OIS Department of Advanced Weapons Research
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a primary heavy repeating blaster and a possible vehicle armament for the military forces of the Galactic Empire; multiple barrel-count variants to suit infantry, vehicle and static roles.
- Image Source: [Here]
- Canon Link: Heavy Repeating Blaster
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: The Galactic Empire
- Affiliation: The Galactic Empire
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: Imperial HRB-12
- HRB-12 Infantry Weapon 'HRB-S'
- HRB-12 Bi-Barrel Variant 'HRB-D'
- HRB-12 Tri-Barrel Variant 'HRB-T'
- HRB-12 Quad-Barrelled Platform 'HRB-Q'
- Nicknames: H-12, Pinkfire
- Modularity: Yes
- Modular Scope Attachment
- Modular Barrel Variants
- Modular Underbarrel Attachment
- Modular Coolant Fuel and Cooling Unit
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material:
- Reinforced Durasteel Frame
- Manganese-Plastoid Alloy Grip Handle
- Blaster Components
- Bondite and Aluminium Internals
- Tibanna
- Dallorian Alloy Thickened Barrel
- Anti-Corr 113 Treatment
- Tunqstoid Tripod
- CyroBan Coolant Compatibility
- Power Generators with Reinforced Alusteel and Dallorian Alloy shielding
- Classification: Heavy Repeating Blaster Infantry Crew Weapon / Heavy Repeating Blaster Vehicle Armament Platform / Heavy Repeating Blaster Static Weapon
- Size: Very Large
- Weight: Very Heavy (Infantry Variant) / Extremely Heavy (Other Variants)
- Ammunition Type: Power Generator
- Ammunition Capacity: Average (Sustained 600 Blast Volley at Maximum Power)
- Effective Range: Battlefield (Maximum Firing Range of 3,200 Metres | 10,500 Feet)
- Rate of Fire: Selective Fire Modes (Average)
- Charged Single Shot
- Semi-Automatic
- 3-Blast Burst
- Fully Repeating Automatic
- Damage Output:
- Charged Single Shot (Very High)
- Semi-Automatic (Very High)
- 3-Blast Burst (Very High)
- Fully Repeating Automatic (High)
- Recoil: Very High
- Modular Barrel Variants
- HRB-12 Infantry Weapon / HRB-S: The only variant light enough for an infantry crew to reliably transport and assemble in combat, the HRB-12 Infantry Weapon variant comes equipped with simply one barrel. It is considered Very Heavy and cannot be held as a standard blaster. It comes with a tripod that can be adjusted for height so that the shooter can shoot it while standing, seated, prone, or in a trench. It requires two power generators to be fully operational.
- HRB-12 Bi-Barrel Variant / HRB-D: Too heavy for an infantry crew, the HRB-12 Bi-Barrel Variant is considered ideal as an armament and weapons platform for light vehicles and airships. The variant comes with two barrels that are spaced out horizontally from each other with a centered iron sight/scope attachment. This upgrade helps to amplify the volume of fire of the weapon; however, it takes longer to concurrently fire a charged shot from both barrels. It requires three power generators or an equivalent vehicle power source to be fully operational. The total weight of the weapon and its components is considered Extreme.
- HRB-12 Tri-Barrel Variant / HRB-T: Too heavy for an infantry crew, the HRB-12 Tri-Barrel Variant is considered ideal as a secondary armament for armoured vehicles or a weapons platform for gunships and airships. The variant comes with three separate barrels that are spaced out horizontally from each other with a centered iron sight/scope attachment. This upgrade helps to amplify the volume of fire of the weapon; however, it takes notably longer to concurrently fire a charged shot from all three barrels. It requires four power generators or an equivalent vehicle power source to be fully operational. The total weight of the weapon and its components is considered Extreme.
- HRB-12 Quad-Barrelled Platform / HRB-Q: Too heavy for an infantry crew and notably energy intensive for even heavy planetary vehicles, the HRB-12 Quad-Barrel Variant is considered ideal as a weapons platform for permanent fortifications or starships. The variant comes with four separate barrels that are spaced out from each other and form the shape of a square with a centered iron sight/scope attachment. This upgrade helps to amplify the volume of fire of the weapon; however, it takes significantly longer to concurrently fire a charged shot from all four barrels. It requires six power generators or an equivalent vehicle power source to be fully operational. The total weight of the weapon and its components is considered Extreme.
- Modular Underbarrel Attachment
- Rangefinder
- Modular Scope Attachment
- Minimum use of two power generators or an equivalent vehicle energy source depending on barrel variant
- Alternating Use Mode of power generators to faciliate one-man operation of the weapon and limit generator overheating
- Cooling Unit compatible with most coolant options
- Heat Sink
- Tunqstoid-material adjustable Tripod
- Heavy Blaster Actuator
- Precision Chamber
- MWC-HS Hyper Trigger model Hair Trigger
- Trigger Cable
- Recoil-dampening Stock
- Autosteady Gyro-Gimbal
- Cautionary Pulser
- Power Pulsator
- Long-Range Capability: In order for the weapon to be on par with slugthrower heavy weapons and other modernised weapon systems, the HRB-12 has been designed to be effective at long-range engagements, thus giving the Galactic Empire a viable infantry weapon for battlefield engagements. This also allows the HRB-12 to be used as an armament choice for military vehicles expected to engage at relatively long distances. This long-distance effectiveness is only possible due to the base HRB-12 model requiring two attached power generators to be fully operational and at least one additional power generator for every additional barrel in each variant.
- High Penetration and Damage Output: The weapon is designed to have devastating penetration and damage potential even at long distances. This is to give the Imperial battalion and Imperial vehicles a viable option to engage enemy infantry and vehicles at range with great firepower.
- High Volume of Fire: The base infantry variant of the HRB-12 has an average or mediocre rate of fire compared to other heavy repeating blasters and plasma cannon models. The heavier variants of the HRB-12 make up for this by increasing the number of barrels in the weapon, which increases its overall volume of fire down-range. This also has the effect of increasing the target grouping of the weapon with more plasma bolts being fired at the same spot.
- Easy to Repair and Maintain: Thanks to the deliberately simplified, albeit crude, design of the HRB-12 - maintenance crews and combat engineers find the weapon easy to repair and maintain, with troubleshooting being straightforward.
- Charged Single Shot: The HRB-12 has a fire mode that allows all of its power generators to charge a particularly potent bolt of plasma before firing downrange. This requires a notably long charging time before firing, with the charging time being exponential for every separate barrel the power generators have to individually charge. This is useful for critical hits against heavily-armoured targets, especially at range. A brief cool down is required between each charged single shot.
- Minimum Crew Requirements: It was considered a flaw that prior heavy repeating blasters, such as the E-Web heavy repeating blaster cannon, required at least two operators, with one firing and the other monitoring the power generator, due to its manpower-intensive use. The HRB-12 is designed to only require one operator to use, with an option for the heavy repeating blaster to alternate between different power generators when one was clocked to be near overheating levels. This feature is usually automatically wired into the blaster configuration when attached to a vehicle platform or permanent fortification.
- Volatile Power Generators: Due to the extremely high energy needs of the weapon, the power generators often remain charged with an extreme amount of power output. When directly struck, power generators of the HRB-12 often combust into flames in best-case scenarios or even create spectacular explosions that often wipe out their own crew and sometimes the vehicle itself. As such, it is recommended in the doctrine manual of the HRB-12 that infantry crews hide their power generators well behind cover or even bury them if necessary. Engineers are instructed to embed HRB-12 power generators deep within the armour of the vehicle when attaching the weapons platform as an armament.
- Energy Intensive: The HRB-12 requires a great deal of energy to fire powerful plasma at range in a relatively small piece of weaponry. The lightest variant of the HRB-12 requires a minimum of two power generators to be attached and often at least one more power generator for every barrel added to the weapon platform. The HRB-12 is severely limited in its capability when its power source is not optimal.
- Very Heavy to Extremely Heavy: Due to its crude design, dense metal materials and the general mass of the weapon, the HRB-12 is a notably heavy weapon that requires a crew to move and assemble even the lightest variant of the HRB-12. Vehicle designers are instructed to keep in mind of weight considerations when deciding to attach the HRB-12 to a vehicle or use a higher barrel variant.
- Very High Recoil: Despite the HRB-12 using plasma technology, it is inevitable that the weapon platform has an incredibly great amount of recoil thanks to its crude design and extraordinary power potential.
- Incredibly Loud: The HRB-12 is a loud piece of weaponry, even by slugthrower standards. This often leads to hearing loss and high levels of repeated yelling when the HRB-12 is used in combat situations.
- Reduced Damage and Penetration in Automatic Fire Mode: To mitigate the chances of the weapon's power generators overheating and blowing out, the weapon's firing chamber and power generators are specifically clocked to be fired at reduced power levels when the weapon is selected on the fully repeating automatic mode of fire. This means that while the HRB-12 still has devastating plasma damage and penetration when firing on automatic, it is notably less compared to its other fire modes.
- Easy to Locate: As is the flaw with all energy weaponry, it is much easier to trace its position during long-distance engagements compared to slugthrowers. While the Infantry Platform variant can be adjusted to have a relatively low profile, all variants of the HRB-12 fire a distinctive hot pink plasma. This makes it especially easy to identify and locate the position of any HRB-12 even when engaging at long ranges on the battlefield, making it likely that users of this weapon will be focused on by the enemy.
Darth Solipsis' Galactic Empire is known to design its arsenal in the aesthetic and doctrine of Palpatine's First Galactic Empire, primarily to emulate itself as the true legitimate successor of his Imperial legacy. This included using the E-Web Heavy Repeating Blaster as the standard vehicle weapon and heavy infantry support for Imperial forces. There were many upsides to the platform that saw its widespread use despite its antiquity such as its devastating firepower, built-in encrypted local comm network and minimal recoil. However the E-Web suffered from a fatal weakness that being its maximum effective range didn't even reach a full kilometre, meaning that it is often outranged by even primitive slugthrower weapons. Furthermore, the E-Web Heavy Repeating Blaster required two people to effectively operate it with one manning the weapon and another monitoring the power generator. As such, this left the Imperial infantry battalion vulnerable to getting outranged and losing out on valuable manpower when they used the E-Web Heavy Repeating Blaster in engagements with enemies that had superior ranged technology.
Many officials in the Galactic Empire, especially Deputy Science Officer of the OIS, Doctor Afic Otker, advocated for modernising and even overhauling the Imperial arsenal to keep pace with their many foes. Their efforts were rebuffed and stalled by assurances of Imperial zealotry and numbers winning the day, with most funds and resources being diverted to the Emperor's mysterious and vague energy program.
This changed after the failed Atrisia campaign, where the Galactic Empire was defeated and suffered heavy casualties across all fronts against its numerous and technologically advanced foes. Furthermore, the Emperor's superweapon, the Death Star III suffered notable damage and had its vulnerabilities made known to its creators and enemies during the battle. Faith and waves of Stormtroopers allowed the Empire to take the Core Worlds by surprise, but they would not conquer the galaxy alone. As such, the political capital needed to ratify a weapon modernisation initiative was found.
The Department of Advanced Weapons Research was given adequate funds and resources needed to begin its HALLAM (High-Adaptive Logistics, Lethality, and Armament Modernisation) Program in full. One of the priorities of the program was to modernise the Stormtrooper Corps and Imperial Army kit. The E-Web Heavy Repeating Blaster was re-examined and it was decided that a new Heavy Repeating Blaster would be designed from scratch with specific emphasis on the new weapon being suited for Imperial combat doctrine and to remove the flaws of prior designs. Furthermore, the parameters of the weapons project dictated that the new Heavy Repeating Blaster had to be streamlined and adaptable for infantry, vehicle and static roles to ease logistics and production.
Doctrinally, the E-Web Heavy Repeating Blaster was given to an infantry battalion to supplement their firepower, stationed as static defences or attached to light airships for aerial support. The same recommendation was made for the new HRB-12 as the new prototype was considered superior in all roles compared to the E-Web with some specific exceptions to short-ranged base security roles.
The Heavy Repeating Blaster-12 or HRB-12 is often referred to as the 'H-12' for shorthand in both frontline and administrative environments, however both friendly and foe alike have nicknamed the weapon as 'Pinkfire' due to the distinctive hot pink plasma bolts that it fires.
In order for the HRB-12 to reach the project's ideal maximum effective range, the weapon needed at least two power generators to supply it alongside a custom high-quality tibanna gas composition to super-charge the plasma bolts, which gives the bolts their hot pink hue.
Due to the simplified design of the weapons internals, the HRB-12 had at best a mediocre fire rate compared to other heavy repeating blasters and plasma cannons which led to the possibility of it being out-suppressed by faster blasters. Increasing the HRB-12's rate of fire would have required costly sacrifices to the weapon's performance or eveb radically redesigning the heavy repeating blaster due to the limitations of its simplified and streamlined design. To circumvent this, the project engineers at the Department of Advanced Weapons Research decided to make HRB-12 variants with increased barrel counts. If the HRB-12 could not outgun rival weapon platforms with a faster fire rate, then it would do so with sheer volume of fire down range.
The HRB-12 variants with multiple barrels are simply too heavy, bulky and frankly too costly in energy needs for an infantry crew to reliably transport and assemble. As such, the multiple-barrel variants of the HRB-12 were designed to be attached as a vehicle armament whether for ground, aerial, naval, or space craft. The downside was that the heavier variants require more power generators for each barrel added to the weapon, as such it was included in the doctrine manual of the HRB-12 that the variants should only be attached to a vehicle if the vehicle can reliably field the weapon's weight and energy munition needs.
To correct an critical flaw found in testing where the power generators could short-circuit and blow-out during sustained automatic fire, the project engineers specifically clocked both the blaster's firing chamber and the power generators to be at reduced power levels when in a fully repeating automatic mode of fire. Despite this, the heavy repeating blaster still has devastating firepower when firing on automatic - just not as devastating compared to its burst-fire and semi-automatic fire mode.
While the HRB-12 had promising results in field tests in regards to its damage and penetration potential against both soft and hard targets, it was recommended that the weapon be given the capability to penetrate critical areas of heavily-armoured targets at range that it normally wouldn't be able to given its reduced clocked firepower when in repeating automatic fire mode. As such, operators of the HRB-12 are able to charge a singular shot with the full power of the generators to fire down range. However, this charging takes critical time to complete with the charging time being exponential to each individual barrel being charged.
The HRB-12 has been applauded for its devastating firepower and long-range capability, with each heavier variant being more powerful due to sheer volume of fire from its increased barrels. Furthermore, the simplified design of the weapon was the deciding factor in the Galactic Empire deciding to produce the Imperial heavy repeating blaster domestically rather than outsourcing the manufacturing to a private contract bid. The Office of Imperial Sciences received political favour for the completion of the project and the HRB-12 'H-12' variants have been tauted as a critical and textbook success of the HALLAM Program since its introduction.
Out Of Character Info
Intent:
To create a primary heavy repeating blaster and a possible vehicle armament for the military forces of the Galactic Empire; multiple barrel-count variants to suit infantry, vehicle and static roles.
Image Source(s):
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/HOB_heavy_repeating_blaster/Legends
Technical Information
Affiliation:
The Galactic Empire
Model:
Imperial HRB-12
Modular:
Yes
Effective Range:
Battlefield
Rate of Fire:
Selective Fire
Material:
Reinforced Durasteel Frame | Manganese-Plastoid Alloy Grip Handle Blaster | Components | Bondite and Aluminium Internals | Tibanna | Dallorian Alloy Thickened Barrel | Anti-Corr 113 Treatment | Tunqstoid Tripod | CyroBan Coolant Compatibility | Power Generators with Reinforced Alusteel and Dallorian Alloy shielding
Ammunition Type:
Power Cell
Ammunition Capacity:
Average
Damage Output:
Very High
Recoil:
Very High
Ranged Class:
Other
