ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-56vtZsQgAF0.html Best motivational video ever. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nT1sSy39CuU.html But with an very sad ending too. Well, the missile had to hit it's target. 😢
Well I think this one is up for the setting as the term is interchangeable depending on how you treat space. If it's aeronautics based it's missile. If it's like a sea going navy it's torpedo.
Even using naval nomenclature, I don't see the term "torpedo" realistically being used since IRL navies also use missiles barring some PR campaign branding a new missile design as a "torpedo" and the term catching on as the catch all term for missiles of the same type..
@@noppornwongrassamee8941 well in Star Trek they use Torpedo as it's based around a seagoing navy style of nomenclature. Missile is generally used for older pre warp munitions.
Or how both can exist like in Star Wars, and the difference can be made in the preferred targets they're used on. Missiles are for fighter sized craft or other fast-moving targets. Torpedoes are for starships or other slow, stationary, or hardened targets.
My father in law was a Gunners Missile Mate all through Vietnam and operated the Talos Missile batteries and used the first Naval Surface to Air missile to shoot down a Mig fighter from the USS Long Beach and another from the USS Chicago and one more from the USS Oklahoma City. He was highly decorated for these actions. He also took part in the Battle of Dong Hoi.
For 'oomie ships bobbing in the water you can differentiate by saying missiles move by ejecting reaction mass out of the back whilst torpedoes drive the surrounding medium past them, but then you get cruise missiles that also drive the surrounding medium past them although they do have to drive the medium through them whilst torpedoes keep the medium on the outside. In space there isn't a medium so it'd probably be down to whichever sounds coolest.
Torpedoes in SiFi could be de facto mines. That are placed in an orbit, passively waiting for a ship matching their targeting parameters to come by then going active and plotting it's own intercept course to hit the ship. Heck you could make it an icosahedron or other basic shape that is hard to actively detect.
add to that, your launch tubes could actually fire them on a trajectory to put them into position [using sensors to plot a firing solution], cold and dark with a timer. Timer clicks over or passive sensors detect target, torpedo lights up, manuvers for intercept... and then fires off its Casaba Howitzer 😈 Sorry, I just love the concept of a nuclear shaped charge warhead. Nuclear pumped X-ray or Gamma Ray laser would be good too
Torpedoes WERE mines until the 1870’s - the original description was “Automotive Torpedo”. CAPTOR mines are sea mines that launch a torpedo when triggered. The Mk60 launches a Mk46 torpedo when triggered.
When I was doing the universe notes for the space isekai story (which I want to write SOON so I can have you look at it and gripe about something), missiles and torpedoes have two different missions. Missiles are launched by fighters and warships as anti-fighter and counter-missile/torpedo weapons. Fighters carry them in bays or external mounts, warships use bays or turrets to fire their missiles. They almost always use explosive warheads (blast/frag), with a few expensive missiles being single-shot "strobe" jammers or decoy missiles. Torpedoes are launched by fighters on external mounts, warships from tubes, and they have a number of missions (along with longer ranges, with really high-end torpedoes having their own fusion reactor for REALLY long ranges). They can carry their own explosive/nuclear warhead, a bomb-pumped X-ray laser, multiple fighter missiles for extended-range anti-missile/fighter engagement, several ECM packages, or the ever popular anti-capsule generator(which can drop a ship out of capsule drive and let you kill it or beat it to have it dump it's cargo for you).
And of course since Star Trek wasn't touched upon, for good reason, since they use torpedos exclusively for long range non-energy weapons, of course in Enterprise the eponymous ship used a combination of missiles and torpedos with the distinction being missiles were nuclear in origin (fission/fusion) while the new-fangled photonic torpedo utilised a matter anti-matter warhead.
My sci-fi faction has both. There are missiles bigger than torpedoes and torpedoes bigger than missiles, but in all cases. Missiles are more agile and "smarter". Torpedoes are slow and turn poorly (if they turn at all)
Just to throw a spanner in the works, because why not. But from a purely SF/Fantasy point of view there is the aerial torpedo from Crimson Skies, a slow high explosive projectile used mainly against zeppelins. And the Smutts Patented Aerial Torpedo from Space 1889, a propellor driven projectile that stays aloft thanks to the use of Martian Liftwood. Is anyone still into Crimson Skies and Space 1889?
Great video! I'd also encourage every person in the untied states to take advantage of offers like the one blazing sword offers. Firearms aren't so much weapons as they are shields. Society would do a bit better if every criminal has to assume that every person isn't safe or easy to commit crimes against.
Gods I love this channel, every video either teaches me something or makes me smile if not both. Sometimes it even makes me think a little and piques my curiosity enough to go and check things... Though I will be honest I had some issues with the Q-ship and Millennium Falcon videos where they simply did not load for several days.
All rockets are missiles but not all missiles are rockets. A missile is a thrown object. Artillery shells are missiles. Guided missiles have the ability to change directions.
Or the torpedo launches the missiles as a screen to keep the point defense systems busy as it vectors to attack… there are so many ways a multi payload torpedo can be used. Thank you for the episode.
Rockets are unguided, missiles are guided, torpedoes can be but don’t need to be guided, but are used in water/ out of atmosphere. imo that would make missiles and torpedoes pretty interchangeable in some instances as LAATs had missiles but could easily be called torpedoes when used out of atmosphere.
Then, of course, you have the Honor Harrington missile swarms that include bomb-pumped X-ray laser warheads, decoys, penetration aids, and old fashioned nukes if you're desperate. The 'energy torpedoes' of the series are much shorter range, basically heavy weapons for close broadside engagements along with the ship's laser batteries. David Weber spends a LOT of time going over propulsion burn times, engagement envelopes, the whole nine yards in his books.
One of my favorite book series. As I just finished rereading Elizabeth Moon's Heris Serrano series, maybe I'll try to reread the entire Honorverse series before the next book comes out.
Unless I'm confused, the decoys are a type of penetration aid; what they're helping to penetrate is the target fleet's active missile defenses. It's also worth mentioning that a mass bombardment of 'normal' nukes has been used as a means of blinding targets.
@@boobah5643 Yes, decoys were used as penetration aids, such as the Dragons Teeth causing multiple false sensor readings. Decoys were also used defensively with them faking impeller wedge signatures to draw fire away from the real warships.
My thought on this is simple. Missiles are your intercept and surgical strike weapons. Torpedos are your I don’t like that large area of space weapons. Planet or fleet doesn’t matter just delete that thing. Speed really isn’t an issue it’s space everything is going fast.
"Fast" is relative to a stationary point of reference. I mean, technically, we are traveling at thousands of miles per hour right now, sitting on this rock. The orbit of Earth itself. Its movement around Sol. Sols movement in our galactic cluster. It's movement around the galactic core. The Milky Ways movement away from other galaxies. Yes, I'm a pedant.
Well, as mentioned, speed is very much a factor, because anything moving faster than a certain speed gets no benefits from adding a payload to it. But we'll get there.
for my setting missile/torpedo has a deployment distinction, missiles are an in bulk kind of wherever weapon. if you hit a planet with a torpedo your gonna give everyone in geneva a stroke. torpedoes are big enough to mount all the weird irregular warcrime stuff in, anti matter cores, fold drives, molecular dissociators, fusion warheads, basically it was used as a terminology difference so private schmuckatelle doesnt clear silo four thinking hes supporting the boys and accidentally a hemisphere. torpedoes are for ship engagements, missiles are for who ever needs a batch terminally delivered at the speed of mach f@#K.
Wow. My old boat (SSN-674) carried regular Mark 48s... not ADCAPs or higher. Makes me feel even older than when I got up this morning. Thanks, Shipmaster. Thanks a whole hell of a lot. lol
And to add to the confusion, we now have: - Drones that act like missiles (ex. Ukrainian FPV drones, Lancet) - Missiles that act like drones (ex. Switchblade) - Drones that act like torpedoes (those Ukrainian sea drones that keep shrinking russkie navy) I wouldn't be surprised to see a remote control kit strapped to an old torpedo at some point, too..
@@rianfelis3156 Even a prop-driven one, like Lancet or RAM-II or Switchblade? What about Tu-141, equipped with GPS guidance and having its cameras swapped for explosives?
@@rianfelis3156 ah, but could a drone just be a missile/torpedo with additional function as a reconnesance device? I do recall they could do that would wire guided torpedoes, using the swim out low speed function and have it act as a passive/active sonar drone, but that could have just been someone extrapolating functions that weren't actually there Maybe a drone would be the missile/torpedo with the sub munition launcher, and an additional warhead so that it could be expended AS a munition instead of RTB after the strike?
To add to the confusion: During WW1 there where pieces of artillery called mine thrower, that did not throw mines (in the sense of you step on it and it goes boom) but short range mortar shells with more explosives in them. And in WW2 we had the air mine, that was not a defense against airplanes, but sometimes was a seamine with a parachute that got dropped from a bomber, but not into sea but on land to blow up whole city blocks, therefore also called blockbusters.
germans fired "minengeschosse" from their 20 and 30 mm aircraft cannons against enemy planes. it was basically a HE shell with impact sensor, which exploded, when they hit something. thats a difference to APHE, which explodes after it hits something, with a timer, or a Sabot, which doesnt explode at all, or incindiary, which makes a trace of burn, where it hits... so a mine doesnt have to be stationary, it just needs to explode, as soon as it hits something (or even if something just comes close). ah, and a mine usually has shrapnell. but im not sure about the shrapnell part.
as far as i know the late 19th and very early 20th centuries basically just consisted of everyone making technological shitposts until they found things that worked
Torpedoes were named after the genus “Torpedo” of electric rays, that kill their prey with electric shocks. The name was coined in about 1805 by inventor Robert Fulton, inventor of the first steamboat but also inventor of a practical submarine, the “Nautilus”. His torpedo was a floating explosive towed behind his submarine. The submarine would go under the target vessel, surface on the other side, and continue moving away, eventually dragging the torpedo into the target where it exploded thanks to contact fuzes. Something similar was attempted in the Revolutionary War as well, but the name Torpedo was first used by Fulton. During the US Civil War, the term torpedo also referred to a variety of explosives that we today would call booby traps, IED’s, and land mines.
Dear dockmaster, I have a question: What is your thoughts on the weapon "The Needler" from the halo video game series? Personally, I find it odd how the needler uses a resource as ammunition that is only found on one celestial body in the milky way galaxy, a moon of all things. You can't find it anywhere else, it can be very hazardous, and I can for sure see an ancient sangheli taking one look at blamite and going: "Hmm, this could make for a great weapon." And trying to weaponize it with several failed attempts before finally getting to the needler and the many weapons that utilize blamite.
The Halo Needler is a lot of problems. However the term has been used in a variety of scifi settings, often a weapon firing a long thin hyper velocity dart rather than some shaped more like a bullet, or an ap sabot round without the sabot. It has also been used in the real world, including a Renaissance black powder weapon. Early single fire black powder projectiles were usually a bit large and mostly spherical lumps of lead. The needler or needle gun fired a longer thinner pointer projectile made of iron or steel instead of lead, devastating at short range but tended to tumble and be even more inaccurate at a distance. However rifle and the bullet shapes we use now exist in a large part due to the needle gun.
@@jlokison Good point. Most Needlers in SF usually use ammunition "blocks", a solid piece of some substance that is inert and loaded like a brick into the weapon, which as part of firing shaves off a sliver of the material, effectively forging its own rounds as it fires. Other Needlers do have magazines of darts - Notably depicted in the movie "The Final Program" by a mock-up where the ammunition and magazine was a barely disguised container of toothpicks. The gun did look pretty convincing, though.
1:50 For me, the distinction is fairly simple. Missiles are small and more agile, likely meant for taking out small craft or interception roles, while torpedoes are big and less agile, and are meant to take out capital ships. Depending on the ftl tech, they might have a limited form of ftl capability.
Another semi common difference is increased EW capability. Missiles are often 'dumber' than a torpedo, with less effective ECM and ECCM. Point defense almost always struggle more to find and kill torpedos.
@@kuhljager2429 In Terra Invicta, it's actually the opposite. Torpedoes generally have much bigger warheads, but they're slower, less maneuverable, have worse acceleration and less Delta-V (read: less fuel), and therefore more easily shot by point defense. Torpedo bays also usually have fewer torpedoes in a salvo than a missile bay does.
@@HelghastStalker This is why i said almost, i dont know every series out there :) But my point was more about EW, not manuverability. you are right that a slower torpedo is easier to intercept, but you cant shoot what you cant see clearly.
@@kuhljager2429 ECM in Terra Invicta is a 20/40/60% chance for the missile to detonate early for no damage, based on the version (Mark I/II/III) and that's it. If ECM doesn't work, your point defense weaponry had better be up to par, you'd better have some insanely good manuverability, or your armor had best be tough.
'Missiles that fire multiple smaller missiles off of them,' those usually get called Cluster Missiles in SciFi, in my experience. I've heard they show up quite a lot in the Macross franchise. There's a reason the the trope for firing whole clouds of small and nimble missiles at a target was named the "Macross Missile Massacre," and cluster missiles are a part of that.
So what about a WW2 torpedo bomber? Ordnance is air launched, runs in the water but it's called a bomber! Is it a missile, torpedo or bomb? Or is it just annoying?
Well, at least as regards the WW2 RAF Bristol Beaufort, those aircraft were most often used to attack shipping using air launched torpedoes but they were also sometimes used to drop bombs, including at times when torpedoes were in short supply.
I can't think of a torpedo bomber that wasn't capable of carrying standard bombs in lieu of torpedoes, when the target set called for it. In practice, that meant that most "torpedo bombers" spent most of their time as "bombers," and a minority of their time as "torpedo attack aircraft." In IJN service, types that in the West would have been called "torpedo bombers" were instead called "attack planes," reflecting their dual role. (Dive bombers were just called "dive bombers," since they had only one mode of attack regardless of target type.)
I mean, to be entirely fair, when you think of a "bomber", you think of a plane air-dropping ordnance. Normally, that's just dumb bombs, but if a B-52 drops a JDAM, does it cease being a bomber just because the ordnance can guide itself? My point is that "bomber" is a role that is only called that because that's the only convenient term for it. Sure, you have Close Air Support and Ground Attack roles that can also drop ordnance, but those tend to be closer to fighters than bombers, especially when those platforms are also equipped with guns that can be used for strafing.
Another thing is, in most sci-fi, torpedoes are almost always forward facing, their main vector of attack is straight. Missiles are just "enemy over there, go after it"
Maybe there could be a setting in which the difference is that a missile just launches at the target and can maybe evade countermeasures, while a torpedo can be sneakier, able to stay operational for longer and waiting in standby for a few hours or days until an opportune moment.
@@Galactipodyeagh ... in some of my Space Fictions for GURPS games, Torpedos were Slower, drastically longer ranged and stealthier....(some were fired from Lt hours Distance.....) torps were also MUCH bulkier ...(for example, my "hero ship" was a 3-5 person Long Range Heavy Fighter.... 4 rotary Cannon Mounts (point defense and anti fighter, 6 round Mass Driver, and 4 torps or 4 Missle Pods (8 missiles each)
@@Galactipod the Fighter Designation was largely due to a Cultural Thing from her Star Nation. ... (it originally was a F/B.... designed to make Week+ long crawls into enemy systems ... the Railgun was it's main weapon.... 2 Turrets and 2 hard points were Aftermarket as well as the change to rotary Cannon dual barrel heavy mgs....)
I had the pleasure and honor to watch Down Periscope with my FiL, MiL and Uncle in law, all of us Squids had someone we'd served with from the crew of that flick. Just a hilarious movie! salute* To all who have served... USS Kinkaid DD-965 (85-89) sonar tech
Hey, check From the Depth too. Its about naval combat mostly, but you can do space crafts, aviation and land units too. Full customization, custom built weapons, including missiles and torpedoes. And yes, you can do missile that shoots missiles. Or drops torpedoes. Or drops depth charges. Or a depth charge that shoots a torpedoe. Well, you get the idea. Add block by block built crafts, very realistic physics and damage model and you get an extremely fun game. If you can survive the learning curve lol.
I've always interpreted the difference between rockets, missiles and torpedoes in sci-fi as being: rockets=unguided general purpose projectile. Missiles=guided general purpose projectile. Torpedoes=dedicated anti-shipping/hardened target projectile, guidance optional.
The one that send smoke out my ears is "Kamekaze drone". "So it has an engine?" "Yes." "...and a guidance system?" "Yes." "And a warhead." "Yes." "So a Cruise missile." "..."
Ahh.. but the drone is not cuising. It's kinda just hanging around like a bad date, before suddenly blowing up in your face. A cruise missile otoh, is like a nice car full of frat bro's on their way to crash a party. They ain't hanging around anywhere until they blow the party up.
I love that a film I can watch on a neverending loop is what is referenced to as a 'documentary' of submarine life. It gets so little credit these days for what was, honestly, a solid film.
I just want to say briefly how wonderful it is when you find out a channel you adore is actually run by good people. I'm very glad to see you supporting both LGBTQ+ friendly organizations, AND the idea these folks should consider arming up. Our universe is dangerous, and people should know they have the right to defend themselves against people who would see them hurt for no other reason than some kind of weird issue they have with someone else's *mating habits* so yes, I am a fan and will be for life.
Missiles make small flying thing go boom. Torpedoes make ship go boom. Rockets make ground vehicle go boom. And thanks to today's sponsor I learned that bullet make head go boom, so don't point the hollow end at someone you want alive.
In my own work I've made the designation around the acceleration they can endure. I've also been quite deliberate in making it about the turning acceleration of the projectile. Everything has some measure of guidance, self seeking, target identification and counter-counter measure systems. Missiles? Designed for their acceleration. High speed, high turns and running at you at high speed. Torpedo? The opposite. Designed for the warhead first and foremost. Cue that brass band comic music, something something March of something? It's slow, but it's not stupid and when it finally catches up with you? Not a fun time. Seems to work, seems to be universal and allows for big missiles and small torpedoes. Well, works for me.
@@r.connor9280 Rockets are unguided unless they're also missiles. Missiles are just guided rockets. And intercepting enemy projectiles requires insanely good guidance and maneuvering.
I've always thought the same. Notable that in space, torpedoes could get around low acceleration by having a very high amount of dV. Not for tactical applications, but on a strategic battlefield? Send those torpedoes on a 6-month journey halfway across the solar system.
@@r.connor9280 I'm using the missile as being guided and target seeking by definition. Rockets are not capable of both in my mind. Rocket is point and go. That and I've written this to have a lot of implied technology running the in background. Active and passive Electronic Warfare to Information Warfare. Counter battery fire isn't just suppressing the enemy guns, it's shooting down the rounds in air and on the way. It's a whole heap of sensor fused rounds and that's near all calibres, types of weapons. And doing it with the other guy, hostile force seeing as little of your EM emissions as possible.
one of my favorites was always the "Casaba Howitzer" warhead on a missile/torpedo. Gets to the edge of the effective point defense range and then detonates... using a nuclear shaped charge warhead to fire a near light speed lance of plasma at the target. I always though of torpedoes using the old fire it in a direction quiet, either using passive or active sensors to set up a firing solution that would put it close to the target, and then have it go active during the terminal phase. Then I found out thats how our modern aircraft operate with Fox 3s [Active radar guided missiles] and them going active is called "going pitbull", similar to a naval torpedo going active homing and cutting the wire so its no longer guided by the firing vessel. So much for that delineation.
Yeah it'd make a lot of sense to dump a load of torpedos and then later activate them to start looking for targets when the enemy is in a bad spot or looking in the wrong direction themselves or even give them an initial target and then let them figure it out.
So...may I ask which group is effectively trying to harm any of those people in the western world? In the far right FPÖ - a party in my home country - two prominent politicans are gay themselves which is fairly ironic since the first members of the FPÖ were former members of the NSDAP. The only time sexuality has to become an issue in parliament is when they are discussing the frightingly high r*** numbers subsequent to the arrival of North African migrants.
Dear Mister? Miss? I can't say "non-binary" because I have to assume your processors are binary (unless they're ternary, because who knows what The Maker would do with you) Dockmaster: Thank you for promoting Blazing Sword, and by extension supporting LGBTQ rights. You're my kind of sentient bucket of chemicals. I personally have helped train at least one LGBTQ person to shoot responsibly and safely, and would happily do so again. She took to shooting clay pigeons like a first year seaman takes to free booze.
Good vid, good sponsor (everyone who is interested in firearms does need a level of training). One point, Electric command detonated naval mines were used in 'Late Unpleasantness', having first been proposed by Robert Fulton in the early 19th C.
Yes, during the Civil War, naval torpedoes were mostly floating contact mines or electrically detonated by an observer on shore. Spare torpedoes and the torpedo boats that used them were less common. The electrically detonated torpedoes were pretty ineffectual due to the Confederacy’s difficulties in sourcing materials for wire, insulation and batteries, and the vulnerability of the operator to enemy patrols.
I myself classify them in space by role. if its a defensive interceptor, or used against (military) transports, strike craft, gunships, frigates, etc; its a missile. space torpedos by my reckoning are simply bigger fatter missiles meant to kill capital ships and other very large things in need of killing/reassigning to salvage yard occupant. torpedos would be where you find fun toys like nukes and antimatter charges
@@merafirewing6591 always a wildcard or category bridger. I find it best to treat classifications as guidelines not hard rules. saves me my sanity when yet another thing that bridges two or more classifications appears
@@marsar1775 there is potential for something called an Inter Planetary Ballistic Missile would make the ICBM look like a quaint toy by comparison, which would be possible.
@@merafirewing6591 of these i am aware. once you breach earth orbit theres no real limit on range but the capacity for changing your velocity to stay on course. Interstellar RKVs to obliterate all life on a planet are a good example
I like the way battlestar galactica does missiles/ torpedoes. Missiles are guided but slower, torpedoes are unguided, and they tend to fly faster. Though you could probably just call BSG's torpedoes rockets and nothing would change.
Realistically, if someone wants to distinguish between a torpedo & a missile in space, then probably the missile should be optimized for speed over effective range, and torpedoes optimized for effective range over speed. Or, to put it in terms, optimize missiles for instantaneous acceleration, optimize torpedoes for Isp (total acceleration). And if you want mines, then either stick your torpedoes on "guard", or stick something on a satellite and set to "guard".
Ah yes, a reference to the concept of the RKKV. You know, the thing that makes all of Star Wars' weaponry completely and utterly obsolete for wartime usage.
Then there is the Marconi Spearfish....which likes going ... snappish... 80+ knots...and with a lighter payload and thus comes closer to blurring the definition split you set up...but it's perfect for getting the lead-bismuth mix out of any titanium shell that is being annoying.
I like how Nebulous: Fleet Command does it, where Torpedoes are just the Size 3 missiles, as in they are simply the missiles you put in a size 3 VLS. They have shorter range than Size 2 missiles due to carrying a very chonky payload and are thus heavily armored to survive being launched from inside the target's PD envelope. But the difference is in how you use them, there's nothing fundamentally different in the design. Edit: and there's also hybrid missiles which are exactly "a torpedo that launches a missile". It's great.
@@blackc1479 We have both cats and chihuahuas - after some early confusion the cats bring the chihuahuas mice to chase and the chihuahuas sleep with the cats… The cats are bigger than the chihuahuas…
@allangibson8494 lol I've lived w chihuahuas, and currently have cats. Seems like putting the gatekeeper and key master together to have em both in the same house😁
In Star Citizen, Missiles are for taking out smaller craft and Torpedos are for larger craft. They are called different things based on their size but are effectively the same thing. Size 1-4 are missiles and size 5-10 are torpedos. They only have 4 sizes in the game at the moment tho, those being size 1-3 missiles and size 9 torpedos. Maybe I'll start calling them SPOs for Self-Propelled Ordinance. Interestingly, only the Rattler SPO (size 2) is a MIRV. SPOs can be dumb-fired in a straight line if you want, but different SPOs have different tracking systems: either heat signature (IR), cross-section signature (CS), or Electromagnetic signature (EM.) However, there are only 2 types of countermeasures, those being decoys (flares) for IR and noise (chaff? a cloud of little metal shavings) for EM. Just thought that might interest you. If you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my ship before it gets compressed into a cube. 😛
Stupid question - because I'm a dumb human not a superior AI overlord so everything I ask is by definition stupid - what do you think of the Schlock mercenaries webcomic and their very dangerous array? I'm asking because your description of some of the torpedo the Americans use is ... reminiscent of that; though I'm certain it's most likely the other way around.
Your species has been experimenting with the whole "use a distributed network of not-super-powerful sensors to build an objective-lens equivalent of much greater size" for a while now. Seems to work well, though weaponizing it makes it far more entertaining.
In my book, its fairly simple. Torpedoes target capital ships, and are warp capable (thats not terrifying....) Missibles are only used on fighters, where they may operate in atmo, on Earth, where the remnants may fall into the various militaries hands. All they would get is a converntional missile. The fighter itself, if it was to go down....will overload its main drive, and make big boom, with bigger crater. Also, we have submarines. They are big. But the same general shape as modern subs. They do not use screws, instead, warp engines in a caterpillar drive kind of way, while under water. They can breach, and use AG thrusters to break atmo, and then go inter stellar at warp (but not as fast). Theyre surveillance ships, either on Earth, or internebular, were I think sub tactics would once again apply. I went nuts with designing these ships...each one, from fighter up to the big Valkyrie class ships have CAD files, in 3D, deck by deck, quarters by quarter, with crew manifests, crew quarters. Thats when you realize, that you have both a lot of space, but also not enough. Crew sizes balloons FAST on big long mission vessels (where you gotta have the entertainment too, and shops, and bowling alleys and....yeah. Quality of life amiright?). I probably spent too much time designing ships than I should have writing a compelling story lol
1. Grot/Squig launchers are more fun. 2.The butt is an obsolete English measure of liquid volume equaling two hogsheads, being between 450 and 1,060 litres (99 and 233 imp gal; 120 and 280 US gal) by various definitions. A butt approximately equated to 108 imperial gallons (130 US gallons; 491 litres) for ale or 126 imperial gallons (151 US gallons; 573 litres) for wine (also known as a pipe), although the Oxford English Dictionary notes that "these standards were not always precisely adhered to". The butt is one in a series of English wine cask units, being half of a tun.
I thought about something like ASROC but armed with Mk48, It will be sight to behold. And a supersonic torpedo bomber armed with Mk48 or even VA-111 (the rumored 200kt russian torpedo) in Command: Mordern Operations is super fun.
Unbelievable, unexpected, and a certain pilot...Jenkins...had the gull to tell me, impossible...but I did manage to land, park, and not get a ship crushed on my first try* Jenkins has somehow made "reading clearly posted signs" into "its an impossible maze designed to kill you" Jenkins has "lost" 2 transport pods, 3 star fighters, and somehow...a single medical transport. I am told that I should be happy he is alive and wasn't crushed in any number of ships he couldn't park... But am I? Am I happy Jenkins is still around to continue to destroy everything that he manages to inexplicably pilot....I don't know...I don't personally believe in luck...but somehow I have Jenkins. Now what's this about torpedoes?
Calling every weapon in the Space Marine roster a rocket launcher, because if you call it a MISSile, then the dice will hear you and roll only 2s. Anyway. Where were we? It's partly colloquial in my neck of the volume, but; Kirks (cans) are shaped charge kitty litter chucked in front of a pursuer. Bees are tiny and fired in swarms. Missiles are largely robust sprint weapons. Torpedoes are largely robust endurance weapons. Busses are mostly torpedoes that can fire submunitions. What you loadout depends on where on the lancer charge, knife fight, Newtonian siege alignment chart you sit today. Torches are largely chase you down for weeks at 10g+. Sounds terrifying. Turns out to just be an exorbitantly expensive way of convincing someone to go FTL.
The the context of MY HEADCANNON for Star Trek missiles are completely self propelled. These run the gambit from the warp missiles used during the Earth/Romulan war to the Cardassian Dreadnought missile from the VOY episode. Torpedoes are dependent on the mothership for the majority of it's momentum, IE modern photon torpedoes.
I always define the difference as that torpedoes when into a different medium than the void of space. As missiles work in the void. So a self propelled and guided projectile that when into a different dimension and attacked from there would be a torpedo.
10:35 Interesting side fact: Confederate “Torpedos” were made out of wooden barrels and often had a high failure rate due to water seeping into them. There was one account during the Battle of Mobile Bay (pronounced (Mow-beel) of sailors hearing their Monitor-Class Ironclads bumping into them and them not detonating. However, one Ironclad, the USS _Tecumseh,_ was sunk due to it hitting an active Confederate Torpedo.
Oh, I must mention the Casaba-Howitzer warheads for missiles. You don't even need a direct hit or close range explosion to score a kill then. Also, rail accelerated missiles/torpedoes that spend a few days flying "dark" before engaging engines for the final approach.
For me, at least : Missile - small and agile rocket meant to hunt fighters and destroy ships guns/inflastructure, but incapable of piercing most hulls. Torpedo - Big "F you in particular" rocket, meant for destroing guts of enemy ships, but incapable of hunting fighter-type units.
my head-cannon says a torpedo uses the same propulsion system as the launcher, and a missile uses "something else" usually with less moving parts. so, in star trek the torpedoes would use a simplified version of the impulse drive to get to the target..or even warp drive (would they call it a "warpedo?" that just sounds wrong...) but using a chemical rocket would have it be called a "missile". there was one of the older sci-fi books where the hero and his friend were left in the wreckage of a warship in the middle of nowhere. by donning spacesuits, strapping a few torpedoes together, disabling the warheads, and using one drive at a time they got to their destination. I remember a sextant being very important to the story. it might have been one of Heinlein's juvenile books from the 1950's. anyway, a "missile" wouldn't have done the job, because it would have been shorter range. of course it doesn't work for everything...but aircraft-deployed torpedoes aren't that common any more... and it doesn't work for those russian supercavitating rocket-torpedoes...
They're missiles. Unless you're going to go back into an atmosphere, and go back into some sort of a liquid medium, and no, liquid is not the same as fluid, and propel your projectile that is not buoyant-hulled with a propeller or affix it onto the end of a spar in front of a bouyant vehicle, they're not torpedoes. And no, drone boats are not torpedoes. They have a bouyant hull. "Well you can make what is originally a non-bouyant WWII torpedo bouyant and it's not a drone boat" Except that it started off as a non-bouyant vehicle.
in the X universe of video games Missiles are generally your Anti FIghter/Anti Missile or Torpedo weapons which are small fast and low yield and Torpedos are your Big anti capital weapons either mounted on other capital ships or on specialized "Bomber" spacecraft and they are bigger, slower, and have a very large yield. i know thats not the way it works in most IPs but thats how it works in my head canon.
The distinction between a torpedo and a missile in space to me would clearly be of the practical kind. The commander could make a different choice based on what he hears "Sir, we have missiles coming our way" "Our shields can take them, push on" versus "Sir, we have torpedoes coming our way" "Take evasive maneuvers, and also bring me my brown pants"
Bit nickmicking: 1st Space scifi and down to earth dont compute well because the laws of the different setings are not equal so the sane word can mean very diferent things as far as i see it: Rockets: Ungided or only minimaly guided forms of a Missle. Missle: Guided projectile with advanced tracking feature with a bit viarity here depending on its intended target but usally maneverbility and tracking over pure payload. Torpedo: High payload Ship Killer: Payload over/tracking and speed Depending on seting might have shields/ecm/stealth to get past point defence or the ability to pass shields to set them apart from mere Rockets or Missles. Your right to say in Space a Torpedo has the characterisic of a missle thats why if the term is still in use in a seting there must be another reason to differ from it. A bit like the problem of modern Destroyers taking the spot of Cruisers and better armed corvettes.
Magic Missile is named such because you where declaring to Missile some Magic at somebody, Fire Electricity Acid what ever. Rock throwers and Cannon-balls would declare Missile.
Funniest torpedo vs missile thing I've seen was a big slow guided "missile" that approached the target, lined up a shot, and then fired 40 smaller unguided torpedos that were about 25% engine and 75% boom.
you really wanna mess with your readers? have all 3. dumb fire high speed rockets, tracking grade missiles, and smart tracking torpedoes. dump fast, mid range, and smartest, but slower. each has its value. then you just upgrade the rockets into torpedoes, and mess it all up :P
In games that have story about fighting in space the difference between missiles and torpedoes are mainly payload. Fast and agile with small payload is a missile. If it is big and does big damage, and moves kinda slow, then it is a torpedo. That is about it. If you want then you can call Torpedoes by the name of Suicide drones, cos basically they can be classified as such this days. Big payload, guidance system for one way trip to target... Autonomous suicide drone.
