Detailed Weapon Descriptions (WIP)

Projectile Weapons


Chemically Propelled Kinetic Projectile Weapons
A gun is a projectile weapon using a hollow, tubular barrel with a closed end—the breech—as the means for directing the projectile as well as other purposes—an expansion chamber for propellant, stabilizing the projectile's trajectory, aiming, etc.—and assumes a generally flat trajectory for the projectile. The projectile may be a simple, single-piece item like a bullet, a casing containing a payload like a shotshell or explosive shell, or complex projectile like a sub-caliber projectile and sabot. The propellant may be air, an explosive solid, or an explosive liquid. Most guns are described by the type of barrel used, the means of firing, the purpose of the weapon, the caliber, or the commonly accepted name for a particular variation.

Barrel types include rifled—a series of spiraled grooves or angles within the barrel—when the projectile requires an induced spin to stabilize it and smooth bore when the projectile is stabilized by other means or is undesired or unnecessary. Typically, interior barrel diameter and the associated projectile size is a means to identify gun variations. Barrel diameter is reported in several ways. The more conventional measure is reporting the interior diameter of the barrel in decimal fractions of the inch or in millimeters.


Electronically Initiated Superposed Load Projectile Weapons (Metal Storm System)
The distinguishing features of this technology are the absence of ammunition feed and casing ejection systems (the only moving parts are the projectiles), and the electronic ignition of the propellant charges. The relatively simple external shape of the Metal Storm barrel allows for the clustering of Metal Storm barrels into a barrel array or 'pod', or for their attachment (as single units) 'bolted on' to existing weapons mounts, including infantry weapons. The absence of a mechanical feed mechanism and the inherently compact lightweight nature of Metal Storm systems also makes them suitable for attachment to light robotic ground and aerial vehicles. The electronic ignition allows for the firing of the stacked ammunitions at 'electronic speed' without any delays caused by mechanical ammunition feed mechanisms. The electronic firing also creates the potential for tighter integration with electronic targeting systems, with electronically programmable fuses in air burst ammunition, and with (in the case of hand guns) electronic grip recognition technology.

The clustered barrel array has been further developed with the design and building of prototypes of electronic firing control systems, allowing selective firing from any barrel in a cluster, and within each barrel the ability to control the rate of fire. This allows for responses which range from the equivalent of a volley gun discharge (all projectiles 'at once') to using (selectively) individual munitions with increasingly serious (but non-lethal) effects and lethal munitions including high explosive and air burst shells (all from different barrels in the array). The ability to deploy a range of munitions from effectively 'one' weapon system, and to selectively escalate responses from the non-lethal to lethal without reloading, has been put forward by the company as an advantage in urban warfare and insurgency situations where a range of responses may be quickly required in close quarter fighting and crowd control.

A design where the gun tubes at the edges of the array are angled outwards from the main axis so that a gun tube array mounted on a tracking platform would have the potential to engage a target before the bulk of the centrally located gun tubes reached the optimal aiming position. This feature, combined with the 'always loaded' nature of the technology, and the potential to rapidly produce a very high density (low distance of separation) of projectiles 'in the air' is put forward by the company as an advantage for this technology in close-in weapons support roles.

Manual, automatic and semi-automatic reloading concepts exist, incorporating breech and muzzle loading into permanent barrels, replaceable barrels (and barrel arrays), a belt-fed stacked-cartridge gun patent, and a patented breechless continuous feed gun with injected propellant. With the exception of the belt-fed and the breechless gun versions, all of Metal Storm's gun concepts are limited to bursts of no more than the number of projectiles pre-loaded into the barrel(s). That said, a barrel array might contain more projectiles in fact than a traditional 'clip' or 'belt'. Latest projectile designs incorporate a head to tail clip-together feature, allowing the rapid construction and deconstruction (in the field) of ammunition 'tubes' from individual shells. These tubes can be inserted directly (and locked) into Metal Storm barrels.


Smart Rounds
Bullets, which act like tiny guided missiles, using sensors to home in on targets.


Magnetically Propelled Weapons
A magnetic weapon is one that uses magnetic fields to accelerate and propel projectiles, or to focus charged particle beams.

Rail guns use two parallel metal rails connected to a power supply. When a conductive projectile is placed between the rails, the circuit is completed and a magnetic field is created down the rails up to the point of the projectile. This creates a force which pushes the projectile along the track, accelerating it to great speeds until it leaves the rails and the circuit is broken.

Coil guns, on the other hand, have a barrel made up of coils of magnetic material. The projectile is placed between the coils, which have a pulse of electricity passed through them. This pulls the projectile into the center of the coil. The coils further down the track are then pulsed in sequence at specific times, accelerating the projectile until it leaves the barrel.

Ion cannons are beam weapons that fire beams of ions (particles, i.e. atoms that have been affected in some way as to cause them to gain an electrical charge). Ion cannons are actually particle cannons; only the particles used are ionized. Due to their electrical charges, the fired ions also have the potential to disable electronic devices, vehicles, and anything else that has an electrical or similar power source. The inspiration for this effect arises from the electromagnetic pulse generated by nuclear detonations, which can be devastating to electronic devices.

Plasma cannons fire plasma, superheated gas that is stripped of its electrons. Though plasma is difficult to control.

Energy Weapons


Maser Weapons
A maser is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification due to stimulated emission. Historically the term came from the acronym "Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation", although modern masers emit over a broad portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The microwave equivalent of the laser, the maser, was developed first, devices that emit microwave and radio frequencies are usually called masers.


Laser Weapons
A laser is a device that emits light (electromagnetic radiation) through a process called stimulated emission. The term laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Laser light is usually spatially coherent, which means that the light either is emitted in a narrow, low-divergence beam, or can be converted into one with the help of optical components such as lenses. Typically, lasers are thought of as emitting light with a narrow wavelength spectrum ("monochromatic" light). This is not true of all lasers, however: some emit light with a broad spectrum, while others emit light at multiple distinct wavelengths simultaneously. The coherence of typical laser emission is distinctive. Most other light sources emit incoherent light, which has a phase that varies randomly with time and position.

Laser weapons are weapons that utilize lasers, a directed light technology that compresses photon particles into a beam that can have heat and blast effects. The general idea of laser-beam weaponry is to hit a target with a train of brief pulses of light. The rapid evaporation and expansion of the surface through head build up causes shockwaves that damage the target. The power needed to project a high-powered laser beam of this kind is difficult for current mobile power technology.

Lasers of all but the lowest powers can potentially be used as incapacitating weapons, through their ability to produce temporary or permanent vision loss in varying degrees when aimed at the eyes. The degree, character, and duration of vision impairment caused by eye exposure to laser light varies with the power of the laser, the wavelength(s), the collimation of the beam, the exact orientation of the beam, and the duration of exposure. Lasers of even a fraction of a watt in power can produce immediate, permanent vision loss under certain conditions, making such lasers potential non-lethal but incapacitating weapons.

Lasers and other directed-energy weapons have many advantages over conventional projectile weapons like bullets and missiles:

* The weapons' light outputs can travel at the velocity of light.
* The weapons can be precisely targeted.
* Their energy output can be controlled -- high-power for lethal outcomes or cutting and low-power for nonlethal outcomes.


Free-Electron Laser
A free-electron laser, or FEL, is a laser that shares the same optical properties as conventional lasers such as emitting a beam consisting of coherent electromagnetic radiation which can reach high power, but which uses some very different operating principles to form the beam. Unlike gas, liquid, or solid-state lasers such as diode lasers, in which electrons are excited in bound atomic or molecular states, FELs use a relativistic electron beam as the lasing medium which moves freely through a magnetic structure, hence the term free electron. The free-electron laser has the widest frequency range of any laser type, and can be widely tunable, currently ranging in wavelength from microwaves, through terahertz radiation and infrared, to the visible spectrum, to ultraviolet, to soft (low-energy) X-rays.


Charged Particle Weapons
A particle beam is an accelerated stream of charged particles or neutrons (often moving at very near the speed of light) which may be directed by magnets and focused by electrostatic lenses, although they may also be self-focusing.

Subatomic particles such as electrons, positrons, and protons can be accelerated to high velocities and energies, usually expressed in terms of center-of-mass energy, by machines that impart energy to the particles in small stages or nudges, ultimately achieving very high energy particle beams, measured in terms of billions and even trillions of electron volts. Thus, in terms of their scale, particles can be made to perform as powerful missiles for bombarding other particles in a target substance or for colliding with each other as they assume intersecting orbits.

High energy beams are created in particle accelerators, in which a charged particle is drawn forward by an electrostatic (not magnetic) field with a charge opposite to the particle (like charges repel one another, opposites attract); as the particle passes the source of each field, the charge of the field is reversed so that the particle is now pushed on to another field source. Through a series of fields in sequence, the particle accelerates until it is moving at a high speed. A natural analogy to particle beams is lightning, where electrons flow from negatively charged clouds to positively charged clouds or the earth.

The general idea of particle-beam weaponry is to hit a target object with a stream of accelerated particles moving at near the speed of light and therefore carrying tremendous kinetic energy; the particles transfer their kinetic energy to the atoms in the molecules of the target upon striking, much as a cue ball transfers its energy to the racked balls in billiards, thus exciting the target's atoms and superheating the target object in a short time, leading to explosion either of the surface layer or the interior of the target. The power needed to project a high-powered beam of this kind surpasses the production capabilities of any standard battlefield powerplant.


Laser Plasma Accelerator (Plasma Laser Weapons)
Plasma acceleration is a technique for accelerating charged particles, such as electrons, positrons and ions, using an electric field associated with an electron plasma wave. The wave is created either using electron pulses or through the passage of a very brief laser pulses, a technique known as laser plasma acceleration. These techniques appear to offer a way to build high performance particle accelerators of much smaller size than conventional devices at the expense of coherency. Current experimental devices show accelerating gradients several orders of magnitude better than current particle accelerators.


Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons
Electromagnetic radiation from an explosion (especially a nuclear explosion) or an intensely fluctuating magnetic field caused by recoil electrons and photoelectrons from photons scattered in the materials of the electronic or explosive device or in a surrounding medium. The resulting electric and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges. The effects are usually not noticeable beyond the blast radius unless the device is nuclear or specifically designed to produce an electromagnetic shockwave.

Explosive Weapons


Explosive Weapons
An explosive material is a material that either is chemically or otherwise energetically unstable or produces a sudden expansion of the material usually accompanied by the production of heat and large changes in pressure (and typically also a flash and/or loud noise) upon initiation; this is called the explosion. An explosion is a sudden increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave.

Types of explosives

Natural - Explosions can occur in nature. Most natural explosions arise from volcanic processes of various sorts. Explosive volcanic eruptions occur when magma rising from below has much dissolved gas in it; the reduction of pressure as the magma rises causes the gas to bubble out of solution, resulting in a rapid increase in volume. Explosions also occur as a result of impact events.

Chemical - The most common artificial explosives are chemical explosives, usually involving a rapid and violent oxidation reaction that produces large amounts of hot gas. Gunpowder was the first explosive to be discovered and put to use. Other notable early developments in chemical explosive technology were Frederick Augustus Abel's development of nitrocellulose in 1865 and Alfred Nobel's invention of dynamite in 1866.

Nuclear - A nuclear weapon is a type of explosive weapon that derives its destructive force from the nuclear reaction of fission or from a combination of fission and fusion. As a result, even a nuclear weapon with a small yield is significantly more powerful than the largest conventional explosives available, with a single weapon capable of destroying an entire city.

Electrical - A high current electrical fault can create an electrical explosion by forming a high energy electrical arc which rapidly vaporizes metal and insulation material. Also, excessive magnetic pressure within an ultra-strong electromagnet can cause a magnetic explosion.

Vapor - Boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions are a type of explosion that can occur when a vessel containing a pressurized liquid is ruptured, causing a rapid increase in volume as the liquid evaporates.

Astronomical - Solar flares are an example of explosion common on the Sun, and presumably on most other stars as well. The energy source for solar flare activity comes from the tangling of magnetic field lines resulting from the rotation of the Sun's conductive plasma.

Mechanical - Strictly a physical process, as opposed to chemical or nuclear, as in the bursting of a sealed or partially-sealed container under internal pressure is often referred to as a 'mechanical explosion'. Depending on the contents of the container, the effects can be dramatically more serious - consider a propane tank in the midst of a fire. In such a case, to the limited effects of the simple mechanical explosion when the tank fails are added the chemical explosion resulting from the released (initially liquid and then almost instantaneously gaseous) propane in the presence of an ignition source.


Nuclear Weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter, a modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than a thousand kilograms can produce an explosion comparable to the detonation of more than a billion kilograms of conventional high explosive. Even small nuclear devices can devastate a city.

Minovsky Theory-applied Weapon System
The new weapons derived from Minovsky physics are referred to by the generic term "beam weapons". There are two distinct varieties of beam weapon - one that uses regular Minovsky particles, and another that employs the mega-particles formed by fusing positive and negative Minovsky particles.


The Mega-Particle
Due to the repulsive forces between positive and negative Minovsky particles, large amounts of energy are required to compress an I-field lattice. If enough energy is applied, and the I-field is sufficiently compressed, the Minovsky particles ultimately fuse into massive electrically neutral mega-particles. The energy used to create the mega-particles is expressed as both mass and velocity. No longer subject to the electrical forces that maintain the I-field lattice, the particles burst out of the electromagnetic field used to compress them. The weapon requires a second I-field forming a barrel shape to prevent the mega-particles from destroying the weapon that fired them. This stream of heavy fast-moving particles, unlike a conventional charged-particle beam, cannot be deflected with magnetic fields.


Mega-Particle Cannon
The ubiquitous mega-particle cannon - variously referred to as the beam cannon, mega-beam gun, mega-beam cannon or simply mega-cannon - is an armament on warships and mobile weapons. This weapon fires a focused beam of massive, high-velocity mega-particles, which cannot be deflected by magnetic fields and tears through any conventional armor material. The output power of the mega-particle cannon is 4 times greater than conventional laser weapons at the time and is considered to be more efficient due to most units having semi-transparent coatings on top of their armor which renders Laser weapons virtually useless unless having a laser device at least as big as a mobile weapon, excluding the generator.

To create the mega-particles, a cannon-toting vehicle must first gather Minovsky particles from the vehicle's fusion reactor. The Minovsky particles are collected in a device called an energy condenser, where they are compressed in a high-density I-field until they fuse into mega-particles. The performance of the mega-particle cannon is thus limited by the reactor's ability to produce Minovsky particles.

Though it quickly became an armament on space warships, the mega-particle cannon's high energy requirements and the sheer bulk of the energy condenser at first precluded its use in mobile suits. As a reference, a Musai-class light cruiser's on-board generator requires a few minutes to compress each shot of mega-particle cannon., the Zanzibar class new improved generator still takes 150 seconds to charge up. This was not practical for the mobile weapons smaller reactors to compress mega-particles by themselves in combat, since it would take an unreasonable amount of time to do so and would significantly reducing the firing rate. Attempts to create a portable mega-particle cannon for use by mobile weapons was always a challenge, various mobile weapons have been equipped with a large generator unit in order to power the cannon. However, it is still impossible for a mega-particle cannon to be fully utilized on a mobile weapon.

Amphibious mobile weapons have an advantage on equipping the mega-particle cannon as they can use water as a coolant and greatly reducing the size of the cannon. The shortcoming of this is that the mega-particle cannon is basically useless under water or if the unit is far away from the water and the cannon cannot effectively cool down. The cannon became deadweight of the unit in these cases.


M-Warhead
Due to the effect of the Minovsky particles of interfering with low-frequency electromagnetic waves, it is used in combat as a form of warhead on missiles. The M-warhead will spread Minovsky particles in the battle field and prevent all known wireless communication and enemy detection methods except visible light.


Beam Rifle
In order to work around the mega-particle cannon's high energy demands (which hinders the use of beam weapons by mobile weapons), the Earth Federation Forces (with the help of Dr. Minovsky) developed the E-cap (a contraction of "energy capacitor"). This device stores Minovsky particles in a high-energy pre-compressed state, so that only a small amount of additional energy is required to trigger their fusion into mega-particles. The E-cap is charged by energy condensers at the mobile weapon's home base or carrier ship, and then functions like a battery until its supply of particles is exhausted, at which point the weapon becomes useless. The Federation Forces perfected the E-cap and used it to create a miniaturized mega-particle cannon called a beam rifle.

The limited capacity of the E-cap proved to be a significant shortcoming. The beam rifle was further refined to use a removable E-cap module called an E-pac (short for "energy pack"). A mobile weapon equipped with spare E-pacs could then swap them during a battle to replenish its beam rifle's particle supply, similar to the use of magazines to reload conventional rifles.


Beam Saber
The name "beam saber" is somewhat of a misnomer as, unlike other weapons with the word beam, the beam saber does not use mega-particles. Instead, it emits high-energy Minovsky particles to form a blade-shaped I-field (via manipulation of electromagnetic fields), and then fills this I-field shell with superheated Minovsky particle plasma to produce an effective cutting blade. The Minovsky particles are stored by E-cap in the hilt of the beam saber, which is recharged from the mobile weapon's reactor when the saber is returned to its socket. Once activated, beam sabers do not rely on the mobile suit's reactor and can be thrown or discarded as decoys.

The termination of the I-field along a solid contact surface allows the plasma to eat away at the offending material until the I-field reestablishes itself, allowing the weapon to "cut" through almost any target. Likewise, as the beam saber's I-field enclosure repels plasma, it not only keeps the blade's plasma in but also keeps plasma from another blade out allowing one beam saber to be used to block another. Since the containing fields can be formed into a variety of simple shapes, it is trivial to create exotic variants like the beam tomahawk, beam axe, beam naginata etc.