True enough. The Mark 17-E might be improved over the Mark 14.Louis R wrote:Emile's point is still good, though: it's the Erewhon _version_, not the Erewhon copy. IIRC, there's been more than one US weapon system that has shown significantly better performance once the IDF got done with it. It's pretty clear that the Mk14 could have been developed further, and no reason for the Erewhonese not to do so once they were frozen out of BuWeaps. Especially if they had a clear idea what the projected improvements were.
Also, don't forget that there are now Solly hands stirring the tech pot in Erewhon. That doesn't automatically make them better than the locals, but recall that a significant portion of the Manty tech edge has come from collecting tidbits from all over and putting them together. If someone that Barregos has put to work on this happens to have some suitable tidbits in her files, lights can go on and you get a 'you know, we can improve this by...'
We've got so little detail on the ERMs that it's very hard to know. ToF does show up that the 17-E has the same acceleration as the recent RMN missiles; and not the slightly higher accel of the SLN Trebuchet or Javelin. And there was the RMN CA Epheram Tudor (in WoH) that was able to fire off it's missiles at 15 million km.
But you could certainly argue that Erewhon might have gotten some SL improved node tech and "de-tuned" the accel to gain even more drive time compared to the stock RMN ERM.
And you could equally argue that the fight in WoH had the missiles' effective range extended due to a high base closure rate that simple didn't get mentioned in the book.
Ultimately I think we'll have to wait and see if one of the last couple books gives a clear "from rest" set of numbers for the ERMs - or David, Tom, or Duckk take pity on us and just post the specs.
