H-KITE (Hard-Kill Incoming Threat Elimination)
Hard-Kill Incoming Threat Elimination (offen pronounced as H-kite) points are often mounted on armored vehicles, naval ships, and spacecraft. They work in tandem with threat detection, location, and prediction systems to disable incoming threats to the vehicle. Once an incoming shell or missile is detected, onboard AI calculates its flight path and threat vector. Once the threat is within range of an H-KITE system, a plate with rapidly lift up from being flat against the vehicle or from inside a concealed compartment. The plate then detonates with a payload dependent upon the type of incoming threat. For HE, HEAT, tandem charge, and other such threats the payload is a shotgun blast-like cluster of small explosives that explode as the projectile passes through their area of effect, destroying it before it can hit home. For sabot or flechette projectiles, there are two different defeat methods for the H-KITE system. The first and older is a smaller amount of higher powered explosives that intentionally detonate to the side of the projectile in the hopes of effecting its flight path and causing it to miss its target entirely or at least impact a more heavily armored area. The second, which is newer and more effective, albeit far more expensive and hard to produce, is a singular explosive core that detonates with such intensity that a ball of plasma is created that melts the projectile to slag where to splatters harmlessly against the hull of the vehicle.
There is one last type of load that is used in H-KITE systems, but is almost exclusively used on spacraft and occasionally naval vessels. It consists of launching out an expanding field of hyper-reflective chaff that serves to effectively disrupt the beam of a laser as well as to interfere with the guidance and seeking systems of incoming missiles.
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