Small Ship Missiles Re: [FT] Re: Small vessels and the Line...

To address the issue of dividing an SML/SMR system out lets take a
look at the FB rules. Each SM* can deliver up to 6 missiles doing 1d6 damage
points(no reroll, no screens, half armor). An SMR rack has a mass of 4, which
is half of most destroyers' armament. So half of one of those would be 2 mass
and 6 points, call it an MMR (medium missile rack) or just an MR (missle
rack). Fire from an MR works just as an SMR, but it rolls a D3 for number of
missile hits.

Similarly for the SML we just need a smaller launcher, and keep the missile
magazines the same (at 6 missiles per salvo). I'm going to assume that the ML
will be a single magazine fed launch tube, and give it an ROF of 1.

System Mass Points MR 2 6 Rolls 1D3 for number of missile hits ML 1 4 Fires 1
missile per turn from magazine Mag 1 3 Capacity: 3 missiles or 2 ER missiles

An ML could be mass 2, 6 points and fire 1d3 missiles per salvo, but since I
really want one of these to be mass 1.5, I decided to leave it out. An
advantage of this system is that missiles are no longer
the scary-monster-shipkillers that result with SMLs (1-36 points of
damage is a bit wild). Point defense is going to be very important
with the low salvo densities, and steady 4 missiles instead of 1-6
with an SML will make missiles a more quantifiable tactical factor.

Note that ships in the Honor Harrington books appear to be using MLs, with MRs
on LACs. In that spirit lets make missiles play a little more vectorish. [1]

Give missiles a thrust of 18 and 3 turns fuel endurance, if using a vector
system they start with the vector of the launching ship [2]. Move them just
like MT missiles, adjusted to your house rules. Allow missiles to coast
without expending fuel. Missiles that have expended
their fuel may attack ships within 3", but PD fires at +1 and the
missiles do -3 damage (min 0); see the 3rd Battle of Yeltsin in
"Honor of the Queen" by Weber for an example of this.

This system will make missiles slightly more powerful than MT missiles, but
will dole them out in smaller parcels. The coasting rule will give missiles a
tremendous potential range, so your sensor rules will become vital. We'll
leave that for another (dozen) thread(s).

Who wants to host a pbem game to test both a set of sensor rules and these
missile rules?

[1] Mmmmm, vectorish.... hmmmmmmmm <drool>

[2] A strict interpretation of the missile movement rules allowed for
some amazing 'over the shoulder' shots in Mark Kochte's Dilgar War pbem. It
wasn't Newton, but we sorely needed those hits. And it certainly was
cinematic, so I'll allow it for games using cinematic movement.