Point Defense Weapons
Point defense weapons systems, or PDWs, are weapons designed to track and intercept incoming munitions or craft. They focus on putting up a wall of projectiles to deflect, damage, and destroy threats to their parent warship.
PDWs are often multi-barreled systems designed to optimize rate of fire, and the URN's current standard armament is a six barreled coilgun design, with versions that fire twenty- and thirty-millimeter projectiles.
As part of the design process, warships create overlapping fields of fire, where their limited number of PDWs can be used to maximize their coverage of the hull, and therefore the protection they afford.
At the start of the Ascomanni War, these projectiles tended to be solid darts, or flechettes. However, early experience showed that point defense was dependent on a rich, multi-spectrum sensory environment to achieve optimal results, and environment which the Ascomanni actively sought to deny Umbrian commanders.
To overcome this challenge, special shells were developed which burst at predefined distances from the warship. In sufficient quantities, these create a curtain of small debris surrounding the vessel. When struck by munitions travelling at hypersonic speeds, they often damage or deflect kinetic penetrators, sapping some of its energy and directing it away from its target, or, in the case of missiles, cause the premature detonation of their warheads.
This strategy is not without its limitations and risks however. The debris curtain's own velocity will result in its eventual dispersal, making the scheme less effective over time unless continuously replenished.
Additionally, this debris is as effective against outbound munitions as incoming fire. This means that the use of such tactics needs to be closely coordinated by the ship's weapons officer in conjunction with its fire control systems to avoid limiting the vessel's own offensive capabilities. When amplified across a multi-vessel fleet encounter, the problem can be multiplied exponentially.
This also creates additional risk for friendly starfighters. While their armor is rated to deflect low mass objects which may impact their spaceframe, the dense clouds of debris can prove deadly should they be flown through directly. To address this issue, the URN's carriers have developed special magnetically charged tethers, which they use to clear approach lanes when the time comes to recover their fighters.
Finally, some have also expressed concern over such munitions' usage in the vicinity of habitable worlds, pointing out that by polluting the local area with space debris, they increase the risk to civilian vessels and other space bound assets in the system.
Proponents are quick to point out that the gravest threat to civilians is the Ascomanni and refusing to use effective military resources for non-military reasons only ensures that it will be harder to protect those very civilians from the alien aggressors.