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Description
For NationStates; Modeled in DoGa with an eye towards 3D printing.

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A pair of OSA Gryphons from the 666th Air Support Squadron roll in to deliver a 'care package' to targets on the ground.

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The OSA's 'Gryphon' Ground Attack Fighter was designed around getting as much ordinance on the ground in as little time as possible. It is slow - it might even be considered ugly - but it does that job very well. Some might argue that it does the job too well as the trigger-happy pilots of the OSA tend to point their nose at the target and hit the Alpha button. While this often has the effect of making the target go away it also means that the Gryphon - meant for long-duration close air support operations - gets to turn around and head back to base instead of engaging whatever other targets might pop up.

Visually, the Gryphon has as its ancestor the A-10 Thunderbolt with two wide, tapering wings for good lift and maneuverability at low speeds, a pair of heavy armored engines mounted above and behind these, and a split tail. The cockpit is mounted far forward on the fuselage to enhance forward visibility while small thruster assemblies at the tip of each wing surface give the aircraft enhanced turning options.

Two LRM-20's are mounted forward of the engines, sharing but a single reserve of missiles between them while four SRM-4's are mounted directly on the fuselage, each canted out and up-or-down. Four small pulsed lasers are split between two at the forward base of each wing and two on the tail; these latter are normally tasked with anti-missile duty while those up front are used for strafing runs against infantry. Like the A-10, the centerpiece gun is actually 'guns'; a pair of burst-fire linear accelerators sit under the nose and extending back to the mid-fuselage. If all of this is not enough, the Gryphon can also carry a number of under-wing modules with the 'default' being another pair of LRM-10's and another pair of SRM-4's.

Just like the A-10, the Gryphon is a very durable aircraft, able to fly with one engine, one tail, and half a wing destroyed. Assuming one dumps all the (potentially explosive) ammunition, of course. Like before, the cockpit is a well-armored 'bathtub' that can take repeated hits from light-to-medium anti-aircraft systems - assuming they survive long enough to get off a shot.

OSA tactical doctrine puts the Gryphon into a combined air-to-ground combat wing, usually centered around one of their super-heavy gunships along with the smaller Pegasus gunship and a number of spotter and screening drones.

Description
For NationStates; Modeled in DoGa with an eye towards 3D printing.

----

A pair of OSA Gryphons from the 666th Air Support Squadron roll in to deliver a 'care package' to targets on the ground.

----

The OSA's 'Gryphon' Ground Attack Fighter was designed around getting as much ordinance on the ground in as little time as possible. It is slow - it might even be considered ugly - but it does that job very well. Some might argue that it does the job too well as the trigger-happy pilots of the OSA tend to point their nose at the target and hit the Alpha button. While this often has the effect of making the target go away it also means that the Gryphon - meant for long-duration close air support operations - gets to turn around and head back to base instead of engaging whatever other targets might pop up.

Visually, the Gryphon has as its ancestor the A-10 Thunderbolt with two wide, tapering wings for good lift and maneuverability at low speeds, a pair of heavy armored engines mounted above and behind these, and a split tail. The cockpit is mounted far forward on the fuselage to enhance forward visibility while small thruster assemblies at the tip of each wing surface give the aircraft enhanced turning options.

Two LRM-20's are mounted forward of the engines, sharing but a single reserve of missiles between them while four SRM-4's are mounted directly on the fuselage, each canted out and up-or-down. Four small pulsed lasers are split between two at the forward base of each wing and two on the tail; these latter are normally tasked with anti-missile duty while those up front are used for strafing runs against infantry. Like the A-10, the centerpiece gun is actually 'guns'; a pair of burst-fire linear accelerators sit under the nose and extending back to the mid-fuselage. If all of this is not enough, the Gryphon can also carry a number of under-wing modules with the 'default' being another pair of LRM-10's and another pair of SRM-4's.

Just like the A-10, the Gryphon is a very durable aircraft, able to fly with one engine, one tail, and half a wing destroyed. Assuming one dumps all the (potentially explosive) ammunition, of course. Like before, the cockpit is a well-armored 'bathtub' that can take repeated hits from light-to-medium anti-aircraft systems - assuming they survive long enough to get off a shot.

OSA tactical doctrine puts the Gryphon into a combined air-to-ground combat wing, usually centered around one of their super-heavy gunships along with the smaller Pegasus gunship and a number of spotter and screening drones.