Project ERASER: Electromagnetic Spheromak Railgun (ERASER-15M1-1), Codename: 'Mjolnir'The Mjolnir consist of two flat plate electrodes separated by insulating spacers and accelerate sheet armatures and represents a 15 MW plasma railgun, which, like a projectile railgun, uses two long parallel electrodes to accelerate a "sliding short" armature, differs from one in that it's ejected projectile consists of a long lived spheromak instead of a solid slug of material. Linear plasma railguns, such as the Mjolnir, do not suffer from blow-by instabilities, which would reduce their effective range if not mitigated through certain techniques, but place extreme demands on their insulators if they are not located in a vacuum, as they must be an electrically insulating, plasma-facing vacuum component which can withstand both thermal and acoustic shocks - but while this would be a great engineering problem on Earth, in space, it is much easier to deal with. The weapon operates on the following principle.
First, a several milligram stream of neutral gas is injected into the via fast gas valves. After armature formation occurs, the plasmoid is accelerated down the length of the railgun by a current supplied by a capacitor, which is driven through one electrode, through the armature, and out the other electrode, creating a large magnetic field behind the armature. Since the driver current through the armature is also moving through and normal to a self-generated magnetic field, the armature particles experience a Lorentz force, accelerating them down the length of the gun at velocities of several thousand kilometers per second.(edited)
The weapon itself consists of a 100 mm diameter, 1 meter long barrel, two 58 kg, 15 MW, 186 V capacitor banks, a heavily automated targetting system, an omnidirectional turret module and two small noble gas containers acting as 'ammunition' for the ERASER, storing 100 kg of gas each acting as 40 million "rounds". During operation, 5 milligrams of plasma are expected to obtain a speed of around 3,000 km/s (a bit conservative, but I'm aware it's a new tech). Due to the low mass of the plasma used, it's injection is not a limiting factor in the weapon's rate of fire, and instead the charge time for the capacitors plays a major role. For this reason, the two capacitors are used sequentially to increase the rate of fire to one shot every 50 milliseconds, or otherwise both could be fired at the same time, either doubling the power drain or increasing the charging time to 200 milliseconds, but launching a much higher velocity, higher mass plasmoid. The system's high rate of fire, immense destructive potential and lower energy consumption when compared to a railgun make it a deadly weapon in the hands of the Tokari.
The plasmoid then travels as a doughnut-shaped ring of plasma and, upon contact, explodes with devastating thermal and mechanical effects, with an additional electromagnetic pulse and a shower of high-energy x-rays, which would wreck havoc on the interior of the target, killing crew and scramble or destroy the electronics inside, depending on the presence of armor, or disabling enemy missiles should the Kestrel fail to take them out.
This system has the following advantages:
- Extremely little material used during launch (I'd be surprised if it used 1 Noble Gas per engagement, though I could understand 10 if Chief wanted to keep it in 10s)
- High muzzle energy retained through-out flight
- Extreme range (from hundreds to thousands and tends of thousands of kilometers potentially, depending on how stable we construct the toroids)
- No evasion chance at standard combat ranges (midway between lasers and railguns - in the thousands or small tens of thousands of km/s)
- Fast rate of Fire (a 100 mm ERASER would have a ROF of 1200 RPM for 5-10 MJ of muzzle energy, while a L44 120 mm Rheinmetal cannon would have something like 12 RPM for 12-18 MJ of muzzle energy, at a much lower velocity)
- Extremely Compact allowing...
- Fast traversal rates.
A real-life example of a similar weapon is the MARAUDER experiment, done at the Shiva Star capacitor bank, and a few other experiments investigating coaxial plasma railguns. Here's a list of interesting reads on the topic:
http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/21/065/21065675.pdf#page=168https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/30767https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224274894_Shiva_Star_-_Marauder_Compact_Torus_SystemOn the 120 mm L44 Rheinmetal's energy:
https://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/2-8945.aspx#startofcommentshttps://defence.pk/pdf/threads/tank-guns.229716/page-2 
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Topic: Arks Race - Tokari: Ark Anvil (Jump 1, Revision) (Read 12579 times)