XHEAP Missile Qualities

The Exotic Matter High Explosive Armour Piercing missile, despite its disarmingly small size, was the most powerful short and medium range missile in the UN inventory. As with most equipment and ordinance at the top of their category, or basically anything with exotic matter in its construction, the missile was Valkyrie-exclusive equipment. If not placed in the stabilising storage space of a Valkyrie, the fuel of the missile and the explosives in its warhead would degrade and become unstable within two hours of production. Another hour after that, presuming the bodywork somehow had survived the violent degradation of the missile fuel and warhead, the armour-piercing cap and would also turn brittle and dissolve into radiation.

The trade off for the limited lifetime was the colossal power of the missile. If the missile was fired at zero range, the total explosive power of the warhead and fuel would equal more than 700 gigajoules. At its maximum sea level range of 200 kilometers the warheads own explosive power was a little more than half the total energy rating of the missile, with the engine of the missile allowing it to maintain a sea level cruising speed of 18 kilometers per second to a range of 220 kilometers. No conventional heat shield could resist the temperatures from compression heating as it travelled, so the missile's exotic matter armour-piercing cap also served as a heat shield. Naturally, with such extreme performance parameters, the missile was also completely blind in atmosphere. No conventional sensor package was able to see through its own plasma bow shock, and no conventional transmission system was capable of transmitting a signal through its wake. The missiles would have to be guided by a Valkyrie through actively attenuated laser systems while in atmosphere. Without a Valkyrie holding the hand of a XHEAP missile, it was nothing more than a dumb ballistic projectile with minimum inertial guidance, and one that cost as much as an entire fighter jet squadron.

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