Directorate Officer
Intent: To provide a flechette/shotgun like weapon in LPD's line-up
Image Source: Miyaki ASG10 Semiautomatic shotgun found here, modified by your's truly
Canon Link: N/A
Restricted Missions: N/A
Primary Source:N/A
Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
Model: Hailstorm Flechette Carbine
Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi, Galactic Alliance, Closed-Market
Modularity: Scope, flechette cartridges
Production: Mass-Produced.
Material: Durasteel barrel and internals, Agrinium casing, Permex furniture
Classification: Flechette Launcher
Size: Large
Weight: Average
Ammunition Type: Anti-Personnel Flechette Cartridges / Anti-vehicle Flechette Missiles from FC1 Flechette Launcher
Ammunition Capacity: 2 disposable barrel liners (15 anti-personnel cartridges or 2 anti-vehicle flechette missiles per barrel liner)
Reload Speed: Very Slow
Effective Range:Personal
Rate of Fire: Average (antipersonnel Rounds) (Up to "High" depending on the circumstances detailed below) / Low(anti-vehicle missiles)
Stopping Power: High (Anti-Personnel Rounds) / Very High (Anti-vehicle Missiles)
Recoil: High ( Very High with both barrels firing anti-personnel flechettes)
Twin Barrels: Hailstorm has a pair of identical barrels that launch flechettes. Each one can be fired separately, alternating, or even simultaneously. This last option produces extreme recoil, so much so that one must either be an exceptionally strong species like a wookiee, be a well-built droid, or be wearing power armor to effectively use.
Metal Storm Firearm: Hailstorm uses Metal Storm technology, stacking each barrel with caseless Flechette Cartridges or missiles which are already sequentially loaded into the barrel. An electrical impulse that runs down the barrel ignites the first cartridge or missile, then the second, and so forth. This means that there is no extraction equipment, which can theoretically lead to a high rate of fire (if the recoil can be controlled). It also means that loading the weapon requires the entire barrel insert to be replaced.
Laser Guided: Like the FWG-5 Flechette Pistol, the Hailstorm's munitions can be guided via a targeting laser towards their target before they explode.
Repulsor Flechettes: Like the FWG-5's anti-personnel cartridges, the Hailstorm's antipersonnel flechette cartridge uses a micro-repulsorlift to assist in its travel to the target, allowing it to alter course en route to the target. When the cartridge gets within 3 meters of its target, this repulsor dumps all of its power in single burst to throw out the contained flechettes into a focused blast at its target.
Area of Effect: When anti-personnel flechette cartridges explode, they produce a 1.5 meter blast radius of sharpened shrapnel which is powerful enough to pierce through many medium armors. Anti-vehicle flechette Missiles produce a 5 meter blast radius.
Selector Switch: A selector switch on the left side of the weapon allows the top or bottom barrel to be fired.
Faraday Cage: The basic electronic equipment within the weapon is protected by a simple faraday cage, allowing it to better withstand the effects of EMP attacks or operate on worlds with unusual electromagnetic activity. A direct fire hit by an ion or EMP weapon will disable the weapon.
Smart Weapon: Hailstorm users can direct their projectiles midflight through the use of a laser targeting system, better enabling them to hit moving targets near the end spectrum of the weapon's maximum range.
High Impact: Each flechette cartridge expels its flechettes with enough force to pierce through many medium armors. While the wound from each individual flechette is likely to be small, the cumulative effect of multiple flechettes can ablate sections of armor or cause many small lacerations which collectively can lead to significant blood loss.
Improved rate of fire: Using a twin-barrel configuration along with metal storm technology allows Hailstorms to almost continuously send out a barrage of flechettes, if the user can control them. This does not apply to the anti-vehicle flechette missiles.
Slow reload: Replacing an entire barrel process is a lengthy process, and one that typically needs to be pre-planned well in advance if at all possible. Hailstorms cannot be 'topped off” with single flechette rounds.
High Recoil: While a single flechette cartridge produces enough recoil to be merely uncomfortable, firing multiple rounds in quick succession becomes exponentially harder.
Indiscriminate: Hailstorms, while relatively precise because of their laser guidance, are indiscriminate at the point of detonation, easily harming friend and foe if they are in close proximity, such as in melee combat.
The Hailstorm Flechettes Carbine is Lucerne Personal Defense's first entry into the close-quarters weapon market typically dominated by scatter guns. Like those weapons, the Hailstorm fires a spread of projectiles that are exceptionally powerful at close-range. However, the Hailstorm uses a fusion of traditional flechette launchers like the FWG-5 or FC-1 and the relatively unknown Metal Storm concept to achieve a somewhat more predictable and accurate weapon at ranges approaching the optimum range of a typical blaster rifle.
Hailstorms initially expel flechette cartridges using electrically primed flechette cartridges lined up sequentially in a barrel. Pulling the trigger causes an electrical current to run through both sides of the barrel and through the first cartridge base. Completing this circuits ignites the primer, which then rapidly combusts to trigger the cartridge's propellant, which promptly shoots the flechette through the rest of the barrel. This sudden acceleration activates a delay-triggered micro-repulsorlift, which keeps the cartridge aloft longer than it would be by pure physical impulse, and also allows minor course alterations given by the Hailstorm's targeting laser. Once the projectile nears the target, all excess energy is focused through the repulsorlift forward, causing the cartridge to burst open and spray out a dozens of razor-sharp ferrocarbon darts in a cone-shaped formation that is roughly 1.5 meters in diameter. This area of effect increases the chance of at least one dart hitting its intended target although each individual target is relatively weak on its own. Each dart is designed for penetration rather than causing large lacerations. This generally makes them effective at piercing through many armors (or ablating them), but it means that the actual external blood loss caused by the darts tends to be less than that of similarly-sized traditional bullets. Ideally, the increased penetration of the dart will cause greater internal damage. Aside from anti-personnel use, the combination of the anti-personnel's flechettes' spread and armor-piercing qualities also makes well-suited for intercepting incoming ordinance, such as wrist rockets, or hunting airborne wildlife. The Hailstorm is also backwards compatible with the anti-vehicle flechette missiles originally used by the FC1 Flechette Launcher. While exceptionally powerful for their size, they are also fairly-short ranged weapons. These are typically used for point-defense against strafing aircraft or to intercept larger incoming missiles.
On the user end, Hailstorms are renowned just as much as for their stopping power as their high recoil. Typically, users can become accustomed to handling the accommodate impulse of the antipersonnel rounds with training, with exceptionally skilled or strong users capable of better handling the recoil, allowing them to take full advantage of the potential rate of fire increase afforded by the use of Metal Storm technology. None, however, have been able to take full mastery of using that same technology to rapidly fire off the missiles. This is not a matter of recoil only though, as the missile's engine typically ignites shortly after emerging from the weapon's barrel liner, meaing that a round launched just after it could easily be caught in the missile's blast and detonate. Thus, inserting a barrel-liner with a missile in it automatically trips off a rate of fire reducer on the selector switch to prevent this catastrophic accident from occuring. Many users have found it strange to load entire barrels into the weapon instead of magazines. This requires users to understand that the Hailstorm is best employed for 'bursts' of high-intensity fighting followed by subsequent pauses needing for the lengthy reloading of barrels, unlike traditional blasters which can support a more steady operations tempo. Despite these idiosyncrasies, Hailstorms are likely to be deployed just like their traditional Flechette Launcher counterparts. Most users find it to be a happy medium between the existing FWG-5 and FC1, having more ammunition and potential power than the pistol, while being handier than the mammoth sized FC1.
