Re: Kinetic Energy Missile--New weapon for DSII

>>
> "KEM attacks are resolved as if they were direct-fire guns, not as 
> missiles (i.e., treat KEM Guidance value as Fire Control value and
roll

> appropriate attacker die vs. target signature die). However, its
accuracy > and damage do not degrade with range, 

If the damage doesn't degrade with range, why is the damage at range 60
less than the damage at range 48?<<

Sloppy editing on my part (it is a draft, after all...).  Strike the
part
about damage not varying with range, since it is obvious from the
description
that penetration is low at short range and tapers off after booster
burnout.

> and all targets out to max range are engaged as if in
> the Close Range band. KEM is not affected by Basic or Enhanced PDS. >
Superior PDS and can be effective against a KEM, but their >
effectiveness is degraded.

Reactive armour should be effective, though. I know DSII doesn't give
reactive armour any bonus against HKPs etc, but it should :-/<<

It should, but since it does not affect other KE projectiles, it should
not
affect KEMs.

> ECM is totally ineffective against a KEM due to its 
> guidance mode.

If the guidance mode is "no guidance", this is probably true <g> A
missile travelling fast enough to kill a tank by pure KE - we're talking
2-3000 m/s or so - would be... difficult to steer to say the least, so
"no guidance" (making the KEM a rocket-powered KE round rather than a
missile) sounds fairly likely. If it is fire-and-forget, it will be
vulnerable to ECM.<<

By guided I don't mean radical course changes, only minute corrections
to keep
up with target's movements, which would not be all that great.	I
envision the
KEM as a laser beam-rider, which means that unless you can somehow
interrupt
the laser beam between launcher and missile, ECM cannot help.  ECM
resistance
is a big selling point for laser beamriders today.  Bottom line is, if
secure
comms are feasible in your universe, so is an ECM-proof command-guided
missile.

> All of those capabilities come for a price, however. Due to KEMs'
larger 
> size than GMSs, this system has a Mass of 6.

Well... Put it like this: One of the reasons the GSMs use shaped
warheads
is that they are too slow to kill by KE, and they are slow because a
light missile launcher isn't able to give it a high initial velocity and
a small missile can't carry very much fuel to accelerate with. 

Unless you assume that the KEM has an engine some orders of magnitude
more efficient than the GSMs (in which case it'd be a *lot* more
expensive rather than 10-20 pts, or else the GSMs would use it too),
you'd pretty much have to launch it from a cannon. Using today's
technology as a guideline, a HVC/4 derivative or so might be large
enough.<<

That is my assumption indeed.  KEMs would use the same tech as SMLs.  As
far
as the cost is concerned, what is your suggestion?

>>Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com<<

Mike Jasinski