Macross Missles

History:

The Derringer is a standard atmospheric long range missile for the RDF, Southern Cross Navy and REF. Launched by mecha, ships and submarines, the various Derringer variants serve as anti-air, anti-ship and ground bombardment missiles.

In 2007, the fledgling RDF was searching for anti-air and medium surface-to-surface missiles with which to equip their mecha.

Usually, the difference in types would prohibit much commonality between the designs, but in this case, the requirements for speed and payload were almost identical, and thus it became possible to create a single airframe for all missiles. This airframe became the Derringer, one of the first multi-purpose missiles, capable of, for instance, air defense as well as ground attack. It was a very short but relatively thick missile without fins, instead relying on vectored thrust and body lift. To ensure a high speed and long range, an air breathing rocket-ramjet propulsion system was chosen.

The Derringer A was a standard anti-air and ground attack missile, with the first truly multi-purpose seeker head, developed with alien technology, providing the guidance. The Derringer A was mounted on the Phalanx and Shark Destroids, and used in medium air defense battalions as well. The Derringer B was a basically a Derringer A with the HE warhead replaced with a cluster payload and an inertial guidance during the flight phase, with an active radar unit for the terminal phase. The Derringer B was specialized for area attacks, but because of its limited effectiveness against full-size Zentraedi it was less used on Earth than the A model. The B variant was, however, quite effective against the Invid. The Derringer C was a tactical nuclear missile.

In 2010, the Navy developed an anti-ship variant of the Derringer. The missile's speed was respectable for such a role, but the short range and 100 kg HE warhead were insufficient to be used against ships. The Navy therefore stretched the missile by 40 centimeters, increased the warhead weight by half to 150 kg and replaced the HE with a plasma incendiary warhead. The fuel storage was increased as well. This missile, which was still compatible with all Derringer launchers, was technically highly successful, although it severely lacked viable targets and did not get its baptism in a shooting war until the EBSIS attack on Western Europe, on the eve of the Invid invasion. It is a standard weapon for the Warspite and Prometheus classes of Naval ships. The final versions are the Derringers E/F, which are still in production to this day. They combine the multi-purpose seeker head of the A version with the warhead of the D ship killer (E), or with a HE warhead of the same weight (F), and update other electronics as well. Although far more effective, the missile bins on the Shark and Phalanx can only accept these stretched missiles by allowing part of them to protrude in the open.

At present, there are plans to produce a Derringer G, which is a Derringer E/F with the warhead replaced by a heavy cluster payload. None are known to have been produced to date, however.

History:

The successor to the Stiletto and the Scorpion, the Diamondback was designed in 2017 to be more compact than the previous missiles, so as to better fit in the internal launchers on the advanced mecha then in development. For the past 28 years the Diamondback has been the most important medium range mecha launched missile in the Terran inventory, and there are no plans to replace the missile, though several upgrades are being considered.

The first Diamondback versions were the conventionally armed A and the plasma armed B version, for general purpose use and ground attack respectively. Both versions were heavily used on Earth by the Southern Cross and in space by the REF, which also produced these missiles in large numbers in the Local Group. An anti-radar version, the C, was less used. Though a large number of these missiles was shipped with the REF for use against Zentraedi, most remained in storage on Tirol as the actual enemy, the Invid, provided few targets for these defense suppression missiles. The most use made of these missiles was during the REF Civil War, when suitable targets were available in numbers. The last of the pre-REF versions is the nuclear tipped Diamondback D. This missile uses a small tactical nuclear fission device as its warhead, and was typically employed against large airborne enemy formations, small hives and Mollusk Carriers. Improved versions were developed by the REF, the first entering service in the late twenties. The E and F versions were basically A and B versions with a new, improved seeker head with additional UV and visual sensors for better homing on Invid mecha, and a slightly improved rocket engine with ballistic path option which, with mid-course guidance, increased maximum range. The as yet final version of the Diamondback, the G, was designed by the REF after the Marcus Antonius returned from Earth with examples of the Southern Cross's Lightning cluster missile. Recognizing the potential of this missile against a numerically superior enemy like the Invid, the REF designers decreased the engine section, as the Invid did not have sufficiently ranged weapons to fire on mecha at more than a few kilometers, and used the space and weight freed for an outsized cluster warhead. This missile entered service in 2044, just in time for the final attack on Reflex Point, and in that battle proved its lethality by taking out an average of 1.6 Invid mecha per missile fired.

History:

The Hammerhead is the most numerous missile used in the last three decades. As the premier dogfight missile of the post-2015 RDF,the Southern Cross, and the REF, the Hammerhead has more kills to its name than any other missile, and is arguably the most important missile in service today, carried on almost all mecha, aircraft and other vehicles. Built as a cylindrical body with a raised seeker section and narrowing thrust port, the Hammerhead is based on the Zentraedi Maggot Universal Dogfight Missile, which equipped the Quaedluun-rau Power Armors and the various Glaug configurations. Like its inspiration, the Hammerhead is small enough to be carried in large numbers. Compared with the Zentraedi missile though, the Hammerhead has almost double the range and a far more advanced seeker head. Two warheads are available for the missile; one, a conventional high explosive warhead, is most often used against mecha, the other warhead, a plasma design, is more commonly used against ground targets. However, both missiles have been used against all manner of targets. The Hammerhead is capable of locking onto off-angle targets after emergence from an internal launcher or launch tubes, and thus mixes flawlessly with helmet- mounted sights despite requiring a lockon-after-launch routine. The first versions of the Hammerhead were the Hammerhead A, with a high explosive warhead, and the Hammerhead B, which was the same missile, fitted with a plasma warhead. The REF developed a slightly updated version on Tirol, with an improved seeker head incorporating an UV element, which gave enhanced detection capabilities against Invid mecha thrusters. The improved Hammerheads were the C and D models, once again only differing in their high explosive/plasma warheads. The Southern Cross, not fighting the Invid, kept using the A and B versions until the return of the REF relief fleet. After that, in anticipation of possible Invid attack, the Southern Cross switched production to the C and D variants as well. However, at the time of the Invid Invasion, most SC stocks were still of the A and B versions.

History:

This missile was the premier short range ground launched missile of the RDF, and after the Stiletto the second multi-purpose missile in service. It was conceived in 2004 as a successor to the Hellfire and a complement to the Brimstone anti-armor missile. As such, it was mounted on all Tomahawk and Spartan Destroids. In comparison to the Hellfire, the Rapier had a vastly increased speed, with correspondingly lower flight times, which gave targeted mecha far less time to evade. The first production version was the Rapier A. As the expected enemy mecha did not have as heavy armor as a main battle tank, the Rapier could carry a lighter warhead than the Hellfire. This resulted in a missile with a diameter of 12 cm, and a range of 8.2 km, far for ground launched missiles. The second version required expert knowledge to recognize it as a Rapier. In the place of the 12 cm HEAT warhead of the A version, the B version coupled the A's engine to a heavy, overcaliber fragmentation warhead of 17 cm diameter with proximity fusing. This missile was not meant to be used against armor, but against unarmored personnel and, mainly, as an anti-missile missile. The proximity fuse was sensitive enough to detect an enemy missile, and the warhead powerful enough to destroy the missile. The Rapier B was used as an anti-air missile by the Spartan (the Tomahawk had dedicated anti-air missiles) and was also adopted by the RDF Navy as a point defense missile against incoming ship-killers. As such, it was mounted in numbers on the Daedalus and Prometheus classes, and, unexpectedly, on the Warspite class of submarines, where the Rapiers gave the missiles a defense against ASW helicopters and aircraft. Though phased out by the Army in 2018, the Rapier remained in service with the Navy to the Invid Invasion.

History:

The Spacehawk is the main space to ground weapon of the REF. It is basically a Derringer E or F missile, fitted with a booster and a heat shield. If launched against other spacecraft or spaceborne mecha, the Spacehawk acts like a standard missile, with the booster rocket engine accelerating the missile to coasting speed, re-igniting the booster after closing with the target. In this mode, the ceramic heat shield is ejected shortly after launch to lower the weight of the missile and free the seeker heads. When used against ground targets, the missile will not eject the ceramic shielding, but align on a re-entry trajectory, and use its booster engine to de-orbit. The missile then coasts down to the atmosphere, and re-enters. Once the speed has been lowered to Mach 7.5, the remains of the shielding are ejected, and the missile aligns on its target. If the missile is programmed for a direct strike, the engine will ignite to keep this speed until impact, if necessary ejecting the spent booster and continuing with the Derringer engine. If atmospheric maneuvering is required, the booster will be ejected, and the Derringer engine will start running at Mach 3.0 in a sustainer mode to keep that speed until impact. Should the launch vehicle be in the atmosphere (a rare occurrence for most starships) the shielding and booster will be ejected immediately and the missile will then act like a standard Derringer missile.

The first two versions of the Spacehawk were the Spacehawk A, with a directed HE warhead, and the nuclear tipped Spacehawk B version. An improved model, Spacehawk C, was produced from 2015 onwards, with improved electronics and sensor systems, but otherwise identical to the Spacehawk A. The Spacehawk served with the RDF and REF in large numbers, and is still the premier medium space launched missile today.

History:

The Stiletto was the first production multi-purpose missile designed on Earth. Because of the make up of the Zentraedi forces, where every soldier was equipped with armor resistant to cluster bomblets (be it in the form of a Battlepod or a personal armor suit) but for which a heavy anti-armor weapon was overkill, and also because of the flight profiles of the new VF-1 Valkyrie fighters, which could fly at multi- mach speeds but also hover and land, a new missile with, for its time, unique capabilities was required. The new missile was required to be able to be fired from a hover at a few feet above the ground, but also at multi-mach speeds dozens of kilometers high in the atmosphere, and was also required to be space capable, and thus needed an additional thrust vectoring steering system. Additionally, the missile needed a guidance system that could lock onto ground targets as easily as on airborne targets. On the other hand, the missile did not require the heavy warhead found on standard air-to-surface missiles such as the Maverick; instead, a modified Hellfire warhead would suffice for almost all Zentraedi mecha and infantry targets. As a final demand, the missile had to be capable of hypervelocity speeds to intercept high speed targets, although the procurement office understood that this speed would cut range down to about a third of what otherwise could be reached.

The result was the Stiletto. The missile was small and light enough to be carried in large numbers on multiple ejector racks, and was the most important Terran airborne medium range missile during the First Robotech War. Indeed, until the Hammerhead entered service, the Stiletto was nearly the only missile used by the RDF Air Force and Naval Air squadrons.

Two versions were built in enormous numbers from 2007 through 2018. From 2007 to 2009 the A version was built on Earth and on board the Macross SDF-1. In 2009 the B version, with an improved seeker and engine resulting in more accuracy, faster lock-on rates and longer range, replaced it on the production lines.