Perfected Caseless
Date: 3025 (Federated Sun)
Rules:
-All non-gauss type ballistic weapon have two times ammunition count.
While caseless autocannon has been a long time project in the famous NAIS, it has not been made practical due to the brittleness of the ammo until one day as a chemistry breakthrough was achieved by a scientific team. While not as grand as developing new weapon, the caseless ammunition that has now been spread to every manufacturing facility in the Federated Sun was proven valuable in easing the logistic of autocannon ammo supply as for every ton of ammo, twice the number of bullets could be fired.
This also made special AC ammo a lot more practical as there will be more spare weight to use for special warhead such as AP and precision AC rounds. However, not all houses have adopted caseless munition as quickly as the Federated Sun. To introduce a new weapon with new logistic need is one thing, to revamp the entire logistic chain from just one new technology was another. As such, only in Federated Sun does the technology spread far and wide. With the merge of Federated Sun with Lyran Commonwealth, only time will tell if the two nations will unite their logistic supply chain.
Lei (Thunder) Autocannon Inspired by Suralin's non-canon cannon thread
Date: 3028 (Capellan Confederation)
Name Damage Heat Range Shots Ton Crit
LeAC 2 2 1 (Min:3)8/17/25 90 7 3
LeAC 5 5 1 (Min:2)6/13/20 40 9 5
LeAC 10 10 3 6/12/18 20 13 7
LeAC 20 20 7 3/7/10 10 15 10
Rule:
-Can use special Heavy ammo for 1.5 times the damage (Round up) and 1.5 times
the heat (Round up) at the following value with +1 hit modifier and half ammo count.
Name Damage Heat
LeAC 2 3 1
LeAC 5 8 2
LeAC 10 15 5
LeAC 20 30 11
-Upon firing in any atmosphere with Heavy ammo, heavy smoke fills the hex behind
the unit for one turn. If it's multi-hexes unit such as dropship, large naval vessel
or building, the smoke fills the hex along the LOS of the attack instead.
-Upon rolling 2 when firing Heavy ammo, the gun will jam and has to spend one turn
to clear the barrel like clearing a RAC jam.
-Can also use special AC ammo (Still cannot use cluster)
After the fruit labour of the caseless autocannon was 'discovered' by Capellan force during AFFS raid, the CCAF sought to take and utilize this technology by combining it with the failed hypervelocity autocannon. Thinking that just using special AC ammo was not enough, the new autocannon was ordered to accept heavier and more powerful metallic explosive composite to improve its firepower. The final result was the Lei (Thunder) autocannon, which CCAF considered to be even better than the Ultra autocannon which more of then not wasted ammunition faster for no gain in firepower. While there's an increase in inaccuracy when using the 'Lei' ammo due to excessive recoil as well as the massive smoke cloud produced when using 'Lei' ammo could expose the position of a hidden unit, the CCAF considers the project to be a success and deploy it to all line regiments.
Dian (Lightning) Autocannon
Date: 3026 (Capellan Confederation)
Name Damage Heat Range Shots Ton Crit
DAC 2 2 1 (Min:3)10/20/35 45 6 2
DAC 5 5 1 (Min:2)8/16/28 20 8 4
DAC 10 10 2 6/12/20 10 12 6
DAC 20 20 4 5/10/15 5 14 8
Rule:
-Has two ammo type, standard and cluster, which works like LBX cluster munition
-Ammo does not explode on hit. However, critical hit to autocannon will cause internal damage equal to the damage the autocannon produces and permanently disable the gun.
In the hope of improving autocannon by mating a gauss firing mechanism to it, the Dian (Lightning) Autocannon was the final result of this project. However, it turned out to be a boondoggle as it didn't fulfill almost all of the project's goal. Using magnetic material originally used for ultra autocannon, the team hoped to increased the number of ammunition count per ton. Except that didn't work as the gauss firing mechanism requires more projectile mass to achieve sufficient velocity. The emergent of perfected caseless ammuntion during the project development nearly killed off the project.
The ammunition for Dian Autocannon won't explode as they have only consisted of metal slugs, unfortunately the gun will explode on impact and present an even bigger threat to the user as ammunition could be dumped upon armor failure and well designed vehicles could avoid ammunition explosion until its demise. The wide deployment of light weight CASE II even solved the bigger danger of ammunition explosion, crippling vehicles in one go.
The only advantages came out of the Dian Autocannon over the old LBX autocannon are longer range, lower heat produced and smaller size, all of which weren't even intended and more of a proof of just how well designed the guass rifle is by the Star League.
Even then, the Dian autocannon was still pushed out for mass production as it was still better than the old LBX autocannon.
