the young engineer as she asked, “Why can’t we strap a new engine to each side?”
The SynGen engines were too large for such modifications. “But,” came the same voice, “We’ve got a lot of the really old Tyson 60s sitting in the warehouse. What if we gave them new shrouds?” Three days later the first BT-400SG/A (for Augmented) lifted off the engineering prototype lab floor. The same test pilot pointed the nose at the big door and headed out for her test run. When she returned, some engineers swore her blonde hair had turned white. She could barely catch her breath and kept whispering “wow!” over and over.
Out in the field, an old, grizzled field captain asked his company first sergeant what he thought about using the BT-400SG/As for more aggressive actions, specifically, raiding behind enemy lines. The first sergeant talked to his battalion supply sergeant, who scrounged some rocket pods to strap on the BT-400SG/A’s “wings.” Two days later, the battalion commander routed a request up the line. He wanted half his BT-400SG/A’s equipped with specialized weapons pods to allow them to range behind the enemy’s combat units to create havoc as both a distraction and a threat to the enemy logistical chain.
Going through the chain of command took a year for the request to reach the PDF/PRO and another six months to filter down to the small coterie of officers that had initiated the BT-400's military role. Excited, they went back to the Bering Tulare plant where the company engineers said, “no.”
Stunned, the officers waited for an explanation. Finally, it was the test pilot who explained, “Too much weight. The BT-400's such a beast because it’s over-powered, but add that weight and even with the auxiliary engines you’ll get degraded performance. It’s just be an ordinary speeder.” She sipped her coffee, then looked at a design engineer, “what if we used those new fiber panels and only equipped one pod with a heavy gun? The other pod could carry rockets.”
“Never been done on a speeder.” And that was that. Until a week later when the test pilot was dragged to the prototype lab before dawn, before their shift started, before the senior engineers arrived. “Looky here,” a giggling engineer said, “Fiber panels, weapons, and all strapped to the auxiliary engine shrouds.”
And just like that, the test pilot and her speeder were gone out the big door, shooting over the hills to BT’s test range. Booms rolled across the lab. Smoke billowed above the hills. Over the radio all they heard was “Yee hah!” Three weeks later the first crates of new weapons pods reached the old captain’s company, and the first BT-400SG/A-R (for raider) was deployed.
In later years the ad hoc organization in that captain’s company became standardized. BT-400SG/As were officially dubbed “Jaguars” and entered the standard battalion TOE as a scout platoon. The standard combat patrol for scouting was a pair of BT-400SGs with the nose gun pods–enough fire power to give them time to run if they encountered anything threatening. Eventually, each battalion also got a short platoon of six BT-400SG/A-Rs for raiding and reconnaissance in force. Like their scout counterparts, a raiding team would be a pair of BT-400SG/A-Rs. Unofficially, the troops named their scouting speeders “kitty cats,” a named not merely frowned upon by their seniors, who wanted them renamed “Hussars.” Similarly, troops nicknamed their raiders “Snakes.”
The development and popularity of the BT-400 and its subsequent versions also proved good for Bering-Tulare investors, as the company’s explosive stock increases attracted a ludicrously generous take over from the gargantuan conglomerate Omni-Planet Industries. OPI brought in a marketing team specializing in multi-system sales, and soon nearly every planetary defence force had a significant number of BT-400 units. Many stockholders retired on the proceeds of that buyout.
Today, of course, the BT-400 in all its versions is considered obsolete. Those still in service tend to be in militia guard units or among the cavalry units of poorer planets. Sometimes planetary defence forces will encounter rebel, pirate, or better equipped bandits who have some of the surviving scouts and raiders. Some of the BT-400SGs have even been reported in use by big game hunters on Pyross. Those have the canopy removed and a fork rest for the hunting rifle. That a Pyrossian dragon can swat a BT-400 out of the sky only adds to the thrill of the hunt–two hundred years after the test pilot first steered her prototype out of the big door.
A Brief History of the BT-400 Speeder
a Planetary Defence Journal Exclusive
by Lis de Nemo, RJ
The Bering-Tulare 400 was the ultimate racing speeder of its day. While not as nimble as its more modern competitors, the BT-400, marketed as Red Lightning, could leave them in the dust on straightaways. That speed drew the attention of the planetary defence force procurement staff (PDF/PRO); although, truth be told, it was a cabal of junior officers and their racing buddies who were the spur under Procurement’s saddle.
At first the BT-400 was used in bog standard straight from the factory Red Lightning condition–in fact, the first BT-400 to serve in a combat unit was the private vehicle of a young lieutenant who slopped some gray green paint on his speeder, hopped on and raced ahead. With aerial drones were being shot down by the dozens, Soon his fellow scouts were using their own speeders in pairs to streak beyond the forward lines to find and report enemy dispositions.
Unfortunately, the BT-400's Tyson 1250 engines were too loud for effective reconnaissance. Soon, PDF/PRO was back at the Bering-Tulare factory with two seemingly inconsistent demands: more speed and less noise. BT engineers took a factory production model, ripped out the Tyson engines and installed a pair of SynGen 40s. Longer than the Tysons they replaced, the SynGen engines required a shroud protruding from the rear of the speeder. A test run proved the new engines to be most quiet ... but the speed! The test pilot returned from her first run white-faced with a racing heart. “It was terrifying,” she wheezed. “Can I do it again?” The next day, PDF/PRO officials were shown the BT-400SG and immediately bought a dozen for trials.
Four months later PDF/PRO officials were back at the BT factory. A pair of BT-400s had been ambushed. With no weapons, they had little choice but to flee. Only one made it back to friendly lines. Could the BT engineers add guns? Indeed they could ... easily. In fact, by the afternoon they had cobbled together a multi-barreled gun in a makeshift shroud. By the next week, the gun pods were in full production with crates going to the units using the BT-400SG, where maintenance engineers quickly installed the guns on the nose sides.
Alas, less is not more. New anti-speeder aerial drones and enemy speeders began to appear on the battlefield. Some were even faster than the BT-400SGs. Back to the factory went the Procurement officials, who were disappointed to learn that more powerful engines would not fit in the BT-400's fuselage. “But,” came a soft voice from the BT-400 design team. All eyes turned to the young engineer as she asked, “Why can’t we strap a new engine to each side?”
The SynGen engines were too large for such modifications. “But,” came the same voice, “We’ve got a lot of the really old Tyson 60s sitting in the warehouse. What if we gave them new shrouds?” Three days later the first BT-400SG/A (for Augmented) lifted off the engineering prototype lab floor. The same test pilot pointed the nose at the big door and headed out for her test run. When she returned, some engineers swore her blonde hair had turned white. She could barely catch her breath and kept whispering “wow!” over and over.
Out in the field, an old, grizzled field captain asked his company first sergeant what he thought about using the BT-400SG/As for more aggressive actions, specifically, raiding behind enemy lines. The first sergeant talked to his battalion supply sergeant, who scrounged some rocket pods to strap on the BT-400SG/A’s “wings.” Two days later, the battalion commander routed a request up the line. He wanted half his BT-400SG/A’s equipped with specialized weapons pods to allow them to range behind the enemy’s combat units to create havoc as both a distraction and a threat to the enemy logistical chain.
Going through the chain of command took a year for the request to reach the PDF/PRO and another six months to filter down to the small coterie of officers that had initiated the BT-400's military role. Excited, they went back to the Bering Tulare plant where the company engineers said, “no.”
Stunned, the officers waited for an explanation. Finally, it was the test pilot who explained, “Too much weight. The BT-400's such a beast because it’s over-powered, but add that weight and even with the auxiliary engines you’ll get degraded performance. It’s just be an ordinary speeder.” She sipped her coffee, then looked at a design engineer, “what if we used those new fiber panels and only equipped one pod with a heavy gun? The other pod could carry rockets.”
“Never been done on a speeder.” And that was that. Until a week later when the test pilot was dragged to the prototype lab before dawn, before their shift started, before the senior engineers arrived. “Looky here,” a giggling engineer said, “Fiber panels, weapons, and all strapped to the auxiliary engine shrouds.”
And just like that, the test pilot and her speeder were gone out the big door, shooting over the hills to BT’s test range. Booms rolled across the lab. Smoke billowed above the hills. Over the radio all they heard was “Yee hah!” Three weeks later the first crates of new weapons pods reached the old captain’s company, and the first BT-400SG/A-R (for raider) was deployed.
In later years the ad hoc organization in that captain’s company became standardized. BT-400SG/As were officially dubbed “Jaguars” and entered the standard battalion TOE as a scout platoon. The standard combat patrol for scouting was a pair of BT-400SGs with the nose gun pods–enough fire power to give them time to run if they encountered anything threatening. Eventually, each battalion also got a short platoon of six BT-400SG/A-Rs for raiding and reconnaissance in force. Like their scout counterparts, a raiding team would be a pair of BT-400SG/A-Rs. Unofficially, the troops named their scouting speeders “kitty cats,” a named not merely frowned upon by their seniors, who wanted them renamed “Hussars.” Similarly, troops nicknamed their raiders “Snakes.”
The development and popularity of the BT-400 and its subsequent versions also proved good for Bering-Tulare investors, as the company’s explosive stock increases attracted a ludicrously generous take over from the gargantuan conglomerate Omni-Planet Industries. OPI brought in a marketing team specializing in multi-system sales, and soon nearly every planetary defence force had a significant number of BT-400 units. Many stockholders retired on the proceeds of that buyout.
Today, of course, the BT-400 in all its versions is considered obsolete. Those still in service tend to be in militia guard units or among the cavalry units of poorer planets. Sometimes planetary defence forces will encounter rebel, pirate, or better equipped bandits who have some of the surviving scouts and raiders. Some of the BT-400SGs have even been reported in use by big game hunters on Pyross. Those have the canopy removed and a fork rest for the hunting rifle. That a Pyrossian dragon can swat a BT-400 out of the sky only adds to the thrill of the hunt–two hundred years after the test pilot first steered her prototype out of the big door.