Rusty
Purveyor of Fine Weaponry
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a new class of heavy energy weapon for use in tanks and spacecraft
- Image Source: https://web.phys.ksu.edu/vqm/laserweb/Ch-6/C6s5t2p2.htm
- Canon Link: N/A
- Restricted Missions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Rusty's Custom Firearms and Cutlery
- Model: XLC-1
- Affiliation: Open Market
- Modularity: No
- Production: Minor
- Material: Magnetic containment field components, high output capacitors, radiation shielding, tungsten, iridium, bomb-pumped laser shell components, microprocessors, inertial dampers, cooling system components
- Classification: Laser Cannon
- Size: Vehicle-mounted (tank or larger)
- Length: 2 meters
- Weight: 4 Metric Tons
- Ammunition Type: Specialized bomb-pumped laser shells
- Ammunition Capacity: 1
- Effective Range: Effective against heavy armor at 500 meters, medium armor at 750 meters, light armor at 1000 meters. Can potentially be affective against unarmored humanoid targets at 3000 meters. Ranges reflect standard atmospheric attenuation under ideal conditions.
- Rate of Fire: 1 round every 20 seconds
- Laser cannon that uses a bomb-pumped X-ray laser to cause damage via laser ablation.
- The beam travels at the speed of light and is invisible to the naked eye.
The XLC-1 uses bomb-pumped laser technology to generate a powerful X-ray laser. When the laser strikes a target, it tends to instantly convert the solid matter to plasma, a process known as laser ablation. This generates a tremendous amount of heat, and since the plasma jet tends to spew outwards at high velocity, it also transfers an immense amount of kinetic energy to the target. Though the duration of the beam is brief, insufficiently sturdy targets tend to shatter and spray shrapnel everywhere. Even if the target can stand up to the shock, the ejected metal plasma is extremely hazardous.
Strengths:
- As mentioned in the detailed special features section, the XLC-1 uses bomb-pumped X-ray laser technology to inflict tremendous damage on targets.
- The beam is invisible to the naked eye, and travels at lightspeed.
- Unless a shield is specifically tuned to block X-rays, field testing suggests that its usefulness might be limited against the XLC-1.
- Though the XLC-1 has many advantages over an equivalent sized blaster or turbolaser, the .005 second duration of the beam limits the amount of energy it can transfer to a target dramatically. In terms of actual damage, field testing suggests that it suffers a 5 percent energy deficit under optimal conditions, meaning that at its best, it's only 95% as powerful as a blaster or turbolaser of equivalent bore.
- The beam attenuates quickly in atmosphere, even under ideal conditions. Conditions such as smoke, fog, or even haze due to humidity can reduce effective range by up to half and can cut its power by upwards of 60%. Though the X-ray laser can penetrate obstructions that visible light cannot, they still attenuate the beam.
- Since the firing process relies on a small nuclear detonation, the forces involved are tremendous. Though a powerful magnetic containment field protects both the cannon's bore and its firing chamber, the extreme pressures make use of focusing mirrors impossible. To contain and direct the beam, the barrel is polished to a mirror finish. Though minor damage to the finish won't affect focus, the barrel must be kept well maintained to prevent failure. Failure to do so will mean that the beam is less focused, reducing range and spreading the beam out over a wider area. While this means that it will affect more, it's dispersing that energy over a wider area, resulting in less damage to targets. While this might be of little consolation to a squad of infantry that gets blow away by a poorly focused beam, the relatively undamaged tank behind them will be more than able to avenge them.
- Failure of the magnetic containment field will result in the immediate destruction of the cannon and the vehicle it's housed in. Though the barrel is designed to be strong enough to direct the blast in a semi-safe direction in the event that the containment field fails, nothing is strong enough to make the blast survivable for the crew.
- Backscatter is a huge risk for the crew. If the beam strikes anything capable of reflecting X-rays, it can bounce off, much like a normal laser beam would a mirror. Though the backscatter trajectory is unpredictable, the fact that the beam is being reflected does not affect its range. Therefore, it's advisable that the vehicle doing the firing ensures that it's far enough away from the target for its armor to handle the potential hazard.
- Though the beam itself is invisible, the muzzle blast generated by the weapon is not. The barrel emits a blindingly bright flash, followed by a fireball that is a fairly effective weapon in its own right at close quarters. Not that any sane crew would try to employ it as such thanks to backscatter. The huge visible signature means that the XLC-1 is not a stealth weapon.
- The firing process also generates a tremendous amount of recoil. Though inertial dampers keep it from shaking itself apart, it still generates a tremendous amount of thrust. As a general rule, one shot is enough to propel 1 ton at 30 G from a standstill in a frictionless vacuum. This means that only a massive vehicle would be able to effectively mount the weapon, and a truly massive vehicle would be necessary to fire it on the move without killing all forward momentum.
- Slow rate of fire compared to both projectile and standard directed energy cannon.
The bomb-pumped X-ray laser is a technology as old as space travel itself. Relatively crude compared to blasters and turbolasers, it's typically one of the first true directed energy weapons developed by an emerging technological society. Though it's undoubtedly effective, its many drawbacks mean that it's discarded as a viable weapons system almost as soon as a society develops more modern directed weapon technologies.
This is a shame, because, with the advent of modern technology and some outside the box thinking, a bomb-pumped laser can still be effective on the modern battlefield.
Typically, a bomb-pumped laser consists of a nuclear device surrounded by focus rods of a suitable lasing medium. When the nuke goes off, X-rays are focused by the rods into coherent beams that smash into anything in the immediate vicinity. While effective, the nuclear blast destroys the device, making a one time use only weapon. Research has proven that fusion reactors are capable of producing X-ray lasers of equal power without destroying the lasing medium, but given the constraints of RP fairness, we won't go there.
The XLC-1 uses that same technology, but instead of a massive bomb producing dozens of individual beams, it uses a much smaller one to produce a single, aimed beam.
The XLC-1 utilizes "shells" that consist of a tiny nuclear fission bomb and a single focus rod. The bomb incorporates a pea-sized chunk of U-235 that is compressed to critical mass by way of extremely powerful pressor beams. This produces a blast equivalent to approximately 20 tons of TNT, which is miniscule in nuke terms, but more than enough to be a handful for the hardware. The device is focused to throw off as much X-ray energy as physically possible. The X-ray energy travels in advance of the blast front, passing through the focus rod, where it's turned into the X-ray laser beam. The focus rod is subsequently obliterated by the blast front, which is directed out of the barrel.
The barrel and firing chamber are protected by a massively powerful magnetic containment field, similar to the ones used in fusion and hypermatter reactors to contain their energy. Without the containment field, firing the XLC-1 is not survivable for any vehicle, much less its crew. The field is powered by a high output capacitor, which is initially charged from the vehicle's power plant. The cooling system that protects the XLC-1 from overheating converts much of the waste energy generated by the blast back into usable energy that is then fed back into the capacitor, reducing the strain on the vehicle's power plant. The capacitor also feeds energy into the pressors that start the ball rolling.
To load the weapon, the gunner places the shell into an airlock-like breech. Once the breech is sealed from the outside, the shell is dropped into the firing chamber, where it is rammed into place by a hydraulic arm. Once placed into the firing chamber, the breech is sealed from the inside and the containment field is activated. After firing, the containment field constricts, forcing the remnant of the nuclear blast out of the barrel. A standard radiation shield acts as a barrel plug, and prevents contamination from fallout. Once it's activated, the containment field deactivates, and the capacitor begins recharging. At this point, the next round can be loaded into the breech, though it won't drop into the firing chamber until the capacitor is fully charged. The entire process takes about 20 seconds.
Modern radiation shielding reduces the risk of radiation poisoning to the crew of whatever vehicle the XLC-1 finds itself mounted on to nearly nothing, assuming it's properly installed and rated for the task at hand. However, firing will produce fallout, and will contaminate the battlefield for unshielded personnel for years to come. Additionally, though the containment field reduces contamination of the cannon's internals to a minimum, they should still be treated as though they are "hot", unless and until testing proves otherwise.
The XLC-1 is no one's idea of a sane weapon. Though the X-ray laser offers many practical advantages over blasters and turbolasers, no one in their right mind would consider it a suitable replacement. However, the galaxy is full of people who are not in their right minds, and who would be positively giddy at the thought of loading their tanks with cannon that use peewee nukes for ammo. Since RCFC has long catered to the fantasies of the mentally unstable, the XLC-1 was considered a worthwhile investment.
