Games - Strakha stealth fighter

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	Games - Strakha stealth fighter

The fictional Strakha stealth fighter is a Kilrathi stealth fighter from Chris Roberts's Wing Commander
series of computer games.

When the TCS Tiger's Claw, pride of the Terran Confederation Navy, was lost with all hands near the K'Tithrak Mang in 2657, Terra's top commanders assumed it must be a case of criminal negligence, and a scapegoat survivor, Col. Christopher "Maverick" Blair, was demoted and punished. Blair's claims of some sort of Kilrathi "stealth fighter", utilizing a cloaking device to pass in and out of visibility, were ignored, especially as his flight data recorder was damaged during the engagement; of course the "Coward of the K'Tithrak Mang" would have some sort of cover story. For the next ten years, Blair languished in virtual exile, the only pilot to push claims of Kilrathi stealth fighters... And, in fact, the only survivor of such an encounter. When he finally returned home from an engagement with conclusive flight recorder data, the Navy went into a panic.

The first Kilrathi stealth fighter to ever be mass produced, the Strakha's cloaking device proved a major advantage for Kilrathi pilots; their favorite tactic was to cloak, disappearing entirely from visual and radar scanning, and then plant themselves on a pilot's tail. The Strakha is at its most dangerous when traveling in swarms, where they can easily wear down a hapless Terran pilot by cloaking when damaged (preventing him from destroying the craft) and reappearing on his tail. Further, the Terran pilot can never be sure when he has actually gotten everyone there is to get... Or if the Kilrathi, consummate hunters, are simply lying in wait again. They presumably carry or can be outfitted with a single torpedo each, which the group in 2657 used to do in the Tiger's Claw.

Fortunately, the Strakha is a one-trick pony. While it possesses decent speed, its weapons are substandard; original models carried only two laser cannons, while models at the end of the Terran-Kilrathi war (2669) carried two meson blaseters and several weak missiles. Furthermore, its shielding and armor are rather flimsy, a concession to the size, complexity and power requirements of the cloaking device. Strakha pilots live by stealth, and stealth alone; in a stand-up engagement, such as against Terran capital ships, they are almost useless; their only prey are small groups of Terran pilots, against whom must rely on hit-and-run (or hit-and-disappear) tactics to prevail. Their obvious use in reconnaissance flights is partially precluded by the enhanced sensors on most Terran installations and capital ships, which Strakha have some trouble hiding from.

Strakha were manufactured to the end of the Terran-Kilrathi war, at which point the collapse of the Kilrathi Empire precluded the survivors from producing such a costly (and somewhat ineffective) fighter.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Strakha stealth fighter ]

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