A new weapon for traveller

[Antichrist]

There was a great Hammer's Slammers novel called "the warrior" that introduced a pretty good SF weapon called the CAP (Combustion Augmented Plasma) gun.

Basically this was a 50mm cannon that used an advanced form of plasma based propulsion to fire a 50mm Osmium penetrator round meant to kill iridium armored tanks. It worked like this:

The shell contained liquid propellent and a tightly coiled tungsten wire. When fired, a megawatt charge went thru the tungsten coil, instantly converting it to superheated plasma which, in turn, converted the liquid into secondary plasma which drove the osmium spike out the barrell at ungodly velocity, giving it extreme range, penetration and accuracy.

I think a lot of traveller cultures could produce this, it's not as hard as some traveller tech items like fusion guns, and gives less advanced cultures a change of knocking out intrepid tanks.

The stats are up to the individual gamers, but I'd make it able to kill most tanks on a good, solid hit.

 

[tjoneslo]

In most weapon design system I'm familiar with this weapon is called a liquid propellant CPR gun or Electrothermal combustion (ETC) gun. There are real versions of this weapon, though not in the way David Drake envisioned it.

The advantage of this design is you can control the generation of the gas which drives the shell, so instead of producing a huge spike, the ETC produces a smaller, steadier pressure spike. This allows making the barrel and chamber lighter as it doesn't have to handle the huge pressure spike anymore. And since the pressure remains constant while the shell is in the barrel, it comes out at a much higher velocity. Higher velocity = longer range & more damage.