Commodore Helix
Disintegrations done dirt cheap.
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a heavy, vehicle-mounted weapon for Helix Solutions
- Image Source: Doc021
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Helix Solutions
- Affiliation: Helix Solutions
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: KJK Flamehammer
- Modularity: No
- Production: Limited
- Material: Durasteel, Phrik, phosphor driver components
- Classification: Railgun
- Size: Very Large
- Weight: Very Heavy
- Ammunition Type: Super-Condensed Chemical X16
- Ammunition Capacity: Extremely Large
- Effective Range: Extreme
- Rate of Fire: Low
- Damage Output: Extreme
- Recoil: Very High
- Ammunition impacts vehicles like an anti-tank shell, or the ground like an anti-infantry shell, leading to significant tactical versatility.
- Hammer of the Gods: This weapon strikes with singular violence, projecting condensed Blue Phosphorus at extreme velocity.
- Long Arm: The Flamehammer can reach out and touch an enemy target at virtually any combat distance.
- Slow Rate of Fire: A sluggish rate of fire coupled with a thunderous recoil relegates this weapon to vehicle mounting, or (rarely) stationary emplacements.
- Unstable: If severely damaged (or modified), the weapon's contained chemicals can escape, wreaking significant damage on bystanders.
Designed as the primary weapon of their upcoming main battle tank (and perhaps other vehicles, if the design proves successful), the Helix Solutions Phosphor Driver is a weapon as destructive as it is ingenious. Combining the relative merits of a railgun, a conventional laser cannon, and Helix's own Blue Phosphorus, the weapon uses powerful magnetic fields to compress down a mass of pre-ignited blue phosphorus into a fine, contained projectile, then fires the resultant diamond-hard, 2400-degree superdense mass at a speed in excess of 70km/s.
Terminal effect on target is usually appalling, with the combined thermal and kinetic shock sufficient to fell the largest of beasts (or tanks). Very few vehicles can withstand such a tremendous impact, and those that can are typically in little condition to fight, as the fired condensed mass is freed from its magnetic bonds upon contact with a solid surface or ray shield capable of halting it.
On vehicle or bunker targets, this most commonly results in the matter breaching the armor simultaneously with rupturing its own magnetic containment, dumping a sizeable quantity of blazing, pressurized toxic chemicals and gas inside the confined space of a vehicle cockpit or foxhole.
When striking the ground, the condensed matter simply detonates forcefully as containment breaches, creating a sizeable kill radius and a wider injury radius, as the strike area becomes a blizzard of blue flames and radiotoxic shrapnel. Worse yet, as is the case with most Blue Phosphorus weapons, a given strike area will continue to burn for an extended period, and anything not slain by the initial impact will be doused in adhesive, flaming liquid.
The weapon is even somewhat viable against air targets with careful aim, as a gunner targeting an aircraft or fighter moving at typical cruising speeds need not lead his shots to speak of. The projectile's speed is such that it will typically arrive, to most humanoids' perception of time and distance, almost simultaneously with firing, though this requires the gunner to be possessed of somewhat uncommon marksmanship.
It is unfortunate, then, that the Flamehammer has a fairly sluggish rate of fire due to built-in safeguards. Unwise droids have been known to attempt to modify these safeguards away in an ill-conceived attempt to increase firing rate, typically with disastrous results. Like many weapons utilizing Chemical X16, the Flamehammer can be nearly as lethal to the user as to the enemy, if used incautiously. The firing/condensing mechanism can malfunction with heavy use (or serious damage to the weapon itself), promptly dumping the ignited chemical payload all over the weapon's internal mechanisms. Though an emergency shutoff trigger is included to attempt to prevent battle damage from causing a chain reaction, it is not foolproof. The resultant searing explosion will almost certainly moltenize the weapon, its attached tank, all inside it, and anyone nearby for good measure, inflicting precisely the same demise that the weapon inflicts on enemy vehicles in an amusingly ironic light show.
Despite this design flaw, Helix Solutions considers it a feature, not a bug, as any troops foolish enough to flout company safety regulations (or let the weapon be struck in battle) deserve such an end. Any troops unfortunate enough to be near the offending weapon at the time of detonation are unlikely to agree.
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