MWS-B | ARCM-3B "Gannet" Anti-Ship Cruise Missile
The goal of the SAASM Program (Stormworks Advanced Anti-Ship Missile) was to create a feature-rich, jam-resistant, and easily mountable ASM + weapons system for ship and ground based platforms, resulting in the ARCM-3B "Gannet" Advanced Radio Cruise Missile.
The ARCM-3B is a medium-range SACLOS/ACLOS, operator-steered, APN guidance assisted surface-to-surface missile system consisting of a up to four ARCM-3B launch platforms and a Launch Operator Station. The ARCM-3B is designed to search for and attack surface ship targets in all weather conditions with an effective range of 12.5km.
- Weapons DLC Warhead
- TV Operator Guided w/ APN Assist
- Target Tracking and HUD overlay
- ARCM-3B "Gannet" TV Operated Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles
- Surface Skimming & Direct Attack ACLOS Modes
- 12.5km Effective Kill Radius
- Anti-Jamming ECCM System
- Instant Launch, 2-Stage Missile
- Crosswind Compensation
- Impact & Proximity Fuses
- Easily Mountable, Up To 4 Launchers
- Pufferfish & Neottious’ Modular Navigation and Combat System
BLOCK II Additions:
- ComGuard II Datalink
- Pulse Navigation System
Missile Operator Seat Hotkeys:
To change the Attack Mode, toggle the Attack Mode selector button.
Surface Attack
The missile will cruise at 50 meters above the surface, aligning itself to the target using APN guidance, until it’s within short range of the target, where it will begin a dive action and attempt a surface-skimming side impact. Most effective for medium to large targets.
Direct Attack
The missile will purely use APN to guide itself to the center of mass of the target (which may be underwater, operator beware). Typically best results involve the operator climbing the missile in altitude prior to Auto Engaging at roughly 1500m from the target, per 150m in missile altitude. Results in top-attack impacts, and may be more effective against small targets, and targets at or just below the water surface.
The map will display the current location of the missile and a red dot for any active target, plus its location.
New in the Block II update is the ComGuard II Datalink. This reduces comms chatter by over 90%, significantly improving the ECM resistance of the ARCM-3B by making it more difficult to detect. The missile and launcher use encrypted pulses over the datalink to detect and evade jamming, and allow flight control using the new Pulse Navigation System. The system now only uses short pulses over a single radio, as opposed to the Block I’s constant 2-radio connection. The datalink also detects jammers seeking video comms and will take measures to defend. Because of the datalink, Block II has more automated flight systems and while there is a reduction is smooth control and immediate feedback, as a weapon it’s a far greater threat being very difficult to soft-kill.
The system is designed to engage surface ships at medium range while being heavily jam-resistant. Turning the key will turn on the system and arm it. While warming up, the system will build a rolling frequency table and passcode between the active missile and launcher to resist detection and jamming. After warmup is complete, the launcher is ready to fire.
The user can select the desired launcher number and attack mode. The HUD overlay will show the target’s relative location on the display, along with the target’s distance from the missile in meters. Once fired, the missile goes through a 7-second staging process while its jet engine is spooled up and it ditches its rocket booster. From there, the missile will cruise in a Whisper Mode to resist detection unless operator inputs are made. During this time it will routinely pulse its radar system to scan for targets.
When a target is found, the missile will enter an engagement mode that increases the datalink frequency and radar activity based on distance, while gently APN-guidance assisting the operator by soft-guiding the missile towards the target. In this SACLOS mode, the operator can guide the missile to the target semi-manually, though ACLOS modes are recommended. Only yaw is soft-guided in this mode. If the 2-key is toggled, this will put the missile into fully automatic ACLOS mode, auto locking onto any active target and engaging it with the currently selected Attack Mode.
Once a missile is expended, the operator can switch to another launcher. It’s recommended to give the system a few seconds to cycle radio frequencies and build a new rolling frequency block for effective control & anti-jamming. If jamming is detected, the system will automatically cycle through its frequency block until signal is restored. The frequency block is larger than most jammer’s memory, so it’s likely that once it cycles back through the frequencies will be cleared, allowing for endless cycling.
The ARCM-3B System has been specifically designed as a shoulder-mounted missile ship platform, but can be easily integrated into ground stations and vehicles. Simple place the leftmost Master launcher with the microcontrollers in it on your craft. It can be used alone, or with up to three Slave launchers (the rightmost launcher) can be slaved via minimal logic connections.
The awesome people of the Stormworks Engineering Group Discord server and the MWS-B missile team.
Pufferfish & Neottious’ Modular Navigation and Combat System
First to Soft Kill | ARCM-3B Block I – Team I Love Food02 & Silverstone
Congrats to I Love Food02 & Silverstone, who were the first to officially defeat the ARCM-3B Block 1 using a soft-kill jam technique!! They used what I’m dubbing the BFA– Big F-ing Array with a successful brute force jam using a 1700 ch/sec parallel scan. This is far higher than the designed 1000 ch/sec parallel // 2000 ch/sec sequential ECCM in the ARCM-3B Block 1, quickly exhausting its pre-programmed channel set and killing the video feed prior to target radar acquisition, allowing the target to evade.
First to Hard Kill | ARCM-3B Block I – Sebastiaz
Congrats to our MWS-B team leader Seb for a successful shootdown of the ARCM-3B using his yet to be released SAM air defense system. You’ll need both if you want to dish it out and take it!
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