Scion-Sending Missile

The Scion-Sending-class anti-ship missile, colloquially known as the "I don't like you" is a type of missile fielded by the Gudersnipe Foundation during the first few centuries of the Kamian Succession Wars. The weapon was likely in service before that, but would not have seen much action.

Design

The missile is armed with a Nuclear II forty-megaton warhead(technically variable yield, but they were never set for less). Placed in front of and around the warhead is a shell of Steel-fired osmium and tungsten compressed to over twice the natural density of osmium. The shell is shaped much like the copper cone around a rocket-propelled grenade. When the warhead detonates, the shell is propelled forward as a jet of super-heated, high-energy plasma.

The weapon is notorious for being able to penetrate any known armor, and due to it's proximate at detonation, it bypasses most shields. The impact is compared to a single shot from a dreadnought capitol ship.

However, the achilles heal of the missile is it's inabiity to be fired from a standard missile tube, or from a torpedo tube. It requres a specially constructed tube, and is highly vulnerable to counter-measures when first launched. Most starships arrange the tubes on a 90 degree axis from the direction of travel, requireing the weapons to turn; the Scion-Sending's slow acceleration speed leaves it vulnerable in this turn. Its larger and longer tube requirements also mean that it could only be fitted to the largest class of ships. In order to fit it to smaller ships(where the real need lay) the weapon had to be put in a forward-facing 0/0 tube, making it even less effective.