SAM design

[Rarkasha]

That's right folks, imagine a 17 foot long missile flying right next to your cockpit. I think a bowel movement would be in order.

The missile is called the El Campeador (The Champion), and it's also the name of the whole system. I got the name from El Cid Campeador, an Spanish General loved by both the Christians and the Moors. Legend has it that after El Cid died he was strapped onto his horse and ridden into battle. The enemy was so afraid of the invincible rider that they all went back to their boats and El Cid won the battle dead on a horse. Additionally Henry Edwards Watts wrote that el campeador "[m]eans in Spanish something more special than "champion" ... A campeador was a man who had fought and beaten the select fighting-man of the opposite side in the presence of the two armies." A good name for a SAM.

The system is heavily based upon the PATRIOT Missile System and other comparable long range guided SAMs. It uses a phase array radar (there is a phase array page on wikipedia, but basically it uses multiple antennas to create a focused "beam" of sorts), a control station, and a missile launcher. None of these components can work individually, but they are usually seperate from each other. Although the PATRIOT uses a mobile system, I believe we should also use it as part of a defensive structure, making it less suspectable to ground craft.

El Campeador is a highly effective long range SAM that is so accurate, it is capable of targeting ballistic missiles. Although I haven't heard of any micronation using ballistic missiles, it might come handy in the future. It's effective against more or less all types of aircraft, and comes with, IFF (indentification, friend or foe) and ECCM (Electronic-counter-counter-measure). The approximate range of El Campeador is 200km, or about 120 miles. It is, as said before, computer controlled, allowing for inhuman manuverability. It travels in speeds excess of Mach 5, reaching Mach 7. Projected effectiveness is a 70-90% kill rate. Because of it's range, power, and cost, it is mainly to be used against appropriate targets, not your eveyday fighter jets, except in occasions where no other viable situation presents itself.

The primary differences between it and the Patriot system are a longer range and cheaper components, resulting in a less accurate, but longer ranged version. If ballistic missiles do present themselves, a more expensive version will be made. There is also a stationary version to be deployed in major air denfense zones, consisting of a hardpoint bunker that houses a rotating turrent with two boxes, with two El Campeador missiles to each box. The lower section of the hardpoint contains ammunition (which is automatically loaded by machines, and contains up to 28 missiles total) and maintenence routes. Otherwise, the two are very similar, I will admit. However, I did not want to be creative just for the sake of being creative. Many nations adapt on others ideas, even down to pratically cloning the design if it's good enough.

While rediculously powerful and accurate, it is also expensive and vulnerable. Without additional support against attack jets, light bomber planes, ground forces, and naval forces, it quickly becomes a non-entity.

[Fax Celestis]

Sweet.

[Kaiser Alejian II]

Make it so!

[Braden Indianensis]

YES! Power to the people!

[Jupiter]

Absolutely. I want a battery in every major Fort and Naval Base. Air Bases too, if you can afford it - but they're last priority (as I've found that Aircraft are in fact a decent air deterrent on thier own).