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Maegwyn -> Issue 28 - Swords and Guns and Lasers (Oh My!) Part II (Stormfyre) (7/23/2008 11:27:56)
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Swords and Guns and Lasers (Oh My!) Part II
The innards of weapons!
By Stormfyre
Hello everyone! This is Stormfyre, broadcasting from a brand new data pad. This time, I've got a solid state hard drive, so no matter how bouncy this thing gets, it won't get interrupted! Now, cross-referencing from my earlier entry I've managed to snag from the newsnet, I see that my last article ended on the subject of blade weapons for your mecha. Perhaps I should start by finishing where I left off, explaining how energy blades work.
As you can imagine, energy blades do not simply work by emitting beams of electrical energy or plasma straight out into the air. If they did that, the blade would act more like a continuous-beam gun than a sword. Instead, an array of powerful magnets inside the handle create and shape a magnetic field that contains the plasma within it, making the wide variety of shapes that energy blades come in possible. When an energy blade strikes an opponent, the magnetic field is disrupted, and the plasma is free to eat its way through an opponent's armor.
Onwards to guns! Everyone loves guns. Guns come in all shapes and sizes, and fire a variety of things including shells, lasers, and, my personal favorite, grenades! Despite all the technological advances in the last few years, projectile guns have changed amazingly little. Safety measures have been improved, and unless the gun is a really old model like some of the Sheriff and Wrangler mecha guns, it is unlikely to jam. In the "ye ol'" era, guns were operated using the explosive force generated by lighted gunpowder. Today, there are a variety of safer alternatives that are often used. The most popular two are air pressure and electromagnetic propulsion. The air pressure method is a little slower and usually is reserved for launching large shells. Air pressure guns have long cooldown times but have the potential to do massive damage to your opponent. A compressor slowly pumps air into a metal chamber sealed by a dilating portal. When the pressure has reached a critical point, the portal quickly opens to its widest point and the air jets out against the shell, launching it at high velocity towards its target. Electromagnetic propulsion works much like the railguns that were developed several years ago. Electromagnetically launched projectiles can achieve a velocity of several times the speed of sound. However, the power needed to launch large projectiles makes mecha-mounted, large electromagnetic projectile cannons inefficient. Therefore, projectile guns using electromagnetic propulsion are usually limited to small machine guns and some rifles. These two launching methods are commonly used for shells and bullets, and the air-launch method is especially common for grenades. Although it would be possible to electromagnetically launch a grenade, the explosives inside would need to be insulated from the current passing through, creating a minimum of three layers: outside metallic shell, insulation, and explosives inside. This makes grenade-launching railguns impractical. There are some examples of such odd weapons, and they are usually used as hard-hitting penetration-explosion weapons.
Laser guns are even less changed. LASER is actually short for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation ... this is why we say "laser" now. Mostly. I'm sure some people still say the full name to sound smart. Laser guns use high-powered gas lasers in order to cut away at an opponent's armor. Besides the fact that lasers have become even more powerful than before, not really much has changed. Moving on!
Missiles. Large missiles, small missiles, nuclear missiles, gunpowder missiles, homing missiles, fireworks missiles! There are now tons of kinds of missiles, thanks to the explosion of designs in the last decade or so. However, they are all driven by (fairly) conventional means, and I will attempt to describe the functioning of missiles as simply as I can. Most one-shot missiles are equipped with a rocket on back in order to speed it to its destination. Guided missiles possess additional thrusters on the sides to steer them towards their target. Homing missiles may contain simple to very complex arrays of sensors that will guide them to their targets. That's pretty much it for missiles, as I do not want to go overly deep into propellants.
Last, but definitely not least, orbital bombardment weapons! These weapons are quite rare. Their communications units may be many, but the actual weapons themselves are very few. They reside above the world's atmosphere, permanently in orbit. They possess jets for orbital correction and for firing positioning. When an owner of one communications unit activates it, the orbiting weapon flies over into position, and launches projectiles, or lasers, or sometimes even a lightning strike. Needless to say, with a moving target it is quite hard, so pilots will often try to paralyze their targets before attempting a bombardment. The weapons may range from nukes to just heavy lances that drop down to pierce the armor of the opponent.
And that wraps up my weapons article. Thank you all for reading! This is Stormfyre, signing out!
~Stormfyre; finally safe from the police. I think.
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