Black Eagle (DropShip class)

Black Eagle
Production information
Manufacturer	Mikoyan Aerospace Consortium
Production Year	2453
Use	'Mech Carrier
Type	Military Spheroid
Tech Base	Inner Sphere (Primitive)
Technical specifications
Mass	4,500 tons
Structural Integrity	16
Length	77 meters
Width	77 meters
Height	90 meters
Drive System	Fusion
Safe Thrust	4 g
Max Thrust	6 g
Fuel (tons)	250 tons
Fuel (days)	1.84 days
Armament	8x LRM 20s 9x Large Lasers 12x Medium Lasers
Armor	55 tons Primitive Armor
Crew	Crew Listings 5 Officers 14 Enlisted/Non-Rates 9 Gunners 24 Bay Personnel
Escape Pods/Life Boats	1/8
Heat Sinks	156 Standard
BV (1.0)	???
BV (2.0)	???

Description

Originally designed as an armored vehicle carrier for the Terran Hegemony, the Black Eagle was the answer to the HAF's need for a larger BattleMech carrier. Previous designs had been simple conversions of civilian cargo haulers with limited carrying capacities and defenses. However, the Black Eagle solved many of the logistic problems of deploying these early BattleMechs, such as the Mackie, quickly into battle. Rearranging its cargo decks, Mikoyan Aerospace Consortium was able to create enough space for a company worth of the Hegemony's newest war machines.

Initially assigned to the HAF's assault companies, these ships would be used in the initial stages of an invasion to secure a beachhead for attacking Hegemony units. The ship would thus become the Hegemony's principal assault BattleMech carrier, which in turn would become highly successful in its mission. While the original Black Lion was technically a DropShuttle, created before the invention of the K-F Boom Docking Collar that defined the concept of "DropShip", subsequent DropShip designs such as the Lion and later the Union would be patterned after it.

The design's success would prompt the Terran Hegemony to use it as the basis for its Pentagon-Class Assault DropShip design. (Which incidentally explains the visual similarity; see Notes.)

Armament & Capacities

Well armed for its time, the ship's weaponry is mostly evenly spread out its weapon arcs. The Black Eagle's Front & Front Right/Left arcs are armed with pair of 20-tubed Long-Range Missile Launchers with pair of Large Lasers. Its aft-sides missile weaponry is reduced to a single LRM-20, its close range weaponry is increased. Its Laser Bay consists of single Large Laser and four Medium Lasers. Covering its aft, is same singler Weapons Bay with Large Laser/4 Medium Laser arrangement. The ship carries 24 tons of ammunition for its LRM-20 launchers.

The Black Eagle is designed to carry 12 BattleMechs, deployed from 2 doors. It also has 520 ton cargo capacity for spare parts and supplies, also accessed with door doors.

The design was built using what would later be considered Primitive Technology, thus its armor and other components would be outclassed by later designs.

Design Notes

Design Quirks:

• Easy to Maintain
• Obsolete/2545

Variants

• Original design 

  When originally built, the Black Eagle was an armored combat vehicle carrier. The ship featured 3 Cargo Decks, with enough room for a Battalion of Light Combat Vehicles or a Company of Heavies.

Notes

• In what is probably an oversight, the Black Eagle is consistently presented as a DropShip (not a DropShuttle) in both its initial introduction into canon in XTRO: Primitives Vol2 and its MUL entry. However, it is equally consistently described as having been created in 2453, i.e. a decade prior to the invention of the K-F Boom/Docking Collar technology that defines DropShips in modern parlance. For the purpose of this article and the categorisation it is assumed that the original Black Eagle was a DropShuttle class that, being a successful design, was upgraded and transformed into a proper DropShip class at some point after 2470.
• The image provided for the Black Eagle was originally used for Pentagon-class DropShip, establishing a strong visual similarity between those otherwise distinct spacecraft. (Re-using existing art was a frequent cost saving measure used for units devised for the Experimental Technical Readout series of PDFs.)

Bibliography

• Experimental Technical Readout: Primitives, Volume 2
• Master Unit List