Stormhawk Assault Gunship

The Stormhawk Assault Gunship or simply the Stormhawk was a large assault craft once used by the Legiones Astartes during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. The Stormhawk was used alongside the Stormbird super-heavy dedicated attack landers that the Space Marine Legiones used their primary means of deploying forces into combat as well as air support and general planetary transport for that majority of the Great Crusade. The Stormhawk was an advanced pattern of void-capable craft, the two pilot's control consoles featured, among other things, vector diagrams and tri-dimensional contour maps of scrounging terrain during atmospheric flight, pulsing cables connected the pilots directly to the avionics package, allowing them to fly purely on instruments. The rear of the craft featured a spacious hold with rows of vertical restraint harnesses to hold infantry in place during flight, heavy equipment storage and a large assault ramp.

Imperial Records do not indicate how many Legions made use of the Stormhawk, its transport capacity, size or armament.

Notable Stormhawks
The following is a list of notable Stormhawks:
 * Scarab Prime - Scarab Prime was the personal transport of Ahzek Ahriman, Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons Legion during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. Scarab Prime was one of several heavily modified Stormhawks used by the Thousand Sons' Corvidae Cult, these craft were used to help the Primarch Magnus the Red direct his forces during battle, such as during the Pacification of the Ark Reach Cluster. The interior space of the craft usually reserved for infantry and heavy equipment were filled with banks of surveyor gear and crystalline receptors. Heavy cabling snaked across the floors of the craft and into the elevated chair that used by Ahriman. Ahriman and other Thousand Sons Corvidae Cult Librarians acted as the eyes of Magnus the Red, feeding him psychic data about enemy movements before they even happened and instantly sending warnings directly to him, who in turn would directly warn the pilots of the Thousand Sons' assault transports and landers to take evasive action, all taking place in an instant. This tactic drastically reduced the number of craft lost during airborne assaults on heavily defended positions. The Scarab Prime's last recorded use in Imperial Records was to deliver Magnus the Red, Ahriman and Kallimakus to the surface of Nikaea.
 * Ankhu Anen - The Ankhu Anen was another heavily modifed Stormhawk used by the Thousand Sons Corvidae Cult. The Ankhu Anen, alongside the Scarab Prime both took part in the Pacification of the Ark Reach Cluster.

Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications
The Adeptus Mechanicus technical specifications for this ancient spacecraft are unknown.

Trivia
The Stormhawk Assault Gunship shares its name with the Stormhawk Interceptor, a Adeptus Astartes single-pilot interceptor used in the 41st Millennium.