Cathul Thuku
Admiral, Therapy Command
The 88mm Atrisia in the slug sabot
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide an armor-piercing penetrator that can reduce collateral damage
- Image Source: World of Tanks
- Canon Link: N/A
- Restricted mission: N/A
- Primary Sources:
- Armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (the real-world concept)
- Kami 88mm hypervelocity cannon (the original mount weapon for the 88mm version)
- Summer heavy mass driver (the original mount weapon for the 380mm version)
- Manufacturer: Ringovinda Systems
- Model: Atrisia armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot
- Affiliation: Open market
- Modularity: Yes: sabots can be modified to fit various calibers of mass drivers/hypervelocity cannons as well as chemically-powered cannons
- Production: Mass-produced
- Material: Depleted baradium (for the rod), durasteel (sabot)
- Classification: Armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot
- Size: Cannon-mounted
- Length: 571mm (88mm variant) 2000mm (380mm variant)
- Shaft diameter: 15mm (88mm variant) 76mm (380mm variant)
- Weight: 8 kg (88mm variant), 550 kg (380mm variant)
- Penetrator weight: 5 kg (88mm variant), 350 kg (380mm variant)
- Ammunition Type: Shell
- Ammunition Capacity: Depends on the mount ship of the weapon
- Effective Range: Standard turbolaser range (88mm variant) standard long-range turbolaser range (380mm variant)
- Rate of Fire: Same as the weapon fired from
- Sabot
- Stabilizing fins
The sabot is designed to be discarded after the projectile has left the muzzle so as to reduce the drag when used in atmosphere, but also in order to concentrate the kinetic energy over a smaller cross-section area. The stabilizing fins are useful when fired from planetary atmospheres, where the fins can stabilize the shaft while in flight.
Strengths:
- High capacity for penetration
- Ability to limit collateral damage
- The sabot can be a hazard to nearby emplacements or surroundings once discarded
- Different sabots are required depending on the propulsion mode of the cannon (one cannot fire a mass driver-saboted penetrator in a chemically-powered cannon and vice-versa)
- No explosive
The Atrisia armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot is based on the idea that a dense kinetic energy penetrator can be more effective at penetrating starship armor while causing limited collateral damage, which renders it useful when the objective is to capture a starship over outright destroying it. It comes in two flavors, with the stock sabots for those designed to be used in hypervelocity cannons with 88mm and 380mm calibers respectively. Also, different sabots can be outfitted to match different calibers from the stock so that it can be fitted to different hypervelocity cannon sizes. However, it is not advised to use penetrators in smaller-caliber mass drivers than designed, if sabots for mass drivers are in use: due to how the mass drivers interact with the sabots, their muzzle velocity would be reduced and so would their effectiveness. Two different types of sabots are in use, depending on whether the projectile is designed to be used in a chemically-powered cannon or a magnetically-powered cannon: the sabot for chemically-powered cannons is substantially longer than the sabot for rail guns.
However, the sabots come with the drawback that they are projected at high speeds and they may hit the mount vehicle, or other ships/vehicles, at speeds where it can also cause damage.
