Home > Vampire heavy fighter
The (fictional) F-109 Vampire heavy fighter is a spaceplane in the Wing Commander computer game. It was introduced in the 2680s and proved to be an superb fighter. The Vampire was a product of an era of military budget cuts; it did not receive many of the features of older fighters (such as auto-tracking guns). However, it did have vertically-articulating engine pod that greatly improved pitch. It was still expensive, however, and could not be widely fielded.
The F-109A was the initial version and was armed with four tachyon cannon and two particle cannon. The legendary missile armament consisted of eight image-recognition missiles, eight IFF missiles and four MIRV rockets that each deployed four IFF missiles. In addition, they could be configured to replace the MIRVs with large unguided rockets or be used as wild-weasel fighters. In that configuration they carried eight anti-turret missiles and eight image recognition missiles.
The F-109B appeared to be a small improvement over the F-109A, perhaps fixing any problems initially encountered with the original fighter.
The F-108S "Black" Vampire was an advanced version originally used in special operations missions. The particle guns were replaced with rapid-firing pulse particle cannon and the missiles were of improved design. In addition to the usual roles listed above, this version was sometimes used as a strike fighter. Four IFF and six image-recognition missiles were carried along with four light torpedoes and 36 short-ranged guided rockets.
The Vampire performed superbly in the war against the Nephilim and proved a very flexible design. Squadrons of Vampires were more than capable of decimating many times their number of alien fighters without taking losses. However, the fighter is very sensitive to its controls and insufficiently experienced pilots may overcompensate. Curiously, the Tracker MIRV missiles will not detonate their load if the rocket hits something before separation -- this is a common complaint amongst pilots.
Wing Commander spacecraft
