Re: [SGII] Fire of AT Missiles at disperesed tagets

Ryan Gill wrote:

[...]

 >>Because the users want to be able to use our products at ever shorter
 >>ranges, and also because any energy that isn't going towards the
primary
 >>target is wasted in an anti-armour weapon, there's a *lot* of work
going
 >>on to minimize the amount of blast and shrapnel that goes anywhere
else
 >>than into the primary target.
 >
 >So that's a design goal of at least some of the current crop of ATGMs.
 >Not a general factor of HEAT warheads in general.

Don't confuse "HEAT" with "shaped charge warheads" - the latter term
covers 
everything from door-breaching line charges to the long-ranged EFP
warheads 
used in today's MAK-equivalent artillery rounds (SADARM, BONUS etc.), 
whereas the former is a quite specific type of shaped charge which 
maximizes the armour penetration and behind-armour effects.

Since neither secondary blast nor shrapnel contribute to either of
armour 
penetration or behind-armour effects, minimizing the secondary blast and

shrapnel *is* a general characteristic of HE*AT* (High Explosive 
*Anti-Tank*) warheads - simply because not doing so defeats the "AT" 
purpose of the warhead.

If you have an ATGM - ie., an *Anti-Tank* guided missile - then you
almost 
certainly have a HE*AT* warhead (or two, depending on the exact missile 
used). The main alternative for tank-busting missiles is high-velocity
KE, 
but that gives very little blast and shrapnel indeed.

HE*DP* (High Explosive *Dual Purpose*) warheads use frangible casings to

enhance the secondary blast and fragmentation effects, but as I wrote in

the previous post HEDPs are no good for AT work. They can deal with
light 
armour, but their main reason for the shaped-charge portion of a HEDP 
warhead is to blast holes through bunker walls and similar - and it is
not 
a viable alternative if you expect to encounter heavy armour.

You can replace the missile's HEAT warhead with some other type (I hear 
that thermobarics are popular these days) to get better effects against 
infantry, but then you lose the AT capability - it is still a *guided 
missile*, but it is no longer an actual *AT*GM.

In SGII game terms you either have to decide before the game starts what

type of warhead your missile reloads have, or (if you have one of those 
super-modular missile types which can be re-built on the spot) spend
time 
(ie., actions) reconfiguring the warhead into whatever type you want it
to 
be before you get to fire it (eg. by replacing a non-frangible casing
with 
a pre-fragmented one)... though reconfiguring the warhed while in combat

should have a serious risk of having something go badly wrong; in real
life 
most such conversions would be done in rear areas before going into
combat. 
You *don't* want dust getting in between the different parts of your
warhead.

 >>I suspect that you mean "DPICM" rather than "IPDSM"
 >
 >Brain fart. The little bomblets. I was thinking Improved Dual-purpose
 >Scattered Munitions....

"Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions". The "Improved" bit
refers 
to the scattering of submunitions, which is a significant improvement in

comparison with WW2-style "single-piece" HEF shells. 1st-generation ICM
had 
HEF (or possibly HE) submunitions so were ineffective against armoured 
targets, whereas the 2nd generation (DPICM) uses HEDP submunitions to
give 
them some capability against hard targets as well.

 >>>Gosh, thinking about the general cone shaped effect of old WWII
style
 >>>artillery (HE rounds) is there a similar effect with lower velocity
 >>ATGMs?
 >>
 >>If you're thinking of the "butterfly-shaped" shrapnel distribution
 >>patterns typical for WW2 HE rounds, there is a similar effect with
 >>ATGMs but with a quite different shape to the pattern.
 >
 >Looks like a butterfly on the ground, but its really a 3 d cone as I
 >understand.

That's the one, yes.

BTW, the reason John and I are going on about not using GMS against
grunts 
*in the open* is that that's what Richard Kirke's original question
seemed 
to be about. All of your would-be counter arguments have been about
*point* 
targets, and thus aren't relevant since that's not what we're arguing 
against...

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry