Approved Ranged Weapon VAN-13 "Heavy Mauler"

[VesperWorks]

VAN-13 "Heavy Mauler"​

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: To submit a long-range, armor-piercing autocannon utilizing antimatter-charged kinetic shells for use on capital ships and siege vessels under VesperWorks/Vantablast military doctrine.
Image Source: MidJourney
Canon Link: N/A
Permissions: N/A
Primary Source: N/A

PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Manufacturer: Vantablast Industries (Subsidiary of VesperWorks)
Affiliation: Vantablast Industries, VesperWorks, Project Vesper, Serina Calis, Atramentum
Market Status: Closed-Market
Model: VAN-13 "Heavy Mauler"
Modularity: No
Production: Limited
Material:

• Durasteel: The majority of the Heavy Mauler's external frame and structural barrel housing is forged from military-grade durasteel, a common but exceptionally strong alloy used across the galaxy in warships and heavy weapons. Durasteel provides resistance to impact, corrosion, and atmospheric exposure, but in the Mauler's case, it's used in interlocking segmented slabs to better distribute the shock of its immense recoil. These plates also act as modular armor layers, which can be replaced or patched in the field after stress fracturing or combat damage.
• Agrinium: To prevent the antimatter containment chamber and injection ports from irradiating surrounding components or crew compartments, the Mauler is internally sheathed with agrinium plating, a radiation-absorbent metal that neutralizes ionic backwash and minimizes EMP vulnerability. This shielding is vital when operating the Rhydonium-fed field charger, especially during rapid vent cycles or emergency purges, where antiproton leakage or destabilized containment fields could cause catastrophic flash events.
• Phrik Lining (Barrel Interior & Sheath Reinforcement): To contain the intense stress of hyper-velocity projectile launches and antimatter coating detonation, the Mauler's barrel is lined with phrik, an exceptionally rare and lightsaber-resistant alloy known for its near-indestructibility and heat tolerance. This lining helps maintain barrel shape and integrity even under repeated firing, protecting the inner rifling from molecular deformation caused by antiproton field backlash, and ensuring that the antimatter sheath remains stable up to the point of release..
• Neutronium Alloy (Recoil Housing & Structural Piston Core): The weapon's enormous recoil is controlled through a neutronium alloy piston ring and core stabilizer assembly, embedded beneath the turret housing. Neutronium, a hyper-dense, gravity-dampening material, is used in limited applications due to its extreme weight and cost—but here, it's the only viable material capable of absorbing the brute force kinetic feedback from a Mauler's full discharge without destabilizing the platform or damaging nearby ship architecture.
• Plasteel: Plasteel is used on external modular panels, protective shrouds for the ammunition dial, and minor access points. Lightweight, durable, and easy to replace, it helps shield non-critical systems from micrometeorites, battle debris, or maintenance tool damage. While not sufficient to stop direct fire, it ensures fast access to coolant lines, sensor relays, or fuse scrubbers when field crews are pressed for time.
• Thermoguard Gel Reservoir: A critical secondary system, thermoguard gel is pumped through micro-latticed veins inside the Mauler's barrel sheath and loading chamber. When activated, this compound rapidly absorbs and disperses kinetic and thermal buildup, preventing warping or spontaneous ignition of antiproton-charged shells. Without this system, even one misfire or blocked ejection cycle could result in a devastating internal detonation.
• Fiberplast Wiring: All internal targeting synchronization, elevation modulation, and coolant vent sequencing rely on fiberplast-cased conduits, which are highly resistant to electromagnetic interference and thermal overload. This ensures the Mauler remains functional in hostile combat conditions, post-ion bombardment zones, or after critical hull damage that might disable standard circuitry.
• Rhydonium (Reaction Fuel): The heart of the Mauler's unique destructive capacity is a pressurized micro-reservoir of Rhydonium, a volatile, canon fuel substance used in explosive applications throughout galactic history. Rather than powering the gun directly, Rhydonium is used to energize the antimatter induction grid, allowing a sliver-thin sheath of antiprotons to form and remain stable around the shell's ogive during the 0.03-second window before launch. This reaction is closely monitored by fail-safe containment algorithms and only activates when all parameters are optimal.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Classification: Slugthrower (Antimatter-Charged Autocannon)
Size: Very Large
Weight: Very Heavy
Ammunition Type: Armor-Piercing Cased Shells with Antimatter-Enhanced Ogive
Ammunition Capacity: Small (5–10 shells ready; slow reload per volley)
Effective Range: Long Range
Rate of Fire: Low
Damage Output: Very High
Recoil: High

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Antimatter-Charged Ogive (Antiproton Sheath System):
  The Heavy Mauler's signature feature is its antimatter ogive coating system. During the final microseconds before launch, each shell is surrounded by a suspended field of antiprotons, hovering just nanometers from the shell's metallic surface. This sheath is stabilized with a baryon-laced containment matrix which keeps the antiprotons in place until physical impact. Upon striking a target, the field collapses, releasing a localized matter-antimatter reaction that amplifies the shell's destructive yield, allowing it to punch through and vaporize heavily reinforced armor in a single shot.
• Rhydonium-Fed Induction Chamber:
  To generate the antimatter sheath, the Mauler uses a micro-reservoir of Rhydonium to fuel the induction grid. This system briefly channels energy into a particle field generator surrounding the breech, then transfers that charge to the shell. The use of Rhydonium allows this high-energy process to occur without overburdening the ship's primary reactor. However, it is also extremely volatile, necessitating multiple internal safety relays and controlled reaction timers.
• Nano-Reflex Cooling System:
  Integrated into the barrel jacket is a nano-reflex cooling system, consisting of microchannels filled with thermoguard gel. This system automatically activates after each shot, absorbing radiant heat and mechanical energy, then dispersing it through side-mounted exhaust vents. The cooling process is visible during operation, often manifesting as a low, whispering mist or pulses of blue vapor escaping from armored purge ports along the cannon's flanks. This feature prevents barrel warping, premature shell detonation, and meltdown during sustained operations.
• Neutronium-Core Recoil Assembly:
  The Mauler's enormous kinetic output is managed by a neutronium-alloy stabilizing piston ring, anchored to a reinforced internal cradle. This allows the cannon to fire without destabilizing the ship's superstructure, but only when mounted to specially reinforced turret rings or spinal hulls. The recoil management system includes shock-dampening servos and torsion-absorption rods, reducing backflow stress and limiting fatigue over time. Despite these enhancements, every shot still rocks the vessel like a minor impact event.
• Magnetic Ejection Vent System:
  After firing, the spent shell casing is ejected via an external magnetic venting chute, separate from the chamber's pressure path. This prevents lingering heat and radiation from remaining near the breech and ensures smooth reloading. The vent system is armored with plasteel flaps, which close between firings to prevent boarding debris, enemy fire, or micro-meteorites from compromising the vent's structure.
• Failsafe Detonation Scrubber:
  Due to the inherent risk of antimatter instability, the Mauler includes a dedicated failsafe system that detects anomalies in the charging field or breach alignment. If a shell becomes stuck or begins to overcharge, the scrubber initiates a neutralization burst, collapsing the antimatter field and ejecting the shell inert. This process damages the loading system, but prevents a catastrophic internal detonation, buying the crew precious seconds for containment or evacuation.
• Precision Targeting Armature:
  The Mauler features a servo-controlled elevation and trajectory prediction arm, allowing it to be aligned with high-fidelity long-range telemetry from a Fleetlink™-compatible targeting suite. While its rate of fire is low, its ability to fire precisely at extreme ranges makes it invaluable in fleet duels or orbital bombardment roles, especially when coordinated with spotter drones or long-range sensor overlays.
• Fleetlink™ Compatibility:
  When integrated into a VesperWorks Fleetlink™ fire control system, the Heavy Mauler can receive targeting data from other ships, satellites, or ground forces, enabling it to fire beyond visual range or into contested sensor zones. This allows the Mauler to participate in coordinated kill-box executions, focusing multiple Maulers or weapon platforms on a single weakened target with surgical brutality.
• Cradle-Armor Barrel Isolation Mount:
  To shield nearby systems from vibrational stress and radiation leakage, the Mauler is installed with a barrel isolation mount—a combination of inertial dampeners, radiation baffles, and segmented armor joints. This ensures the cannon can be fired without destabilizing the turret ring, and also protects nearby fire control systems from micro-shockwave interference or plasma ion backflash.

STRENGTHS

• Antimatter-Enhanced Penetration — Beyond Armor, Beyond Reason:
  The Heavy Mauler's most fearsome trait is its antiproton-charged ogive, a quantum-thin field of antimatter suspended over each shell's forward tip. Upon impact, this sheath collapses, unleashing a localized matter-antimatter annihilation burst. Unlike conventional weapons, this doesn't simply puncture armor—it atomizes it, cracking molecular bonds and turning hardened plating into expanding debris vapor. Against conventional hulls, the result is catastrophic; against reinforced ones, it still opens clean, thermal-kill punctures deep into vulnerable subsystems. This isn't penetration—it's erasure.
• High Per-Shot Damage — One Shell, One Breach:
  Each Mauler round is designed to be a singular, event-defining attack. Even without the antimatter effect, the sheer kinetic force of the shell—launched at incredible velocity from a rifled phrik-lined barrel—is sufficient to rupture structural beams, compromise engine nacelles, or destroy exposed hardpoints outright. With the antimatter sheath intact, a single well-placed shot can disable hangars, incinerate command towers, or kill an entire section of a ship. In terms of raw per-shell lethality, few weapons rival the Mauler outside of superweapons.
• Long-Range Precision Engagement — A Sniper's Sledgehammer:
  Unlike most kinetic or antimatter weapons, the Mauler is capable of extreme-range firing with impressive accuracy. The weapon's precision-guided elevation system, coupled with Fleetlink™ fire control and gravitic compensation, enables it to target ships and structures well beyond standard turbolaser dueling distances. It excels in capital ship engagements, siege operations, and orbital bombardments, able to strike surgically from the periphery of battle where it is safest and most lethal.
• Armored Target Specialist — Designed to Crack the Uncrackable:
  The Mauler is not built for versatility—it is built to kill heavily armored targets. Fortified stations, Mandalorian war cruisers, beskar-fused superheavy corvettes, durachrome dreadnought plating—all of them eventually fail under repeated Mauler fire. It does not care for ECM, jamming, or shield harmonics. Once defenses fall, the Mauler punishes complacency with irreversible, physical ruin.
• Resilience to Ion/EMP — Low-Digital Footprint, High-Reliability Core:
  Because much of the Mauler's fire control and ejection systems rely on mechanical and analog infrastructure, the weapon is highly resistant to ion weapons, EMP attacks, or slicer interference. Its internal wiring is protected by fiberplast sheathing, and its antiproton stabilization is governed by localized regulators, not central systems. In battles where advanced weapons are suppressed by tech denial strategies, the Mauler remains grimly operational, like a siege cannon from a forgotten age.
• Terrifying Psychological Impact — The Gun That Promises Ruin:
  The Mauler does not need to hit to instill fear. Its charging sequence emits a low, throbbing pulse audible even through vacuum-suited hulls, and the moment it fires—a flash of blue-white light and a soundless eruption visible across entire battlescapes—every enemy crewman knows what it means. The next target is already chosen. Its slow rate of fire isn't a weakness here—it's a drumbeat of dread. On battlefields where morale matters, the Mauler is a psychological predator, imposing not just damage, but despair.
• Designed for Capital Ship Platforms — The Apex of Brutalist Design:
  The Mauler is engineered from the ground up to serve aboard heavy cruisers, dreadnoughts, and siege frigates, with full integration into VesperWorks' hardened hull architectures. It works in harmony with spinal guns, heavy broadside batteries, and ECM escorts, allowing a Mauler-equipped ship to anchor a formation and project dominance through precision strikes. It is not a weapon you carry lightly. It is a flagship statement.

WEAKNESSES

• Extremely Low Rate of Fire — The Price of Power:
  Every shot from the Mauler is a calculated act of violence—but that power comes with a cost. The weapon's firing cycle is painfully slow, requiring time to load, stabilize the antimatter sheath, cool the barrel, and flush excess thermal and radiation buildup. In high-tempo engagements, this means the Mauler often fires only once or twice per engagement window, and cannot respond dynamically to fast-changing threats. A missed shot is not just a tactical failure—it's a multi-second silence in which the enemy can strike with impunity.
• Enormous Recoil — Shakes the Ship to Its Bones:
  Despite neutronium-core recoil dampeners, the Mauler's kinetic discharge produces ship-shaking force. Unreinforced decks, adjacent systems, and poorly braced mounts can suffer stress fractures, electronic drift, or alignment warping from prolonged use. Even well-designed capital ships must brace internal systems and shut down adjacent hardware during firing sequences. If fired under structural strain or while maneuvering erratically, the weapon risks tearing free of its mount or damaging the firing platform itself.
• Antimatter Hazard — A Catastrophic Risk Profile:
  The Mauler's antimatter sheath relies on Rhydonium-fed particle stabilization, a volatile and temperamental energy process. If the induction chamber is damaged, improperly cooled, or misaligned during a firing cycle, it risks antiproton leakage or premature containment collapse. The resulting event is not a misfire—it is a micro-annihilation, which can obliterate the cannon, breach adjacent compartments, or even ignite nearby ammunition reserves. Without strict safety protocols and cooling integrity, the Mauler becomes a ticking time bomb.
• Limited Ammunition — Each Shot is Precious:
  Due to the immense size, weight, and material cost of each shell—particularly those with antimatter coatings—most ships can carry only a few dozen rounds at most. Combined with the weapon's slow rate of fire and logistical rearmament demands, the Mauler is a finite resource in any engagement. Once its ammunition is expended, the turret becomes deadweight, and unless the ship is equipped for internal reloading, it cannot be replenished mid-battle.
• Ineffective Against Agile or Shielded Targets — Built to Breach, Not Chase:
  The Mauler is designed to destroy armor, not hunt fighters. Its projectile speed and size make it ineffective against fast, evasive targets, and the antimatter sheath does little against active shielding. Against well-maneuvered corvettes, nimble patrol craft, or targets using unpredictable vectoring, the Mauler is wasted effort—a hammer swung at ghosts. Additionally, if its target is shielded, the antimatter sheath often detonates prematurely, wasting its enhanced potential against energy resistance fields.
• Severe Power and Cooling Requirements — Not for Small Shipse:
  While the Mauler doesn't drain reactor cores like a superlaser, its charging array, stabilization cradle, cooling system, and ejection mechanisms demand significant infrastructure. Only ships with dedicated coolant cycles, reinforced reactor grid tap-ins, and vented turret mounts can sustain regular usage. On improperly equipped ships, overdraws or coolant failure may result in barrel lock, safety lockout, or catastrophic induction failure. This makes the Mauler unsuitable for retrofitted platforms or lighter vessels.
• Vulnerable During Cooldown — Easy to Exploit:
  After each shot, the Mauler must undergo a full cooldown and venting sequence, during which its targeting arms are locked and its ejection ports exposed. During this window, the weapon cannot rotate, elevate, or fire, and its exposed vent hatches become prime targets for precision munitions or boarding sabotage. Smart enemies will time their attacks to this moment, exploiting the Mauler's inherent vulnerability after its thunder has passed.
• Massive Physical Profile — Obvious, Immobile, and Prioritized:
  The Mauler is impossible to hide. Its huge barrel, thermal glow, and magnetic loading frame are visibly exposed on nearly every ship that mounts it. Its distinct signature is easy to identify on visual, IR, and EM spectrums. Enemy captains often prioritize the Mauler turret in their attack plans, and fighters or missiles can be redirected to its weak points if shielding falters. It's not just a weapon—it's a target painted in steel.

DESCRIPTION

The VAN-13 "Heavy Mauler" is not a weapon built for deterrence. It is built for conviction. Brutal, slow, and surgical in its annihilation, the Mauler represents the pinnacle of Vantablast Industries' siege doctrine: a purebred armor killer, engineered to erase the battlefield certainty of defensive geometry. Where turbolasers carve and missiles swarm, the Mauler punctures. And then it ends things.

Originally developed as a strategic response to heavily armored rebel bastions and Mandalorian ship plating, the Mauler was conceived under the auspices of Project: VESPER, Serina Calis' classified military-industrial initiative aimed at creating systems that could impose fear through performance alone. What emerged was a weapon that defied balance, moderation, or adaptability. The Mauler does not track fighters. It does not chase corvettes. It does not dazzle or pulse or arc. It fires once—and makes the rest of the battle irrelevant in its wake.

At its core, the Mauler is a massive rifled autocannon, lined with phrik and anchored by neutronium stabilizers, designed to hurl solid slugs of exotic-material-tipped high-density shells at enemy hulls with enough kinetic force to fold steel bulkheads like fabric. But what makes it truly terrifying is what happens just before each launch: a precisely timed surge of Rhydonium energy floods the chamber's field cage, charging a sheath of antiprotons mere nanometers ahead of the shell's ogive. This antimatter coating is invisible to the naked eye, but absolutely not to reality. When it impacts a target, the sheath collapses, triggering a localized matter-antimatter annihilation reaction. This detonation happens milliseconds before the physical round hits—creating a dual-stage trauma that obliterates armor plating and sends burning debris careening into critical subsystems with surgical malice.

Because of the weapon's volatile chemistry and absurd power output, the Mauler is rare. Only ships with reinforced turret beds, isolated coolant loops, and agrinium-shielded rhydonium reservoirs can field one safely. Most of those that do are directly tied to Serina Calis' expanding military-industrial complex—Dominion fleets, covert VESPER ships, and select aligned siege units whose captains value absolute certainty over tactical flexibility.

In fleet doctrine, Mauler-equipped ships are not vanguards—they are anchors. Positioned on the flanks or deep within the formation, their sole responsibility is to identify hardened threats and remove them from existence. Bridge towers. Reactor bulges. Spinal guns. Fortified stations. Bastion bunkers. Once a Mauler is zeroed in, the clock begins. Enemy shielding buys seconds. Armor buys fewer. After that, there is no more negotiation. Just an opening punched through the hull of history, where something important used to be.

Some weapons inspire awe. The Heavy Mauler inspires recalculation. Every battle in which it fires becomes a battle measured in what could have been, had the Mauler not been there. A monument not to escalation, but to finality.

"The Mauler doesn't kill ships. It kills futures."
— Admiral Trellon Vash, Mercenary.

 

[Delsin Shaw]

VesperWorks

Approved