Ak'lya
That one kid
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION- Intent: To create an anti-personnel weapon
- Image Source: Here
- Canon Link: No
- Restricted Missions: No
- Primary Source: FC-1 Flechette Launcher
- Manufacturer: Confederacy of Independent Systems
- Model: FGL-23 “Bee Launcher”
- Affiliation: Confederacy of Independent Systems
- Modularity: No
- Production: Minor
- Material: Durasteel
- Classification: Flechette Launcher
- Size: Large
- Weight: Heavy
- Ammunition Type: Flechette Canisters
- Ammunition Capacity: Five
- Reload Speed: Very Slow
- Effective Range: Average
- Rate of Fire: Low
- Stopping Power: Extreme
- Recoil: Average
- Internal Magazine
- Rangefinder
- Sting like a Bee: The FGL 23 packs a massive punch, with blasts sending shrapnel fast enough to tear through many personal armours. While it won’t pierce Beskar’gam, or even some heavier armours, most standard kit still falls to the FGL-23’s sting.
- Blast Size: Essentially a grenade launcher, this isn’t a single target weapon. Nor is it all that easy to dodge.
- Concussive Wave: As with any explosive, even one designed to send shrapnel rather than the destructive force of the blast, will create a concussive wave. To an armoured opponent, this could, if the blast is close enough, rupture some tissues important to bodily function
- Floats Like a Brick: It’s a heavy piece of machinery. Weight and clunkiness mean this isn’t something you can easily carry. It has a role, and you’re not going to find it outside of that.
- Calculations: Due to the nature of the projectile, the grenades need to go off about five meters from the target for maximum effectiveness. While the rangefinder helps with this, a failed reading or miscalculation could mean that the blast goes off at the wrong time, reducing the lethality. If the rangefinder isn’t used, the canister will go off on impact, dramatically reducing the weapon’s effectiveness.
- Collateral Damage: This isn’t a clean weapon. If you don’t want to kill everything in the area, find another gun.
- Slow Reload: While the internal magazine makes the rangefinder more effective, it also means that reloading the weapon is much longer. Hope to Ashla you don’t run out of ammo in a firefight.
- Sighting: The Rangefinder needs a second to calculate travel time, and slightly more in adverse conditions. On the field, this could allow the enemy to scatter or find cover.
“Many B1s were harmed in the making of this weapon.”
-C.I.S. Q.A. Testing
War is a messy place, and despite the rather silly name, the FGL-23 “Bee Launcher” is a messy weapon. Designed to deal with squads of enemy troops, the flechette weapon is capable of shredding armour under optimal circumstances, and with an effective lethal radius of about five meters, and a casualty radius if fifteen meters, can clear squads in a few well-placed shots. That isn’t to say one man with a Bee Launcher can easily clean up multiple squads of enemies, however. The time it takes to lock in the rangefinder means that the user needs a few precious seconds for an optimal shot, or risk the blast not clearing the enemy.
It has also been noted, thanks to rigorous testing on some hapless B1s, that shrapnel can be deadly to an unarmored target as far as thirty feet from the blast zone.The user should be careful that they don’t end up dead to their own shrapnel. Those same tests proved that there’s almost always going to be collateral damage at and near the blast zone. Care should always be taken while using this weapon, especially in close-quarters warfare.
