Shrike Strikes Hard with the Right Pilot

ScoobyDoo is back with another underappreciated Wing Commander ship. He's modeled the Shrike bomber in his characteristic heavy metal style. By some accounts, the TB-81 was a fairly average strike craft, but it did have a few surprises up its sleeve. The variant flown in Prophecy typically carried a respectable mix of 8 torpedoes and numerous rocket pods, but the torps could be swapped out for an even larger load of HARM missiles. Talented pilots could do some serious damage with the charging mass driver, and Secret Op's "Black Strike" was quite a powerhouse with its twin dust cannons.

A few personal liberties: it's definitely a two-seater now (most bombers should be anyways), one of the mass drivers was dropped.

Origin designer Sean Murphy's original renders are also pictured below. He's revealed previously that the forward fuselage was planned to be a detachable fighter pod at one point in development, and the underslung tube was originally intended for electronic warfare!