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[Detoxicated]

Balls of Fire

By adding a second layer of metal to protect the innards of the bullet shot by the Thundergun, Moskurg has been able to add Alwathnayu Mukafa'a to the cannon balls.
Once the cannon ball strikes resistance it causes a huge explosion. To further aid their course, the cannon balls have a more aerodynamic shape.

[Kashyyk]

Fire and Thunder
New teardrop shaped shells created from star metal have been created for the thundergun. Within each shell is the explosive "Alwathnayu Mukafa'a" mixture. This, explosive, combined with the brittle nature of the metal will cause the shell to launch razor sharp shards in all directions upon impact and detonation. As the acceleration within the gun is smooth (albeit rapid), and does not involve an uncouth explosion like an Arstostzkan cannon there should be no risk of the shell breaking within the weapon.

Pretty much Detoxicated's suggestion, but more indepth.

[NUKE9.13]

Yeah, alright. Fire and Thunder has my vote.

[Madman198237]

Is there a reason that you're stealing MY thunder with another Fire and Thunder revision?

[evictedSaint]

Can we get a vote box, please?

[Madman198237]

Fire and Thunder (Version 2, I guess?): (3) Madman, NUKE, Kashyyk

[evictedSaint]

Revision: Fire and Thunder (Version 2: Electric Boogaloo): [1]

The teardrop-shape tends to jam on firing; apparently one of the reasons our weapon was inaccurate in the first place was because the round shell started to roll in the barrel when fired, causing it to curve off one way or another.  Since the tear-drop shape sits unsymmetrically in the firing chamber to begin with and the round cros-section still permits partial rolling, it will twist almost immediately and jam.

We fail to get the explosive to detonate on impact, as well; the burning rag we usually use tends to go out, and even when it doesn't the shell doesn't always break apart when striking the ground, giving it no way to ignite.  And even if the rag doesn't go out and the shell does break when hitting the ground, the explosion doesn't send shrapnel flying everywhere as we would want it to.

The design simply doesn't work, but at least we get a bit of experience dealing with this sort of thing.

[NUKE9.13]

:/

Revision 2, then.

So, here's where I would suggest the same again and joke about how original I'm being.
...but the problems listed are actually real problems that need solving, which we can't do by just bashing our heads into the wall. Namely:
-Weapon Jamming: Okay, this one's pretty easy to fix.
-Lack of Detonator: Low tech isn't working. Someone come up with a way to do this magically, stat.
-Shell not breaking: Solved by making the detonator light the explosives without needing the shell to break.
-Lack of Explosive Power: I think the solution may be more magic; our attempts at non-magical explosives have not yielded impressive results.

So, I'm going to suggest we actually... leave out the explosive part for now. I know, I know, explosive shells would be really nice. But if we focus on one thing at a time we'll get better results, and I think we may need to spend another design on creating better explosives rather than half-assing it in a revision.

[Taricus]

Well, at least we know our regular explosives won't work with the new gun. So revision two; finned darts for the gun?

[Kashyyk]

The jam is very straight forward to fix. Just make it a standard shell shape rather than a fancy teardrop. A detonator can be achieved magi-canically by having a simple "slapper" plate on the nose of the shell. When this plate depresses  due to contact with something, it will trigger an electrical igniter via WoT to detonate whatever explosive we end up using. To make the shell safe for transport we could have the WoT transported separately and inserted into the shell before firing.

This should at the very least fix our accuracy and have some dubiously explosive results. Better explosives can substituted later.

[evictedSaint]

I don't really see any votes.

[Kashyyk]

Yeah... People seem to have tailed off.

[1]Fix the Shells[/urk] : Kashyyk

[NUKE9.13]

[2]Fix the Shells : Kashyyk, NUKE9.13

Sorry about that.

[Detoxicated]

[3]Fix the Shells : Kashyyk, NUKE9.13, detoxicated

Sorry about that.
[/quote]

[evictedSaint]

Revision: Fix the Shells [5+1]

The tear-drop shape was a clever, if ultimately unsuccessful, idea.  The instability during firing is remedied by making the body of the shell longer and more cylindrical to more closely hug the walls of the barrel.  The nose is made more pointed to cut through the air, and the pointed tail is given a circular "hoop" around it to help prevent the shell from wobbling in the air.  This should allow the shell to fly through the air more accurately and prevent jams on firing.

The embarassingly obsolete "flaming splint" ignition functionality is replaced by an "ignition cap".  Transported separately from the shell itself, the ignition cap is a Wand of Thunderbolts hooked up to a mechanical switch.  When ready to fire, the cap has the Wand inserted, the safety is deactivated, and the ignition cap is carefully inserted into the hollow nose of the shell.  The cap is then latched into place with three external clasps (screw-in caps were considered and rejected, as our smiths can not reliably create universal screw joints with a tight enough tolerance since our metalworking is still done all by hand).  This set up takes some time, and once armed the shells are very dangerous (artillery crews are advised to set up a minimum of 20 meters apart from one another), but they explode reliably every time and typically don't jam. 


Where do we send al-Mutriqa?

What do we do with the Espionage Credit?