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How much has the Maya Sector's military capability improved? Mar 2009
The Mesan Spider Drive Mar 2009
Order of Battle: Third Clash - The Great Visit Reserve Apr 2009
Wealth and opportunities in the Solarian League Apr 2009
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With Apollo, do you really need armor any more? Apr 2009
The spillover effect from Manticore's Junction-created astrographic position Apr 2009
Shot weight vs shot size Apr 2009
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Pearls of Weber

A collection of posts by David Weber containing background information for his stories, collected and generously made available Joe Buckley.

Posted by David at 12:00am

Hardening shipkiller missile drives

  • Series: Honorverse
  • Date: June 10, 2005

A suggestion has been made that it would make sense to put drives into shipkiller missiles of sufficient power to make them immune to wedge kill by a counter-missile. Is this practical? Could it be done as the final stage of a MDM?

 

No, it isn't. And it won't be -- ever. I believe we've had this discussion before. You cannot -- not "it would be hard," not "only possible with great difficulty," but cannot -- build a missile drive sufficiently powerful to take out another missile (or counter-missile) drive without being taken out itself. End of story. The physical size constraints make it impossible. That's why counter-missiles have used their impeller wedges as their primary missile-killing weapon for so long.