Terran Deuterium Slug Cannon

One of the first Space ship weapon systems developed by  Terrans, even before the foundation of the United Stars was the Deuterium Slug Cannon. It has been continuously developed and improved until the introduction of the Translocator Cannon, and was the main weapon system of Terran combat units until the end of the Y'All war.[1]

The DS Cannon was a direct development out of the Vrill Vau Weapon and the Falkenhorst V 5[2].[3].

Retro engineered and redesigned by Dr. Isah the Terran Deuterium Slug Cannon far out performed the Vrill Vau and the Falkenhorst V5.

The original system used magnetic casings to accelerate a small amount of deuterium to near light speed. The relativistic mass developed at target impact was enormous.

The Isah design (still basis of the most recent Union versions)[4] uses graviton accelerators rather than magnetics, a casing is not needed and the ammunition can be drawn directly out of the ships fuel tanks. It accelerates the slugs faster and with a higher rate of fire, while keeping the rail barrel and thus the actual cannon much more compact. ( Terran turrets are shorter and can swivel much faster for target acquisition that comparable systems).

The largest Terran DS Cannons were utilized in the Terran/Union Chesterfield Class Battle Carriers up to 3579(after which the Translocator Cannon replaced almost all Main Cannon Armament on all Union Fleet Combat Units) The Chesterfield units carried up to 70 DS Cannons; of which 20 were of the Full Kilo Calibre. A full kilo of Deuterium accelerated to 99.90 % of Light speed with an acceleration of 40,000 km/sec and a fire rate of 450 slugs per minute. The Main problem of all DS Cannon systems is range. The shot coherence of the most advanced DS System is only 100,000 km. While the systems around 3500 had an effective range of about 50,000 km. All DS Cannon systems have a shot coherence factor that decreases with distance and thus the impact energy delivered is reduced.[5] Also the time it takes to bring a direct line of fire weapon to bear on a moving target makes DS weapons inferior to FTL DE and of course TL Cannons.

The term SUNBORE comes from the fact that a DS shot creates a highly illuminated streak of light when fired.

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[1] The Union Fleet Weapon Development Bureau on Luna has continued the research and development of DS Cannons as part of the TLBoC Program (initiated by McElligott) resulting in the Guardian Point Defense WeaponSystem used on Union Fleet Ships.

[2] the Falkenhorst Reich also continues to use and develop this weapon system. It can be argued that the current V-450 of the Falkenhorst Reich is one of the finest DS based weapon systems in the known Universe.

[3]First encountered by Terrans in 2014 by an Antarctica Expedition led by Sid Lemmon. Subsequently retro engineered by Dr. Isah of AXIOM and re-designed as the Terran DSC

[4] While no longer used as a main weapon system; High speed, high rate of fire – rotary cannons are still used as point defense weapon system and as fighter defense weapon on Union combat vessels.

[5] this holds true for cased munitions as well, as the casing liquefies to e-plasma at these speeds