In Classic Traveller, Book 2, the basic civilian ship-to-ship missile costs Cr 5000. High Guard (unwisely, perhaps) didn't give a cost.
In MegaTraveller, the basic military (I assume) HE missile costs Cr20,000. Its volume is 0.1 m^3 (cubic meters - I'm not sure how to do superscript in this format).
So far, so good.
Presumably, an HE warhead operates by bringing itself into contact with the enemy ship - or at least close enough as makes no difference. (I understand there are some modern missiles that detonate just short of the target for some reason.) Mayday included a fragmentation option, if I recall, but the Traveller hulls since then have become able to repel any shrapnel any conceivable HE warhead could throw. Heck, the things will shrug off an HE direct hit from a Russian T-34! Must be the meteor shielding.
In Striker, the smallest nuclear warhead, 0.1 KT, costs Cr 1000 plus the price of an HE round. A shielded box for the little boomer costs a bit too - Cr 10,000 per m^3 of box. The little boomer is powerful enough to destroy anything in a 15m radius - including that grav APC with the 73 factors of forward armor. One prefers not to think of that puppy gouging 15m craters in the hull of a ship, but they are quite impressive when they hit. (I haven't the foggiest what a nuke costs in Striker-II - I have one book, and I get the distinct impression there's supposed to be more to it than what's in there.)
In MegaTraveller, the basic military nuclear missile (I hope the heck they aren't handing these things out to civilians!) costs ... Cr150,000? They took a Cr20,000 missile, mounted a nuke on it, and the cost went to Cr150,000? I could mount a 13 KT nuke and program the thing to detonate 40-50 yards away from the target and I'd STILL be gouging craters! For that kind of money, I want a hefty to-hit DM for being able to conduct stand-off hits! But, sadly, they don't come with a to-hit bonus.
A full F9 battery of 30 costs MCr3 per shot. Shoot them from a MegaTrav equivalent to the Kokirrak, and it's MCr150 per shot. That's more than the cost of a decent fighter. Give me a squadron of dreadnoughts, and I'm spending the cost of a dreadnought after 125 salvoes - out of which, given the basic rolls and modifiers and assuming an opponent of equivalent defense, I might score 10 to 20 hits. Certainly not enough to neutralize a dreadnought.
The Golden Fleece Award was an ancient Terran tradition, an award granted to those military or other government programs that managed to accomplish the least with the greatest expenditure of public funds. I think that pretty well describes what we have here. I think the Emperor needs to have somebody arrested.
In MegaTraveller, the basic military (I assume) HE missile costs Cr20,000. Its volume is 0.1 m^3 (cubic meters - I'm not sure how to do superscript in this format).
So far, so good.
Presumably, an HE warhead operates by bringing itself into contact with the enemy ship - or at least close enough as makes no difference. (I understand there are some modern missiles that detonate just short of the target for some reason.) Mayday included a fragmentation option, if I recall, but the Traveller hulls since then have become able to repel any shrapnel any conceivable HE warhead could throw. Heck, the things will shrug off an HE direct hit from a Russian T-34! Must be the meteor shielding.
In Striker, the smallest nuclear warhead, 0.1 KT, costs Cr 1000 plus the price of an HE round. A shielded box for the little boomer costs a bit too - Cr 10,000 per m^3 of box. The little boomer is powerful enough to destroy anything in a 15m radius - including that grav APC with the 73 factors of forward armor. One prefers not to think of that puppy gouging 15m craters in the hull of a ship, but they are quite impressive when they hit. (I haven't the foggiest what a nuke costs in Striker-II - I have one book, and I get the distinct impression there's supposed to be more to it than what's in there.)
In MegaTraveller, the basic military nuclear missile (I hope the heck they aren't handing these things out to civilians!) costs ... Cr150,000? They took a Cr20,000 missile, mounted a nuke on it, and the cost went to Cr150,000? I could mount a 13 KT nuke and program the thing to detonate 40-50 yards away from the target and I'd STILL be gouging craters! For that kind of money, I want a hefty to-hit DM for being able to conduct stand-off hits! But, sadly, they don't come with a to-hit bonus.
A full F9 battery of 30 costs MCr3 per shot. Shoot them from a MegaTrav equivalent to the Kokirrak, and it's MCr150 per shot. That's more than the cost of a decent fighter. Give me a squadron of dreadnoughts, and I'm spending the cost of a dreadnought after 125 salvoes - out of which, given the basic rolls and modifiers and assuming an opponent of equivalent defense, I might score 10 to 20 hits. Certainly not enough to neutralize a dreadnought.
The Golden Fleece Award was an ancient Terran tradition, an award granted to those military or other government programs that managed to accomplish the least with the greatest expenditure of public funds. I think that pretty well describes what we have here. I think the Emperor needs to have somebody arrested.
