Anti-missile weapons

barnest2

Mongoose
Ok, so this isn't entirely a travller question but i was just pondering the idea.
At todays technology level, would it be possible to create an anti missile missile. I know we have stuff like CIWS, but i mean a proper missile.
If we already have something like this would someone link me too it? Oh and i dont mean stuff like the patriot system, i mean missiles ot be fired at things like air-to-air missiles.
thanks in advance.
 
barnest2 said:
At todays technology level, would it be possible to create an anti missile missile.
While there have been attempts to do so, and a couple of prototypes, I
do not know of any operational system of that kind that really could han-
dle anything smaller than a ballistic missile at a reasonable cost.
 
barnest2 said:
i mean missiles ot be fired at things like air-to-air missiles.
thanks in advance.

I assume that you mean an air launched anti-anti-aircraft missile? If so, yes it is possible to design one. Why don't our fighters carry them? Because ECM doesn't take up offensive weapons "slots" and those missiles would.

As far as what certain high value, non-strike aircraft carry, I'm not at liberty to say. ;)
 
Israel is fielding a Tank mounted anti-missile system called Trophy. It detects incoming missiles and shoots rockets at it.

At a higher TL than now you could have a laser system, or even a 4mm gauss system.
 
While there have been attempts to do so, and a couple of prototypes, I
do not know of any operational system of that kind that really could han-
dle anything smaller than a ballistic missile at a reasonable cost.

In service for 20+ years and genuinely effective. Examples:

Royal Navy: Sea Wolf (in service 1979, combat proven, Falklands War) - being replaced by Mach 4 (!) Sea Vipers on the new Daring-class.
http://www.deagel.com/Surface-to-Air-Missiles/Seawolf-Block-2_a001119003.aspx
http://webarchive.nationalarchives....dLogistics/Type45sSeaViperMissilesOnTrack.htm

US Navy: SM Standard SAM (in service 1970+, weapon component of AEGIS anti-missile system)
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/aegis.htm


Ballistic missiles, in fact, are relatively hard to hit compared to 'normal' missiles, due to their ridiculous speed and the insistance of the US on a 'kinetic kill' solution like THAAD rather than the pragmatic soviet version (NATO name ABM-1 Galosh) which made the weapon nuclear tipped.
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/thaad/
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/soviet/abm1.htm
 
locarno24 said:
In service for 20+ years and genuinely effective. Examples:
Royal Navy: Sea Wolf (in service 1979, combat proven, Falklands War)
Ah ... during the Falklands War the Sea Wolf system was only used against
aircraft, not against missiles, and of the eight Sea Wolfs used only two hit
an aircraft.
The other systems mentioned have yet to demonstrate that they can do
any better than that, especially when it comes to missiles.
 
You're quite correct. My apologies. Other examples:

Specific examples:

One testing:
"Details of the test in which a Seawolf anti-missile missile intercepted a sea-skimming Exocet have been released by the Royal Navy. In this
unique test the anti-ship Exocet was destroyed at Seawolf s maximum range of just under three miles. The MM.38 Exocet was fired from the Leander-class frigate HMS Jupiter towards a target barge anchored in Cardigan Bay, off Wales. Although it lacked a warhead, the Exocet was in every other way an operational missile, and the launch formed part of Jupiter's normal training."
FLIGHT International, 17 December 1983

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1983/1983 - 2236.html

One combat (albeit Sea Dart, rather than Sea Wolf):

One of the most significant surface actions of the Gulf War was achieved by the Royal Navy when HMS Gloucester, a Type 42, or Sheffield Class guided missile destroyer.

The ship employed its Sea Dart missiles to shoot down an Iraqi Silkworm missile that was fired towards the USS Missouri. The action was the first confirmed successful engagement of a missile by a missile in combat at sea.

http://www.seayourhistory.org.uk/content/view/862/1100/1/3/
 
Yep, being somewhat sceptical when it comes to the claims of producers
concerning the abilities of the weapon systems they sell, I usually do not
trust any test results very much - but the successful use of the Sea Dart
described in your second quote is in my view sufficient proof that it is in-
deed possible to destroy a non-ballistic missile with a missile.
 
In a Traveller setting, at least, given that we're assuming ships are able to exchange missile and torpedo fire whilst moving at (potentially) several Km/s relative to one another, even against wildly evading small craft, I think anti-missile fire is believable with a suitably specialised round.

Essentially, you'd probably just stick a sandcaster barrel of sand or pebbles (or something essentially resembling one) in place of a normal warhead.

Even a fairly light strike is essentially lethal - a missile can't be armoured enough to shrug off a high-velocity impact, even a small one, without being slow and unmanouvrable enough to be dead meat for pulse/beam laser fire from more conventional point defences.

Given the almost obsessive interoperability of 3I technology, you could probably get away with firing it through a conventional missile launcher, firing it at the incoming salvo.

Working on the assumption that it's more or less the same as a normal missile aside from the warhead and fusing, time to impact would logically be half the remaining time to impact of the salvo (unless we want to get into simultaneous UVAST equations. In which case don't call us, we'll call you). Launching them is a reaction, but one that doesn't have to wait until turn-of-impact, giving you a better chance of thinning out an incoming barrage before it all goes to fleeble.

That just leaves the question of what the difficulty roll should be.
The gunnery check effect defining the missile 'to hit' roll remains sensible, but the shot will unarguably be more difficult than trying to hit a starship under equivalent circumstances, so I would assign the missile a number of levels of 'automatic dodge' (i.e. some multiple of -2 DM on the counter-missile's to hit roll).

Two levels, giving a -4 DM, so that the gunnery check has to be at least a basic success to give any chance to the counter-missiles, seems a fair-for-gaming if not scientifically justifiable fudge. If you want to be picky you might increase that slightly for missiles or decrease it for torpedoes, as the torpedo is thirty times larger, which surely must make for an easier target as there's no indication it travels faster (same flight time).
 
rust said:
Yep, being somewhat sceptical when it comes to the claims of producers
concerning the abilities of the weapon systems they sell, I usually do not
trust any test results very much - but the successful use of the Sea Dart
described in your second quote is in my view sufficient proof that it is in-
deed possible to destroy a non-ballistic missile with a missile.

Indeed AFAIK, and I work in the field, the Sea Dart incident is the only confirmed combat missile on missile kill on record.

LBH
 
The Russians have the Kashtan system, which is a combined gun/missile (CIWS) system. You can find some info here: http://www.deagel.com/Ship-Air-Defense-Systems/Kashtan_a001460001.aspx amd here: http://kbptula.ru/eng/zencom/kashtan_m.htm

Back in the 70's anti-missile missle technology did not exist, so it wasn't included in the game. And in all the updates its never been added. Sad, since lasers, particle beams, black globes, jump drives and anti-gravity didn't exist then too, but THEY made it in...
 
Is the lack of missile on missile combat hits a consequence of very few opportunities, and a lack (thankfully) of many conflicts in the last 30 years between technologically equivelent opponents?

In the 70s and 80s both the US and USSR spent a fortune developing anti-ship and anti missile weapons. Designs like the Aegis were intended to shoot down incoming missiles (as the Russians were expected to fire anti-ship missiles from 200nm away). Though clearly technically challenging, the amount of money spent on the systems, and the way that whole classes of ships were built around them suggests that both sides believed they had solved the problems. Perhaps not the best sources, but both the modern naval wargame Harpoon, and Tom Clancy's book Red Storm Rising clearly worked on the basis of usuable, and effective, anti missile missiles, and both were supposed to be well informed.

After all, an incoming missile is just a faster moving, possibly smaller, aircraft, probably taking less evasive action. So no reason why they cannot be shot down if your fire control radar and computers are good enough.

Back to the rules, my version is virtually identical to Locarno 24's, i.e. specilist anti missile missiles, I just go for a straight 8+ to hit, possibly modified by different tech levels of missiles, making them more effective (but in a non 3I setting I am working on I have scrapped most other weapons, or limited them to short range, seeing complex missile exchanges as the most likely form of space combat)

Egil
 
Egil Skallagrimsson said:
...Though clearly technically challenging, the amount of money spent on the systems, and the way that whole classes of ships were built around them suggests that both sides believed they had solved the problems.

That's a bit naive :) I mean that in the nicest way. I believe they believed if they spent enough money they would solve any problem. Where "enough" is more than exists in some cases but when you're just taking it a billion here and a billion there nobody says much ;)

The military has a long track record through the cold war of steamrolling ahead on expensive ideas, even when proven impractical if not impossible, just because so much (careers as much as money) had already been invested (some would argue wasted) that to stop would be an admission of guilt in something approaching fraud.

That said we may be finally reaching the technological capability to make it work. So maybe they weren't so wrong about throwing enough money at the problem, just short sighted about just how much money would be needed to advance the technology far enough...

...and of course every time defense catches up to offense, offense changes the rules.

But for Traveller, I think Missiles have been allowed as Anti-Missile defense at some point. Or it was a house rule? Seems like it goes back a long way in my mind. Maybe CT Special Supplement 3?
 
far-trader said:
...and of course every time defense catches up to offense, offense changes the rules.
Indeed. For example, several of the latest designs of anti-ship missiles
are much more like torpedoes, they submerge a long distance from the
enemy ship and then attack submerged, exploding under the ship - so
conventional anti-missile systems are completely useless against them.
 
far-trader said:
The military has a long track record through the cold war of steamrolling ahead on expensive ideas, even when proven impractical if not impossible, just because so much (careers as much as money) had already been invested (some would argue wasted) that to stop would be an admission of guilt in something approaching fraud.
The F-14 Tomcat and it's Phoenix missile system were developed to shoot down the expected horde of cruise missiles that the Soviets would launch at US fleets and convoys crossing the Atlantic. The Russians never could field a true blue-water fleet, so they developed cruise missile bombers and submarines to do the job for them.

And yeah, the military has had some blunders (Sgt. York anyone?), but most of the time they are actually on the cutting edge and often develop systems that have a high chance of failure... but if just one of them pays off it can be a big payoff. In some ways the same theories are used by oil companies to drill in deepwater and by drug companies (ok, BP and Avandia are bad examples...)


far-trader said:
...and of course every time defense catches up to offense, offense changes the rules.
You can mount stand-off attacks now using bomb-pumped lasers.
 
I'd be fairly cautious about projecting these weapons onto space missiles, which operate at several orders of magnitude greater ranges and speeds.

An anti-missile missile would need much better tracking gear than on an anti-ship one, probably including much better sensor and ECCM gear on the controlling ship, too. Not impossible, but definitely more expensive.
 
Interesting data. Fortunately, in space the best area of the EM band to use for detection/tracking is the IR band. You can't effectively mask it.
 
Egil Skallagrimsson said:
Is the lack of missile on missile combat hits a consequence of very few opportunities, and a lack (thankfully) of many conflicts in the last 30 years between technologically equivelent opponents?

Mainly, though remember a lot of early Patriots were fired at Scuds, but none were ever confirmed. THe only confirmed 'combat' kill of a Patriot missile is something the Patriot people would probably rather forget, it was an RAF Tornado fighter.

LBH
 
lastbesthope said:
Mainly, though remember a lot of early Patriots were fired at Scuds, but none were ever confirmed. THe only confirmed 'combat' kill of a Patriot missile is something the Patriot people would probably rather forget, it was an RAF Tornado fighter.

LBH

The interwebtubes are a wonderful thing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlOi6Gl25Lg
 
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