Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a basic underbarrel grenade launcher in Lucerne Personal Defense's line-up
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Personal Defense Customers
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: LPD-53 Crasher Underbarrel Grenade Launcher
- Modularity: can easily be attached as an underbarrel weapon on larger weapons like blaster rifles or integrated into personal armors or droids; can fire almost any typical-size greande
- Production: Mass-Produced.
- Material: Agrinium– condensed-matter composite frame, durasteel internals, typical grenade launcher components
- Classification: grenade launcher
- Size: Small
- Weight: Heavy
- Ammunition Type: Grenades
- Ammunition Capacity: Very Small (3 grenades)
- Effective Range: Average
- Rate of Fire: Average
- Damage Output: Very High
- Recoil: Average
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Compact: The Crasher is a compact weapon, making it easy to fit underneath many larger personal weapons or integrate with other devices
- Electric Ignition: The Crasher is electrically initiated, superposed grenade launcher. In other words, tapping the trigger connects an electric circuit which ignites each grenade cartridge in a sequential sequence, with the grenade closest to the muzzle being launched, then the middle grenade, then the last grenade. This makes the operating system extremely simple with a minimum of parts and no need for any sort of extraction or ejection parts. It also means grenades can be easily topped off by depressing a retention stud and letting a grenade cartridge fall into the barrel.
- Modular Ammunition: The Crasher is designed to use any standard sized hand grenade with the use of a simple cartridge propellant attachment. To adapt a grenade, on simple has to remove the adhesive side of the disk and attach it to the back of the grenade. The disc itself contains an igniting compound, propellant charge, and a durasteel back blast plate. While almost any grenade can be used with this system, the Crasher is most commonly used with the company's own Fireblast and Coldblast grenades, but more unusual electronet, glop, and Ion grenades can also be easily fired out
- Targeting Laser: On account of its short barrel, the Crasher has a typical effective range with a flat trajectory of 100 meters, which is fairly comparable to that of many blaster rifles. As such a distance, most scopes are of limited utility and instead the Crasher has a targeting laser built onto its side. This allows users to paint a target before firing - this technique is also fairly useful for quick, but accurate reaction shots at close range. Some users though develop a "feel" for the weapon's trajectory and opt not to use the laser in order to be more stealthy in its use.
- Heavy Hitter: The Crasher launches full-sized hand grenades, which tends to make it a fairly powerful weapon. It's not uncommon for a single grenade from the launcher to take out a few individuals or severely damage a light vehicle.
- Small Ammunition Capacity: The Crasher can only hold three grenades in its barrel, meaning that frequent use means more frequent reloads.
Underbarrel grenade launchers have been a fairly common staple of armies for many years because they allow individual soldiers a limited ability to pack a punch against heavier targets like fortifications and light vehicles without the need to carry a full-size heavy weapon. With the Directorate and the Silver Jedi Concord turning to use dated but serviceable designs such as the MGL-1, Lucerne Personal Defense decided to make a design of their own which could complement existing stocks of weapons and munitions as well as be more tailored for the use of these organizations. To that end, the resulting Crasher can use almost any standard size grenade, making it much more versatile weapon than many of its micro-grenade competitors. Additionally, a fairly simple operating system also makes it less likely to malfunction or be affected by ion or EMP attacks, a significant concern given the Bryn'adul's use of technology designed to cancel out more advanced electronical weapon systems.
The Crasher is a fairly simple firearm, and thus has been able to have been produced in large quantities relatively quickly. Most of the weapons produced so far have been issued out to infantrymen on the western reaches of Silver Jedi Concord space as they prepare for more incursions by the Bryn'adul. In this role, most launchers are issued out with Coldblast grenades, giving Concord and Directorate soldiers a better chance of battering back Baedurin shock troops via the use of intense, freezing cold. Even if the Bryn'adul threat recedes, it seems likely that the Crasher will remain in production for sometime, giving the average soldier a better chance of taking on heavier opponents.
