Offender Starfighter

Characteristics
(Original) The Defender was 5.3 meters long and armed with 3 laser cannons; one in the nose of the craft, and one each on either side beneath the wing. To save space and weight, the standard Defender starfighter was not equipped with a hyperdrive.

Its extendible S-foil maneuvering struts could retract into the spaceframe for non-combat situations; but once an enemy had been engaged, the struts swung down and forward to give the Defender better positioning for maneuvering jet bursts.

While sudden maneuvers in an atmosphere actually risked tearing off the struts (due to the G-forces, the gravity of the planet itself, and atmospheric drag), in space, the Defender could literally spin around 180 degrees in mid-flight by firing one maneuvering jet forward and one backward.

History
Based upon a pre-existing design, the Defender entered service with the New Republic relatively quickly in the years after the Battle of Endor. As its name suggests, it was used primarily as a short-range fighter to defend larger targets against attack.

The New Republic Defender was intended to fulfill the need for a system space and atmospheric defense starfighter. Before the Rebel Alliance defeated the Galactic Empire, its fighter design philosophy emphasized fast ships that could evade Imperial pursuit by jumping into hyperspace. However, when the New Republic gained control and the remnants of the Empire became disenfranchised, New Republic-member worlds became desperate for a fighter that could fend off Imperial raids.

Although the Defender was slow by contemporary standards in starfighter design (at only two-thirds of the top speed of an A-wing or TIE Interceptor), it was far faster than the ageing Republic Y-wing and Z-95 Headhunters that were usually relegated to planetary defense.

(Modified)

Some time after the official release, Ivan Munroe came into ownership of 6 Defenders. Deciding to give them the cheeky name 'Offenders'. Traiger Poach, called in on a favour, took the ships to Shug Nix's 'Barn and went to work. He managed to squeeze out a little more of everything out of them, as well as adding 40 dumbfire rockets to the little ship.