Ultra-Tech Firepower: SAA GU 384 Boomslang, 50mmCRH (TL 9)

SAA GU 384 Boomslang, 50mmCRH (TL 9)

The trend since just before the turn of the century is for light armored vehicles to get, well, not so light with each generation getting heavier  and with beefier armor. This has in turn driven the need for bigger and bigger gun armaments that they need to mount in order to keep them competitive with their pears; going from 20-25mm in the beginning to 30mm today and even some designs going for 40mm+! Of course the ultra-tech armors of the future will only compound this factor further. Though as guns get more powerful, their recoil gets worse and you start to run into issues where your near tank level firepower is starting to become to much for the platform to handle and accuracy starts to suffer and the added stress causes the frames life space starts to drop.
 

Suid-Afrika Bewapeningskorporasie, the South Africa Armaments Corporation, developed the SAA GU 384 Boomslang to help counter this limitation. Named after the boomslag, a large venomous snake endemic to the area, as a way to single that this was to be weapon system with a deadly bite! 

To ensure that it would have enough velocity and mass to be viable as a kinetic energy platform against current and future light armored vehicles while having a large enough payload to increase its multi-role capability; a round of 50 millimeters was settled on for the BoomSlang. But the recoil generated from such a powerful cannon would limit how small a LAV that used it could get. Initially they looked into more semi-conventional means of recoil management, including an attempt at what as practical an cannon sized version of the Kriss Vector's delayed blow-back system. However, the cost, complexity, and reliability issues of these designs proved them to be unworkable solutions. The delays caused by these failed attempt to tame the weapons recoil started to worry upper management and many on the team realized that what could of been a quite lucrative project was more then likely going to be scrapped. That was until a junior member of the team came across a experimental low recoil concept originally experimented on by Ares Incorporated at the turn of the century. While the original test project never came to fruition, the project did produce several functional prototypes. Despite the effective failure of the original project the team was convinced that with the advancements made since the original project was canceled along with their know how, and current climate being more open to the prospect of emergent ultra- technologies they could make the concept not only work, but sell!

The concept behind the recoil reduction was know as the rarefaction wave gun principle (also known as RAVEN) and operates in many ways similar to a recoilless rifle. It vents some of its high-velocity gas out of the weapons rear to reduce the effective recoil. The difference is that a RAVEN gun traps the propellant gas briefly before letting the gasses escape in timed pulses into a larger chamber which causes the gas to rarefact (that is to expanded which in turn reduces its density. Basically it's the opposite of compression) slowing its momentum and reducing its effect on recoil before being vented out the back. While this does not reduce recoil anywhere near as much as a normal recoiless weapon and makes it more complex to construct; it does allow the weapon to fire at a much higher velocity, retaining greater then 70% of the muzzle energy of an equivalent round fired out of a conventional gun while almost halving the effective recoil (minimum rcl is 2 unlike the 1 of normal recoiless designs, despite this the the guns true rcl is still used to figure minimum ST). This means that a RAVEN gun can not only be built at a reduced weight since it doesn't need as much heft to tame the recoil but this also allows it to be mounted on far lighter platforms then conventional gun of similar performance could. The process also purges far more heat then a conventional weapon allowing a greater sustained rate of fire (treat RAVEN guns as having a extra-heavy barrel, see High-Tech pg. 86. The BoomSlang design gives it a slightly heavier barrel then normal, increase sustainably fire by 20%). Of course a major down side is that it generates a back-blast. While not as severe as a true recoilless rifle would create, it still means that more care must be taken when firing near friendly infantry and other vulnerable targets.

Note: Also it should be said that this is a very simplified explanation of how a RAVEN gun works. This is a very new concept and the full process is not only complicated (I've read three papers on it and I'm still trying to wrap me headmeats around it), it's also not yet fully understood!

Given that SAA is still a smaller company without government ties in a developing country, they do not have access to the most advanced materials some companies do. So like most of their design, the Boomslang is a bit heavier then what something like the partially government owned SouthCOMP could produce. Rather then let that be a negative on the design, the design team instead made maximum use of the extra mass make system extra durable and reliable (+1 HT). The less advanced materials also lead to most of SAA's designs having a slightly blocky look. Rather then letting this get in the way they designed to own that limitation and work their design to invoke the style of 80's sci-fi and cyberpunk weapons.

Besides APHEX rounds (in table), the M 384 Boomslang can also fire APEP (Dmg 6d×16 (3) pi++, Range 12,400/30,000), HEDP (Dmg 7d×3 (10) cr inc with 5d×2 [2d+2] cr ex linked), APIS (Dmg 6d×11 (2) pi++, Range 2,100/5,000, ROF 5×3. See this blog post for more on this round), and SIXM (Dam 1d+2 cr ex + Linked 6d×7 (2) cut, ROF 5×8,  Blast Range 2yrds. See this blog post for full rules). Backblast: 5d burn.

 

GUNNER (MACHINE GUN) (DX-4, or other Gunner-4)
TL Weapon                  Damage          Acc     Range            EWt.  ROF   Shots   ST       Bulk     Rcl     Cost          LC     Notes
9    SAB Boomslang,  6d×14(2) pi++   6       6,200/15,000  913   5          ver.      32M   -11         2       $450,000     1    
     50mmCRH               

     Follow-up              3d-1[2d+2] cr ex

Ammunition Table

Cannon Ammo
TL Ammo                          WPS   CPS   LC
9    50mmCRH                     7         $70      1
9    50mm CRH APEP         7        $490     1
9    50mmCRH HEDP         7        $280     1
9    50mmCRH APIS           7       $630      1
9    50mmCRH SIXM         7       $350       1

Suid-Afrika Bewapeningskorporasie (SAA)
Founded by Lethabo Nkosi after he left the partially state run SouthCOMP (South African Combined Ordnance and Munitions Producing Company) with some his closet and more talent working associations after both a break down in contract negations as well as a feeling that he lacked creative freedom. His mission statement was to start a company who's model was to give the best in the industry the freedom to make the kinds of weapons that wouldn't just play it safe and follow market trends but be the ones that created them. Promotions would be purely merit based, make kick ass guns that sell and you would be rewarded but at the same time ensuring that, with in reason, failure wouldn't be outright punished. You can't push innovation without risking some duds and people aren't going to take risks if they're afraid of failure. This attitude along with slightly higher then normal pay rates drew in a small, unorthodox but talent group into the company. As a small company in a small nation in the middle of economic recovery, lacking big government connections meant they couldn't get their hand on the most advanced steel and aluminum alloys or machining tools meaning they were going to have to deal with making slightly heavier guns, to offset this they did their best to use the extra mass as a positive whenever they could which meant their guns were fairly tough and almost idiot proof. It also lead to their weapons having a slightly boxy look. This limitation reminded the teams of the kinda "throw some extra bits on real gun" look of 80's sci-fi and cyberpunk movies and so they ran with it, trying their best to give their designs a sort-of retro future look in so far as it didn't interfere with actual functionality which in turn helped get their guns noticed. Their first real success was a modification of the R27C, the South African Armies main long arm and their first in country designed caseless rifle (designed by SouthCOMP). As such, it ran into an issue of overheating when fired on automatic for too long. The team's lead decided to take a swing at looking outside of the firearm industry and brought in computer cooling system engineer to help trouble brain storm a solution. This lead to them designing an fractional based evolutionary algorithm which allowed them to print a solution that only added a fraction of pound to the gun, cost less then $50 ($30 when bought in government level batches)  but increase cooling by over 30%. This scored them a nice and juicy government contract (and the ire of their former employer) and the funding for future projects.

Company Type: Niche- Ambitious designs despite being a small company, their biggest limitation is access to less advance materials but they make up for it with quality construction and a unique design aesthetic.

Standard Modifiers: Cheap (Heavy), Perk (Well Made) with the zero point quirk (design aesthetic, 80's movie style cyberpunk).

Notes: SAA is small company with lots of talent and potential that is used to only dealing with the local market. The Boomslang has the potential to put the company on the global map, the real question is if they can deal with not only the potential larger production needs and but the challenges of restarting into a much larger business while keeping the unique spirit that got them here in the first place.

Quick Line: SAA; Niche; Cheap (Heavy), Perk (Well Made), quirk (design aesthetic, 80's movie style cyberpunk); While they might not have access to the most advance material, the guns they are tough and they low-key kinda cool looking.