Valkyrie

The Valkyrie-class heavy starfighter is a starship in the fictional StarCraft universe. It was part of the recent additions to the sweeping United Earth Directorate fleet that came to reinstate order in the Koprulu Sector. They are rather large for typical fighters, but are still fast, aggressive, and manueverable. They fire H.A.L.O. rockets in groups of eight, where every rocket deals six units of damage to enemy units, and has splash damage in a 3x3 matrix around each detonating rocket.

They are very heavily armored, making them durable even under intensive enemy fire. Due to the devastating 48 damage per salvo, the splash damage, and their heavy armor, they are considered even by the savage and ruthless Zerg aliens and the sophisticated Protoss xenophobes to be the most effective anti-air units in the Korprulu Sector. In small groups, they can devastate enemy air groups even when outnumbered!

Their only flaw is that they are defenseless against enemy ground units.

History
The Valkyrie Frigate appeared in Alpha and Beta versions of StarCraft as a ground-attack bomber but never made it into the final version of the game.

It was named after the Valkyrie Bomber, a prototype developed by the United States Air Force in the 1960s (during the Vietnam War). It was capable of travelling three times the speed of sound and could deliver nuclear bombs to targets deep in enemy airspace as an alternative to using nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. Its development prompted a sort of panic in the Soviet Union, which countered by developing the MiG-25 Foxbat, capable of travelling at the same speed. Ironically, by the time the MiG-25 was developed, the XB-70 Valkyrie bomber was cancelled. However, the MiG-25 was deemed superior to the current US jet fighter, the F-4 Phantom, which was in turn replaced by the F-15 Eagle (not as fast as the MiG-25 but deemed superior to it).

It appeared again during the beta of StarCraft: Brood War with a feature it is currently missing: Afterburners. These enabled the Valkyrie to fly at very high speed for a short period of time and cost it energy. It was removed because Valkyries could quickly fly into a Zerg base and destroy all of its Overlords, considered a "cheesy" strategy by Blizzard Entertainment.

The Valkyrie's current model may have been influenced by text in the StarCraft manual. Before the development of the Wraith, space battles generally took place between medium-sized gunships and battlecruisers. The Wraith supplanted the gunships because they were agile enough to avoid laser battery fire.

Quotes
"Achtung!" - Anonymous Valkyrie-class starfighter pilot "Jawohl"(pronounced ya vol)