(Answered) Arrow IV vs. AMS

[Daryk]

Another poster has asserted Arrow IVs on ground maps are Artillery, and thus immune to AMS (while acknowledging they're explicitly affected in space due to being mentioned in the Point Defense rules).  I can find nothing that gives an explicit exception for Arrow IV on the ground.  Are they in fact immune to AMS?  Any ruling here will also likely affect Cruise Missiles.

[Xotl]

Total Warfare states that AMS only affects Missile Weapons, as defined on p. 113.  That would be any weapon with Type M in its code.  Arrow IV does not have that Type, and so is unaffected by AMS.  The BMM is more explicit (p. 97): "An Arrow IV missile is unaffected by anti-missile systems of any kind."  The other poster is correct.

[Daryk]

Rog, thank you for the quick reply!  Does the BMM override the PD language in StratOps?

[Xotl]

There's a hierarchy of rules, with books further out in the line modifying and expanding upon the core rulebooks.  StratOps covers a different scenario, using a different (aero) ruleset, so it's not so much overriding as moving to a different aspect of the game altogether, one where the rules operate differently.  So it's not that one book is wrong: StratOps instead alters play to take into account a new environment.

Basically it can be dangerous to try and "backfill" rulings by deriving universals in core from exceptions/alterations presented in later books.

[Daryk]

Roger, thanks again for the quick reply!  It's just another of the inconsistencies in the rules.  I hope to see them all resolved someday, if not soon.