Horizon

[VSHARMA]

I say, forget energy based weapons, the Horizon kicked ass.
Spoiler from First First Strike

Spoiler:

The Horizon contained six Mark IX "Gatebuster" warheads and 4 decoy warheads and I wondered how much a project like this would cost Star Gate command and the I.O.A??
I would presume that the Horizon could easily take out a Hive Ship and a few Mother Ships???

Spoiler:

VIEWS???????

[Prior_of_the_Ori]

I think there is another thread that is discussing this and some thoughts are that the Horizon is a planetary assault weapon not a anti-starship weapon.

[knowles2]

It depends on what combat situation the hive is in, if the hive is combat ready and have its darts deployed to intercept any missiles. I see no real reason why they could not just intercept horizon after the it has left the bomb bay taking out it out and destroying all the missiles in one go.

I have not seen the episodes.

Through from spoilers, Apollo had a big bomb bay, so if this is the only way to deliver the weapon, wraith or any other enemy could just target the bomb bay doors and as soon as they tried to launch the weapon it could be destroyed by wraith weapon fire, or possible set of, destroying the Apollo in the process, not good, it would looked good on tv.

but presuming that the designers thought about this and design some sought of counter measurer or shields for horizon then it possible, although when the missile separates their still a chance they could be intercepted by the darts and taken care of.

Also we have not seen it, a hive vessel themselves could shoot it down.

And also you got to remember that nuclear missiles are far less powerful in space than on the ground, so why they may look spectacular in a atmosphere, they could looked rather pooney in space or they should do.

Their always a chance that such a system could be use against the gould/ ori vessels but then again whats stopping them from shooting down the weapon as it leave the bomb bay.

This may be a one strike weapon where it works once or may be twice before their enemies adapt their tactics to counter it, which lets face it would not be that difficult to do.

This weapon is more useful for planetary assaults than space combat.

[Jarnin]

Horizon is a silly design.

Spoiler:

The whole purpose of having multiple warheads fired at a target is to give your enemies less time to shoot them down. The reason for the dummy warheads is to make your enemy think he has to shoot them all down or he dies, thus reducing the enemies reaction time.

What is silly is putting all those warheads in a single delivery system (missile) that has to travel for several seconds before it ejects the warheads; any nearby enemy ship could have destroyed Horizon with a single shot in the first 15-20 seconds after it launched from the Apollo.

The really silly part about Horizon is that it could have been pulled off as software alone: In the episode where the Daedalus rigs it's VLS to fire all of it's missiles at a hive ship, the weapons officer says "I don't even know if that can be done". Of course they do end up with that result, which could have been a self-programmed attack.

Figure the Daedalus has 16 missiles loaded in the VLS; make 6 of those missiles carry dummy warheads and fire away. That would have been much superior to what we saw in First Strike. Hell, they could have had the Asuran shoot down some missiles on their way to their targets, that way the Asurans didn't look so weak and defenseless.

[Atlantean Engineer]

Horizon is a silly design.

Spoiler:

The whole purpose of having multiple warheads fired at a target is to give your enemies less time to shoot them down. The reason for the dummy warheads is to make your enemy think he has to shoot them all down or he dies, thus reducing the enemies reaction time.

What is silly is putting all those warheads in a single delivery system (missile) that has to travel for several seconds before it ejects the warheads; any nearby enemy ship could have destroyed Horizon with a single shot in the first 15-20 seconds after it launched from the Apollo.

The really silly part about Horizon is that it could have been pulled off as software alone: In the episode where the Daedalus rigs it's VLS to fire all of it's missiles at a hive ship, the weapons officer says "I don't even know if that can be done". Of course they do end up with that result, which could have been a self-programmed attack.

Figure the Daedalus has 16 missiles loaded in the VLS; make 6 of those missiles carry dummy warheads and fire away. That would have been much superior to what we saw in First Strike. Hell, they could have had the Asuran shoot down some missiles on their way to their targets, that way the Asurans didn't look so weak and defenseless.

Spoiler:

I wouldn't say its silly. The reason for the single delivery system before warhead separation is to minimize cost and risk involved with having multiple re-entry vehicles. The different warheads only split up after it cut through most of the atmosphere. The missiles in the VLS probably aren't equipped for atmospheric entry. What would be really be silly would be putting shielding for atmospheric re-entry on missiles that 95% of the time is ship-to-ship.

The risk of losing a missile through re-entry system failure is balanced by the risk of something shooting it down during re-entry. As it enters the atmosphere, a field of plasma will develop around the vehicle and any laser or physical object getting in that field will most likely melt or be dissipated. Even with advanced technology, I doubt most of the Stargate races could stop the Horizon while its surrounded by superheated plasma and moving at Mach 15+. The main risk comes right before and right after the re-entry phase.

[Hyperwarp]

To Atlantean Engineer:

Hmmmm............interesting

Even modern earth, today! Real life earth I mean, not Sci-Fi earth. There is one country with an active ABM system the russians: http://warfare.ru/?lang=&catid=315&cattitle=ABM

And off-course the US is developing a Ballistic Missile Defense System. Here is one part of it: http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/gbi.html

These systems are far from perfect but, if todays earth can demonstrate some sort of ability, well, I expect the Stargate Asuarans to blast the horizon or if that fails destroy all the warheads without any trouble.

[Boxytheboxed]

Currently the US has 3 very effictive missle defence programs. The Patriot missles shoot down wargeads near a base, but they have never missed a target during their service in the Gulf War. The other 2 have not been combat tested, but have always worked in the tests I think the asurans would have shot down all of the nukes in time

[Nylon]

The whole idea of horizon seems a little pointless to me, the ships were unshielded so they could have just beemed down the warheads. This way they could have carried heaps more warheads instead of just the 6 in the horizon.

[Buba uognarf]

The whole idea of horizon seems a little pointless to me, the ships were unshielded so they could have just beemed down the warheads. This way they could have carried heaps more warheads instead of just the 6 in the horizon.

good point!...they may have jamming but it probably weren't on

[Hyperwarp]

Well, there are some weird possible reasons I can come-up with, for the Asurans being clueless about the attack:

1: They inherited the overconfidence of the Ancients and said "Blah....those dumb humans can't hurt us"

2: They wanted it to happen? What the horizon struck were not real ships. They were phantom vessels. False signatures. Essentially fed us false info (This certainly happens in real life military scenarios). I seriously doubt that they didn't know the Daedalus was monitoring their planet.

I mean, simple question: would a super-advance, (let me rephrase that) super-super-advance civilization leave its newly built (or building) ships wide open for an attack???

[Boxytheboxed]

Well, there are some weird possible reasons I can come-up with, for the Asurans being clueless about the attack:

1: They inherited the overconfidence of the Ancients and said "Blah....those dumb humans can't hurt us"

2: They wanted it to happen? What the horizon struck were not real ships. They were phantom vessels. False signatures. Essentially fed us false info (This certainly happens in real life military scenarios). I seriously doubt that they didn't know the Daedalus was monitoring their planet.

I mean, simple question: would a super-advance, (let me rephrase that) super-super-advance civilization leave its newly built (or building) ships wide open for an attack???

THey did not know it was there because used ascended knowledge to cloak the Deady

[Buba uognarf]

THey did not know it was there because used ascended knowledge to cloak the Deady

that was the odyssy he cloaked

[Render]

You will of course note that it was the Apollo they were using not the Deddy

[Buba uognarf]

You will of course note that it was the Apollo they were using not the Deddy

i think he meant it was the deadalus who was doing reconissance of Asuras

[Atlantean Engineer]

To Atlantean Engineer:
Even modern earth, today! Real life earth I mean, not Sci-Fi earth. There is one country with an active ABM system the russians: http://warfare.ru/?lang=&catid=315&cattitle=ABM

And off-course the US is developing a Ballistic Missile Defense System. Here is one part of it: http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/gbi.html

These systems are far from perfect but, if todays earth can demonstrate some sort of ability, well, I expect the Stargate Asuarans to blast the horizon or if that fails destroy all the warheads without any trouble.

Today's Earth (in real life) can't come close to demonstrating something that could shoot down the Horizon when all its warheads are together. Even in 100 years, I doubt humanity could come close doing that. I see two big flaws in relating anti-ballistic missile technology to the Horizon.

1) The Horizon is far from ballistic. It is guided and powered, whereas intercontinental ballistic missiles are ballistic and unpowered through at least the middle 60% of its flight. Shooting down a missile with another missile is usually compared to hitting a bullet with another bullet. It's very difficult at best when you can calculate the approximate path of the missile. The Horizon is powered and guided throughout it's flight. It's like hitting a bullet with another bullet . . . except the 'target' bullet is moving in ways you can't predict.

2) All those links you show proves my original point since none of those intercepters attack the target missile during re-entry. Anti-ballistic missile methods consist of surface launched missiles (ships, missile silos, patriot, etc), space based weapons (railguns in space, brilliant pebbles concept), and airborne lasers (Boeing's ABL program). The ground and air based weapons only attack the missile while its being launched and while it's falling on its target. The space based ones can only take down a missile while its cruising unpowered outside of the atmosphere. None of the concepts I know of being developed IRL even try to take on a ballistic missile during re-entry.