Project orderer: Liberty Navy Project executor: Ageira Technologies Project logistics: Deep Space Engineering
Project leader: Anthony Latif, Ageira Technologies Chief engineering officer: Charlotte Frank, Deep Space Engineering Chief research officer: Peter Campbell, Ageira Technologies Observer of the Liberty Navy: Marcus Robinson, Captain, 1st Liberty Fleet
The view of "Harpoon" prototype will have no much different from the "Lewis"-type
The Lewis-class Kinetic turret is an archaic design, a true projectile weapon, firing 240mm explosive shells in a double-barrel configuration, not unlike the weapons found on naval warships of the Solar era. Used heavily by Bretonia in the early centuries of Sirius colonization, however, these weapons were made obsolete by shield technology, which rendered this type of weapon almost useless. Most Lewis cannons were decommissioned or destroyed in combat, but a small number remain in museums or military armouries. These remaining cannons could be recommissioned and improved with modern hardware to restore their destructive capabilities.
It was decided to give the project a name "Harpoon". The improvement should contain the following:
The powerplants have evolved far away from their ancestors from the beginning of the colonization era, therefore an upgraded cannon will get new powerlines at the very priority. Unable to sustain heat or other types of damage as well, lines every single turret is under threat of overheat and a further meltdown of the structure.
The new turret requires new protection: the materials with increased durability and heat protection will be used for the structure itself. However, the tower should remain enough mobile to fulfil the tracking capacities of modern warfare systems, therefore the used materials will be light but well-protected from various exposures.
An old shells, used to "Lewis" turrets, were incapable to breach the shield, however, the solution is to include a weak EMP field generator to the construction of every projectile to provide the "Harpoon" cannon with ability to, at least, damage opponents' shields.
Theoretical characteristics:
Range
Projectile speed
Rate of fire
4500m
900m/s
12s
Liberty experimental carrier "Powell", equipped with the triple "Lewis" cannons
As a platform for test performance, it has been decided to use an experimental carrier "Powell", constructed in the efforts to reverse engineer the design choices of the Gallic battleship - or known as the Enclave warship of the "Richelieu"-class battleship. First efforts to reconstruct a "Richelieu"-class Battleship into the current LXC Powell has begun in early 827, after the warship was moved into the Alaska system, with the first designed being taken to the almost completed LNS Brooklyn - the test phases begun later on before the ship was re-christened as LXC Powell.
If the first stage shall be provided with sufficient amount required for the project resources, the R&D team will upgrade "Lewis"-class cannons to "Harpoon" prototypes in no time. Besides, throughout all stages of field testing, the ship will remain within the 30K zone of Norfolk shipyard in New York. This is to account for any possible emergency during the test.
Brief introduction has been prepared by project lead Anthony Latif of Ageira Technologies.
LCKT - General working principles, prepared by Charlotte Frank
The "Harpoon" prototype uses electromagnetic force to launch high-velocity projectiles rather than the typical process of isomeric transition resulting in gamma emission from any excited nuclear state used in gamma/photon weaponry, or high powered lasers. The projectile may or may not contain explosives. This model, in particular, has been designed to fire 240mm explosive projectiles. Additional studies show it is possible to solely rely on the projectile's high speed and kinetic energy to inflict damage to the enemy target, although this is not as effective. The prototype is a relatively simple construction based on its predecessor, the Lewis-Class kinetic turret (LCKT). It has been found that it is both possible and practical to utilise electromagnetic forces to impart a very high kinetic energy to a projectile rather than using conventional propellants, especially while in the vacuum of space. Initial versions of this prototype used a pair of parallel conductors, along which an armature was accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current that flowed down one of the conductors, into the armature and then back along the other conductor, this was found to be a catastrophic failure and alternative methods were investigated.
Engineers instead opted for a safer alternative projectile accelerator system. This system uses a direct adaptation of linear electric motors to accelerate the projectile to high speeds. The linear electric motors that operate through the reaction between stationary coils and a coaxial armature are essentially coil guns that magnetically accelerate the projectile; This design can readily exceed a speed of 900m/s and a distance of up to 4500m before its efficiency is greatly reduced, for the first successful model of its type these statistics are considered to be a huge achievement. This design also allows for increased operating safety controls for the speed and acceleration of the projectile. This is usually not altered once it has been calibrated and set, this ensures the magnetic flux density in the magnetic circuit of this prototype is always under the allowed limits for safety reasons.
Initial testing of the prototype was problematic. Initial results showed the projectile was often unable to penetrate the shield of the enemy target. To allow for the projectile to pass through the shield, a low-inductance capacitor bank discharged into a single-loop antenna, a microwave generator, and an explosively pumped flux compression generator has been included into each projectile as a fix to this problem; However, this means the process of activation of the projectile itself is a series of complicated events that must occur within milliseconds to ensure successful penetration of the shield and detonation. After the firing process has occurred and upon reaching the enemy target, a switch is automatically activated which connects the capacitors to the stator, sending an electrical current through the wires. This generates an intense magnetic field. From this point, a fuse mechanism ignites the pre-detonation explosive material in the projectile. The primary explosion travels as a wave through the middle of the armature cylinder. As the primary explosion makes its way through the cylinder, the cylinder comes in contact with the stator winding. This creates a short circuit, cutting the stator off from its power supply. The moving short circuit compresses the magnetic field, generating an intense electromagnetic burst. At this point, the secondary explosives in the projectile will detonate and damage anything behind the now disrupted shield. Failure or early detonation of any part of this system will cause the failure of any or all parts of the process rendering the projectile useless.
The destructive force of a projectile depends not only on the size of the explosive force but the kinetic energy at the point of impact and due to the potentially high velocity of the launched projectile, their destructive force may be much greater than conventionally launched nuclear warheads without the impending fallout. The absence of nuclear warheads to store and handle, as well as the low cost of the projectiles, used compared to conventional weaponry, come as additional advantages to the design of this prototype. A disadvantage is the storage techniques required to safely store the explosive projectiles, as well as the cumbersome ‘reload’ method which will result in this being a considerably slower firing weapon compared to the gamma/photon/laser counterparts. It is essential to be aware that this prototype is unable to sustain heat damage, and fares poorly against physical damage. Physical damage causing a short in the system may result in overheating resulting in complete catastrophic failure of the prototype.
While it is essential to note that the LCKT had a number of concerns surrounding the novelty of the turrets, their bulkiness, as well as the high energy demand and complexity of the power supplies required to utilise these; many of these have been resolved in the design of this prototype. The power plants utilised by today's vessels have evolved considerably since the LCKT was last used by military forces, and it is now possible to power the weapons without diverting all power from the ships' essential components such as life support and navigational systems.
Video footage of "Harpoon" disabling Liberty Siege Cruiser for testing purposes
1441 hours, LXC Powell entered the area of the Norfolk Shipyard after it had it's skeleton crew filled from Juneau Shipyard - at the same time the LNS Pacan entered the area to protect the Experimental Carrier until the field tests were completed. Powell at that time was waiting for both the LSF Liberty Siege Cruiser named "Seattle" which was specially retrofitted for the field test and the video drone to tape the field testing. The LSF Cruiser entered the area at 1454 hours and moved away to the position of three hundred meters from Powell and then initiated evacuation protocols in-case of the undesirable destruction of the vessel - in which case the LSF would be really annoyed and angry about.
When the drone was arriving, the Captain Marcus Robinson from the first fleet commanding the vessel at that time entered to spin up the "Harpoon" cannons for testing - it was shorty after the warm up of the cannons that the drone package arrived, well mostly dropped by the patrol from Battleship and Battlegroup Missouri. In short time, the drone unexpectedly attached itself to the turret of the Powell - it wasn't deemed an security risk and so the test continued.
In-short time, 240mm shells were loaded up to the Powell "Harpoons" and shots flew away in direction of the "Seattle". Afterwards on the video, it is seen that the Liberty Security Cruiser "disappears" and was almost judged to be destroyed, however later on when the smoke went away after the end of the recording, "Seattle" was seen again normally but was disabled and was in critical stage and were so it was brought back to the Norfolk Shipyard for immediate repairs. The logs from the "Seattle" indicates that the ship suffered engine failure by the weak EMP shells which hit the ship - but also got heavy damage from the shells itself, making catastrophic decompression's across the decks. Thanks to the retrofition of the "Seattle" at that time allowed the ship to survive that damage until it was taken to the Norfolk Shipyard itself.
My final conclusion - "Harpoon" is an monster which is unstoppable and is a example of the Liberty engineering capabilities to the finest. I think Powell can be brought into the Navy service now as this project is over - unless decided otherwise.
Best regards,
Sam, Richards
Chief Engineering,
LXC Powell
COMM ID: Anthony Latif LOCATION: Norfolk Shipyard, New York system ENCRYPTION:HIGH
Video feedonline
Dear participants of the project Harpoon,
After the upgrade stage we have tested the prototype at the battle carrier Powell. The test has been performed successfully and hence the project can be considered as complete.
May this achievement be a prove of Libertorian technological advancement over the other houses of Sirius and let them fear to oppose us.