ANTIC’S Answer to the Alien Threat Leaked!
Hello again, everyone! Today, I thought I’d share some new artwork from the Saucer War One Invasion ’52 sourcebook which will be released with the actual game when it becomes a physical reality. (Stay tuned to find out just when that should be.)
Let me reveal the blueprints of the NS-97 Silvercat!
This was ANTIC’s primary fighter in the opening days of Saucer War One. Rushed into service just in time to thwart the Noordican attempt to land on Washington DC in July, 1952, it was lightly armed and slow compared to the incredible machines thrown into the fray towards the war’s end. Nevertheless, the Silvercat was well liked by its pilots, and many of CAPER RED’s aces scored their first kills in this agile craft, defending the skies of North America.
When it becomes a 1/200 scale miniature, the Silvercat will be 53mm in diameter. It will have the option to carry an armament of either four 30mm cannons, or twenty air-to-air rockets.
Credit where Credit is Due
The Silvercat is very heavily based on a real lenticular aircraft design from 1950. Or more accurately, on a model of that design, which was a concept by this man – Nick Stasinos (in bowtie).
Stasinos was a graduate of a college programme run by Northrop Aviation — the people who built iconic American aircraft such as the P-61 Black Widow, the F-5 Freedom Fighter, and more recently, the suspiciously alien-looking B2 Spirit stealth bomber.
Clearly influenced by the sudden and dramatic rise in flying disc sightings since 1947, in 1950 Stasinos designed and built this neat study model of his NS-97 fighter. Sadly, it seems Jack Northrop wasn’t that impressed, because the NS-97 was never taken further than this. (Or was it…?)
Sadly, Nick Stasinos left behind a promising career in aeronautics for the life of an insurance salesman. Or maybe he actually went to work for JAPE — ANTIC’s R & D department — and the insurance gig was merely the cover he was given by the agents of PRANK to conceal his part in the war to protect the Earth?
You’ll have to wait for the Invasion ’52 sourcebook to discover the incredible truth of this and other secrets of the war we never knew!
See you next time, and remember: Watch the Skies!
Miniature Martin 