Missles?

> I have a question about missles.

Selection A). Each missile is an individual unit, and when you launch, that's
it! No more where that came from.

Mk

> Then what makes missle boats/destroyers/ect so dangerous? After the

The damage potential is fairly high. "Plain" ole normal missiles will do an
average of 7 points of damage, ignoring shields. A salvo of 4 targeted
at a ship, chances are that 3 out of the 4 will get through _average_
defenses so thats an average of 21 points. This will destroy mass 42 and less
and cripple larger ships. Now imagine a few of these missile boats, each with
4 missiles, and you have some potential for damage.

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I have a question about missles.

When you fire a missle, do you: A) cross it off like a submunition pack? B) or
is it really a missle launcher, capable of firing every turn?

The book isn't very clear about this...

thanks

> If it's tourist season why can't we shoot them? wrote:
<snip>

Then what makes missle boats/destroyers/ect so dangerous? After the
missles are fired the ship is much weaker...

(Don't get me wrong...I come from a starfire background...there the missles
are fired from launchers, which start with 50 missles in each one's
magazine...this means a starfire destroyer equiped with three missle
launchers, can fire them every turn for 50 turns...)

> Eric Fialkowski wrote:

Ahh! I see. It's the massive damage potential! Now this is what I allways
wanted in Starfire! Missle that kick but!

> Donald Hosford wrote:

Yes.

> B) or is it really a missle launcher, capable of firing every turn?

As I understand it, each launcher has only one shot available. If your
playing with support craft and/or running a campaign, i don't see any
reason why they could not be reloaded.

> On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, hosford.donald wrote:

> Ahh! I see. It's the massive damage potential! Now this is what I

There are three differences between Starfire and Full Thrust missiles:

1) FT missiles are single-shot, SF missiles aren't
2) FT missiles are pretty hard to intercept, while SF point defences are very
effective 3) A single FT missile causes massive damage; a single SF missile...
doesn't.

You play at Starfire too low tech levels, though... We have just cut down
the damage potential of the best high-tech missiles because they were
too good - when a single missile hit could cause up to 15 damage points,

they outclassed beams at all ranges:( After the damage reductions, the same
missile "only" ccauses 9 points of damage. Still enough to hurt, though <g>

> If it's tourist season why can't we shoot them? writes:
@:) >I have a question about missles.
@:) >
@:) >When you fire a missle, do you: @:) > A) cross it off like a submunition
pack? @:) > B) or is it really a missle launcher, capable of firing every
turn?
@:)
@:) Selection A). Each missile is an individual unit, and when you @:) launch,
that's it! No more where that came from.

Right. Now, what about replacing missiles? Are they just pure ammunition or
does the "missile" image on the SSD represent a launcher and an actual missile
that is just ammunition? This can become important in campaign games. In
particular the question of whether a "missile" can be destroyed after it is
launched is important.

> Right. Now, what about replacing missiles? Are they just pure

Another very good question, which just goes to show we can't think of
everything!:) My feeling is that the system icon represents both the missile
itself and
its launcher/attachment (depending on whether you assume the missile is
internally or externally carried); though the icon is crossed out when the
missile is launched, I suggest still rolling for the system at threshold
points - if it is lost, cross it through again on the other diagonal -
this
means the tube/rack/whatever is busted and you can't load another
missile (in campaign terms) 'til you've fixed it. If it is hit before
launching, then missile AND launcher are lost (and maybe missile could go
BOOM....!!).

> At 09:48 PM 4/2/97 +0100, Jon wrote:
If the missile launcher is hit before launching,
> then missile AND launcher are lost (and maybe missile could go

I strongly disagree with this idea. You cannot cook off a nuclear bomb
(hydrogen or otherwise). For a nuclear reaction to occur, a precise sequence
of events must go and then all implosion detonations must occur
simultaneuously... In fact nuclear recovery teams are reminded of this when
conducting training. They are actually taught that if required shoot at the
device to prevent it from being able to go off. Now I know that these missiles
are not necessarily hydrogen bombs, although earlier discussions pointed at
Spurt Bombs (nuclear pumped
x-ray or
gamma radiation lasers). However, in terms of game mechanics and balance, they
are fine the way they are. The only reason the Nova cannon had the explosion
disadvantage was the devestating area effect it had. I strongly reccomend you
abandon the notion of exploding missile racks, they are fine the way they are.
Phil P.

> Phillip E. Pournelle writes:
@:)
@:) >If the missile launcher is hit before launching, then missile AND @:)
>launcher are lost (and maybe missile could go BOOM....!!).
@:)
@:) I strongly disagree with this idea.
@:)
@:) I strongly reccomend you abandon the notion of exploding missile @:)
racks, they are fine the way they are. Phil P.

Aha! I guess we know who's carrying a missile around in the trunk of his
station wagon, eh?

Seriously while I think exploding missiles should be at best an optional rule,
I do like the idea. Our group toyed with the idea of hangar explosions and
fire on board carriers but we eventually decided not to do it. I think it
could have worked well though. This is one of those rules that only comes into
play very rarely, so the added complexity isn't a big deal. When it does
happen, it can be a lot of fun.

> On Apr 2, 17:35, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:

The idea of it desgtroying the missile rack beyond the ability of a damage
control party to fix sounds perfectly fine, but other than that, the exploding
fuel shouldn't do all than much. Not unless you believe that hitting something
in a hangar would blow the holding ship apart. I'd be fine for having it
scotch the hangar beyond repair, but more than that seems questionable.

> hangar explosions and fire on board carriers but we eventually decided

The fire on board the carrier reminds me of that entirely too dim for words
Battlestar Galactica with the massive fire abord the ship. Sure, a fire could
become pretty big, if you were dim enough to leave all the bulkheads open. But
there's always one easy way to put it out in space...

> The fire on board the carrier reminds me of that entirely too dim for
But
> there's always one easy way to put it out in space...
Just because space is a cold vacuum, doesn't mean that a fire is easier to put
out. If a material becomes hot enough and is an oxidizer, I'm not sure how
effective open space would be. I just know that on modern carriers, fires are
not taken lightly and they got an infinite supply of water to try and put it
out with.

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> At 09:48 PM 4/2/97 +0100, Jon wrote:

Who ever said anything about the WARHEAD going off? Think of all that nice
fuel sitting there in that big, fat missile...:)

> At 07:40 03/04/97 +0100, you wrote:
<gulps at the prospect of having to disagree with Jon..>
> Who ever said anything about the WARHEAD going off? Think of all that
A LOT of people have thought of that too. That's why missile launchers on
modern combat vehicles tend to be of two types..

1) External pepperbox systems so that any explosion has to penetrate the hull
to cause damage

2) Launch 'tubes' where the missiles are only loaded just prior to launch, and
otherwise stored deep within the hull.

Basically, there is no good design reason to put the missiles anywhere where a
'cookoff' would cause any damage. It's a basic design principle that has
existed, well, since gunpowder did. While I also subscribe to the idea that FT
doesn't HAVE to conform to modern military design, there's no reason to
presume the designers are stupid either..

Admittedly, stealth aircraft have recessed or covered bays, but the principle
still holds. You either store your missiles outside your hull armour so a
cookoff does no harm OR you store them somewhere such that by the time
anything gets there to ignite them you've got more to worry about than fuel
explosions. It's also true that with even 20th century explosives the warhead
power of a missile is vastly beyond the power of it's fuel in
an explosion. Let alone nukes/pumps xrays/antimatter warp field/photon
torpedoe sorts of warheads.

I think ANY possible warship design will be such that it is designed to
minimise the effects of such things unless you get something like a full
magazine hit or a catastophic series of ignitions in a ship with (say)
damaged fuel lines or tanks - and that sort of thing is what I always
thought threshold rolls were meant to represent.

I *DO* however think that missile 'swarms' should be vunerable to the fact
that counterbattery fire could create chain reactions within a 'swarm' but
then the whole idea of missile swarms is very 'manga' to me and they always
go for big explosions regardless of logic :-).

> Absolutely Barking Stars writes:

@:) Basically, there is no good design reason to put the missiles @:) anywhere
where a 'cookoff' would cause any damage. It's a basic @:) design principle
that has existed, well, since gunpowder did.
@:)
@:) I think ANY possible warship design will be such that it is @:) designed
to minimise the effects of such things unless you get @:) something like a
full magazine hit or a catastophic series of
@:) ignitions in a ship with (say) damaged fuel lines or tanks - and
@:) that sort of thing is what I always thought threshold rolls were @:) meant
to represent.

I recently learned that the USS Forrestal was basically gutted by fire during
Vietnam. I don't recall what started the fire but it got onto the flight deck
and before the crews had a chance to roll all the aircraft and bombs into the
ocean (!) one of the bombs cooked off and the entire deck went up in a huge
fireball (this is frightening film). I think over a hundred people were killed
and the ship didn't
re-enter service during the war.  Very nasty stuff and there was no
enemy action involved whatsoever.

That said, you're probably right that this is what threshold rolls are
supposed to represent.

> On Thu, 3 Apr 1997, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:

> I recently learned that the USS Forrestal was basically gutted by

Electrical fault in a missile. Oriskany was gutted a year earlier by a couple
of idiots. And the Big E two years later. See
http://www.membrane.com/~elmer/navy/features/fires.html