A to Z Challenge: Veritechs

For me anyway, Veritechs were the most awesome thing about Robotech.  Sure there was a good story and the Cyclones were neat and the Hovertanks were OK, but Veritechs were all the shit.

The original Veritech fighters looked sort of like F-14 Tomcats with the swing wings and twin tails.  But most Veritechs only had one crewmember while Tomcats had two.  And of course they turned into giant robots!

The Veritechs had three modes:  Fighter, Guardian, and Battloid.  Fighter is pretty obvious--it's the airplane mode.  The Battloid is the giant robot mode.  The Guardian is an intermediate between the two where the top is the fighter but the tail folds up and the legs and arms descend so it looks kind of like a big bird.

The Veritechs also have a few different modes that are mostly based on how many laser guns it has on the head.

The VF-1A is the base model.  There's only a single gun on the head and only one crew.

The VF-1D is the training model.  It has two laser guns on the head and carries two people.  The D is the first one Rick Hunter flies and accidentally trashes part of Macross City with.

The VF-1J has two guns on the head and it's for flight leaders basically.  Rick Hunter upgrades to a J once he's the leader of the Vermilion group.

The VF-1S is the squadron leader one with four laser guns on it.  This is the one Roy Fokker flew that was decorated with the Jolly Roger markings.  And it's also the one Hasbro used for the original Jetfire Transformers toy!  Only Jetfire had red trim, not yellow.

Original Jetfire, a VF-1S

In the Battlecry video game there was also a VF-1R recon model.  It's mostly like a VF-1A model but with extra cameras and stuff.  I still have the toy of it on my shelf that I bought from MediaPlay back in 2004 or so.

In one episode Rick Hunter takes out a prototype that has a lot of extra armor and weapons for a solo patrol.  It winds up getting blown up by a Zentraedi recon ship.

Shortly before the big space battle with Dolza's fleet, the armored Veritechs are introduced.  These have rocket boosters, extra armor, and extra weapons.  Rick Hunter takes one out to save Lisa Hayes on her way to Earth.  Jetfire came with the armor that you could snap onto his body to make him an armored Veritech.  I still have some of it on my old one.

In the Sentinels series and then in the third Robotech series they introduced the Alphas and Betas.  Alphas were like the original Veritechs but sleeker with more delta-shaped wings instead of the swing wings.  They still did all the other stuff like Veritechs.

Alpha

Beta

Betas were smaller and boxier.  They could attach to the rear of an Alpha in fighter mode for extra firepower and power.  Maybe extra cargo hauling too.  Definitely would not help maneuverability.  The Beta had its own Battloid mode but not really so much of a Guardian mode.

Combined Alpha & Beta

Early in the second series there's a sort-of Veritech called the Logan.  They were smaller and instead of turning into a robot it basically just had a plane mode and Guardian mode.

Logan

The Southern Cross also used another sort-of Veritech called an AJAC attack chopper.  They were more like helicopters than planes like the other Veritechs.

AJAC

The AJACs (or AGACs since they were called Auto Gyro Attack Choppers or something in the show) were introduced midway through as a new weapon that was supposed to turn the tide--but didn't.  I'm not sure what good helicopters were supposed to do in space.  Marie Crystal was one of the first pilots to get one, replacing her destroyed Logan.  They were pretty much what the Southern Cross used in the air from then on out.