Missiles

(Copied straight from .XML 'backup' file, needs formatting and corrections. ZM User (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2024 (PDT))

Self-Propelled and Self-Guided Missiles

(This is an attempt to re-create and improve the original "Missiles" page, discussing the effective but expensive and expendable munitions, as opposed to Missile Launchers which discusses the equipment used to store, maintain, and launch them. -ZM)

   This page will cover the wide assortment of missiles used by the Confederacy.  Most were used by the Navy, but the Marines, Fleet Auxiliary, and several planetary Militia groups also used them.

Ship-Launched Missiles

55cm Shipkiller Missile

   This was the original, the missile that the Patrician Class of patrol/survey Corvettes were originally designed to fire.  The "Pats" had long since been converted by the Confederacy to, instead, launch much smaller survey drones.  When we first received the Patricians we used them as-is to help us survey the coming battleground, but as soon as we found our enemy the Sa'arm -or they found us- all surveying Patricians were converted back to their original missile-carrier use.
   The missiles we used for the first several years of the war had simple one-stage propulsion systems and inert warheads composed of several dozen tungsten slivers separated by lead foil, with a guidance sensor package in the very front.  When launched, the missiles would orient on the programmed target and boost until it impacted or the engine failed.  After burnout, the missile became a simple ballistic "bullet" which could be easily dodged by a target which saw it coming.
   Several variants were developed, including ECM and surveying versions.  The most popular had a pair of engines.  After burnout, the missile would coast until it neared its target.  At that time, the second engine would start, allowing the guidance system to steer the missile into the target.  The first two platforms to use this two-stage version were the Archerfish and PBY classes.  Both designs were small ambush predators with little or no reload capability and minimal defenses.  Anything they fired a missile at was likely to come back and destroy them, if their first shot did not at least disable it.

2m "Skip Torpedoes"

   These were huge missiles initially seen in the Semmes class of missile cruisers.  The huge size was forced by all the components needed to perform its purpose: to enter hyperspace after launch, travel to its target, and then return to normal-space for final homing.  Aside from the Semmes class which was built for them, the 2-meter-diameter missiles were only carried by the largest of our warships.
   When the 7th Military District finally developed ships large enough and tough enough to stand up to the larger Sa'arm warships at any range, one part of the design was to separate critical combat systems by enough space to install armor between them so a penetrating hit would not destroy the entire ship.  This, in turn, left huge spaces where anything desired could be installed.  One item installed simply because they had the room was the Skip Torpedo.
   As originally built, each member of the Kongo class of battlecruisers carried two Skip Torpedoes in separate launchers.  Since the designers couldn't see actually using them, there was no provision to reload the launchers.  This was soon seen to be short-sighted, and the space was available so all larger warships based upon the Kongos were built with both Skip Torpedo launchers and reload magazines for them.
   This system had endless teething problems.  On the one hand, any guidance system powerful enough to navigate in both normal space and hyperspace, and make useful decisions on when to switch, was verging on sentience.  On the other hand, no AI wants to be told it was designed and built for a suicide mission.
   The 2-meter "Skip" Torpedoes were seldom used in combat.  By the time we had the design working and the forces to allow their use, their use would needlessly warn the enemy that it was under attack.  We found that we got better strategic results when an entire fleet attacked at once, even with shorter-range weapons, in order to get the combat advantage of surprise.  The Navy only occasional combat use was when a scouting force returned to a fleet base with enough navigation data to target a Skip Torpedo on a particularly valuable target such as an orbiting almost-completed Conquest Sphere.
   Instead, the Skip Torpedoes eventually found their niche as super-sized Message Torpedoes.  When, after the invasion of Earth, the Fleet sent expeditions to the next two galactic arms inward and outward in search of a safe place to send people if needed, it was found that our normal message torpedoes didn't have the range to make it back to report.  Even a lot of our smaller ships couldn't do it.  The Skip Torpedoes didn't have any trouble, though, so they were pressed into use as long-range message torpedoes.

Type 93 Torpedo

   The Type 93]] Torpedo is a low-observable nuclear-tipped missile developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as the main armament for the New Japanese Empire's Shimakaze Destroyers and Minekaze Frigates.

Sun-Wall Missiles

   A Sun Wall is an array of special-purpose short-range missiles armed with nuclear warheads.  The effect of any radiation source, whether a star or a radio antenna, drops as the cube of the distance.  In space where there is no matter to transmit a shock wave, even a nuclear explosion has little effect unless it is in contact with the target.
   If, however, a pair of missiles can bracket the target, the target gets the effect of at least 'half the distance' no matter where it is between the two warheads.   Extended into two dimensions, an array of nuclear explosions will add the effect of farther warheads even as the effect of closer explosions are fading.  The net effect of being 'halfway between the two nuclear explosions' extends outward from the array in the third dimension, only dissipating when you are farther from the array than the array's flat dimensions.  If the warheads are separated by 20 kilometers and your array is 100 kilometers across, the effect of being only 10 kilometers from two warheads is seen up to 100 kilometers away.
   If your guidance system is up to it, you can time the detonations so that all of them combine to produce a single wavefront. This can tuned to maximize the effect at a single point, for a single target, or spread out to provide a lesser effect over a wide area.
   When an array of nuclear warheads is detonated in the path of a large formation of unshielded small craft, only those on the edge of the formation, outside of the array, can escape the effect.  The sun-wall's effect on a mass of small craft, on its first experimental use, was described by a witness as "God's Own Blowtorch".
   Drawbacks of the sun-wall as a weapon system include its effect, which is seen on BOTH sides of the array.  The people using the array need the incoming target to steer into the array, but at the same time they themselves will take damage if they are too close.  This can be mitigated by using mechanical or field-based "reflectors" to direct as much as possible of the effect to one side.  However, this complicates the guidance system's task, as now it's not good enough to get a nuclear bomb into the correct position.  It also has to make sure the warhead is pointed in the correct direction before detonation.
   The other major drawback is logistical.  With 20-kilometer spacing, a square 400x400 kilometer array takes 400 separate warheads, guidance systems and missiles, along with enough launchers to deliver them fast enough for all 400 warheads to be in the right place and detonate together.  The concept's first use was not possible until almost a year after a plutonium breeder-reactor was placed in service in the system where the weapon was needed.  Given that supply problem, building the rest of the system was comparatively easy.
   On the other hand, the system proved its worth by completely destroying a large force of Sa'arm bombers.  Since each bomber carried two weapons capable of crippling even our largest warships or completely destroying our smaller ones, any weapon system capable of dealing with them was worth any amount of supply aggravation.  The tactic entered our stock of standard tools.  It just took a lot of preparation to use.
From Ending This Mess by Zen Master
   "The array went off as designed, immolating an uncountable number of bombers but with uncountable more not in the ‘focus’ of the array.  They ended up doing that THREE TIMES before the survivors spread out enough to not be worth a fourth array.  At that point there were somewhere less than a thousand of them, so Kevin let them close to StarSparrow range and let them have it."
   This tactic was originally conceived as being most useful in open space, where the Navy can maneuver its ships to attract attackers to where they are wanted.  At least one colony with minimal resources used such a sun-wall against a Sa'arm colony ship which was about to land.  The array was launched and programmed to form a hemisphere with the colony ship at its center before detonation.  The results were everything the defenders could ask for, as the huge ship had several of its outer layers on that side melted, and the radiation front killed every life form inside what was left.
   However, the blowback from an array of nuclear explosions just outside the atmosphere also sterilized that entire side of the planet, the wreck itself caused a huge shock wave when it 'landed', and the radioactive residue in the atmosphere was spread all across the planet within weeks.  Taken all together, the successful defense almost destroyed the colony.  It was better than losing the planet to a quarter-million Sa'arm after they landed, but it was still bad.
   While several other colonies have such an array ready for launch as a last line of defense, they intend to use it while the incoming colony ship is farther away.  They have also done everything they can to minimize blowback and all domiciles are required to include a safe shelter that is hardened against shock and radiation.

StarSparrow

   The StarSparrow was intended as a mid-range point-defense weapon.  The missiles are small and agile, and the launchers have as fast a slew rate and as quick a reload cycle as possible.
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." 

and

   "...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." 

Remora Remote Sensor Drone

   The page for the Archerfish design mentions that "...it also carries three Remora-class self-propelled sensor packages.  Maybe someone else will add more detail here.

Marine-Support Missiles

   The Marines use an assortment of missiles, from small ground-vehicle mounted systems intended to destroy incoming aircraft to much larger missiles launched from their orbiting fire support ships.  They are guided in a variety of ways, from wires or laser illumination to target recognition image processing.

= Also See

• Message Torpedo

(Someday this will be a navigation template.  It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links.  Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))