User:RelentlessRecusant/Phase missile

The Phase Missile was a small guided fighter-to-fighter weapons technology developed by the Precursors used widely in the Bastion-Zonule War.

Theory
The underlying principal of the thermal bomb is simplistic: upon contacting the target vessel, the thermal bomb releases a large quantity of localized thermal energy onto the vessel, superheating the superstructure of the target vessel. However, while the superheating inflicts minor damage upon the vessel, the major damage is dealt by the temperature of extrastellar space. The near-absolute zero temperature of extrastellar space is considerably different than the superheated temperature of the vessel's superstructure, and the resultant temperature differential causes great mechanical stresses upon the vessel, literally shattering it.

Thermal bombs have gained widespread popularity amongst fighter-bombers because of their reliability and stability -- thermal bombs are nearly impossible to detonate while in storage, and are extremely reliable because of their simple components. Only one major countermeasure exists against thermal bombardment, thermal shielding.

Appearances
It was ubiquitous with the D-T Interceptor fighters of the Bastion of the Precursors Defense Fleet, and gained widespread capability at its first use, the First Battle of Ursae 2034, with the complete victory by the Bastion forces.

Initially at the advent of the Bastion-Zonule War, the Bastion's D-T interceptors were equipped with a single thermal bomb. The Zonule was utilizing sluggish retrofitted passenger and freighter starships to ferry and deploy fusion blitzes, powerful thermonuclear weapons of which several could literally wipe out the entire population of a planet and render the biosphere inhabitable with the exception of extreme terraforming. To combat this threat of blitz vessels, the D-Ts were used against the unarmed Zonule vessels, and they rapidly closed with the blitzers and released an unguided thermal bomb at close range. While the D-T interceptor sharply veered away, the bomb would squarely impact the sluggish enemy vessel even without a guidance package and destroy it within seconds.

Tactics
The first thermal bombs, used against slow, unarmed, and unshielded vessels, were short-ranged and unguided. Thermal bomb-armed fighters needed to close to short range with target vessels to guarantee a hit with the unguided bombs. However, the lack of shielding meant a direct kill ("DOA" - dead on arrival) with the impact of a single thermal bomb. As the Bastion-Zonule War progressed and better military technologies were developed, the major foil to thermal bomb attacks on capital starships became thermal shielding -- a powered slow-recharge shield that dissapates the energies of impacting thermal bombs. Almost all Precursor military vessels and installations are armed with extensive thermal shields to defend against fighter bombing runs, which almost always utilize thermal bombs.

Besides thermal shields, the defenses against thermal bombs, typically utilized by high-speed bombers to strafe capital vessels, are very few. Point-defense weapons are typically far too inaccurate to target thermal bombs. Thus, the only defense is an aggressive one: interception of enemy thermal bomb-armed bombers before they close to bombing range. This is achieved by fighter screens or capital ship-mounted strobe lasers, which aggressively destroy inbound enemy fighters.