StarSparrow

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Starsparrow Point-Defence Missile System

   A StarSparrow is a point-defense guided missile intended to defend a ship or facility from attacks by small craft, while using an IFF (Identification Friend-or-Foe) system to avoid hitting friendly craft.
   It was described as "a retractable mount that launched a small guided missile from a replaceable seven-round module; the mount would extend out for firing, then retract when not in use into a bay that was surrounded by six reload modules.  The whole thing took up less room than just about anything it might replace, since a reload module was less than a meter across...the mount was completely automated -including reloading- and could take targeting instructions from our fire control systems.
   The missiles themselves were only 100 mm wide and about two meters long and accelerated at 5 g, but they could hold that acceleration for about 6 minutes.  The low acceleration was on purpose, to ensure that closing speed was low enough to allow the guidance system to correct for any target maneuvers."

Capabilities

   Standard engagement range was reported as one kilometer out to 3,000 kilometers.  The self-guided missile was given targeting information from its launcher before release but it took time for the missile to find, orient on, fly to, and close on its target.  Actual minimum effective range depended upon the target's closing speed and warhead (if any).  Assuming no warhead, that the assigned target (perhaps an asteroid) was moving fast enough to cause damage by simple kinetic energy transfer, if it was closer than a kilometer when the missile was launched the target would probably impact the missile's launching ship before the missile could get to it unless it was already on a collision course when it was launched.  However, if the target (perhaps a plasma torpedo) had a functional weapon system onboard, damage would not depend upon closing speed and a StarSparrow might still be able to help at a shorter range.
   The missile propulsion plant burned out after about six minutes of use, at which point the missile would be about 3000 kilometers downrange from its launcher.  While the missile would continue to coast further downrange, since the explosive warhead was so small and could no longer home on a target its useful range was taken as 3000km.  With that said, if the target was not maneuvering, a StarSparrow could still destroy it as long as it was on a collision course when the propulsion system failed.
   Each StarSparrow missile had three range safety features.  As originally built the missile was supposed to self-destruct if it detected a shield on its target.  Since most Sa'arm ships included shields, disabling this feature allowed the carrying ship to launch the missiles at the enemy ship itself if appropriate.
   The guidance system included IFF and the missile was supposed to ignore friendly craft.  This didn't help, if a Federation small craft (fighter, bomber, shuttle, etc) maneuvered itself into a collision course with a missile.  Also, a damaged friendly craft may not have a functioning IFF system.  As a practical matter, in order to minimize the chance of an accident the launching vessels usually attempted to not mix StarSparrow missiles with friendly craft.
   The range safety nanites started disassembling the missile after 20 minutes, but this delay was reprogrammable before launch if the tactical situation warranted.  Since after six minutes the propulsion system was no longer operable, the nanites were programmed to start by disassembling the explosive warhead, then the guidance computer and sensor systems before continuing on to disassemble the body.

Employment

   This missile/launcher combination was produced as an answer to a fleet problem and was immediately installed on every ship possible.  In most cases, the mount replaced another point-defense system, either a Point Defense Laser mount or a Point Defense Railgun.  Most combatant ships were given multiple mounts.
   The mount could flush the entire seven-round module within a second, and reload from the surrounding modules in less than ten seconds.  Whether a single missile was sent out at a single target, or if the mount's entire inventory of 49 missiles was sent out as quickly as possible to do what it could against a mass of incoming small craft, was a tactical decision made by the ship's command team in CIC.  Not sending enough was dangerous, but flushing the entire mount left the ship helpless if another threat emerged later.

References

The following quotes were taken from the stories archive documenting how this story element has been handled using get_refs.py v1.1 9/9/2019.

From Independent Command by  Zen Master

"The StarSparrow launchers only had 7 missiles on-mount, with another 6 modules surrounding the mount where they could be quickly swapped out, for a total of 49 missiles per launcher.  Since the only threat we wanted them for was the Sa'arm bombers, we thought that this should be enough.  Still, all of our larger ships had a secondary magazine that held more modules." 

and

"We had long since installed those StarSparrow missile launchers everywhere.  The Womb, Hotel, Barton Yard, the Greeks, every fixed installation had several guarding the approaches.  Every ship had at least two except our Castles, Patricians, and Shiros.  Those had started with only two of the small PDLs or PDRs, Point-Defense Lasers or Point-Defense Railguns and no room for anything else, so we replaced one with a StarSparrow launcher and left the other one in place in case we needed it." 

and

"The Shiros had 10 more modules for their only StarSparrow launcher, and every larger ship had both multiple launchers and at least 20 replacement modules for each mount.  All of our sims, and all of our live-fire exercises with target drones pretending to be Sa'arm bombers, said that one of these missiles would do for a bomber.  We _thought_ we were going overboard here, but who knew how many bombers the Dickheads had?" 

and

"As soon as the range dropped to 3000 Km, the outer limit of their powered flight envelope, every StarSparrow mount in the whole Taffy dumped its on-mount load of seven missiles at the oncoming Limas, then reloaded from its ready magazine.  The cruisers all had four mounts, and the destroyers and Shiros each had two.  There were only 36 of the Limas, and we sent several hundred missiles at them.  The results made me feel almost as good as watching Big Mama blow up had, almost a year before." 

From Ending This Mess by  Zen Master

"Everyone with long-range weaponry continued to fire at anything large enough and still enough to hit, and everyone else waited until the cloud closed to 3000 Km before releasing our own cloud of StarSparrows.  We think that our first salvo of 7-per-mount had more missiles than incoming small craft, but it may not have.  Doesn’t matter.  We have more, they’re cheap, keep launching." 

and

"Subsequent waves of bombers had to choose to go through the entire expedition to get to their targets, or circle around the fleet looking for weak points.  Either tactic allowed us to send missiles or fighters after them as we chose, although we couldn’t do both.  The StarSparrow had an IFF system that could tell our fighters from the Sa’arm bombers, but no one would actually trust it in the chaos of a furball.  And, no matter where they attacked from, they had to go through ALL of our escorts and warships to get to the carriers." 

Story Appearances

The following stories contained the most references to the word StarSparrow and words associated with that word.

• Independent Command by  Zen Master
• Ending This Mess by  Zen Master

See Also

• Missiles

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