Longboat: Overview

The mainline troop transport of GDS, capable of intercontinental travel, VTOL, deployment behind enemy lines, and everything in between. Capable of moving 40 legionnaires or numerous tons of cargo with minimal notice, the Longboat is the most common method of transportation used by the Aeronautical Legion.

I remember once when a Vanguard told me “Hey Walker, what’s up with our Longboats looking a lot like the ATA-4 the Enfelrikians use?”. I can safely say that, given the expression he took on, I don’t think he was prepared for me to state that we stole it from them. As in we sent in someone to grab their spec sheets, the plans, the engineering docs, anything in the Enfelrikian’s aero hangars that wasn’t bolted down.

You’d think it’d be a bad idea to go shouting that around but nah, they’re more than aware of what we did the moment they saw a Longboat for the first time. It’d be embarrassing to admit we stole their ideas so easily, and we don’t go bragging about it, so we both quietly decided to act as if nothing had even happened.
The reason we decided to steal the design is simply because it works, its efficient, and it needed very few modifications to the design to be compliant with our requirements. We could have spent years on engineering, research, and fabrication methods, but why do that when we can just send in someone from the Intelligence Legion with a backpack and a flashlight?

With all of that out of the way, here’s what you need to know about the Longboat.
One of the greatest features you can have with any kind of transport is VTOL capabilities, and there’s one large reason for that. Just like with the old helicopter designs, you can land and take off from a wide variety of locations without any need for additional infrastructure. Main difference here is that a Longboat, unlike a helicopter, isn’t going to crash because the wind decided to be slightly unfavorable for .04 seconds.
Being able to move cargo and legionnaires without needing to build a runway or anything of the sort is an enormous advantage that a lot of you can’t comprehend this early in your career. On top of that, Longboats are rock solid in terms of safety, capable of hypersonic flight when the Gray Conduits are engaged and has built in armaments to reduce the need for extensive escorts.
Wonderfully self-contained is how I would summarize it.

A few changes we made to the original design:

· The hull was reinforced to withstand numerous SAM hits, as is standard with all our transports.

· More robust and extensive countermeasures were added to the defense system.

· Plasmatic weaponry replaced the original guns.

· Rockets were added to the armaments to help with clearing LZs.

· Engines were replaced with custom ones made by the Mechanical Legion.

· The powerplant was replaced with one of our own design.

· All systems were integrated with our unified command and control network.

· We added air conditioning and seat cushions.

o This was actually one of the most critical upgrades listed here.

With a complete ease of deployment, solidly reliable performance, and self-sufficiency, the Longboat is the one true workhorse of the Aeronautical Legion.
Because at no goddamn point in its service history have I had to spend three weeks prepping it for departure just to fly 300 kilometers to another base.

-FrW Azan Kinrados