Warship Weapons
(This page is intended as an overall summary list and/or jumpoff point for assorted warship weapons. All entries should have enough detail for a writer searching for a weapon to pick one from the list that satisfies his plot and is appropriate for the situation (timeline, ship, etc). Beyond that, any weapon system that we know enough about should have its own details page. -ZM)
The Confederacy was concerned that leftover projectiles would remain active, posing a danger to shipping forever. All weapon systems using a discrete projectile -basically, anything except an energy weapon- were required by the Confederacy to include some method of ensuring that this would not happen. Generally this was done by including a set of disintegration nanites in the projectile. These nanites would be set to disintegrate the projectile if a pre-assigned time passed after launch. This time could be changed on the fly just before launch, but if not done each projectile had a standard pre-set time. Reaching this time meant that the projectile had not reached its target and should be disintegrated.)
Unguided Kinetic Weapons
Railguns
(Railguns depend upon forces generated by an electrical current flowing through the projectile and two or more 'rails'. They are simple to build and take little power but are difficult to maintain as the rails erode under the massive current.)
- Patrician Light Railgun - Secondary Battery, mounted outboard of missile magazine
- Hero Spinal Main Battery - Two railguns launching 1000Kg slugs at 100kps
- Point-Defense Railgun - Range 0-5Km
Coilguns
(Coilguns are simple collections of magnets which accelerate an inductive projectile. They are difficult to build and require large pulses of power to operate but once built require no maintenance at all unless damaged by outside factors.)
- Raptor Canister Launcher
- Beerat "Baby Hero" Gun - 50Kg slug at 100ks
- Beerat "Junior Hero" Gun - 100Kg slug at 100kps
- Beerat "Hero Gun" - 1000Kg slug at 100kps
Internal Combustion Cannon
(At the start of the war one concept explored was to take the turret and associated systems off of Earth's main battle tanks and simply slap them onto the pod-mounts on the Aurora-class freighters we had been given. This concept was dropped when it was realized that the projectiles, while fast enough when opponents were only a few kilometers apart, were not fast enough when the opponents were 500 kilometers apart. No ships were actually built with internal combustion weapons firing inert slugs.)
Missiles, or Guided Kinetic Weapons
- 55cm Standard Missile - Patrician, Europa, Semmes Main Battery
- 2-Stage "Shipkiller" Missile - Archerfish, PBY. Boosts for kinetic energy when launched, then coasts until near target, then homes to prevent dodging
- 2-Meter Hyperspace "Skip" Missile
Unpropelled Weapons
(Various ships carried 'mines', or weapons intended to simply be released in the hope that an enemy would blunder across it. Such a weapon has no kinetic energy and must rely upon an active area-effect warhead to damage its target. Generally, this will be a nuke of some sort.)
- Pursuit Mine - Intended to be left while fleeing, the intended target will run over it.
- Area-Denial Mine - Used in vast arrays to prevent anyone from entering that volume of space.
Energy Weapons
- Plasma Torpedo - Range 1-98Km
- (Main Battery on Castle, Shiro)
- Particle Disruptor - Range 0-16Km
- (Main Battery on Africas)
- Light Particle Accelerator Beam (LPAB) - Range 0-200Km
- (Secondary Battery on Europas, Asians)
- Medium Particle Accelerator Beam (MPAB) - Range 0-500Km
- (Main Battery on Asians)
- (Secondary Battery on Europas, Africas, Castles, Shiros)
- Heavy Particle Accelerator Beam (HPAB) - Range 0-750Km
- (Main Battery on Raptors, Europas)
- Point-Defense Laser (PDL) - Range 0-3Km
Point-Defense Systems
(Point-Defense systems are generally small, with fast slew rates and rapid fire. They are a last-ditch effort to destroy, disrupt, or deflect an incoming weapon before it can reach the mounted ship. They are generally controlled directly by computer with the ship's AI prioritizing targets. These are the only weapons that a Confederacy AI can operate, as they are only removing non-sentient warheads.
Several ships have been lost when 'manned' Sa'arm small craft rammed the ship as the AI would not fire upon them and other human-directed weapon systems were either otherwise occupied or could not hit them.)
- Point-Defense Laser (PDL) - Range 0-3Km
- Point-Defense Railgun (PDR) - Range 0-5Km
- StarSparrow Missile System - Range 1-3000Km, small explosive warhead
Weapon Mounting Methods
Fixed Mounts
(Some weapon systems are too large, too massive, or too fragile to be moved in any way. Other weapon systems are small enough to be moved, but require support systems that cannot move. They are secured in place and cannot be adjusted. In order to aim the weapon the entire ship must be 'aimed'. Such weapon systems often drive the rest of the ship's design, as they are the reason for the ship. Fixed weapons are often buried behind as much armor as possible because as long as they can function the fight is not lost no matter how badly the rest of the ship has been damaged.)
- Patrician and Hero Railguns - Fixed in place. They are both too large and too fragile to move. In the Hero, the railguns are the largest system installed and their placement is the reason the ships were so large. The Patricians had four missile launch tubes and a huge magazine with reloads, but the railguns installed outboard of the magazines were the ship's second largest system.
- Castle Plasma Torpedo Launcher - Fixed in place due to the entire weapon system being too massive; attempting to 'aim' one would move the rest of the ship almost as much as the launcher. Instead, force fields around the launcher head are used to aim the torpedo as much as 3 degrees away from the ship's centerline.
- Missile Launch Tubes - Many guided missile launchers are small enough to be mounted on an aimable launcher, but there is no point in exposing the launcher to damage if the missile itself can home on the target. Further, any reloads must come from a protected magazine and the reloading operation can be simplified if both the magazine and the launcher are fixed.
Limited Elevation
(Some weapon systems must be fixed in azimuth due to various reasons but can be adjusted for elevation. The ship must be 'aimed' at the target on the x-axis but the mount can compensate for being off on the y-axis.)
Turrets, Barbettes, and Open Mounts
(Some weapon systems can be mounted such that the mount can both rotate and elevate. Such a mount can fire at any target visible. Generally, this can only be made to work if all connections to the ship are flexible. Power, data, and control cables are flexible, so a weapon system that only needs those does not have to be fixed. If a weapon system needs a large reloading system, that reloading system usually cannot be attached to the launcher so the weapon system is fixed and the reloading system is installed around it.
If a rotating weapon system is armored or enclosed the mount is called a 'turret'. If it is not armored or enclosed it is called an 'open mount'. A 'barbette' is the hull structure, often armored, surrounding the mount.
The weapon system designer must consider protection from incoming fire against the added mass of armor and an enclosure. In some cases the armor is a better choice to protect the weapon system and its operators. In other cases slew rate may dictate minimizing the moving mass and no protection is provided. Generally, small point-defense mounts will have no protection. Their whole purpose is to track and destroy fast-moving incoming fire. If they succeed they will not be damaged. If they fail then any protection they have won't matter because the ship they are mounted on will be destroyed.)
Mobile Mounts
(In some cases, a mount is made mobile, either completely or limited to traversing a fixed track.)
- Goddess Mobile Turrets
(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))
