Acero
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| Acero | |
|---|---|
| Vessel Profile | |
| Type | DropShip |
| Class | Leopard |
The Acero was a Leopard-class DropShip in service with the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns.
History[edit]
In 3067, the Acero was under the command of Captain Piotr Majikowski; the Acero had been assigned to support the Bromhead Planetary Militia when other forces in the region had been redeployed to fight in the FedCom Civil War. That decision put the Acero on the front lines when the Taurian Concordat invaded the Federated Suns. The Second Taurian Lancers had invaded Bromhead, and slaughtered the planetary militia. During the invasion, the Acero had badly damaged a Taurian Union-class DropShip, and then managed to catch a grounded Mule-class DropShip full of supplies and destroy it. Captain Majikowski had gambled that the loss of the supplies aboard the Mule would put pressure on the Taurian Defense Force to resupply Bromhead ahead of the inevitable AFFS counterattack.[1]
The Acero was a modified version of the standard Leopard; Majikowski had had the LRMs removed from the Acero and replaced with AC/5s. to reduce the ship's heat profile in space. Majikowski correctly anticipated that any Taurian resupply mission would arrive at the Bromhead zenith jump point, for a number of reasons, including that being the location of the system recharge station. Majikowski was proved right when, on 16 February 3067, the Scout-class JumpShip TCS Starstrider arrived in-system, deploying the Overlord-class DropShip TCS Leviathan packed with essential supplies for the Lancers. What ensued was a carefully-planned series of encounters between the Acero and the Leviathan. The Leviathan was commanded by the veteran Space Master Vince Torio, who was able to predict a number of the unconventional tactics used by Majikowski. Despite that, Majikowski was ultimately victorious, in that he prevented the Leviathan from landing on Bromhead with the supplies for the Lancers ahead of an incoming AFFS assault.[1]
The tactics employed by Majikowski included using the majority of the Acero's supply of autocannon ammunition in extreme-range shots, plotted by predicting the Leviathan's course and Torio's likely response to being hit at such a distance. While the Leviathan took less damage than Majikowski had hoped in the initial attack, the Acero continued to engage, taking significant amounts of damage before deceiving Torio into chasing the Acero into a cloud of debris generated by jettisonning every possible loose item from the Acero, with the debris inflicting damage on the Leviathan propotional to the Leviathan's speed. The damage taken wasn't enough to destroy the Leviathan, but having lost atmosphere due to hull breaches and short on fuel, Torio was left with no choice but to negotiate with Majikowski over the future of the Leviathan.[1]