Boing-Boing

Boing-Boing was the code-name for a type of captial-ship-killing missile designed and used by the Gudersnipe Foundation. It is remembered as one of the most devastating weapons of all time, and the only one to be retired for political reasons.

The Boing-Boing was officially known as the Excalibur Missile, though this name was seldome used. Boing-Boing was the most common and least colorful of it's names. Throughout it's survice history, the Boing-Boing maintained a perfect 100% 1-hit-kill rating, whenever the missile successfuly struck a ship, it destroyed it.

History

Originaly built in the early years of the Golden Age, Boing-Boings were used extensively well into the Second Age. As the Alliance solidified, the Space Comission called for an international ban on the weapon. Though they listed all sorts of reasons, the fact of the matter was that the Boing-Boing was too effective a weapon, and no one else ould level the playing field.

Though this was exactly the sort of design that Gudersnipe attempted to achieve in all it's weapons, in a rare show of diplomacy, the Foundation declared that all Boing-Boing missiles were to be removed from active warships and dismantled by A.Y. 2293.

Secretly, however, the weapons were taken to a storage facility and maintained in pristine condition for the next 3907 years.

In A.Y. 6200, approximately 103 years into the Kamian Succession Wars, the remainign Boing-Boings, still in perfect working order, were deployed at the Battle of Lerner Fields. Though the region would later be lost, the missiles had brought the Foundation a rare strategic victory, and Boing-Boing would return to production for the rest of the war.

Design

The Boing-Boing barely qualifies as a missile at all, and in fact had to be launched from a fighter-carrier using the magnetic catapults designed for launching starfighters. At 270 feet long and nearly 150 wide, it was a massive behmouth of a weapon. Specifically designed to be one hit, one kill, it was larger than any conventional missile or torpedo ever constructed for space-to-space use.

Propulsion

Propulsion came from an external plasma pulsed propulsion system, essentially a large metal pusher plate on shock absorbers. The fuel was antimatter-catalized N1 devices. These would be jetisoned behind the missile and detonated, launching a wave of plasma that struck the pusher plate and moved it forward.

This system was the reason for the weapon's immense sise, and gave the missile a top speed of 80PSL. Though equivalant to the energetic plasma motorsemployed on standard missiles, the Boing-Boing could carry a larger quantity of fuel, giving it enough delta-V to hange it's speed by 40PSL.

Conventional missiles launched from a capital ship only had enough delta-V to change speed by about 10PSL. Meaning the ship's flank speed of 40PSL combined with the rocket's delta-V resultes in a top speed of only 50PSL. A Boing-Boing fired from a carrier has the ability to reach 80PSL.

Quidance

The Boing-Boing's large size allowed it to carry a full targeting system, making it completely independant from the ship once fired. Conventional weapons typically must rely on sensor information from the fireing warship for target accuisition and guidance. The Boing-Boing could be fired without a target, lock in on one, and than attack with data from it's own sensors.

Shield Disrutption

Boing-Boings were equiped with a sophisticated shield frequency modulator. Most ships employed rotating shield frequncies to prevent such systems, but the Boing-Boing's onboard sensor grid allowed it to lock in on the current shield frequency a fraction of a second before impact, a feet not possible with a modulator relying on sensor data from the warship that fired it.

Payload

In addition to detonating any unspent fuel capsules, the Boing-Boing's primary payload was a one gigaton N1.5 device, located just forward of the fuel storage and immediately aft of the impactor. The sensor grid was located in a ring around the payload.

The payload was a 2-stage device with a 96-point implosion trigger, the fuel was Lithium Deuteride with a Lithium 7 isotope. Weighing nearly 1000 tons by itself, the payload was among the largest tactically deployed nuclear weapons ever constructed.

Impactor

Forming the nose cone and part of the fusologe was a massive solid impactor. This was the Boing-Boing's true weapon, as the impactor alone weighed in at nearly 1500 tons. The outer layer of the impactor, like the rest of Boing-Boing's skin, was covered in stainless steel. Beneath the steel was a layer of concrete(designed to cussion the impact), and the bulk of the core was a massive plug of solid natural uranium.

The impactor, traveling at close to 80% of the speed of light, was able to smash through any armor like tissue paper, allowing the bomb itself to detonate inside the ship's hull, ensuring a kill on even the largest warship.

Though not always successful, the impactor was also designed to act as a tertiary stage to the the main payload, boosting it's yield by up to 70%, to 1.7 gigatons.