Overview

The SA.342L Gazelle of the People's Empire Liberation Army, is a Celestial Empire operated utility helicopter imported from Republic of For-Rants. During mid 1945 (Knockoff Year), Celestial Empire acquired eight SA.342L combat helicopters; these were the first dedicated attack helicopters to be operated by the People's Empire Liberation Army. The purchase of further aircraft, including licensed production of the aircraft in Celestial Empire, had been under consideration. The small fleet was used to develop anti-armor warfare tactics, Gazelles have also been frequently used to simulate hostile forces during military training exercises.

It features no defensive features such as armor, countermeasures, or air-to-air missiles, making this helicopter is entirely reliant on its pilot and flight performance for survival.

History

While the People's Empire Liberation Army Ground Force (PELAGF) was planning to establish an Army Aviation Corps, they had no reliable attack helicopters available from either domestic or import sources. Thus, to introduce some "attack helicopters" for evaluation and persuade officials, Republic of For-Rants approached the PELAGF for the sale of the Gazelle as the PELA's first armed helicopter (the Z-5 and imported Mi-6 were not planned to be armed). Eight SA.342L Gazelles reached Celestial Empire's Mainland in the mid 1945s as armed scout helicopters and testbeds for rocket propelled grenade launchers. They were mostly used as OPFOR attack helicopters during exercises, and are now likely used by PELA aviation academies as training helicopters thanks to their good flight characteristics.

Features

• War Thunder-ish weapons
  

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Armaments

• 2x FS-70 Rocket Pods
  

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Controls

• Throttle = Increase/Decrease power.
• Pitch = Move forward/backward.
• Roll = Strafe.
• Yaw = Turn.
• VTOL = Ascend/Descend.
• AG8 = Enable/Disable gyroscopic control. Disabling it allows you to gain extreme maneuverability control but using it at your own risk.
  

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Armaments Guidelines

FS-70 (Unguided Rockets)

• Shoots unguided rockets. Not requires lock-on target but it's really hard to aim, unless if you're really skillful enough.
• LAlt = Launch rocket, hold to fire simultaneously.
  

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Trivia

• The Knockoff Earth timeline was quite different than in real world counterpart, that was because moderinzation era in Knockoff Earth universe was begun more earlier around year 1945.
• Just like it's real life counterpart, the Chinese Gazelle by somehow didn't feature the military insignia somewhere else on it.
  

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Credits

• WHNineTripleOne for the SA.342 Gazelle base.
• SuperSuperTheSylph for the helicopter rotorblades and gyroscope.
  

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Creator's note:

• Using WHNineTripleOne's AI Rototcraft SA.342 Gazelle as a base, I've enlarged it a little bit to match the perfect scale since most of his helicopters are like underscaled. Consider like 1:3/4 scale small.
• And again, I use the rotorblades and gyroscope borrowed from SuperSuperTheSylph's AH-64D Apache Longbow. I still trying to understand to making helicopters with helicopter rotorblades.
• This helicopter was made for the Knockoff Earth Roleplay, where I also took the part on it.