Have you ever wondered what would happen if those Strangereal superweapons from
the Ace Combat games were real?
If you're like me you probably did and that's exactly the topic of this video -
What if Excalibur was real?
Let's take a look at some of the specifications of this Strangereal superweapon and see how
it would play out in a real world scenario assuming, of course, if we had the technology
and the resources to build a real live version of Excalibur.
First and foremost we need to understand the strategic concept of this super weapon.
Excalibur is laser firing complex developed by the Belkans during the 1980s and built
in the 1990s with the goal of intercepting and destroying ICBMs thus serving as a shield
to protect the country in the event of a nuclear war.
As you have also seen during the Belkan War, Excalibur can also be used, to a certain degree,
as an anti-aircraft weapon against large and slow aircraft such as bombers and transports,
however Excalibur isn't effective against fast and manoeuvrable aircraft such as fighters
who are able to quickly change direction and therefore evade its attacks.
According to mission 8 of Ace Combat Zero, a single attack from Excalibur’s laser beam
is enough to destroy any aircraft.
To get some more information about the weapon I measured how long each laser beam lasts
and what is the interval between them - the period the weapon needs in order to cool down
- and I got a beam of about 7 seconds long and an interval of 5.3 seconds between two beams.
I did the same in mission 9 and the results were quite different, in mission 9 the laser
beam lasts 9.1 seconds long and the cooling interval is almost 17 seconds long.
Because the two measurements differ, I will use the ones from mission 8 since Excalibur
is supposed to be a long range weapon.
Using these numbers we get about 5 beams per minute if the time for the cooling is taken into account.
According to Acepedia, each laser beam requires 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.
But I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of...
1.21 GIGAWATTS?!?!
- that is approximately the same as the output of the Torness Nuclear Power Station in the UK
and that is a lot of energy!
Now that we know how much energy it takes to fire Excalibur, what about its range?
How far can we target something and hit it with Excalibur?
There are actually two different ranges for Excalibur, they are the ranges with and without
satellite support and you can clearly see the difference between them because in Mission 8
the beam is vertical, therefore it goes Excalibur - Satellite - Target, and in mission 9
the laser comes straight out of Excalibur.
Let's first take a look at the range without satellite support, in this scenario Excalibur
would work based on the line of sight principle, meaning that there needs to be a straight
line between Excalibur and the target, and because Earth isn't flat the curvature of
the planet must limit the range of Excalibur at some point.
In order to calculate the range without satellite we can use this formula to calculate the distance
to the horizon from Excalibur, and the only thing we need is the height of Excalibur, which we can simply
measure by flying beside it and is about 3000 feet.
Now that we know the height of Excalibur compared to mean sea level, I've plugged in the numbers
into this online calculator and we get a range of 107 kilometres.
Keep in mind though that this comes under the assumption that all the terrain around
Excalibur is not higher than the mean sea level which of course isn't true but this
would give us the maximum possible range if Excalibur was built by the beach.
As you can see in the diagram, the shaded region represents the area that is out of
range of Excalibur due to the curvature of Earth but note that it can still hit aircraft
flying at certain altitudes - and if you want to know the range of Excalibur for certain
altitudes you can plug in the altitude right here in and you will get an specific firing
range for that altitude.
But what about the range with satellites?
Fortunately we don't need any formula to figure that out.
According to Acepedia, Excalibur’s theoretical range with satellite support is about 1,200km
– that is the same as Stonehenge’s - and that's a 1093 kilometer increase in range when you put the satellites together with Excalibur.
With these specifications in mind let's look at some real life scenarios and tactics regarding Excalibur.
Real World Scenarios
With an attack radius of 1,200 km and covering an area of about 4,500,000 square kilometres
(which is larger than India), Excalibur could completely cover any Western or Central European
country and have enough range to attack the neighbouring nations.
If Excalibur was to be built anywhere in Europe, it would drastically change the whole geopolitical
system in place in favour of the country who controls the weapon.
Meanwhile if it was built in Eastern Asia, it would be able to protect either South Korea
or Japan from a North Korean nuclear attack.
If it was built in the capital of the United States, it would be able to cover
most of the eastern coast, an area so large that would include parts of Florida and Canada.
Excalibur's Defenses
As mentioned before, Excalibur is primarily a defensive weapon against ICBMs with some
limited anti-aircraft capabilities.
If Excalibur was real it would be almost impossible to destroy it due to its defensive capabilities.
First, you cannot use missiles or bombers because those
can be destroyed by Excalibur from long range.
Second, you would need to get through the 1,200 kilometres firing range which is something
only fast and agile fighters would be able to do by using the estimated firing location
technique as it was used in mission 8 of Ace Combat Zero.
Third, when you get into the range without satellite support, Excalibur will be able
to cover a wide area in a single beam as you can see in the diagram here.
Fourth, by the time you get close enough to Excalibur you will have to deal with the jammers
and anti-aircraft weapons such as the Rail-based tactical laser systems.
In short, the only way of destroying Excalibur would be by either deploying stealth aircraft
that could remain undetected while flying to Excalibur or using conventional aircraft
that could use the terrain, such as hills and mountains, as cover while flying towards Excalibur.
Attacking with Excalibur
Despite the extended range Excalibur has, one major flaw of the weapon is that it needs
some kind of radar coverage in order to track and hit targets.
Without that Excalibur would only be able to attack and hit non-moving targets such
as cities or airfields.
Where to build it
First things first, you're going to need a lot of energy in order to operate Excalibur
so building it close to a good source of energy is recommended.
Other than that, it should be built in a central region of a country, far from any borders,
in order to better defend itself against any surprise attack from a neighbouring country
and to cover more area of the home country.
Also it is recommended to build it in a plain or flat region so that enemy aircraft cannot
use the surrounding terrain as cover.
These were my thoughts and considerations about the constitution of Excalibur and how
it would play out had it been built on Earth.
Of course we will never see an Excalibur here on our planet Earth but I hope that this video,
although being a “what if video”, helped you understand the true power and magnitude
behind Excalibur which I think is the most underrated superweapon of the Ace Combat series
since it can attack enemies in the air, ground, sea and even space as long as they are in
line of sight or in the 1,200 kilometres range.
Before we finish it up, I'd like to give my thanks to the folks from Acepedia for some
of the data that was crucial in the creation of this video and as always, stay tuned to
the channel for more Ace Combat!