Festerruman Sachiel
The Warmaster
OUT-OF-CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: Create a Heavy Artillery Howitzer for the Chaos Pact
- Image Source: Jordi van hees
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: The Chaos Pact
- Affiliation: The Chaos Pact, The Sith Empire
- Market Status: Open-Market (To purchase and capture)
- Model: Fragor 406mm L/50 Mobile Howitzer
- Modularity: No
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Durasteel, Impervium, Tantalum Hafnium Carbide Alloy
- Classification: Projectile Artillery
- Size: Very Large
- Length: 25 meters
- Width: 3 Meters
- Weight: Very Heavy
- 70 tons
- Ammunition Type:
- High-Explosive Shells - a four-ton shell packed with a baradium-impregnated detonite filling capable of demolishing an entire city block made from reinforced duracrete or creating a crater 75 meters wide and 30 deep. Its casing is lined with hundreds of thousands of durasteel-balls that explode outwards on detonation at hypersonic speeds, turning organic targets not engulfed by the fire into piles of liquid flesh and capable of penetrating the armor of lightly armored vehicles. Even if they survive the blast, unless they are extremely heavy, many armored vehicles are often flipped over by the shockwave, and their crews are severely concussed. It is often used to help clear treelines for transport ships, clearing a landing zone 500 meters by ripping trees from their roots and defoliating them for over a kilometer beyond that.
- Siege Shells - coming just under at about a whooping fifty tons and striking their targets at near hypersonic speeds, the Fragor Siege Shells are fortress killers. There is very little in the Galaxy that can withstand its sheer mass and momentum. The outer shell is forged with multiple layers of a hyperdense Neuranium shell that sheds as it drives deeper into a fortification to allow for greater penetration depth before trigging its plasma core micro-seconds after impact, blowing gaping holes in bastions for troops to charge. During the Siege of Mount Arat, a Fragor managed to penetrate the fortress' ammunition storage located half a kilometer under a lake and protected by four hundred meters of solid ferrocrete.
The Fragor's autoloader system is not capable of lifting shells of such weight so they must be loaded manually, severely reducing the fire rate. To fire a shell of this density at great speeds a fission propellant charge is used. Difficulty in constructing and transporting Neuranium shells limits the numbers that can be used in theaters so they are used sparingly where possible.
In emergencies, Siege Shell can be used against vehicles. Even if by some miracle a shell of this mass and velocity does not penetrate, the sheer kinetic energy delivered is enough to pulp the entire crew.
- Purifcation shell - every time before this shell has fired a procession of priest-clerics must first bless them to ensure proper effectiveness. But this is considered a worthwhile trade-off as the shell airbursts hundreds of meters above the battlefield to douse the entire area in a highly corrosive acid deluge that sears through personal protection and reduces enemy personnel into organic sludge.
- Ion Shells - an airburst munition that produces a massive EMP wave that knocks out or severely disrupts all electronic technology within a radius in a several dozen meter radius. The pulse is strong enough to fry the nerve systems of nearby organics. On direct strike with a shield, it will overload the generator. It is rated to be effective against shields weaker than a 49-v99 Deflector. Against shielded cities and bastions, a constant barrage over a prolonged period is needed.
- Thermite Shell - contains a compound derived from the 53-R high-yield thermite explosive that will burn at an extreme temperature for up to thirty minutes after it has buried itself on the surface. This temperature is high enough to melt steel within a twenty-meter radius, set anything flammable and dry within fifty meters, and give unprotected organics within three hundred third-degree burns. Due to its duration, it is often used as an area denial tool or to set entire cities ablaze. For a less concentrated and shorter duration burn it can be set to airburst over a wide area.
- Illumination Shells - can light up an entire kilometer-wide theater for several hours as if it were midday.
- Smoke Shells - Used for laying down smokescreens
- Rad-Shells: Once it is over a target the lead shielding is blown away to release a deluge of highly radiological waste over enemy troops. It can be programmed to detonate in rain clouds to seed them, slowly poisoning entire regions. A favored tactic of users is to deliberately target crop fields, reservoirs, and groundwater to make an enemy area uninhabitable for entire generations.
- Flak Shells - contain a radar fuse that triggers when detected near aircraft or can be set with a timed fuse. It releases submunitions the size of a fist meant to batter aircraft out of the sky. It also puts up a massive curtain wall of flame through which any aircraft that flies through will come out the other side a molten wreck.
- Gravity Shells - contain an extremely powerful gravity generator that once it lands generates constant pulses of gravity that suck in anything not bolted down, including people. All these objects and beings are combined into a ball around the generator that is slowly crushed to a pulp. It can be programed to give less powerful pulses over a long period, causing constant seismic events in the nearby area that slowly collapses all structures above and under the surface unless it is stopped.
- Guided Shell - a package that installs an internal targeting computer and fins to any of the above shells to allow it to strike targets with pin-point accuracy.
- High-Explosive Shells - a four-ton shell packed with a baradium-impregnated detonite filling capable of demolishing an entire city block made from reinforced duracrete or creating a crater 75 meters wide and 30 deep. Its casing is lined with hundreds of thousands of durasteel-balls that explode outwards on detonation at hypersonic speeds, turning organic targets not engulfed by the fire into piles of liquid flesh and capable of penetrating the armor of lightly armored vehicles. Even if they survive the blast, unless they are extremely heavy, many armored vehicles are often flipped over by the shockwave, and their crews are severely concussed. It is often used to help clear treelines for transport ships, clearing a landing zone 500 meters by ripping trees from their roots and defoliating them for over a kilometer beyond that.
- Ammunition Capacity: Small
- 6 Rounds
- Effective Range: Extreme
- Maximum firing range: 300 Kilometers
- Effective firing range: 240 Kilometers
- Rate of Fire: Average
- 12 Rounds per minute
- Damage Output: Extreme
- Recoil: High
- XM777 Autoloader
- Tracked Chasis
- Shield Generator
- Gyro-Realignment system that returns barrel to the original position after every shot
- Integrated targeting system containing an enslaved Master-Com droid
- Range: The Fragor is capable of raining death across entire war theaters and regions. Cities that have believed themselves far outside the realm of combat have suddenly found themselves under withering shellfire. The Fragor boasts a drastically longer range than most traditional slugthrower artillery and turbo lasers, meaning that any forces that wish to engage in counter-battery fires must advance well into its devastating range. By which time they have either been annihilated by the Fragor or the artillery Pact will be deployed elsewhere.
- Destruction: As demonstrated with its ammunition types, the Fragor artillery crews have a buffet of choices when it comes to selecting the best shell to spread the Prophet's word.
- Protection: While the Fragor's superstructure is exposed to reduce weight and allow for greater mobility, it possesses a shield to fend off counter-battery and protect the crew. When it fires automatic systems will lower the shields momentarily to allow for the shells to pass through the gasses to safely vent before activating again between salvos, reducing the amount of time that the Fargo remains vulnerable.
- Sustained Fire: The Fragor is the perfect siege weapon. Its autoloading design prevents exhaustion from crews reducing the manpower drain that manual loading would necessitate and also does not exhaust easily like an organic being would. This means that it can repeat the same rate of fire for days on end, its Impervium-reinforced barrel only showing wear and tear after a hundred thousand rounds. Its only limit is the ammunition corridors.
- Size and weight: The Fragor's bulk, heavier than main battle tanks, often means it struggles to move through dense terrain and swamps, sinking into the mud. Its volume takes up large spaces on landing ships. Though it can be dissembled for landing and assembled in the field this can take a long time and require pioneer specialists to supervise.
- Noise: When the Fragor fires, every combatant in the area can locate it as the sound wave alone shatters windows dozens of kilometers away. Though getting close enough to destroy it is another story.
- Slow: the chassis that the Fragor is built on can only go 30km/h to compensate for its massive weight. This leaves it vulnerable in the case of desperate retreats and shifting firing positions to avoid counter-battery.
- Logistics: shells the size of speeders weighing multiple tons are not easy to transport. The Fragor itself can only carry 12 total rounds and requires a separate tracked ammo-carrier vehicle to accompany it. Often railways have to be built from landing zones to the front to transport the numbers of munitions that the Fragor gluttonously consumes.
Forged in the hellfire of Herodor's monstrous industry, the Fragor speaks the only language that the Chaos Pact is capable of speaking: brute force and insanity. It spits flames like the giant creatures of old myth so bright it is like grounded stars being switched on and off in the night. It was built as a siege weapon during Herodor's seven-hundred-year civil war to shatter the massive mountain fortifications that the Warmaster's foes cowered under in the final years of the conflict. Now its devastation is no longer bound to Herodor.
Mounted on a tracked chassis and protected at all times by a shield bubble the Fragor follows the Pact on its conquest of the Galaxy in the name of the Warmaster and the Sith Order. It is assembled in great batteries with thousands of barrels pointing in the sky all aimed at a single enemy. It is a city-killer, ravager of armies, and the very embodiment of the Father Khaos himself.
All shall feel its wrath, soldier and civilian alike.
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