quote:
Originally posted by nerfman:
"2) So what if the missiles sees the ship as "bigger." Real missiles don't do damage by pointing at ships like a gun. You are right in that missiles would have an easier time pointing at a target if they were closer, but who cares. Missiles do damage by getting close to a ship and then exploding. Most missiles today don't even point at the target while they fly. They point to where its going to be. They need sensors to tell them what the targets velocity and momentum are so they can predict where to meet the target. The sensors they use to do this are what is jammed.
When Traveller updated to the New Era they changed the typical missiles from being armed with Nuke or HE warheads to warheads with nuclear pumped X-Ray laser warheads. They gave a pretty convincing explanation for the change, granted I'm not a physics expert. Part of the reason was that as a missile got closer to a ship it became a lot easier for PD and energy weapons to achieve a hard kill on the missile. So maybe a missile doesn't have to achieve the same proximity with that sort of warhead? Just a thought.