The warships are dead...

  ...Long live the Missileboats?

> It may be.  If so, we should chuck the HE and HEAP missiles in favor of
> a KEAP missile (cheaper, and lighter too!).  Could you work out this and
> the nuclear missiles we discussed earlier

  I think there are things to discuss wrgt the KEAP missiles still. Regarding
nukes I am 25% of the way through 'The Effects of Nuclear Weapons' and I'll
have to do som wild guesses in any case (mostly with regards to how damage in
TNE relates to damage in Real Life) so it might take a little time too.

  (A NPC have 50% chance of dying after 10D of concussion damage. Since this
very aproximately equals 65 PSI (but it is different with conventional
weapons) so each die can be assumed to be 6.5 PSI)

> (I *still* haven't gotten back
> to that section in T:TNE --- I've been reading through it carefully, and
> spending far too much time posting on the net:).  Then I'll pull it all
> together so that we have everything in one place.

  I've looked on the kinetic energies of 200kg (100kg electronics etc and 100kg
structural members of the burned out engine. I assume a solid fuel engine
here but I have a few ideas on how to make a solid fuel rocket maneuverable)
moving at from 1 to 30 range bands(1). But remember that this is less than
half the normal payload, so this type of missile should get aprox 20 Gturns.

 (1) It would be really nice to know the 'typical closing velocity', but we
     don't have that data yet. If someone runs a space combat with missiles,
     please please note their closing velocity and post it to the TML.

  The kinetic energy varies between 2.8e10 J and 2.5e13J which is the same
as 0.006 to 6 kilotons. Redone into kg of TNT and via the demolition rules
into penetration means 705 to 21,000 or 30 to 900 major hits worth. This is
well above the damage of either the HE or HEAP, even at velocity 1. Definite
shipkiller size, since you only need 200 in remaining penetration after armour
to inflict a critical hit on a ship of any size.


  Based on the classic studies of optimum ship design done for TCS, I suspect
that missiles this effective will totally transform the game. Any price of
warship can be matched by an equal tonnage of cheaper missile craft (100T 6G
J1, 1 missile turret) that has a good chanse of getting in a few hits and the
warship is history.

  This would be a retcon even more major than those jumpbarges we discussed
just before the pocket mailing list started.


  Do we want this? And if we don't, how do we explain it away? One big grey
area is how a heavy object of low density behaves when it collides with a
very dense material. It is also debatable wether energy translates directly
into penetration.

  Using Richard Ogorkiewicz 'Technology of Tanks' as a source on how things
behave when they collide at high speeds I have two guesses: The first is that
the penetration goes up with speed, but it doesn't increase much with speeds
over 5km/s. Since velocity 1 is 16km/s, we are well into the flat part of
the curve in all cases. Since the equations for penetrators approach the
equations for shaped charge jets we can assume that the missile is a shaped
charge jet and use those simpler equations:)
  The maximum penetration is thus:

		     Density of jet
  Length of jet * ( -----------------) ^ 0.5
		    Density of target

  Using the density of the missiles engine (the electronics package is
denser but it is too short) which I assume to be 0,014, the length of the
missile (7m) and the density of the hull (7 for steel, this is a best
case penetration caculation) the maximum penetration is 318mm aka Pen 63.
It won't penetrate an SDB!! (sorry, PDB:)

  That is good news, since that is aproximately the same total penetration
as the HE missile and *less* than the HEAP missile. So they will still have
a place, and the KEAP missile will not be the ultimate shipkiller.

  (I suspect the excess energy goes into transforming the missile and those
300mm of hull into plasma. I don't have any data on the energy needed to
transform various metals into plasma so it is only a guess)

  (Yes, I know we can put a 7m depleted uranium penetrator in the center of the
missile and it will penetrate 11m of armour steel if it gets a closing velocity
of 4 or more. I think the question is if we want the missile boat to rule or
not. If we do we mention the KEAPDU missile, otherwise we ignore it.)

> True, but blocking the missile's commo link with sand *has* to be easier
> than taking out the missile with anti-missile laser fire.

  The laser fire is speed of light, the sand is slower.

> >   Ok, perhaps. But not more than -1 difficulty.
>
> You are probably right; I haven't read the complete combat rules yet.
> 25% is a high enough chance; I was afraid that it would be less than
> that.

  Evasion will make it smaller (to 12% or smaller, assuming skill 5 and stat 5
of the firing character). And it is possible that having a MFD might increase
it to up to 95%.

> >   Cluster warheads are also a possibility but the anti-ship effect of those
> > would be inferior to cannister IMHO.
>
> On the other hand, they could be very useful for a planetary attack
> missile.  How about a series of missiles with re-entry heat-shields and
> HE, HEAP, CBM, and nuclear (and probably thermonuclear) warheads?

  Why missiles? It would be cheaper to use the 'LGB preudomissile' model
and fill the empty shell with guided bombs of different kinds. 7000kg of
TL-13 'Rockeyes' will impress almost anyone.

  (Correction: I started to think about the weights and densities of bombs,
and a 1000kg bomb will probably only displace around 0.3m3, so both the
heatshield and non-heatshield LGB pseudomissile should contain 6 1000kg
bombs: That the weight has to conform to the normal missile is the limiting
factor, not space).

> Other possibilities: a cheap, light-weight missile with (say) about 7
> G-turns of fuel and warhead, shorter endurance, etc.

  Remember that a 6G ships has a 12 Gturns per turn capability. To reach it
you need a missile that has more.

> Designed
> to be launched from fighters at close range (in the same range band).
> These can probably get by with a much simpler guidance system
> (laser-designated target?).  Although the lower cost is nice, the real
> goal is a smaller, lighter missile, so that a fighter could have 2 or 4
> on launch rails.

  Or make them short but of the same diameter as normal missiles so that
several can be stacked in a normal launch tube and launched one at the time.

> Other ideas:
> 	The T:TNE equivalent of a phalanx gun: installed in a turret
> hardpoint, this is a small, rapid-fire laser (or gatling laser).  It has
> it's own sensor, and fires at anything that comes near.  It can operate
> in FIM (Fully-Independent Mode) or SIM, just like a missile.  Intended
> to be a defense against proximity and impact missiles, its damage and
> penetration aren't much, but effective against missiles out to about
> 100km.
> 	Sensor drone: the same general size and shape as a standard
> missile, but the "warhead" is the best sensor system that can be crammed
> into the available space (probably with a folding array).  Communicates
> sensor data back to the mother ship.  Recoverable/reusable.

  I'll look on this later. We'd probably need the Techbook and Shipdesign
book to do them correctly, though.

> [email removed]

- -bertil-
- --
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