Hicks Posted April 8, 2019 Report Share Posted April 8, 2019 Morita 'Colossus' MKVIII Mass Accelerator Cannon A Morita Colossus MKVIII Mass Accelerator Cannon ground-to-orbit defence station General Information Name: Morita® Colossus™ MKVIII Mass Accelerator Cannon Role: Ground-to-Orbit defence/Ship-mounted Mass Accelerator Cannon Manufacturer: Morita Arms Company® - Rhohan, Rho Eridani Introduced: 15th January 2299 Status: In service Number built: 3,864 as of 1st April 2299 Unit cost: Ground-to-Orbit: £180.3 million (2299) Ship-mounted: £174.4 million (2299) Technical Specifications Dimensions: Length - 165.4 m (567.5 ft) Width - 25.2 m (82.6 ft) Height - 25.2 m (82.6 ft) Weight - 2568.3 metric tons (2831 short tons) Firing Specifications Ammunition: One tungsten alloy (WNiFe) slug manufactured by ALB Materials Inc Dimensions: 300 mm diameter x 800 mm height Weight: 1,088.59 kg (2,399.9 lbs) Firing speed: 8,993,773.7 m/s (8,993.7 km/s) / 20,118,498.8 mph = 0.03% speed of light Approximate energy output equivalent: 10.522 Megatons of TNT at full charge Time to reach full charge between firings: 60 seconds Time to fully cool freshly fired coils: 73 seconds Reloading time of new slug: 5 seconds (takes place at the same time as coil rotation) Coil rotation time: 7 seconds (takes place at the same time as reloading) Example: 3 round burst time at 1/3 power: 21 seconds (5 seconds per reload, 7 seconds per coil rotation - happening simultaneously) Example: 5 round burst time at 1/5 power: 35 seconds (5 seconds per reload, 7 seconds per coil rotation - happening simultaneously) Full cooling cycle after burst firing: 201 seconds (1/3rd power), 335 seconds (1/5th power) Maximum range: Unlimited Maximum 'effective' range: Approximately 45,000 km (27,961 miles) (approximately 5 seconds of travel time) Recommended effective range: Approximately 20,000 km (12,427 miles) Mounting and Targeting Ship-mounted mass accelerator cannons are incredibly powerful weapons and impart a great deal of recoil on the vessels they are mounted on. As such, it is common practice to actually build a ship around the weapon. Mass accelerator cannons are regularly found mounted to or, sometimes, comprising either the belly or the spine of the vessel they belong to. This means that the ship itself must be aligned exactly to face the target. This is managed by a complex firing system and a set of fore mounted manoeuvring thrusters, controlled by a Virtual Intelligence who's only purpose is to deal with targeting solutions and regulate the multitude of intricate tasks involved in firing the weapon. Other Notable Information Due to the high amount of heat generated by the electricity flowing through the coils, it is necessary to cool them between each firing so that they do not fuse and cause a dramatic overload, potentially leading to catastrophic damage to the vessel it is mounted on. The cooling process involves rotating the coils out of position on a carousel that contains 5 separate sets of coils. As they rotate out after firing they are connected to a cooling mechanism that flushes their heat dispersal vanes with coolant. The entire firing process follows the following timeline: 1 Link to comment
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