Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a whistling bird-type munition in LPD's catalogue
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source:
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Personal Defense Customers
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: LPD-70 Fireshrike-class Whistling Bird
- Modularity: none
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: durasteel fuselage, thermite powder covering, Detonite charge, miniaturized transmitter, rocket motor, various electronics
- Classification: miniature warhead
- Size: Very Small
- Weight: Very Light
- Explosive Type: Detonite
- Delivery Method: self-propelled
- Effective Range: Personal
- Area Of Effect: Pinpoint
- Damage Output: Average
- Miniscule: Fireshrike is extremely small, being roughly the size of a very low caliber slugthrower cartridge. This small size and light weight means that they can be carried in large numbers with little encumbrance to a person. They are also fairly easily to conceal as well.
- Foolproof reliability: Fireshrikes use a simple solid fuel chemical rocket that is easy to ignite via electronic or heat-based ignition from the launcher. Its main payload is detonite - which simply explodes upon impact - which means that there are no fuses, which not only improves reliability but reduces cost.
- Pyrokinetic: Like whistling birds, Fireshrikes can distract enemies by the sound of their rocket motors, their external thermite casing also ignites upon firing in most atmospheres, producing a very bright, white-hot heat across the whistling bird's exterior. This heat not only causes searing burns to most organic targets upon impact, but also can illuminate dark areas but also can also distract opponents or even blind them if used in great numbers.
- External Guidance: Each Fireshrike is much too small to have a good guidance system on its own. Instead, its path is guided by an external computer - typically a HUD system on a personal armor - with its flight path being received by a miniaturized transmitter path. This allows Fireshrikes to be guided by some very sophisticated sensors and targeting systems, often making them surgically accurate to hit weak chinks in personal armors or hitting vital areas on unarmored organics.
- Miniscule: Fireshrikes are extremely small, allowing them to be easily concealed or carried in large numbers.
- Surgical Strike: Fireshrikes are typically extremely accurate depending on the external guidance systems, which allows them to hit vital points on an organic or punch through weak points in a personal armor to maximize its damage with a minimum of collateral.
- Short Ranged: Fireshrikes are quite small, and thus have a range no greater than a dozen meters, which reduces their use to close-quarters combat only.
- Tiny Area of Effect: While technically a warhead on account of its detonite charge, its explosive blast is only several centimeters in diameter. While lethal in a vital area to an organic, it might not even seriously slow an opponent down if it hits the wrong place or if its employed against a particularly large individual.
DESCRIPTION
Always looking to get their customers an extra edge against their opposition, Lucerne Personal Defense stumbled upon an old holo-recording of a mandalorian using whistling birds. Without direct access to that technology though, they attempted to recreate something similar - which resulted in the Fireshrike-class Whistling Bird. The Fireshrike likely has very little in common in technical features with its inspiration, but it largely fills the same role.
Its extremely small size lets it be easily integrated into personal armors, droids, and other similar platforms as almost an afterthought. Each Fireshrike is the size of a small slugthrower bullet and even resembles them at a casual glance, but they are vastly different. The fuselage of durasteel contains a small explosive charge, chemical rocket, transmitter to receive targeting telemetry, and rudimentary flight control systems. A carefully blended coat of thermite powder gives the Fireshrike an additional property of becoming superheated during its limited flight - causing it to burn brightly to both cause searing pain to targets and to illuminate the dark.
At the time of its introduction, the Fireshrike was initially seen as more of a novelty than a real practical weapon on account of its very short range and questionable ability to penetrate directly through the full thickness of heavy personal armors. However, it has gradually caught on as a backup device - if even as only a distraction - for many elite soldiers and special operators with Silver Jedi Concord space. A number of users have become fond of launching many of these simultaneously to make up for their individual low stopping power - a dozen Fireshrikes pack the stopping power of a typical grenade in a much more compact blast radius, making it useful in taking down threats with a minimum of collateral damage.
