An unknown pattern of the Fury Interceptor in flight.
The Fury Interceptor is the most common type of starfighter used by the Imperial Navy, the Adeptus Astartes, and the Imperium as a whole for void combat. The Fury is designated as an attack craft by the Imperial Navy.
The Fury is carried in their thousands by several different types of Imperial Navy battleships and grand cruisers and other attack carriers. Each fighter wing is comprised of roughly fifteen to twenty Fury Interceptors each, with each squadron varying in size from three fighters to five fighters.
History
A squadron of Fury Interceptors on an attack run
The Fury Interceptor was first developed by the ancient Mechanicum during the last years of the Emperor's Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium. The craft was designed to replace the aging Wrath Pattern Starfighter that was the most widely used starfighter by the Imperium at that time.
The Fury was easier to produce, handled more smoothly for its pilots, and suffered from less technical malfunctions. However, the more veteran pilots in the Armada Imperialis fleet still preferred the Wrath, seeing it as a finer instrument of void war over the much more "sterile" Fury.
By the time of the Horus Heresy the Fury had become the more common Imperial starfighter in the Imperial fleet and over the course of the next ten thousand standard years the Fury would become the most common Attack Craft used by the Imperial Navy as a whole. The Fury is still used in small numbers by the forces of Chaos in the late 41st Millennium, usually located on starships that have been captured, or stolen, by the Chaos Fleets, or by defectors that have brought their fighters with them.
The Fury has been mostly replaced in Chaos Warfleets by the Swiftdeath Fighter, and for a large number of centuries the Swiftdeath was the nemesis of the Fury in void combat, as the Swiftdeath was faster and more maneuverable, though the Fury was more resilient in the face of damage and better armed.
Tactical Role
The Fury Interceptor is the workhorse of the Imperial Navy and can be used in multiple roles throughout a single fleet. The Fury is most commonly used as either a void superiority fighter or an interdiction attack craft that shoots down enemy torpedoes and bombers that threaten larger starships. The Fury is also used to escort the Imperial Navy's Starhawk bombers during their own attack runs on the enemy's capital ships.
Furies can return to their mothership, or another Imperial carrier ship if need be, to be rearmed and repaired, although if a Fury is too heavily damaged another can be issued if the pilot and his crew are needed in the battle. When not in combat, Furies are used for scouting and reconnaissance, and simple combat air patrol missions around a fleet. The Fury Interceptor, along with the Starhawk bomber, is fully capable of attacking planetary targets within an atmosphere, although, due to their sheer size and obvious specialisation for void combat their effectiveness varies depending on their target and how well it is protected.
Construction
A Fury Interceptor undergoing rearmament within a flight deck on an Imperial starship.
Like most Imperial vehicles and voidcraft there exist several different patterns, marks, and variants of the Fury Interceptor, with the largest of them reaching up to sixty or seventy metres in length and the smallest being close to forty metres. The Fury's size is such that a wing of twenty Furies takes up the same amount of space aboard a starship as a wing of forty of the Adeptus Astartes' Thunderhawk gunships.
Due to a lack of an atmosphere in the void and the myriad other problems that plague atmospheric flight, the Fury is far more maneuverable despite its size when compared to an aircraft designed for atmospheric operations. The Fury is identifiable by its aerodynamic fighter hull and swept-forwards wings. The outer hull features an armoured, transparent canopy for the pilot and another for the gunner. Some Fury patterns are equipped with Void Shields that are capable of being redirected to reinforce individual facings against incoming enemy fire.
The spacecraft is able to be fitted with an extra, centre-line-mounted fuel tank for extended patrols and long-range missions. The spacecraft is propelled by either a single, large fusion plasma thruster engine, or by two smaller engines each capable of generating up to sixty-thousand tonnes of thrust. The Fury is outfitted with several attitude jets to control its movements in zero gravity.
Crew
The smallest pattern of Fury Interceptor (approx. 40 metres) is displayed here adjacent to a Starhawk Bomber and a Shark Assault Boat.
Each Fury is crewed by at least two crewmen, the pilot and the gunnery officer. A fully crewed Fury requires a four-man crew, adding a navigator and a second gunner. On occasion, an astropath will also be aboard, to provide greater communications capability.
The size of the crew is dictated by the mission parameters set each time a squadron is launched into the void. Small-scale missions such as fleet patrol and short-range interdiction only require the pilot and a gunner to be present while long-range reconnaissance and interceptions require larger crews. The craft is also capable of having at least a partial crew made up of servitors.
The Fury's reinforced hull contains an extensive network of circuitry and life-support systems, including a small chemical toilet and a sleeping compartment for the crew, allowing for the craft to stay away from its mothership for longer periods of time. Each crew member aboard a Fury is highly trained, usually undergoing many Terran years of harsh training to prepare them for the extremes of piloting a Fury in void combat.
All crew members aboard a Fury are required to wear suspensor-wire pressurized suits to ensure their blood does not pool in zero-gravity since the fighter does not possess artificial gravity and to help counteract the horrendous forces of rapid acceleration and extreme g-forces encountered during high-speed void combat. The pressure suits pump super-oxygenated blood directly into the body via spinal connectors and their contoured helmets exerted outwards pressure on the surrounding air to prevent the crewmen from blacking out.
A Fury can be easily torn apart by the intense gravitational forces experienced by mishandling the craft or by losing control of a damaged craft in combat. A Fury Interceptor crewed by Space Marines probably has these systems removed, as the Astartes' power armour and genetically-enhanced physical prowess would provide the same, if not better protection.
Armament
The Fury Interceptor is heavily armed for a craft of its size, and due to its number of patterns and variants the fighter has several known weapon loadouts. All known patterns of the Fury can be armed with up to two wing-mounted racks carrying a variable amount of high-explosive anti-starship missiles. The craft is also usually armed with several banks of forwards-firing Lascannons, either mounted on the starship's hull or on its wings.
There exist variants of the Fury with a nose-mounted turret ball that can be armed with either Lascannons or Multi-Lasers. It is also unknown what other types of weapons may be used by different patterns of the Fury or how many various marks and patterns of the Fury may actually exist amongst the scattered battlefleets of the Imperial Navy.
Known Fury Interceptor Squadrons and Wings
- Tempest Wing (Battlefleet Koronus) - A renowned fighter wing that is stationed aboard the Imperial Navy Mars-class Battlecruiser Gryphon.
- Angel Squadron (Unknown Fighter Wing, Battlefleet Tempestus) - Angel Squadron is stationed aboard the Dictator-class Cruiser Kharloss Vincennes and took part in the defence of the world of Tarsis Ultra against the Tyranids.
The following are the known Imperial Navy classes of warship that carry Fury Interceptors within their launch bays. This list is incomplete as any starship of adequate size can be modified to possess the needed hangers and launch bays to carry attack craft.
- Emperor-class Battleship
- Oberon-class Battleship
- Exorcist-class Grand Cruiser
- Mars-class Battlecruiser
- Dictator-class Cruiser
- Defiant-class Light Cruiser
- Escort Carriers
Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications
| Type | Void Starfighter / Attack Craft | Operational Ceiling | N/A (Voidship) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vehicle Name | Fury Interceptor | Max Speed | Unknown |
| World of Origin | Unknown, mass-produced on many worlds | Range | Unknown |
| Known Patterns | Unknown | Main Armament | Anti-Starship Missiles, Lascannons (Varies) |
| Crew | 1 Pilot, 1 Gunnery Officer, 1 Gunner, 1 Navigator, Astropath (Full-Crew) | Secondary Armament | Lascannons, Multi-Lasers (Varies) |
| Powerplant | Unknown (Varies) | Main Ammunition | Unknown |
| Weight | Unknown | Secondary Ammunition | Unknown |
| Length | 40 Metres to 70 Metres (approx.) | Armour | |
| Wingspan | Unknown | Superstructure | Unknown |
| Height | Unknown | Hull | Unknown |
| Vehicle Designation: | Unknown | Transport Capacity | N/A |
See Also
Sources
- Warriors of Ultramar (Novel) - The Ultramarines Omnibus by Graham McNeill, pp. 305-312
- Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy, pg. 223
- Shadows of Treachery (Anthology) edited by Christian Dunn and Nick Kyme, "Prince of Crows" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, pg. 370
- Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Koronus (RPG), pp. 10-11, 14-15, 24, 40, 59, 62-63, 123, 140-141
- Rogue Trader: Into the Storm (BFG), pp. 181
- Fury Interceptor (Battlefleet Gothic) - Games Workshop
- Battlefleet Gothic - Imperial Fleets - Games Workshop
- Battlefleet Gothic - Ships of the Gothic Sector - Games Workshop
- Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, pg. 19
- Battlefleet Gothic Armada - Armada Appendices - Games Workshop
- Execution Hour (Novel) by Gordon Rennie, pp. 107, 299