"David Drake - The Hammers Slammers Handbook" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

of sophistication were still employed. There were too many variants to discuss here but they break down
into simple, cheap, solid propellant ammunition, the more effective wire-fired liquid propellant rounds,
and complex electromagnetic rail or coil guns that firedpenetrators at flathypervelocities . The most
sophisticated versions of the latter fired osmiumfletchettes down squeeze cone-bore barrels made from a
single synthetic diamond crystal. These hypervelocity guns had higher penetration thanpowerguns but less
destructive impact. They were not cheap and could only be manufactured by technically advanced
cultures such as the Gorgon Cluster.

Artillery weapons, which includesguns, rockets and missiles, could fire a wide variety of ordinance over
considerable distances. Loads included anti-personnel cluster rounds (firecrackers), anti-armourrounds
with seeker heads, groundpenetrators (bunker-busters), biochemical warfare rounds, nuclear warheads
(if the enemy was foolish enough not to be protected by nuclear suppresser fields), electronic warfare
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rounds, reconnaissance rounds and even good old high explosive & shrapnel. Artillery was truly
devastating if it penetrated the opposition's airdefences .

Artillery was such a potentially puissant weapon that competent armies carried airdefence guns that
could shoot artillery shells out of the air before they deployed theirbomblets . A variety of small to
medium sized multi-barreledgatlings or calliopes were used in conjunction with sophisticated automatic
detectors and targeting devices.

Some remarkably simple weapons were in common use even in the most sophisticated forces, for
examples grenades, grenade launchers and buzz bombs. Buzz bombs were simple, unguided, short range,
anti-armourrockets of a wide variety of designs. They were an infantryman's personal artillery and could
penetrate anyarmour . They gave tankers sleepless nights as they could not be decoyed or shot down.
Anarmoured vehicle's only hope was to prevent the infantryman getting close enough or to use automatic
strip mines. These were claymore-type devices positioned along the sides ofarmoured vehicles that
sprayed shotgunтАУlike blasts of shrapnel. They could be set to fire automatically if the vehicle sensors
detected infantry or incoming buzz bombs. Hypervelocity unguided rocket-penetratorswere used in the
anti-tank role precisely because they were too fast to intercept either by gunfire orstripmines but these
weapons required stable launch bases of greater mass than an infantryman's shoulder.

Combat Vehicles

Military combat vehicles could be wheeled, tracked or hover craft. Wheeled vehicles were by far the
simplest and cheapest to manufacture and maintain. Their disadvantages were limited all-terrain ability
and limited weight capability, which precluded anything other than lightarmour although surprisingly large
weapons could be fitted, provided the recoil was not too high. Light weight limited designs toarmoured
personnel carriers andarmoured cars. Wheeled combat vehicles were always horribly vulnerable to
mines.

Tracked vehicles offered considerably better terrain capability than wheeled and could carry
considerably more weight. Their disadvantages lay in complexity and cost. Tracks could also be an
endless maintenance problem. The most sophisticated tracked vehicles used electromagnetic suspensions
that floated the body independently of the transmission but the cost and sophistication of sucharmoured
fighting vehicles was not much less than a hover vehicle.