Neutron Charge Weapons

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Neutron charge weapons are low-energy hypervelocity ballistic weapons designed to fire unshielded microfusion explosives, employed for their high accuracy, long range, and shield-defeating capabilities. While artifacts similar to neutron charge weapons have been found and recognised in pre-Silence records stretching back to antiquity, the modern form - an evolution of conventional plasma weapons and ballistics - is unrelated, having arisen independently in the Kamma Reef, Mal Pacifica, and Haelo Astrae shortly after the development of fusion dust in the 2340s.

Anti-personnel weapons of this type operate primarily via acute whole-body radiation exposure, causing nausea, severe nervous system dysfunction, and near-certain death if not stabilized within minutes. Use of handheld neutron charge weapons in war is condemned as a war crime by virtually all governments, but examples - most often, those types manufactured by SHIASD - often find themselves in the hands of mercenaries and brigands.

Anti-ship neutron charge weapons, despite being incapable of defeating most hostile-environment crew shielding arrangements without severe hull damage, are still capable weapons when deployed en masse - the flood of penetrating radiation causes deep thermal damage which cannot be mitigated using ablative or spaced armour arrangements, and damages sensor and computer systems such that defending against other weapon types becomes difficult. Small craft are particularly vulnerable, making these weapons a favorite of anti-piracy operations along the East Wendingways outskirts.

Design

Neutron charge weapons are primarily constrained by two measures: the size of the imploding projectile, and the impact velocity of the projectile, which provides the energy to kickstart the fusion reaction. Velocities of at least 10 km/s are typically required to correctly detonate a neutron charge projectile, which itself contains a number of arcanokinetic focusing lenses throughout. Reaction efficiency varies, but typically sits between 2-3%; measures have been taken to improve this metric, but matters of expense, manufacturing difficulty, and radiotoxicity have so far stymied most.

Launcher

Neutron charge launchers, due to the requirement for such high velocity with solid projectiles, are seldom based on conventional chemical, rail, or even coil propulsion technology. The high complexity and small size of the projectile precludes the inclusion of efficient armatures, and the extreme acceleration required outpaces conventional chemical propulsion. To resolve this issue, most neutron charge launchers employ a hybrid of technologies revolving around the use of ion-gas armatures and electrostatic levitation of the projectile to provide contactless propulsion without risk of joule heating.

Ionisation of the projectile and armature gas is the primary limit on fire rate to most neutron charge weapons

Projectile

Neutron charge projectiles are specially designed to exploit the relative homogeneity of high-energy impact physics to reliably compress their payloads along multiple axes, employing special crystals with extremely high speed of sound (25-30 km/s) in layered configurations so as to efficiently constrain the rate of implosion. Acoustically insulated high-energy materials are electrically detonated nanoseconds before the projectile completely disintegrates, shaping the impact plasma and protecting the secondary hybrid-Z reflector backing the liquid jet consisting the fusion dust core (via hollow charge effect); in this way, the plasma-jet lasing effect can be exploited for energy retention and further concentration.

Many of these measures are taken so as to minimise the necessary amount of sunsail/sunshield compound in the fusion dust, reducing costs and the amount of incurred solar drift.

Examples

A list of common neutron charge weapons is as follows:

Personal NCWs:

• fcP-series MELIY Automatic Neutron Charge Pistol
• fcC-series MEVRA Semiautomatic Neutron Charge Carbine

Anti-Ship NCWs:

• FCCM-series Compact Neutron Charge Cannon
• FCAA-series Heavy Neutron Charge Cannon