torpedo vs missile.

[JNG]

Originally, missiles were not guided by their own onboard systems. Heck, even today I am not certain that is the case. I believe they all receive telemetry updates (sometimes every few miliseconds) from a secondary facility (launch center, etc.). ICBMs only launched high enough to obtain orbit. After that, the warheads were unguided and had no thrusters to change course. They reentered the atmosphere based on mathematical calculations as to the angle the missile entered orbit (angle of attack), speed, etc.

incredibly lulzy description of missile guidance

That's a fine theory for describing the very first, very primitive Earthling phasers. However, Kirk's phasers worked perfectly well at devastating power across extreme ranges in "Balance of Terror"; the only concern that Sulu and Stiles had was that they weren't going to hit anything much at that distance (equal to two minutes of travel at emergency warp).

I don't know if the Romulan ship was at warp in that scene, and suspect it wasn't. I imagine there is a concern about Enterprise flying into her own phaser shots if phasers can't go at warp speeds, but I am also not sure if she was firing directly ahead. The maximum range of phasers has not been stated (TNG manual gives a maximum effective range, but I figured this had to do with targeting), but the concerns about hitting seem to me as if they make this work OK.

 

[USS Jack Riley]

Originally, missiles were not guided by their own onboard systems. Heck, even today I am not certain that is the case. I believe they all receive telemetry updates (sometimes every few miliseconds) from a secondary facility (launch center, etc.). ICBMs only launched high enough to obtain orbit. After that, the warheads were unguided and had no thrusters to change course. They reentered the atmosphere based on mathematical calculations as to the angle the missile entered orbit (angle of attack), speed, etc.

incredibly lulzy description of missile guidance

Yeah, I was speaking generally, specifically at the time that TOS was in first runs. Then again, the Tomahawk does require some telemetry from a GPS satellite to get its position. By and large, though you are coorect.

 

[Myasishchev]

Originally, missiles were not guided by their own onboard systems. Heck, even today I am not certain that is the case. I believe they all receive telemetry updates (sometimes every few miliseconds) from a secondary facility (launch center, etc.). ICBMs only launched high enough to obtain orbit. After that, the warheads were unguided and had no thrusters to change course. They reentered the atmosphere based on mathematical calculations as to the angle the missile entered orbit (angle of attack), speed, etc.

incredibly lulzy description of missile guidance

Wow.

 

[Unicron]

Yeah, that explains a lot...

 

[USS Jack Riley]

JNG - I was at work and didn't take the time to listen to the audio in the link you posted when I wrote my reply. That is classic.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Actually, torpedoes (at least current ones used on subs) receive telemetry from the firing vessel

No, only the heavy ones like the Mk-48 ADCAP and some of the Eurotorps. The lighter ones like the Mk-54 (the kind of thing you'd launch from a destroyer or drop out of a helicopter) are basically fire and forget.

Originally, missiles were not guided by their own onboard systems.

I'm not sure what "originally" means, but the first radar-guided missiles fielded in the Cold War--the American Terrier and their Russian counterparts--were in use before Star Trek hit the airwaves, as were heat-seekers like the Sidewinder and the early anti-radiation missiles. Ballistic missiles already had their own guidance system; there's little else that COULD have guided them other than inertial navigation systems and gyroscopes like the original V-2.

The most that AAM or SAM missiles get from their launch center is a radar beam shined on the target; the missiles actually read the REFLECTION from that radar beam, and then only because the radar is too heavy to mount on the actual missile. Newer missiles like the AMRAAM don't have this problem, they use their own internal radar.

Therefore, in the example cited above (Spock and McCoy during ST VI), the specialized sensor was necessary to send signals to the guidance system to hone in on the BoP.

Not exactly... it would be more like taking the radar out of a semi-active missile and replacing it with an infrared camera, thereby converting the missile to a heat seeker.