Weight: 105,000kg
throw-weight: 10 tons ICBM, 5 tons to ultra-low earth orbit FOBS), 4.5 tons to LEO, 2.3 tons to SSO.
Propulsion: Three-stage, solid fuel
Length: 18.1 meters
Diameter: 3 meters
Warheads: Varied (see below)
Costs per missile:
Range: 16000 km or Fractional Orbital Bombardment System.
Speed: 7.8- 8 km/s
Guidance system: Inertial, satellite, stellar, radar
Accuracy: to 10 m
Cost: $60 million, $600 billion DPR
Launch Platform: Silo or Submarine (40m deep)
For many years, the Dawnbringer-class rocket has been the mainstay of the Free Kingdom Armed Forces for strategic deterrence. The general principle, previously pointed out by Lyran strategists in the development of the Dawnbringer, had been taken to heart: for nations inhabiting the fractal hyper-earth, where interregional distances would sometimes be far greater than a regular ICBM could practically reach, it was necessary to rely on FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems). However, the Ministry of War's Department of Research, Evolution and Development felt it could do far better than Dawnbringer.
The Dawnbringer FOBS ICBM had several disadvantages to the Allanean mind:
First, it was expensive. Individual Dawnbringer rockets cost no less than $130 million, excluding launch costs.
Second, the Dawnbringer was designed to carry a small variety of strategic nuclear armaments. In a scenario short of a massed nuclear exchange, the missiles, despite being advanced pieces of military technology, would sit in their silos, requiring expensive maintenance but not assisting the Free Kingdom's combatants in their regular tasks.
It was decided, then, to design a different missile that would be the principal armament of the Free Kingdom. In the event, the Department of Research, Evolution, and Development worked with Allanean Arms to produce the Clarent.
As part of their design process, the Allaneans went back, essentially, to the drawing board, studying the most advanced successor of the R-36Orb – the RS-28 Sarmat superheavy ICBM. After study, it was decided to reject the basic principle of the liquid-powered design, and instead produce a new missile that would operate on solid fuel. This allowed a faster speed of orbital ascent, greater safety in operations and reduced maintenance costs.
At this point, a range of variants arose. These are listed below:
Clarent-I – This is a variant of the Clarent to be used in non-orbital mode. In essence, it carries an approximate payload of ten tons, typically in the form of x 20 475 kiloton mission blocks, and their penetration aids. The large amount of penetration aids – in the form of reflectors, chaff, and several light-weight decoys – maximizes the ability of Clarent-I to penetrate enemy anti-ballistic defense arrays.
Clarent-C – In this variant, the Clarent carries Conventional Strike Modules. In typical configuration, modules are three Erinyes hypersonic vehicles, capable of maneuvering both in orbit and in atmosphere. Upon re-entry (typically at Mach 22), they are capable of atmospheric maneuver (at speeds of Mach 10-12). These strike modules can be equipped with a range of weapon payloads:
Erinyes-K – this is a guided, hypersonic, designed to directly impact high-sensitivity targets, such as bunker roofs, weapons storages, and, most importantly, enemy missile silos. This enables the user of the Clarent strike complex to engage targets around the world with a response time of 45-90 minutes from the point that the missile had been launches, as well as minimize collateral damage even in the most terrible circumstances (as Erinyes-K is capable, hypothetically, of disabling enemy atomic arsenals. It approaches its target at hypersonic speed, and slows down as it descends, to be able to maneuver in atmosphere and target enemy weapons systems.
Guidance of the Erinyes-K is via satellite guidance, inertial, and radar guidance.
This latter option allows the use of Erinyes-K is as an anti-ship projectile. Due to the high speed of the missile, its manoeuvrability, and the presence of Synthetic Aperture Radar on board, the Erinyes-K can track, target, and impact any warship. Its vast speed, and the weight of its high-explosive, focused-blast warhead, will ensure catastrophic damage upon impact to all but the hardiest or the luckiest of vessels.
Erinyes-S – Similar to the Erinyes-K in broad configuration, rather than carry a single warhead, Erinyes-S vehicles deliver to their targets approximately 32 anti-tank submunitions or 160 BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bombs each. While initially this may appear to be a very inefficient use of the expensive weapon, it's worth noting that a modern main battle tank can cost between $3 and 10 million NSD – if you manage to kill off a tank battalion, your expensive weapon will have paid for itself in enemy casualties, even if we ignore the cost of training the tank crews. Then there is the importance of striking anywhere, in the world, at once.
Clarent-C-F – In this case, the Conventional Strike Modules are replaced by a single payload of 5 tons of tungsten flechettes. These weapons, descending from orbit at velocities comparable to those of a regular MIRV impact, would devastate an area of over 500 square meters, damaging light bunkers, armoured vehicles, tanks, penetrating decks on ships, etc. However, due to the simplicity of the weapon and its absence of any guidance after the impactors are released, Clarent-C-F can only be used to target items that are more or less guaranteed to still be there in 90 minutes – military camps, radar installations, ships in port, and so forth.
Clarent-C-P - – In this case, the Conventional Strike Modules are replaced by three high-velocity tungsten penetrators (somewhat resembling heavy, conventional MIRVs), enabling precision strikes on up to three fixed targets.
Clarent-N - Naturally, Clarent is available as a thermonuclear delivery system. For this purpose, it can carry either three Erinyes hypersonic blocks, this time armed with variable-payload nuclear warheads (between 15 kilotons to 5 megatons, as needed), or, if necessary, a combination of 10 lightweight MIRVs and their penetration aids. In the former case, the Erinyes blocks will avoid enemy defences by maneuvering on their descent, in the latter, they will use the regular method, of combining penetration aids with sheer quantity of MIRVs to avoid being struck by hit-to-kill ABM.
Clarent-P – the Clarent can be used for peaceful space launches. In this case, it can be used to launch between 5000 to 500 kgs into orbit, depending on mission, for a cost of a mere $60 million per launch.
The Dawnbringer FOBS ICBM had several disadvantages to the Allanean mind:
First, it was expensive. Individual Dawnbringer rockets cost no less than $130 million, excluding launch costs.
Second, the Dawnbringer was designed to carry a small variety of strategic nuclear armaments. In a scenario short of a massed nuclear exchange, the missiles, despite being advanced pieces of military technology, would sit in their silos, requiring expensive maintenance but not assisting the Free Kingdom's combatants in their regular tasks.
It was decided, then, to design a different missile that would be the principal armament of the Free Kingdom. In the event, the Department of Research, Evolution, and Development worked with Allanean Arms to produce the Clarent.
As part of their design process, the Allaneans went back, essentially, to the drawing board, studying the most advanced successor of the R-36Orb – the RS-28 Sarmat superheavy ICBM. After study, it was decided to reject the basic principle of the liquid-powered design, and instead produce a new missile that would operate on solid fuel. This allowed a faster speed of orbital ascent, greater safety in operations and reduced maintenance costs.
At this point, a range of variants arose. These are listed below:
Clarent-I – This is a variant of the Clarent to be used in non-orbital mode. In essence, it carries an approximate payload of ten tons, typically in the form of x 20 475 kiloton mission blocks, and their penetration aids. The large amount of penetration aids – in the form of reflectors, chaff, and several light-weight decoys – maximizes the ability of Clarent-I to penetrate enemy anti-ballistic defense arrays.
Clarent-C – In this variant, the Clarent carries Conventional Strike Modules. In typical configuration, modules are three Erinyes hypersonic vehicles, capable of maneuvering both in orbit and in atmosphere. Upon re-entry (typically at Mach 22), they are capable of atmospheric maneuver (at speeds of Mach 10-12). These strike modules can be equipped with a range of weapon payloads:
Erinyes-K – this is a guided, hypersonic, designed to directly impact high-sensitivity targets, such as bunker roofs, weapons storages, and, most importantly, enemy missile silos. This enables the user of the Clarent strike complex to engage targets around the world with a response time of 45-90 minutes from the point that the missile had been launches, as well as minimize collateral damage even in the most terrible circumstances (as Erinyes-K is capable, hypothetically, of disabling enemy atomic arsenals. It approaches its target at hypersonic speed, and slows down as it descends, to be able to maneuver in atmosphere and target enemy weapons systems.
Guidance of the Erinyes-K is via satellite guidance, inertial, and radar guidance.
This latter option allows the use of Erinyes-K is as an anti-ship projectile. Due to the high speed of the missile, its manoeuvrability, and the presence of Synthetic Aperture Radar on board, the Erinyes-K can track, target, and impact any warship. Its vast speed, and the weight of its high-explosive, focused-blast warhead, will ensure catastrophic damage upon impact to all but the hardiest or the luckiest of vessels.
Erinyes-S – Similar to the Erinyes-K in broad configuration, rather than carry a single warhead, Erinyes-S vehicles deliver to their targets approximately 32 anti-tank submunitions or 160 BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bombs each. While initially this may appear to be a very inefficient use of the expensive weapon, it's worth noting that a modern main battle tank can cost between $3 and 10 million NSD – if you manage to kill off a tank battalion, your expensive weapon will have paid for itself in enemy casualties, even if we ignore the cost of training the tank crews. Then there is the importance of striking anywhere, in the world, at once.
Clarent-C-F – In this case, the Conventional Strike Modules are replaced by a single payload of 5 tons of tungsten flechettes. These weapons, descending from orbit at velocities comparable to those of a regular MIRV impact, would devastate an area of over 500 square meters, damaging light bunkers, armoured vehicles, tanks, penetrating decks on ships, etc. However, due to the simplicity of the weapon and its absence of any guidance after the impactors are released, Clarent-C-F can only be used to target items that are more or less guaranteed to still be there in 90 minutes – military camps, radar installations, ships in port, and so forth.
Clarent-C-P - – In this case, the Conventional Strike Modules are replaced by three high-velocity tungsten penetrators (somewhat resembling heavy, conventional MIRVs), enabling precision strikes on up to three fixed targets.
Clarent-N - Naturally, Clarent is available as a thermonuclear delivery system. For this purpose, it can carry either three Erinyes hypersonic blocks, this time armed with variable-payload nuclear warheads (between 15 kilotons to 5 megatons, as needed), or, if necessary, a combination of 10 lightweight MIRVs and their penetration aids. In the former case, the Erinyes blocks will avoid enemy defences by maneuvering on their descent, in the latter, they will use the regular method, of combining penetration aids with sheer quantity of MIRVs to avoid being struck by hit-to-kill ABM.
Clarent-P – the Clarent can be used for peaceful space launches. In this case, it can be used to launch between 5000 to 500 kgs into orbit, depending on mission, for a cost of a mere $60 million per launch.
Sales Policy: Because of the firepower inherent in a global-reach FOBS weapon, its usefulness for civilian space launches, and generally in military use, it’s been decided to make Clarent available only for states with a good civil rights record, or those with which the Free Kingdom has a positive relationship, such as members of the Greater Prussian Empire and its constituent organizations, such as CAPINTERN. Due to its great value, and the fact that the design has several different technologies incorporated in it, Allanean Arms will charge $600 billion for the DPR, more than would normally be charged for such an armament.
PLEASE MAKE ALL PURCHASES THROUGH THE ALLANEAN DEFENSE EXPORTS SITE! ONLY REQUESTS MADE THROUGH THE PROPER VENUE WIlL BE ACCEPTED!
OOC: I wish to thank the player behind Technocratic Syndicalists for providing me the technical advice without which this design would never have come to be.