Burn Baby Burn!
Well, it's been a while, my readers. All 3 of you! But I'm back, and I've brought you the first energy weapon of the series, and it is also the most powerful of the bunch thus far.
Meet the Melta Gun (Warhammer 40K) :
Also known as the Fusion gun, the Melta is a directed energy weapon that generates extreme heat. It is short ranged, anti-armor, and absolutely deadly.
So let's get stuck into it!
Realism of the design:
The Melta gun is actually a very well designed and terrifyingly realistic weapon. It works on a very simple principle, that of the shaped charge. For those unfamiliar with the term, a shaped charge is a type of explosive that focuses the force of the blast into a tight cone, to increase the efficiency of the explosive. This concentrates the energy like the point of a knife and enables it to pierce, melt, or blast into almost anything.
Inside of the Melta is a canister of highly pressurized gasses, which are induced into an unstable sub-molecular state. This causes Nuclear Fusion, and the energy of said fusion is directed down the barrel like the shaped charge of an H.E.A.T missile. The weapon produces a hissing sound as the water in the air is vaporized, followed by a roaring noise as the beam obliterates it's target, leaving nothing behind but scorched shadows and molten scrap metal.
To clarify what this means: The weapon does NOT produce fire, rather, it generates atomic fusion on a small scale and directs the thermal energy, pure heat, from that reaction and directs it down the barrel as a searing beam of energy. This is actually a very sound basis for a weapon, and works on a similar principle to a hydrogen bomb, or even a theoretical plasma gun.
Realism of Effect:
This is gonna be a bit gruesome, consider yourself warned. This weapon's effect depends what it strikes. Anything organic would suffer a near instant destruction in truly horrifying manner: Water inside it would boil, and it's soft tissues would vaporize before the nervous system could register pain. Following that, the hard structure, like bones, exoskeleton, wood, etc. Would disintegrate into gas. The effect, overall, would likely leave nothing behind but a shadow burned into the ground, or the walls around the target, similar to what we see in the real world in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Against stone or metal, it would likely vaporize some of it, and reduce most of it to glowing, molten slag. The Temperature of the Melta's beam is stated to be "Tens of thousands of Degrees Centigrade.", and it is used in-universe as an anti tank and even anti-bunker weapon, likely meaning that no conventional materials can withstand it's destructive power.
Despite this, the weapon has a RELATIVELY short range, which is fairly consistent, as the mechanism by which it produces energy would likely limit the range as the energized beam would dissipate, being purely made of thermal energy with no physical component to the attack whatsoever.
Could you use it?
Put bluntly? Yes. While these weapons are large, and heavy, they would be perfectly safe as long as the shaped-blast is functioning properly, and you're not placing anything you do not want reduced to it's base atoms in front of the muzzle. This thing is much more dangerous than any modern firearm, but if you were so inclined and knew how to work the thing, there's no reason you couldn't use it as long as you possess an ounce of common sense.
Could we build it?
This thing is, to my scientific knowledge, entirely possible to build, assuming you could get the materials necessary to withstand the heat, which we do not yet have. However, the Active Denial System, or A.D.S functions on a similar principle, agitating water in the air with microwaves to produce a painful burning sensation on the skin. This weapon is used for non-lethal riot control.... BUT it DOES include a lethal setting. On this lethal setting, the damage it would do has been described in remarkably similar terms to a scaled-down melta gun.
I would be willing to bet money that somebody in the United States Military is working on something like this weapon, and we may eventually see Fusion guns on the battlefield, though I'd guess they are a long way off, purely due to power source and materials concerns. If not using a fusion mechanism, then Microwave weaponry absolutely will be seen, and already IS in use.
In the future, our guns will be burny.
Meet the Melta Gun (Warhammer 40K) :
Also known as the Fusion gun, the Melta is a directed energy weapon that generates extreme heat. It is short ranged, anti-armor, and absolutely deadly.
So let's get stuck into it!
Realism of the design:
The Melta gun is actually a very well designed and terrifyingly realistic weapon. It works on a very simple principle, that of the shaped charge. For those unfamiliar with the term, a shaped charge is a type of explosive that focuses the force of the blast into a tight cone, to increase the efficiency of the explosive. This concentrates the energy like the point of a knife and enables it to pierce, melt, or blast into almost anything.
Inside of the Melta is a canister of highly pressurized gasses, which are induced into an unstable sub-molecular state. This causes Nuclear Fusion, and the energy of said fusion is directed down the barrel like the shaped charge of an H.E.A.T missile. The weapon produces a hissing sound as the water in the air is vaporized, followed by a roaring noise as the beam obliterates it's target, leaving nothing behind but scorched shadows and molten scrap metal.
To clarify what this means: The weapon does NOT produce fire, rather, it generates atomic fusion on a small scale and directs the thermal energy, pure heat, from that reaction and directs it down the barrel as a searing beam of energy. This is actually a very sound basis for a weapon, and works on a similar principle to a hydrogen bomb, or even a theoretical plasma gun.
Realism of Effect:
This is gonna be a bit gruesome, consider yourself warned. This weapon's effect depends what it strikes. Anything organic would suffer a near instant destruction in truly horrifying manner: Water inside it would boil, and it's soft tissues would vaporize before the nervous system could register pain. Following that, the hard structure, like bones, exoskeleton, wood, etc. Would disintegrate into gas. The effect, overall, would likely leave nothing behind but a shadow burned into the ground, or the walls around the target, similar to what we see in the real world in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Against stone or metal, it would likely vaporize some of it, and reduce most of it to glowing, molten slag. The Temperature of the Melta's beam is stated to be "Tens of thousands of Degrees Centigrade.", and it is used in-universe as an anti tank and even anti-bunker weapon, likely meaning that no conventional materials can withstand it's destructive power.
Despite this, the weapon has a RELATIVELY short range, which is fairly consistent, as the mechanism by which it produces energy would likely limit the range as the energized beam would dissipate, being purely made of thermal energy with no physical component to the attack whatsoever.
Could you use it?
Put bluntly? Yes. While these weapons are large, and heavy, they would be perfectly safe as long as the shaped-blast is functioning properly, and you're not placing anything you do not want reduced to it's base atoms in front of the muzzle. This thing is much more dangerous than any modern firearm, but if you were so inclined and knew how to work the thing, there's no reason you couldn't use it as long as you possess an ounce of common sense.
Could we build it?
This thing is, to my scientific knowledge, entirely possible to build, assuming you could get the materials necessary to withstand the heat, which we do not yet have. However, the Active Denial System, or A.D.S functions on a similar principle, agitating water in the air with microwaves to produce a painful burning sensation on the skin. This weapon is used for non-lethal riot control.... BUT it DOES include a lethal setting. On this lethal setting, the damage it would do has been described in remarkably similar terms to a scaled-down melta gun.
I would be willing to bet money that somebody in the United States Military is working on something like this weapon, and we may eventually see Fusion guns on the battlefield, though I'd guess they are a long way off, purely due to power source and materials concerns. If not using a fusion mechanism, then Microwave weaponry absolutely will be seen, and already IS in use.
In the future, our guns will be burny.
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