Someone May Have a Conniption

[Popo]

Popo's Other Diary

Alright, so, as the project gets underway, I realized something very important: The karking gun will need a design all of its own.

Apparently I forgot to have the thing designed beforehand and with Tenloss R&D working overtime on the ship as a whole, it's looking like I'm in charge of this one.

Guess I should get started. I'll record the majority of the things in here for future reference. Might be useful.

For starters, the cannon will have an immense amount of recoil, despite being a mass driver and despite being in zero gravity. For this reason, I've given the design a little tweak here and there.

Eight, thick, titanium rods are to be anchored into the spine of the ship and then attached to the support structure of the cannon mounting. On top of this, the cannon is turret mounted on the nose with a 200° arc of fire. For this reason, I've also altered the design to include a titanium turret ring with more titanium internal reinforcement. This will keep the cannon from ripping itself off the ship and from shearing itself off the turret.

 

[Popo]

The electrical equipment, sensors, and the like have been routed to the main system in five different areas of the turret. This serves two purposes.

First, it lets the ship maintain access to the gun, even when damaged. That lets repair crews more easily search for, locate, and repair damage to the systems and the weapon in a pinch. Second, it allows redundancy in the weapon itself. In the even the turret suffers a hit that knocks out the connection to the weapon from the ship, there are four more locations that allow the ship to communicate to the weapon electronically.

I've added that the mount itself will require a 90° elevation ability. It will also need a -15° depression ability.

 

[Popo]

The turret itself is plated in the same material a the rest of the ship with overlaps over the turret ring. This protects the ring itself from damage, though I think if anything warps the titanium ring or bends the armor into the joint that it will require a shipyard to fix, not just a quick repair.

The inside of the turret is lined and reinforced with titanium for structural integrity. Inside of this lining is more reinforcement and a spall lining. It's a starship, I know, but even starships need to worry about spalling shrapnel in the crew compartments.

The turret itself is large enough to fit on the nose of the ship without over stressing the spine or the structural integrity. The area around the turret installation is, again, reinforced with titanium and plated with the armor in development.

Just in case, however, I've sent the structural data and designs to a specialist. Hopefully their report will prove fruitful.

[member="Hawke Katamirth"]

 

[Popo]

With this, the construction on the gun itself can begin. At first, the concept was to create a single barrel design with a magazine fed hopper, much like a very large, scaled up, old fashioned slug thrower. Eventually, a more experimental design was decided on.

With the turret plated in the new armor in production and the interior reinforced by titanium, it was realized that the turret could take an astounding amount of recoil. With this in mind, a multi-barreled cannon was theorized and designed to be mounted into the pre-existing turret.

The barrels are made of a tungsten-alusteel alloy and are fed from a central magazine of preset rounds. The rounds are fed by a hopper beneath the turret and pushed into the chamber. So far, no flaws with this feeding mechanism have been determined.

 

[Popo]

The barrels are mounted on a central axis and rotated at a set speed. The barrels must attain the set speed before firing so as not to misfire and damage or destroy the gun. The rate of fire is slower than most standard turbolasers and similar weapons, but is equivalent to the rate of fire seen in heavy or long range weaponry.

The weapon has multiple barrels for one reason and one reason only: redundancy. The individual barrels can be shut off by the gun crew in the event of damage. This prevents the entire weapon from being damaged by one bent or blown barrel. It also spreads the wear and tear of the weapon firing over the multiple barrels instead of a single barrel, theoretically reducing the time between replacement.

 

[Popo]

The weapon is a simple hyper velocity cannon designed to fire magnetically accelerated slugs at extreme speeds. The kinetic damage is quite profound on impact and, depending on the armor and shielding of the target, can damage, cripple, or even destroy many ships with relative ease.

Increasing the rate of fire for the weapon makes this cannon even more devastating. Theoretically, the weapon can maintain a constant stream of fire, approximately one shot every two seconds at the set speed, directed at the enemy. Initial testing supports this theory, though it has been pointed out that damage to the barrels can slow down the firing speed as the weapon will need to spin past the defunct cannon barrels.

 

[Popo]

The cannon fires kinetic projectiles which means, in theory, the weapon has an infinite range. In practice, the range is determined by the weapon's targeting system. The cannon itself has a pair of target acquisition systems routed to another pair of advanced targeting sensors. These sensors are looped into the host ship's targeting array, in this case the Republic-class, which boosts the accuracy and extends the weapon's effective range.

This boost allows the HVG to engage and reliably hit targets at long ranges, allowing the weapon to provide the ship it is mounted on with another method of engagement: long range combat.

 

[Popo]

The weapon features high damage and penetration for a weapon of its class while the "rapid" fire capabilities accentuate these capabilities. My tacticians feel that a weapon like this can cause disorder and chaos in the enemy fleet, regardless of any actual hits scored or missed, which will allow the Republic-class and the ships accompanying it to advance into an enemy in disarray.

This tactic isn't knew to warfare, but it is new to the Republic battle tactics as far as I'm aware. Shock tactics and psychological warfare are normally seen among the Sith and their ilk, but when used correctly and without using sentient beings as meat shields, the Republic can implement their own tactics.

 

[Popo]

The weapon itself does feature one or two major drawbacks that are, unfortunately, created by the design itself.

Primarily, the weapon is slow to traverse. The extra barrels, mountings, spinning axis, housing, and turret itself are very, very heavy. The prevents the turret from turning quickly to engage close, fast moving targets. The weapon is designed primarily for long range dueling and suppression to allow the fleet to advance with relative impunity. Personally, I figure the weapon can be used on close in targets, but with the traverse as slow as it is, this will be a rare occurrence, I feel.

 

[Popo]

Lastly, the HVG has one last problem indicative of a gatling-type weapon. The weapon must reach the set speed before firing is possible. Due to the weight of the barrels and the weapon itself, this takes approximately one to two minutes. While normally this would not be an issue in space combat, the slow spin-up time could mean the difference between dispersing the enemy fleet or allowing them to effectively target, damage, and/or destroy friendly ships.

Essentially, the weapon must reach the set speed before firing. Captains and commanders are encouraged to begin spinning the HVG up at the first sight of enemy ships. To do otherwise may allow the enemy to accurately target Republic ships and avoid the weapon's fire.