Designer: Elysian Celestial Navy. Manufacturer: Elysian Celestial Navy. (Suggested) Price: For military use only.

Name: Aioron. Type: Air-burst Grenade Launcher. Role: Anti-defilade targets. Anti-infantry. Anti-armour. Length: 0.93m. Mass: 17 pounds.

Projection/ammo type: 20mm grenade Firing Mechanism: The Aioron functions by taking energy from the battery and running it through a capacitor. While the energy charges the inbuilt computer calculated the distance to the target and the amount of time the round should travel to do the most damage – and programs the grenade accordingly. Then the grenade is launched through a electro-magnetic coil system before exploding after the allotted duration of time. At which point the next grenade is loaded into the firing chamber. Caliber: 20mm Effective Range 1,100 m Maximum Range: 1,700m Minimum Range: 0 (although this may harm the firer) Muzzle Velocity: 300 m/s Muzzle Blast: The grenade is launched as sub-sonic speeds and without a chemical explosion – as such there is no light and little sound. Firing Mode(s): Semi-automatic. Recoil: Requires bracing the shoulder.

Name: High Explosive Airbursting.

• Visual Description: This round has a black tip, and is stored in a fairly standard looking magazine.
• Ammo: 12 rounds.
• Charge: 60 rounds.
• Damage Description: The round explodes in the air immediately above or before the target in a large explosion for its size (given that it uses Octanitrocubane), causing significant kinetic and energy force to the target and immediate area.

Name: Non-lethal Airbursting.

• Visual Description: This round has a white tip, and is stored in a fairly standard looking magazine.
• Ammo: 12 rounds.
• Charge: 60 rounds.
• Damage Description: This round explodes with far less force – aiming to injure and shock rather than to kill and destroy. The force is mostly kinetic and is sufficient to shatter glass, knock people off their feet and normally cause unconsciousness (and almost certainly at least temporary deafness) in the immediate area.

Name: Armour-piercing.

• Visual Description: This round has a red tip, and is stored in a fairly standard looking magazine.
• Ammo: 12 rounds.
• Charge: 60 rounds.
• Damage Description: This round is not actually airbust, instead containing a shaped charge which means that when the round explodes upon hitting its target it sends a plume of super-heated matter into the object – burning a hole through. Thus this round is particularly effective against armour, although it has more of a localised effect than other rounds.

Name: Anti-personnel.

• Visual Description: This round has a blue tip, and is stored in a fairly standard looking magazine.
• Ammo: 12 rounds.
• Charge: 60 rounds.
• Damage Description: This round is airburst, however it combined a high explosive center with carbon-boride fletchettes which are launched with great kinetic force from the explosion – greatly endangering the lives of non-heavily armoured personnel.

Safety: Yes. The weapon will not fire unless the safety button (which rests on the right hand side of the gun) is turned off. Fire mode selector: No. Weapon Sight: Yes. The weapon has a highly advanced weapon sight – a telescopic sight built directly into the body of the weapon with x3 magnification, thermal sight and rangefinder. Attachment Hard points: None. Ballistic computer: This computer, built into the body of the rifle is primarily designed to use the data gathered by the sight to calculate the exact amount of time that the grenade should travel before exploding – as so to maximise devastation. It does this with a great degree of accuracy, and also uses data from a sensitive portion of the guns body to calculate wind strength and the likely distortion effects of humidity (however this function can be disabled with a word).

Field Maintenance Procedure: There is little that can go wrong with the Aioron, and that which can is not easily serviceable within a battle situation. Replaceable Parts and components: Only the battery and the grenades are replaceable. The battery slides into the back of the weapon (fitting so that it goes underneath the barrel), while the grenades are loaded into the rear stock.

The Aioron is a fluidic, almost organic looking, bullpup design with an integrated telescopic sight. The barrel hardly protrudes from the body of the grenade launcher, which is marked with the camouflage most likely to succeed in the local theatre of war.

The Aioron Grenade Launcher was designed as part of the Elysian Infantry reforms, designed in order to produce higher destructive power as well as a way of getting around defilade.

Zakalwe created this article on 2007/03/10 13:17; Wes approved it on 2007/03/11 11:52.