Militech "Sure-Shot" All Purpose Missile

After decades of abortive attempts by numerous manufacturers, Militech has finally deployed an all-purpose missile in the field. The Sure-Shot is a "brilliant" missile, with fully active radar, thermal, and optic guidance. It can accept radar and laser target painting (see page 73), as well as remote aiming, and adjusts its own speed for use against ground or aerial targets (it reduces its range to 2km for anti-aircraft use, but boosts its speed from its normal 1000kph to 2500kph—which means it travels that 2km in 2.88 seconds!).

The missile is a one-shot throw-away "fire and forget" munition packed into a 1.5m x 60cm diameter tube, massing 60kg. The package includes a small minicam and 200m of fiber-optic cable for remote aiming (it can also be plugged into any smart-gun link that features a targeting scope—including internal smart-gun/cybereye setups as well as the MVS and smart-goggles!).

In order to aim the missile remotely, the user notes the target with the camera or targeting scope and presses the fire button (or orders the missile to fire). The missile will fly to where the target is, look for it, and try to hit it If the target is a ground target the missile will "pop up" into the targets top armor. The Sure Shot always uses the best chance to hit selecting the most advantageous method of homing (including successful radar or laser illumination).

In addition, the Sure-Shot can be preprogrammed to attack a target of choice. The target can be as general as "any vehicle not responding to designated IFF" to as specific as one known vehicle whose image can be entered into the Sure-Shots memory. The Sure-Shot will fire at the first target it sees in its 120-degree forward visual arc that meets the criteria for being a valid target.

The Sure-Shot is not the "ultimate weapon." The warhead is a HEAT warhead, and is affected normally by composite armor. It can still be spoofed by countermeasures; its limited Al tries to compensate by switching sensor modes, but it's not perfect And it can still be neutralized by antimissile armaments.