MGT missiles
- Thread starter DFW
- Start date
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Magic?
Obviously, it is a TL7 reverse engineered version of a higher tech design; not an actual TL7 (modern) design.
If it was a modern TL7 design, it would have Reaction Drives and the range/speed would be based on that. For such a small missile (1/12 of a ton), it is about the size of a Tomahawk missile and would have VERY limited space combat range (maybe 1 hex?).
Obviously, it is a TL7 reverse engineered version of a higher tech design; not an actual TL7 (modern) design.
If it was a modern TL7 design, it would have Reaction Drives and the range/speed would be based on that. For such a small missile (1/12 of a ton), it is about the size of a Tomahawk missile and would have VERY limited space combat range (maybe 1 hex?).
Well, at two TLs before M-Drives, it's a bit early to be gravetic, which means traveller reaction drive, I guess.
Based on the small craft design rules, a reaction drive of about 12-25% volume will produce a 10g capability (sE drive/s1 hull, sK drive/s2 hull, sQ drive/s3 hull, sV drive/s4 hull)
10 turns of 10 g is 10 thrust-hours. so 2.5 x 10g x 1 hour = 25%, so another 25% of the volume is reaction drive fuel.
That leaves 50% of the volume for guidance & warhead
That seems fair enough. Precisely what the hell the fuel is is where handwavium comes in in force - 10g isn't impossible but an hour's drive burn (plus whatever you're expending via manouvring thrusters to aim) is.
Missiles are 1/12th of a dTon, which means 1/12 x 14 cubic metres, which (allowing a bit of space wastage and to make the maths easier) we'll call cylinders of 1 cubic metre each and ignore any bits protruding from the main body.
Comparison to contemporary weapons
AIM-9 Sidewinder (small air-to-air): diameter 127mm x length 2.85m = volume 0.036 cubic metres
AIM-120 AMRAAM (big air-to-air): diameter 180mm x length 3.7m = volume 0.094 cubic metres
RGM-84 Harpoon ('normal' ship-to-ship): diameter 340mm x length 4.6m = volume 0.417 cubic metres
RGM-109 Tomahawk ('cruise' missile): diameter 520mm x length 5.56m = volume 1.18 cubic metres
so yes, a traveller missile is far more 'cruise missile' than 'sidewinder'.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
In my original post, I was just guessing, or basing it on what I had read before, but lets go with a Cruise Missile size.
Take away all the atmospheric crap that isn't needed in space. Give it a decent HydrOx chemical rocket...
20% of the size is the engine and 25% of the size is the fuel for 10G-Hrs of fuel. Sure that is a bit unrealistic for today, BUT, we have also never tried to actually build something like this. Anyone think that Morton-Thiokal or Lockheed couldn't come up with something in a few years with basically current technology, or Prototype TL-8 technology?
So you have about 0.5 cubic meters for your Fragmentation or Nuclear warhead.
A 0.1 Kiloton "Tactical" nuke would fit into that space, so I don't have a problem with the basic missile design, even if it is a BIT of a stretch.
At TL-9, the reaction drive is replaced by a primitive Gravitic drive.
What we are really missing is the TL changes to missiles. Extrapolating the small craft drive table down to a 0.1 ton range is a bit iffy. Also, remember that the drives are for unoccupied craft, so it is very likely that the M-Drive is some stripped down, unshielded version of the drive, without Inertial Compensation or Artificial Gravity for people, it would be quite a bit smaller than the listed M-Drives.
Take away all the atmospheric crap that isn't needed in space. Give it a decent HydrOx chemical rocket...
20% of the size is the engine and 25% of the size is the fuel for 10G-Hrs of fuel. Sure that is a bit unrealistic for today, BUT, we have also never tried to actually build something like this. Anyone think that Morton-Thiokal or Lockheed couldn't come up with something in a few years with basically current technology, or Prototype TL-8 technology?
So you have about 0.5 cubic meters for your Fragmentation or Nuclear warhead.
A 0.1 Kiloton "Tactical" nuke would fit into that space, so I don't have a problem with the basic missile design, even if it is a BIT of a stretch.
At TL-9, the reaction drive is replaced by a primitive Gravitic drive.
What we are really missing is the TL changes to missiles. Extrapolating the small craft drive table down to a 0.1 ton range is a bit iffy. Also, remember that the drives are for unoccupied craft, so it is very likely that the M-Drive is some stripped down, unshielded version of the drive, without Inertial Compensation or Artificial Gravity for people, it would be quite a bit smaller than the listed M-Drives.
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
I think you'd need some inertial damping possibly to keep the thing from shaking apart, but more importantly, you'll need drives (possibly quite substantial ones) for changing direction quickly - remember that, in space, you can't rely on aerodynamics like a terrestrial missile would...
That would probably take up a lot of room - you'd probably want two drives of decent strength to change the vector before the missile spins too far for each drive to be effective (possibly three to reduce the down-time of each).
And a Tomahawk is also 1300 kg. I don't consider something weighting over a ton, 1.5 feet wide, and around 18 feet long to be "small" as the book claims. So either Mongoose Traveller missiles are far bigger than Classic Traveller missiles (which weighed 50kg), or they are the same size as Classic Traveller missiles, and more should fit in one dton.
Personally, I prefer the smaller, 50kg, 20 to the displacement ton missiles. And a smaller missile makes sense. If the 1d6 damage beam laser (using the stats from MongTrav High Guard, which corrects the damage to be more in line with Classic Traveller) is generally considered a defensive weapon (As I have seen stated many times before), not meant to really be used on offense, then why would the 1d6 damage missile be considered an anti-ship missile? If the beam laser is considered to not have enough power to damage another ship very well, then why would the missile be considered an effective anti-ship weapon?
So, at least in my view, the standard MongTrav missile is much closer to the 50kg Hellfire 2 missile (which means I house rule the standard missile magazine size), while the heavy missiles/torpedoes in High Guard are the true anti-ship missiles (which I find too big, and reduce their size to 1 ton each instead of 2.5 tons).
Solomani666
Mongoose
DFW said:
Book and page please.
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