Ultra-Tech Firepower: Salvo Explosively Impelled Munitions

Future War Stories is one of the many blogs that I frequent. If you already are a reader of this blog then you probably aren't to terribly surprised by this fact. If this is the first time hearing about it, it's a real good resource on speculative military science fiction and a gold mind for ideas. So go check it out.

Well, a few days ago I was looking something up and one of the sites that came up during the google search was one of the posts on this blog. I read  it over and then I come across this glorious lil' GIF below.

Ahhhhh, Elysium. Not the greatest movie but oh boi! The visuals and designs work in this movie, largely down but the undeniably talented Aaron Beck (for another example of his work see my last post). But man! Look at that shot! That is one brilliantly render blast wave. Of course... sadly, there is no way in hell you can get a blast that big with a bullet that small (in universe it's just a modified AK-47 firing airbursting 7.62×39mm rounds). Not even with Ultra-Tech explosives like TL 11 Advanced Nuclear Isomer warheads (Ultra-Tech Too, Pyramid 3-51 Tech & Toys III) can you get a blast like that! But... the idea did get my noggin' joggin'. What if instead of using the explosives as the primary means of damaging the target, the blast was instead used to enhanced and boost the effects of the projectiles kinetic effect? Well you get maybe an little over the top but cool (and probably possible with mature TL 9 tech) new toy to play with!



Salvo Explosively Impelled Munition (SXIM) (TL 9) 
SXIM projectiles are composed of eight somewhat sword shaped dense cored flechettes fused together around an shape charge explosive and a ladar based proximity fuse. Before firing the shooter must take a ready action to lase a target and feed ranging data to the proximity fuse. After that the weapon can be fired on the shooters next turn. The fired rounds then streaks towards the target and at a precise range (based on the amount of explosives used) the shape charge will go off  using the explosive force to both break apart the flechettes as well give them an extra "kick" boosting their kinetic energy. Do to their design this does cutting damage with a (2) armor divisor. Also against a lased target, the firing weapons has it effective ROF changed to  n×8 (with n being the number of shots fired) and it's rcl  changed to 1. If no target is designated  the round will instead point detonate when it strikes a target that gives it enough resistance (DR or HP 2+ for hard objects or more then 4HP or more resistance for most living things). When a round point detonates it does the weapons original piercing damage ×1.5 with an (2) armor divisor plus explosive damage if the round is powerful enough to cause significant effect. Also if firing undesignated, use the weapons original ROF and rcl.

Detonation Range is how far from the target the round goes off. This is unimportant for most rounds but for larger rounds the blast effect could be large enough to effect a relevant effect. A Range of C means it goes off in the same hex as the target.


__________________________________________________________________________________
SXIM Warhead Table
Warhead                Damage                                                    Detonation Range
7mmCL                   3d+1 (2) cut                                                C
10mmCL                 4d-1 (2) cut                                                 C
10mmCLR               5d-1 (2) cut                                                 C
15mmCL                 8d (2) cut                                                    C
18.5mmPC              2d+2 cut                                                    C
20mmPC                1d-4 cr ex + linked 3d+2 (2) cut                    C
20mmCL                1d-4 cr ex +  linked 9d+2 (2) cut                   C
20mmCLH              1d-4cr ex + linked 8d×2 (2) cut                     C
25mmCL                1d-3 cr ex + linked  5d+1 (2) cut                    1
100mmCL               4d cr ex +    linked 5d×16 (2) cut                  2

Add +1 per die to both crushing explosive damage and cutting damage at TL 10-12. SXIM rounds are five times normal cost. 


And here's how to stat up SXIM rounds for any gun. 

Blast Damage 

First figure the Warhead's Weight 

Weight = Caliber in mm³ × 0.000002

Blast Damage = √ (warhead wight) × 9.9. Divide the product by 3.5 to get the dice of damage. For most small arms blast damage can be safely ignored

Flechette damage = Base bullet damage × 0.53. Does cutting damage with an (2) armor divisor.

Detonation range = √(blast damage)


If target is lased the firing weapons stats are adjusted  as follow:
ROF becomes n × 8

Rcl becomes 1.  
   
Enjoy!