The second article by Professor Wayne King-Meiouf.
The new name of the game is intergalactic missile warfare. By this i mean a missile that is launched a number of light years away from it's target, most likely from a planetary based silo and can hit it's target with a variety of warheads including nuclear. Both the DDS and HCS are actively developing systems that can hit targets up to 10 light years away. This is an important figure as Proxima 7 and Cloneworld are... about 10 light years apart.
The key thing to consider however is in this case the HCS are some way ahead of the DDS. The DDS project was known of first, the Long Range Missile (LRM), a silo based big brother of the 5ly range MRM, was first announced last year. Two models were discussed, the LRM-20 with a range between 10 to 20ly and the later LRM-100 with a range of 100ly. However the DDS have concentrated on the MRM with the intention being to use the finalised MRM as the basis of the LRM. However with the MRM now not going to be finalised until 2110 (most likely or even later) the LRM could not be ready until way into the next decade.
The HCS equivalent, the Clone Space Missile or CSM, has only been heard of recently but it appears the HCS are much further along the development path. A few weeks ago the first test of the rocket booster stage was made (based on the Gale III ICBM) and it is understood that testing of the space stage could begin next year. The DDS have not even begun their development of a booster stage though of course, using the MRM, will be further along with the "business end".
Why are these 2 programmes so important? Because they bring a whole new dimension to intergalactic warfare. No longer will a faction require a fleet to strike at an enemy. Even if the DDS does, as projections indicate, defeat the HCS fleet in a full-on engagement then the HCS would still be able to hit targets at the heart of the DDS. This indeed could force a change in DDS fleet strategy, no longer will it be the aim to destroy the enemy's fleet, they will need the capability to detect and destroy cloaked missiles.
Now attacking the ground facilities of these missiles will be something the DDS will look at but there are signs the HCS will deploy CSM on a variety of hard to detect and destroy platforms including road-mobile launchers and submarines. Even saturation bombing Cloneworld would not guarantee degrading all of the possible launchers so the DDS will need to look again at their defence of the home planets. They will need to improve their methods of detecting cloaked vessels and probably increase the layers of their defence. Evacuation, early warning and damage control are also areas the DDS will need to examine. 100% interception is likely to be difficult to achieve and only 1 nuclear armed CSM would be needed to destroy GHQ. It is thought the HCS plan to deploy at least 350 CSMs ready to launch with an equal number of reloads.
The HCS will also have to look at a number of areas to utilise their new weapon. Navigation and targeting information will be vital (its no point a missile travelling 10ly if it then misses the target). The CSM is said to use pre-programmed target information that would be updated by a HCS ship near to the target (the key role of the MTM will be this it is thought). As a back-up the CSM will use known planetary movements along with prediction to "guess" where on the target planet it is looking at, with terminal IR homing. The HCS say that they could get accuracy to within 100m using this method. The jury is out on that. The recent case of a HCS Cosmos class cruiser being caught in the Proximan system may now, however, be put in context. At the time it was thought to be just a routine spy mission but now analysis of the signals the cruiser was putting out shows the ship was carrying out space mapping and a highly accurate mapping of the Proxima 7 surface...
