High Tech: Raytheon Pike Laser Guided 40mm Munition

Yeah, that's the one.

In my post covering 30mm Gyrocs you might of noticed a pic I placed in there showing a really small missile with the words, “Welp, looks like TL9 is getting closer and closer.” written below it. Well there is a really good reason I stated that, I just didn't really explain why. You see that wasn't just a mock up of some “in the pipe works” concept but rather an example of Raytheon's newest toy, the Pike.

What makes the Pike special and a example of emergent TL9 tech is that its a laser guided mini-missile that's dimensions are only 40×430mm and weighs less then two pounds! Even better, it's designed to be fired out of conventional 40mm grenade launchers that are capable of firing what High-Tech calls long rounds (High-Tech pg 143) such as the H&K M320.

While not yet self guided and a bit bigger, the future depicted in the Transhuman Space where military rifles comes equipped with self guided 30mm mini-missiles is now looking very likely!

Now the actual weapon is still in development and has yet to be officially adopted, it is already close enough that it is being tested in field (by the Canadians it seems though I the sources on this is kinda sketchy. But this would be fitting since Transhuman Space's creator is Canadian heh) so there is a chance that well connected PC's in a modern game could find a way to snag a couple. I'm sure a group of monster hunters will put them to good use. Note that the current test model will only work in slightly modified grenade launcher thought the final model should be able to be fired from any launcher that can fire long rounds.

Now since the Pike is still in development and a rather new weapons system, there isn't exactly a lot of hard data out there so some of the stats I've come up with are borderline ass pull, especially the cost and accuracy and missiles speed. The other stats are reasonably sound.

Raytheon Pike 40mm Precision Guided Munition, 40mm (USA, 2020-)

The Pike is a 40mm precision-guided mini-missile developed by Raytheon that can be fired from conventional breach loaded 40mm grenade launchers such as the Heckler & Koch M320 or a FN mk 13 mod 0.

Unlike the 40mm grenades normally fired by these platforms, the Pike uses a digital, semi-active laser seeker to guide itself to the target and is powered by a rocket that gives a maximum range of 2,200 yards or 1.2 miles. The Pike can be guided using a laser designator that is attached to the firing rifle or by another team member and is capable of picking up a target that have been lazed after the round has been fired blind.

When fired, the Pike is “kicked” out the barrel but a soft launch system similar to regular 40mm grenades to a distance of about 3 yards. After that the main motor kicks in propelling it to a max range of about 2,200 yards in about 15 seconds.

The munition is meant to be used against fixed and slow-moving mid-ranged targets and uses a 10 oz HE-AB warhead (High-Tech pg. 174).



It is also meant to have greater accuracy and longer range then typical “RPG” systems and standard 40mm grenades while being lighter and far cheaper then current man portable guided weapon system.



The Pike is loaded just like a normal 40mm grenade, you slide the breach open and slide in the munition then close and lock the breach. This takes 3 ready actions. Then either firer, if the have a laser desingtor attached to their rifle, or another solider lazes the target using another ready action which gives +3 to Acc. The firer then takes an Aim Maneuver to line up the munition and gain the benefits of the +3 Acc and finally makes another ready action to make an unmodified Artillery (Guided Missile) roll to fire. Though as stated before, it can be blind fired (use Guns (LAW) in this case) and then have a target lazed with in a 60 degree cone in front of the munition while it is in flight. It will still receive the +3 Acc for being guided but does not gain the benefits of its own Acc of 3.

While so far only a HE-AB warhead is planned (shown in table), a potential HEDP warhead would do 7d×2(10) cr ex with 7d+1 cr ex [2d] linked. A hypothetical Thermobaric warhead would do 13d+1 cr ex (divide damage [2×distance in yards from the center of the blast]).

While this will not normally mater, it has backblast 1d+1.

ARTILLERY (GUIDED MISSILE) (IQ-5)

TL Weapon                           Damage            Acc     Range        Weight   RoF    Shots   ST   Cost   LC Notes

8    Raytheon PIKE, 40mm   11d cr ex [2d]    3        150/2,200    1.7        1          1(3)     6†    $700    1     [1, 2, 3]

[1] The munition has a minimum range of 30 yards.

[2] Has hazardous backblast, (see description). 

[3] Homing Attack (see BS pg. 413). Gunner uses Artillery (Guided Missile) to aim.

Fictional Firepower: Hughes MIB-3 Hammerhead

Hughes MIB-3 Hammerhead 190×150mm Short Range, All Mode Anti-Mecha/Surface/Ship Missile (UEG 2015-)
Used by all branches of the United Government Armed Forces including the United Earth Robotechnology Defense Force (RDF), The Armies of the Southern Cross (ASC), as well as the United Earth Robotechnology Expeditionary Force (REF); the Hammerhead has been the primer dog fighting missile since post 2015. With one of the most impressive kill counts of any missile in history, it is carried on almost all destroids, aircraft and and other vehicles currently in service including (but not limited to) the VF-6 Alpha (which it was originally developed for), VF-12 Beta, VF-4 Lightning III, MBR-10 Mk II Excalibur, and the F-206 Falcon II.

The Hammerhead is effectively a Terran upgraded copy of the feared Zentraedi Glatrlan Diwhaug, better known under its Terran codename MPA-6A Maggot Universal Dogfight Missile, and has a similar cylindrical main body with raised seeker section. Where it differs is its wider but squatter body to allow to a larger and more powerful warhead to be carried. Despite this, the Hammerhead is still small enough to be carried in large numbers like it's zentraedi fore bearer and even boasts almost twice the range.

Its primary role was also originally the same as the Maggots, to allow the carry of enough missile to let the firing platform to fire off a salvo of three to five rounds in the hope of over whelming the enemies point defense so a few missile get through. However the envisioned threat of troilian advanced forces never fully manifesting and the REF instead found its self at war with the mad tyrant Regent invid forces where the Hammerhead found its self as an even more well suited for this new target environment. Almost all invid mecha lacked any real form of point defense and could in most cases  be one shotted by the missile. In fact the only real down side was that even though most platforms could carry upwards of 30 or more of this missile, the shear numbers the invid could throw into even a low level battle meant that even this number of missile was barely ever enough.

Two types of warheads were available, a armor-piercing, hardcore explosive (see APHEX, Ultra-Tech pg. 152) warhead that is the most common used for air-to-air engagements while a high-energy plasma warhead (see Plasma, Ultra-Tech pg. 158) is against bunkers and other ground targets. Both versions warheads were 13lbs.

The original Hammerhead models where introduced in late 2015 and  used Combined IIR and active radar/home-on-jam seekers (treat as TL9 multi-Spectral Homing, Ultra-Tech pg. 146)  with the Hammerhead A carrying the APHEX warhead and the Hammerhead B carrying the plasma warhead. Both the A and the B where largely  phased out by the REF in 2026 but stayed in service by the ASC until its collapse at the hands of the invid. However a large stockpile remained even after the fall of the United Earth Government which added both local anti-invid resistance fighters as well as reclamation forces sent by the REF.

Starting in the 2025 the REF, with help the now liberated robotech master homeworld of Troil, developed a version of the Hammerhead with a slightly more advanced radar and hyperspectral seeker that was better suited to tracking invid mecha (treat as TL10 multi-Spectral Homing). The warhead options however remained the same as they both served in the anti-invid roles exceptionally well with the APHEX warhead now being called Hammerhead C and the plasma armed one being called Hammerhead D.

All versions were capable of off angle lock-ons.


Backblast: 6d+2 burn.

ARTILLERY (GUIDED MISSILE) (IQ-5) 
TL Weapon                                                         Damage          Acc   Range        Weight RoF Shots   ST   Cost        LC Notes
10   Hughes MIB-3 Hammerhead A, 190mm    7d×13(2) pi++  4      1,125/9,000  64        1      1(20) 17M  $130,000 1     [1]
       follow-up                                                     5d×5 cr ex [9d+2]

[1]The Hammerhead B model replaces the APHEX warhead with a plasma one that does 6d×26 burn ex sur. The B model is otherwise identical to the A model. 



While I figure a good chunk of you already know what this lil' missile I just stated up is all aboot, just in case you're scratching you head; I am yet again diving into the world of The New Generation saga from Robotech. Given that my last two posts covering the topic are among my most visited along with getting requests to cover more tech from the setting I decided now was a good time to get back at it (of course rediscovering an old file tucked away on my computer holding nothing but Robotech stuff might of had a thing or two with this as well heh).

Of course this is just a quick tease while I got limited net. In the mean time I'm gonna be tackling a few more robo-toys for you guys to play with (along with a couple of non-Robotech goodies that are pretty close to being done as well) so hang tight for now, there's more to come!

More GURPS Blogs that I like Part IV: The Revengeance Part II!

Holy crap, has it really been a year and a half since I posted about other GURPS blogs that I like?

Welp, time to bring an end to that nonsense! Especially now that the Brotherhood of GURPS Bloggers (who may or may not blog to much...) is over a hundred strong on the GURPSday list that the good ol' doctor of GURPS ballistics has to put together for us (really guys, Doug and Christoper deserve a big hand for how much they have helped the GURPS blog community grow).

First up is n-Body Politics by GURPS forumnite Kreios. Fundamentally this blog is an exercise in world bulding. Which I must say is a niche that needs more filling in the blogOshpere. Basically Kreios is  working on a fairly hard sci-fi setting he is currently calling n-Body Politics and each blog post covers what kinds of tech he wants for the setting, how to handle that tech and how what parts of GURPS he needs to use to get it to work. So far he's found Transhuman Space to be a good source of inspiration for his setting and is currently experimenting with both how 3rd and 4th edition handled specific situations and types of gear.

I got to say that blogs like this are excellent resources for new comers who want to run a game in GURPS or, hell, RPG's in general. Since one of the largest hurdles for new comers is how to even to start to come up with something to start with, this kind of blog (along with Mailanka's excellent Psi-Wars series of posts) help to give a good frame of reference to start off from.

Given how each blog post builds off of each other as he describes his setting, this is one of the few blogs I'd recommend starting from at lest his second post and reading them all in order (especially as his post count right now tops off at only 27 as of this post being write).

But just in case you don't have the time, here's a couple of good examples of what this blog is about.

This is the second post on the blog and the first one the really covers what the blog is about and goes to show you how much detail he's putting into this setting. 

This one covers a very important aspect of war that often ignored, the dreaded L word, Logistics.

And for some tech fun, some write ups covering some future AFV and fighters.

Next up is a blog I found out about only a few days before I started writing this blog quite on accident. It's called Biroids and Bombots  and run by a gentleman called Phil who I inso far as I know is not a member of the forums or GURPS discord. This blog is excursively about Transhuman Space and a rather meaty resivor of posts covering new weapons, new cybershells, new ways to use existing setting tech and musing on how to adapt more modern military tech and trends that came out after Transhuman Space first came out to the setting. While sadly a good chunk of his posts only describe the tech he covers rather then provides stats, the posts that do are nice and crunchy. Just the way I like it.

His post on 20mm Micromissiles and Rounds (which includes friggin' 20mm shotgun rounds!) is the first one I came across. A very good first impression.

His latest post on the effects of smoke on the battlefield is a pretty over all useful one.

This post covers the rules side of using weapons in Transhuman Space but if another overall generally useful post.

While lacking stats, this write of a spider like scybershell is both awesome and terrifying, especially since I hate Eight Legged Freaks! 

Last up is the quirky but fun blog 3d6 and Go! by GURPS Discord regular Natherz. While neither crunchy and not really sci-fi or tech originated he does cover a lot neat GURPS conversions of  anime characters well as going pretty much all out in doing a GURPS conversion of the adorably awesome micro-anime Aggretsuko as well as posting all sorts of useful tables and item cards for the low, low, price of free.

Here's his GURPS Aggretsuko adaption. It has a special stress mechanic that needs some place testing so if you give a try please drop him your thoughts on it either in a reply to the post or on the discord server.

As a major Cowboy Bebop fan (if you haven't seen it and are a fan of Firefly, then you're pretty much already a fan of Cowboy Bebop, you just don't know it yet) I also support his write of the series lead, Spike Spiegel. More Bebop please.

Also just for the LAWLZ, his write up of the inferior Pokemon lead, Ash Ketchum (and Pikachu).

Also, Also the One Punch Man himself.... though his Trademark (Always kills with one Punch) seems like a bit of  a cop out heh.

Ultra-Tech Ultra-Gear: 30mm Gyroc

Who doesn't like the idea of arming themselves with hand held rocket launchers?


While Ultra-Tech gave some us some 15mm gyrocs to play with, I think it doesn't hurt to up the firepower quota a little higher.

In todays post I not only give a 4th edition take on 30mm gyrocs, but stat every type of warhead a 30mm warhead can take as well as give you guys some more upgrade options for both 15 and 30mm gyrocs.



Follow me after the jump if you are read to Gy-Roc!

Ultra-Tech Ultra-Quickie: Electrolaser Design

While I wasn't originally planning on posting this week, inspiration hit me last minute!

I was  flipping through Ultra-Tech (as I'm want to do) when I came across the section on Electrolasers and realized I never paid these weapons too much mind before. I gave that section a quick read and decided to see if I could take it apart and build a logical system out of it.

Despite the massive amount of typos and oddities there were on weapon stat tables, I was able to quickly take it apart and thought what the heck, might as well make quick post out of it!

Hop on over the jump break and see how to add Electrolasers to the list of weapons you can build with the Blaster and Laser Design System.

Musings on Things that Affect Beam Weapons Accuracy

Ever felt that it was odd that making a Fine (Accurate) Laser rifle only gives it a +1 bonus to Acc when it s has a base Acc 12 compared to conventional rifles Acc of 5? Or have you wondered what happens when you add a stock to beam pistol or remove the stock of a beam rifle or securely mount one?

Or how about if you wanted a laser carbine rather then a rifle, shouldn't it have a lower Acc then a full rifle?

Well, in today's post I go over how I feel these questions should be handled. Just keep in mind that nothing here is official so if you want to stay 100% RAW for you game then it's best to skip these optional rules.



Fine and Very Fine (Accurate)
Given the greater range of accuracy beam weapons have compared to conventional fire arms it doesn't make sense that a Fine or Very Fine beam weapons should only get a partly +1 or +2 to their Acc.

By taking a look at the range of Acc score conventional projectile weapons get and by what amount a +1 or +2 bonus effects them I was able to deduce what the same rate would be for the different beam weapons.

Acc Bonus
+3 for Fine, +6 for Very Fine         All beam weapons but these shown below.
+2.5 for Fine, +5 for Very Fine     Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
+2 for Fine, +4 for Very Fine        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
+1.5 for Fine, +3 for Very Fine     Flamer, Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, and Screemers.
+1 for Fine, +2 for Very Fine         Plasma Lance.

When adding these modifiers to your weapons stats, round up the +2.5 for Fine (Accurate) to +3 for Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar but round down +1.5 Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, and Screemers to +1. You might be wondering why I bothered writing down the like that and that's because I wanted to show you how the math works out.

Stock, Stockless and Mounted
Adding a stock to a stockless weapons, such as the default for pistol form weapons, increases it Acc by the same amount making it a Fine (Accurate) beam weapons. This will infact bump up its Acc to the Acc of Configuration on size bigger (i.e. a pistol will have the same Acc as a carbine). Likewise removing or collapsing the stock of a beam weapon that has one, such as the default for carbines and bigger, subtracts and amount from its Acc equal to the bonus it would receive for being Fine (Accurate). Mounting a beam weapon so its fixed tight and securely to a weapon mount, also increase its accuracy. Mounting a beam weapon increases its Acc by the same amount as making it Fine (Accurate) and removing an already mounted weapon from its mount reduces its Acc by the same amount. Cannon are already considered mounted, if removed from their mounting treat them as support weapons.



Expanded Configuration List 
A weapons form factor has an impact on its inherent accuracy, longer weapons simply provide a superior sight picture.

Below I expand the Acc range for beam weapons to give the same range that conventional projectile weapons have as well as give some rules of thumb for how to determine which configuration you should use for a given beam weapons.

Sub Compact/Beamer: This configuration should be used for  either small "holdout pistol" style beam weapons or tool shaped beam weapons (like the ever awful dustbuster phaser from Star Trek: The Next Generation) up to about pistol sized. Bulk should be no more then -1.

Acc                    Beam Type
3                        All beam weapons but these shown below.
2                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
1                        Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, Screemers, Flamer and Plasma Lance. 


Pistol: Pistol from weapons should be small weapons that could be fired with on hand and be -3 at the most.

Acc                    Beam Type
6                        All beam weapons but these shown below.
5                        Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
4                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
3                        Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, Screemers, and Flamer.
2                        Plasma Lance.




Carbine: These are rifle from long arms with a built in stock as default though attaching a stock to a pistol from weapon effectively makes it a pistol carbine . In general they can be anything from pistol sized up to a bulk of -5. 

Acc                    Beam Type
9                        All beam weapons but these shown below.
8                        Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
6                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
4                        Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, Screemers, and Flamer.
3                        Plasma Lance.



Rifle: A larger, fulled long arm beam weapons. Bulk should be up to -7

Acc                    Beam Type
12                      All beam weapons but these shown below.
10                      Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
8                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
6                        Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, Screemers, and Flamer.
4                        Plasma Lance. 



Support: A support configured beam weapon can be any sized up to a large rifle up to cannon in sized and in fact cannons are just mounted support weapons. They can be any bulk -6 and up.

Acc                    Beam Type
15                        All beam weapons but these shown below.
13                        Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
10                        Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
7                         Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, and Screemers
9                         Flamer.
6                         Plasma Lance. 


Cannon:  A mounted support configured beam weapon and such and be anything with a bulk of -6 and up.

Acc                    Beam Type
18                       All beam weapons but these shown below.
15                       Blaster, Ghost Particle, Neutral Particle, and Pulsar.
12                       Electrolaser,  and Plasma Gun.
9                         Sonic Stunners, Nauseators, and Screemers
12                       Flamer.
8                         Plasma Lance. 

Stellar Dynamics PGD-1 LAMP

While relatively realistic, using a cubed progression for energy weapons means it gets hard to build man portable anti-armor beams weapons, in fact a single shot laser with just the same damage an a AP 50 cal round weighs in at a hefty 64 lbs!

So for today's post I take a crack at fixing this problem. It's not elegant and gives you only one shot but it gets the job done!

Spaceships Quickie: Power Cell Energy Banks

           

If you ever built a ship in GURPS Spaceships there's a good chance that you've run into the frustration of trying to balance how many Power Point using systems you have and how many Power Point generating system you can cram into he hull with out compromising something. This can especially become a problem for warships were you usually have to cut something armor to stuff in another power plant or have to cut the number of weapons systems.

Well frustrate no more my most awesome readers! For in today's post I give you guys the one system I think we can all agree should of been in at lest on of the Spaceships supplements:

Power Cell Energy Banks!

Psi-Wars Blaster Grab Bag!

Totally not Star Wars! Honest!

You might have noticed I'm a bit of a fan of Mailanka Psi-Wars project. For those who haven't taken a look at it, Psi-Wars is a massive project that is both a setting heavily based on the feel and tone of Star Wars but change slightly to better suited for role playing and a massive proof of concept project designed to teach GMs both new and old some best practices for designing a setting based around an intellectual property that you like.

While I'm done a post that was inspired by the setting already, a few days ago I was contacted by Mailanka over on the GURPS discord server asking if I wanted to design a few blasters for him and given that stating up energy weapons is pretty much by bread and butter, I couldn't reply yes fast enough. 

So if ya want to see what kind of crazy pew-pews I came up with, follow me after the jump! 

Ultra-Tech Garage: Boeing F-227 Skyfire

Not only is it GURPSday once again, it's also my birthday to boot!  

So to celebrate, I got a brand new entry for the Ultra-Tech garage  that’s fresh from the factory!

In today's post we take a look at a hypothetical TL9 Naval fighter called the F-227 Skyfire and some of the air to air armaments it carries.

I got to say this write up was my most complicated work since my Power Armor Design article and it took a lot of time and research to get it done (there's a reason that this is only my second Ultra-tech Garage post heh) but hopefully it'll live up to my readers exceptions.

Also a special thanks to GURPS ubermensch, Ghostdancer (go read his blog noaw!), for braving through some math for me heh.

Follow me after the jump if  ya want to hop onto that highway to the danger zone!

Ultra-Tech Quickie: Call Me, Call Me On the Line. Call Me, Call Me Anytime.

And now for my third "Quickie"  in row, though to be fair this is kinda the first one that actually follows the concept of being a small post (the last two started out as small posts but kinda... ballooned out and I was too lazy to come up with new titles for them heh).

In this post I break down each of the communicator types from chapter 3 of Ultra-Tech so you can stat up your custom version of any size and any range. And since you can now have communicators of any size  that no longer fit the neat size category progression from the book I also updated the Communicators with Different Ranges rules so they can be used between communicators of arbitrary size.  

So open all hailing frequency and follow me after the jump. 

Spaceships Quickie: A Spaceship for any Size and for any Occasion

Since my last post covering a few optional systems for GURPS Spaceships went over so well I figured I might as well keep the ball rolling.

While the system gives you a good range of sizes to pick from, from SM+4 up to SM+15 but... what happens in you want a ship bigger or even smaller?

Well, wonder no more!

Spaceships Quickie: Surviable Spaceships

After replying to this post where I mulled over how hard it is to make an armored ship in Spaceships it got the old think box ah' turning about some ways to make ships a little more survivable.

Warheads R Us

For this weeks GURPSday I tackle the most pressing issue faced by GURPS Ultra-Tech users....

How much the diffrent warheads weigh and cost!

Aaaanddd... a maybe a few other things but baahhhh, they're not that important. 

Would you like to know more?

Ultra Tech Quickie: Rattling and Gatling

Ahhhh, February. The month of love.

Well, if there is one thing over here at GURB that we love, it's guns!

And what's the ultimate form of gun love? One that can fire really, really, really fast! 

In this (somewhat late) Valentine present to my readers  I  not only go over how to stat up some ultra tech energy gatling guns but I go back over how sustained fire for energy weapons worked in Ultra-Tech and bring them more in line with the more advanced rules found High-Tech.

Got nothing but love for ya guy!

Freeze!

The Brotherhood of GURPS Bloggers Who Blog Too Much is always coming up with new themes to help tie our little community together and to challenge us to think up things we otherwise might not of considered. For this month, the topic of cold came up and well this being January... I'd say it was a fitting topic. 


So what did I come up with? Well, the theme is cold and do love figuring out how to stat up weapons so let's see if we can find a way to stat out a Freeze Ray in GURPS!

PC Master Race: Upgrading your Ultra-Tech Computing Experience.

Behold my slightly higher resolution graphics console peasants!

Anyone who has ever custom built a  computer  knows that half of the fun is upgrading the bejesus out of it.

 So if goes without saying that if you have a tech Savoy PC in your game then you're gonna want to give them some sweet upgrade options to play with.

 Follow me after the jump to see how far you can upgrade your Ultra-Tech computing experience as you climb that computing ladder to join the ranks of the glorious PC master race.

Fictional Firepower: Blast Em'!

Don't you tell me how to pew pew!

 Finally got a chance to watch Rouge One a few days ago. While not perfect it did have some of the best wars scenes since The Empire Strikes Back.

Needless to say the movie got my mind turning, pondering if there's a way to capture Star Wars style blasters in all there glory in GURPS.... 

Canon Fodder: Invid Battle Mecha

 Last week I went over how fiction has given all sorts of fun firepower to play with. Well it has also been equally generous on giving us fun things to shoot with said firepower!

That being said, since I went over the Robotech Gallant Rifle, figured I might as well give you something to shoot with it!

Fictional Firepower: The RRG - Tiresia Mars Gallant H-90 Particle Beam Gun

Science fiction has given us a bewildering array post-modern firepower to marvel at. Everyone has their favorites  and today I'm gonna share one of mine.