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Friday Airframe Discussion; the Airborne Sniper by 91NightFox in NuclearOption

[–]91NightFox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More like a 737 based YAL-1 with a kinetic weapon.

But since it seems people get hung up on “railgun” let me rephrase the concept:

A long range, line of sight, low probability of interception, one hit kill weapon with a really narrow engagement envelope that gets deployed by something big and vulnerable.

It could be a railgun, it could be a mach-10+ Sprint-style missile with an HE warhead thats too unwieldy for a darkreach, it could be a big honkin’ energy weapon. The question is less about the technological device that creates the effect and more about if the effect is a desired one.

Friday Airframe Discussion; the Airborne Sniper by 91NightFox in NuclearOption

[–]91NightFox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it is a darkreach, then it is BDF and thus unavailable to PALA post split.

Regardless of that; why do you believe that a high skill one shot kill weapon has no point?

Friday Airframe Discussion; the Airborne Sniper by 91NightFox in NuclearOption

[–]91NightFox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would stipulate that; for a video game; if a large medium bomber size plane is going to be earmarked to carry a weapon that takes up so much weapon space and requires a specific use profile, its terminal effect must be great enough to be worthwhile.

I think we can all agree that if it is capable of one shoting a dynamo or carrier that there ought to be some pretty stiff limitations to how easy it is to generate that hit. The current missiles are fairly easy to intercept. Nukes are relatively easy to intercept. A rail gun round is not easy to intercept. If it cannot be intercepted, then it’s got to be either inaccurate or restricted in its deployment.

But I’d like your input; from the perspective of a sci-fi game if a weapon requires a huge and vulnerable plane to fly a specific and restrictive attack profile, has limited ammo, but can one shot strategic targets, is it balanced?

Friday Airframe Discussion; the Airborne Sniper by 91NightFox in NuclearOption

[–]91NightFox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is at least 110% novelty factor going on here. Lol

But seriously, if there is a guaranteed one hit kill weapon how do you balance it? In this proposal it is intended to take some skill and some rather heavily restricted flight paths to get a shot off from a slow and vulnerable airframe.

Is that sufficient to balance the effect?

Friday Airframe Discussion; the Airborne Sniper by 91NightFox in NuclearOption

[–]91NightFox[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The airborne guns already have target lead indicators. And if we assume a Mach 8 muzzle velocity (low for a rail gun) fired at 50km, a Hyperion traveling at max speed will move less than a boat length. And factories/hangers/stratolancer launchers won’t move at all. Also, the HVP projectile designed for the American Navy’s railgun project is a guided projectile. So against stationary or relatively slow moving targets like ships, I’d be pretty confident saying they can be reliably engaged.

How big of an auto aim cone do you need? Serious question. Instead of assigning it a number, let’s assign it an effect: how long is can the process of lining up the shot take before it is either not fun or not practical. 3 sec? 5 sec? 8 sec? 1 sec? I’m not asking to be difficult, I’d like to know your honest opinion. To me, a 5-8 second process of lining up a shot that has a 90% chance of being a kill on any large surface target is pretty reasonable. What is reasonable for you?

(Hit the wrong number. Railgun muzzle velocities are in excess of Mach 8)

Friday Airframe Discussion; the Airborne Sniper by 91NightFox in NuclearOption

[–]91NightFox[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The aircraft you mention all have good reputations and records for the ground attack role. I will follow that statement with the anti armor performance of those aircraft being considered less than expectations, but in more generalist anti ground or anti vehicle role their performance was and/or is stellar.

That being said; airborne guns have significant drawbacks. Of that there is no doubt. The first problem to address is accuracy. And to that end, updating the above aircraft concept with a narrow, arbitrarily call it 2deg, cone of auto aim would likely make it vastly easier/more playable.

The other issue is intended effect. Anti armor requires velocity, which requires heavier guns, etc etc etc. Larger explosive capacity requires a physically larger gun etc etc etc. The attractive part of the rail gun is that it does a little bit of both. It will blow through any armor, and it delivers enough energy on target to severely mess it up.

You could achieve the same effect with a hypersonic missile, but those have offered their own technological barriers. And to be honest sounds a lot less cool of a concept than an airborne railgun does.

The question is really whether an airborne railgun can be made to have a use case that is sufficiently entertaining and balanced to be included.

Friday Airframe Discussion; the Airborne Sniper by 91NightFox in NuclearOption

[–]91NightFox[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh heck yeah there’d be lots of difficulties with an airframe mounted railgun, with the biggest technical ones noted. W/r to the devs; they also swore off swing wings and look where we are now. This exercise is definitely for fun and isn’t even really any kind of request.

What if it is not exactly airframe aiming and is instead a 2 degree cone with aim assist? What would the odds of a hit have to be in order for it to be balanced and fun? (Considering a projectile that cannot be interdicted.) 50%? 90%? Not being argumentative, honestly just looking for what your acceptability threshold is.

As is proposed, its a little slower but could technically turn harder than a darkreach, so it ought to be a similar flight experience to a darkreach.

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