Skill level of an automated sentry gun?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The difficulty of shooting down fast missiles is one of the reasons why research continues into coilguns, lasers, and railguns. Hypothetically, a coilgun could fire thousands of rounds per second, at 1 km/s, giving even a 10 gram object 5 kJ of energy. Of course, there is nothing reliable yet.

If it can do that, well it's doing a little better than a standard minigun, which fires 7.62x51mm NATO, at several thousand rounds per minute, firing a projectile of just about 10g at a velocity of ~825 m/s. Note that by changing the round to, say .300 Winchester Magnum (not the hottest 7.62mm round, just a fairly 'common' magnum) 1,000 m/s with a 10g bullet is readily achievable. A rail or coilgun would need much better performance than this to be worth pursuing, or some other very attractive feature, like the total system weight including power supply and ammo being much less.

[Anaraxes]

The US Navy EMRG (Electromagnetic Railgun) research project was not intended as an anti-missile defense, but rather a surface fire support weapon to assist Marines ashore as well as an anti-ship weapon out to about 110 miles. It could also be used to target missiles (they say), but with a intended mature RoF of 6 rounds / minute, it's clearly not intended as a high-volume wall of pellets style defense. It's a better 5" deck gun, not a better Phalanx.

The projectile is a finned KE penetrator with a velocity of 2000 - 2500 m/s, energy 20 - 32 MJ, at a mass of about 10.4 kg. (There are other projectiles that differ a bit; also, some sources report the total launch package weight, which goes as high as 50 lbs.)

There's also a project to fire the EMRG projectiles from conventional 5" guns. Not as fast, of course, but I suppose the Navy still sees some utility there, and the RoF is higher (10 or 20 rounds/minute, depending on which gun you're talking about).

Solid-state laser (SSL) research has several current projects, but so far seems to be concentrated on dazzlers and anti-UAV / boat weapons, with hopes to turn them into anti-missile systems. The Navy did officially deploy a 30 kW "operational" laser weapon (LaWS, or AN/SEQ-3) aboard the USS Ponce in the Persian Gulf in 2014. In 2017, the Ponce returned to the US and was decomissioned, at which point the LaWS was removed to the amphibious warfare ship USS Portland. They released videos of the weapon versus a drone, the engine of a boat, and of some RPGs carried aboard a small boat. The Navy has contracted LockMart to build two more, the USS Arleigh Burke and for a land-based test asset for another program called "HELIOS".

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The US Navy EMRG (Electromagnetic Railgun) research project was not intended as an anti-missile defense, but rather a surface fire support weapon to assist Marines ashore as well as an anti-ship weapon out to about 110 miles. It could also be used to target missiles (they say), but with a intended mature RoF of 6 rounds / minute, it's clearly not intended as a high-volume wall of pellets style defense. It's a better 5" deck gun, not a better Phalanx.

The projectile is a finned KE penetrator with a velocity of 2000 - 2500 m/s, energy 20 - 32 MJ, at a mass of about 10.4 kg. (There are other projectiles that differ a bit; also, some sources report the total launch package weight, which goes as high as 50 lbs.)

And with those stats about the only thing it's actually useful for is putting nice little holes in other ships, and it'll take quite a few of those holes to match what a couple of missiles will do.

The idea of using it for fire support for Marines seems to assume that everything the Marines will want shot will be a stationary point target. Some will be, most won't.

IMO it's a solution in search of a problem at this point.

Note that at its current energy efficiency, once you count the energy efficiency of the engines generating the electricity it only beats out conventional propellants because the engines get to take their oxygen from the air.

These systems have a way to go before they're ready for prime time.

[Hide]

Originally Posted by Ronnke

(...) UT details programs and AI, but that all relates to IQ, Gunnery is a DX based skill. What is the DX of an AI for a given complexity computer?

I would design this as a character, possibly with the disadvantage "no legs, sessile" and the "machine" meta-trait. You could start with C31R07 from the basic book.

I'd start at DX 10. The skill level should be enough to buy-off range penalties for the covered area (most probably tied to detection range). So, if the turret can detect an enemy located up to 50 yards away (-8 in range penalties), then it should be capable of shooting its targets w/o range impediments as far as 50 yards. This is DX 10 and SL 23.

[CeeDub]

Given what I've seen of automated sentry turrets, I would not even bother statting one. I'd rule that every shot is an automatic hit in most situations. I might not even allow or at least penalize Dodge, considering you're not really dodging bullets but the shooter's aim, and computers aim quickly.

On the other hand, at extreme ranges, the bullet travel time makes dodging very easy, as any change in velocity or direction will mean an automatic miss.

I'd say your best/only defence against computer aim is to fool or obscure their target recognition. They can't hit if they don't know what to shoot at, but if they do, they will hit in nearly all relevant cases.

[Michael Thayne]

If you're looking for simple canonical answers to this question, Traveller: Interstellar Wars suggests a Complexity 4 program can function with skill-12, and each +1 to Complexity increases this by 1. Steampunk 2: Steam and Shellfire is a little more conservative, suggesting skill equal to the computer's DX, which is 8 + (Complexity/2).

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

If you're looking for simple canonical answers to this question, Traveller: Interstellar Wars suggests a Complexity 4 program can function with skill-12, and each +1 to Complexity increases this by 1.

Is that for shooting only, or is that meant to be a general rule that would apply to all skills? As we know, even relatively primitive computers can achieve extremely high skill levels in some skills, such as chess, while even our most advanced computers now are quite poor at other skills, such as composing. It seems like shooting is closer to the chess end than the composing end.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Is that for shooting only, or is that meant to be a general rule that would apply to all skills? As we know, even relatively primitive computers can achieve extremely high skill levels in some skills, such as chess, while even our most advanced computers now are quite poor at other skills, such as composing. It seems like shooting is closer to the chess end than the composing end.

Shooting only. The Steampunk version is for "easy combat skills", to be exact. The Traveller version says it "will replace one human gunner", which maybe lets you cover the Artillery skill too.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The difficulty of shooting down fast missiles is one of the reasons why research continues into coilguns, lasers, and railguns. Hypothetically, a coilgun could fire thousands of rounds per second, at 1 km/s, giving even a 10 gram object 5 kJ of energy. Of course, there is nothing reliable yet.

I'm guessing that at this point you're looking at something akin to a Traveller sandcaster - you're not so much shooting the missile down as putting a cloud of debris in its way and watching it fly into it. Add the speed of the debris and the speed of the missile and you hope to have enough energy there to shred the warhead... how that relates to shooting anything is above my level of ballistics...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by CeeDub

Given what I've seen of automated sentry turrets, I would not even bother statting one. I'd rule that every shot is an automatic hit in most situations. I might not even allow or at least penalize Dodge, considering you're not really dodging bullets but the shooter's aim, and computers aim quickly.

It will come down to the limitations of the firing rig. For a stationary rig, it can only hit whatever happens to cross its line of fire, but provided it knows the range and velocity (easy to determine with a rangefinder), skill will be set based on the MOA of the weapon. For a rig that can move the weapon, skill will either be the same or a bit lower, depending on if the rig introduces error.

For erratic movement, the sentry gun will have some issues - while it can probably work out where you’ll be when the bullet arrives given your current velocity rather rapidly, that isn’t going to be where you actually are if you’re moving erratically. So long as your movement rate is high enough to allow you to move 0.5 yards in the time it takes the bullet to reach you (assume the program works out where to aim more or less instantly, and aiming occurs more or less instantly), I’d say Dodge is an option, and the sentry gun can’t leverage its impressive skill for Predictive Shooting.