Rifts Up Close: PR-470 Plasma Rifle

By Tim Willard

After the 2054 "Panama Canal Incident" NEMA realized it was going to have go against public opinion and politicians promises and start to field heavy weaponry that could take down armored vehicles and power armor. The Ugandan Liberation Front had nearly overwhelmed the NEMA peacekeeping task force stationed at the Panama Canal with two "Hyena" power armors (Nigerian knock-off's of the NEMA Bulldog) despite the fact that the Ugandan terrorists were outnumbered 250 to 1.

A call was put out to manufacturers to showcase various weapons, and the NEMA Future Warfighter Program was reopened. After testing ended in 2057, three weapons had been chosen to expand the NEMA arsenal despite public outcry against the NEMA "anti-terrorist/peacekeepers" possession military grade heavy weaponry. The three weapons performed admirably unitl the late 2070's, when again the Future Warfighter Program began field testing replacement weapons.

The PR-470 is joint manufactured by Pontiac and Regal Arms. The compression and magnetic components are produced by Regal Arms at three factories, one in northern Mexico, one in Alberta, Canada, and one in South Carolina, America. The frame and electronic components are produced by Pontiac at their factory in Detroit. The weapon is assembled in Florida and Ciduad Juarez.

In 2081 the PR-470A2 was chosen to be the next generation plasma weapon, with an upgrade available for the venerable PR-470 plasma rifle, allowing NEMA to cheaply and effectively upgrade and keep NEMA armories containing a standard weapon. As an additional bonus, troops and agents trained on the PR-470 system would not need to be retrained, doctrine would not need to be altered, and the support systems for the twenty year old weapon would not need to be replaced.

The PR-470 functions by ionizing the air within the chamber, and then magnetically compressing the ionized gas (ie: plasma) until compression massively heats up the ionized gas, usually to temperatures in excess of 4000 degrees Farenhiet. Once the gas is ionized, heated, and compressed, electrons are added to the gas, positively charging the atoms, which are already in a state of flux, and making the plasma more effectively effected by magnetic fluxes. Once that occurs, the magnetic bottle "ruptures" and the plasma is jettisoned in the direction of the "rupture". Once the ball of superheated ionized charged matter (commonly referred to as plasma) strikes an object, the massive transfer of heat and electrons results in most solid matter turning to liquid, liquids vaporizing, and gas being torn into its component atoms.

The PR-470 has a lightweight and sturdy frame made out of advanced polymers and alloys that can resist heat transfer from the plasma creation process, as well as not be effected by magnetics. The frame has a built in bipod system at the bottom front of the weapon.

Despite the complexity of the weapon, the PR-470 proved to be more reliable than initial estimates thought. However, the forward magnetic guidance rings had a tendency to lose superconductivity after more than 20 plasma blasts, resulting in the assistant operator having to replace the rings, often under fire and in bad coniditions, or risk the plasma liberating into the end of the barrel. However, this problem was fixed in 2059 with the A1 series, and the upgrade quickly applied to existing PRC-470's.

The scope provides laser targeting (necessary for the correct computations regarding the plasma blast), telescopic vision, passive night vision, IR, VIR, UV, and active night vision. However, the first runs of the PR-470 did not provide flare compensation, so that a shot from the weapon overloaded the optics for critical seconds (3-12 seconds). This was quickly fixed in 2058, and the scope was replaced.

The Variable IR targeting laser is often used by another soldier to "laze" a target for the PR-470 operator to shoot. Typically a forward scout will identify hardened targets or military grade vehicles/armor, and laze the target. In order to confirm the target, the designator will be rapidly turned off and on (or "flickered") with the VIR targeting laser, and the PR-470 operator locks onto the end of the beam and fires. In teams with multiple PR-470's, often only the team leader will laze a target, with the rest of the team using the team leaders VIR beam to lock onto.

The energy canister is usually utilized by all PR-470 operators, with spares carried in a hip satchel, as the weapon is a known voracious energy consumer. The A2 addressed the energy consumption problem and actually managed to decrease the energy usage by 25%.

Use of the bipod is suggested whenever it is possible, as the weapon has a forcible kick (often referred to as the equivalent of being kicked in the chest), to reduce recoil and improve accuracy.

The weapon is often mounted on vehicle ring mounts, used in static defenses, carried by power armor troops or cyborgs, or used in a gryo-stabalization harness.

The PR-470 has seen limited deployment by NEMA, however most NEMA armories contain at least 1 of these weapons per combat squad, and one per three power armors.

While this weapon can be hooked into power armor power supplies, the fact that it produces a sudden loss of power for moment (.25 seconds) is enough to discourage all but the most confident pilots from using the power interlink.

During Chaos Earth and Second Dark Ages, this heavy weapon saw a lot of use. However, not many survived longer than 3 years of operation, the problem with loss of superconductivity in the magnetic acceleration rings rearing its ugly head and rendering the weapon useless at best, dangerous to the operators at worst. (Reports have been confirmed of the plasma blast liberating the barrel, or backflowing into the chamber)

Rifts Earth this weapon is considered highly illegal in CS territory, but is occasionally found on the Black Market. Once in a great while one will be found in a cache, or in the ruins of a city. Possession of this weapon in CS Territory is a Class A Felony.

On Rifts Earth the weapon is often repaired by local weaponsmiths and returned to service for some town militias, put in use by mercenary units, or carried by cyborgs. Most of the time the CS claims that the weapon is NOT a NEMA weapon, but rather a black market knockoff of their own plasma rifle.

Weight: 8lbs
Length: 48"
Caliber: 4.5cm
Maximum Range: 550m (1650 ft)
Maximum Effective Range: 500m (1500 ft)
Typical Combat Range: 400m (1200 ft)
Magazine Capacity: A1-5 shots with ecclip, 7 shots with an extended eclip, 15 with e-canister, 85 with power pack; A2 7 shots per eclip, 19 shots with extended eclip, 21 shots with canister, 47 shots with power pack (the 147 is a datasheet misprint). All three power sources may be combined.