Rifts Up Close: R-670 Heavy Rail Gun

By Tim Willard

With the addition of combat cyborgs to the NEMA forces in the years following the Congo/Sudanese War of 2058 (One of NEMA's toughest challenges as world peacekeepers) NEMA once again opened the Future Warfighter Program in order to develop heavy weapons for the powered armor soldiers, cyborgs, and other amplified humans. Field testing on weapons was done for over 3 years before the Program authorized three total weapon systems to be fielded for cyborgs and power armor soldiers.

The R-670 heavy Rail Gun System was submitted by Pontiac, which had made a name for itself in magnetic propulsion systems, as well as its NEMA Naval armements (including highly secret work on the Submersible Carrier Project) programs and of course, the feather in its cap, the Chromium Guardsman Primary Rail Gun System.

Manufactured in the same factories as the R-660 Light Rail Gun, the R-670 was actually assembled at the Deerborn, MI Gerber plant. In the cases of both weapons, the energized rounds were built in an isolated factory south of Boise, ID.

The system requires either a two man team utilizing the front bipod, a static emplacement using a tripod, mounted on a vehicle, as a supplementary weapon for power armors, or packed by cybernetic heavy infantry soldiers. This weapon was intended to be a platoon level weapon, assigned on per platoon, to provide additional heavy fire support above what the R-660 would provide.

The system uses a pair of electromagnetic superconductive rails to accelerate a ferrous coated projectile at "signifigant" velocity, mostly limited by the applied current and the length of the rails. It is these rails that suffer the most degradation of the material as heat transfer and the collapse of air into the railgun's path cause minor stress fractures in the material. However, the life expectancy of the rails usually measure into the millions of rounds, and the onboard computer systems of modern railguns contain a rail diagnostic feature, as well as alerting the user whenever a rail gun rail falls below 60% integrity.

The R-670 rail gun uses heavy duty polyceramic casings, as well as a modified Farraday Cage in order to keep the electromagnetic energy from effecting the surrounding area outside the weapon. Circuitry is precision made to be unaffected by the strong magnetic fields generated by the rails.

During field testing, the weapon was virtually line of sight, only beginning to drop past 12km and usually hitting the ground roughly 17 kilometers from the firing point, in tests with transmitter impregnated test rounds.

Like the R-660, the R-670 used the "energized round" system, but had power conduit hardware that allowed the weapon to be hooked into a second energy source. This allowed APDS rounds, plasma-gel rounds, and Slammer(TM) stun rounds to be used.

The plasma-gel rounds were an incendiary gel surrounded by a thin layer of ferrous metal. Approximately 60 meters after leaving the barrel, the ablative layer was breached, the gel ignited, and a small plasma round emerged as air friction turned the gel into free-flowing plasma. While this round had a range of only 500m, it was mass produced but outlawed by the Tripoli Warfare Conventions before they were ever used. However, in direct violation of UN orders, NEMA maintained a stockpile of these controversial rounds. These rounds were manufactured by the Dow Munitions plant in South Dakota, but so far the factories whereabouts post-Rifts remains unknown.

Slammer(TM) rounds were developed by LifeRight Industries as a non-lethal munition to be used in rail guns, in accordance to their charter to make warfare "less life cost intensive". The round only has an effective range of 200m, but less than 5 feet from the barrel, the round itself is turned into a compact "packet" of air that hits hard enough to stun, but not injure. Specifically children, with smaller bodies, seemed more resistant to this round. While it was offered at extremely low prices, NEMA only bought enough to keep up public appearances. Very few of these rounds were used during the Cataclysm. These rounds were manufactured in Silicon Valley, CA, but the company went bankrupt in 2092 and sold its patents and factories off by 2097, after the two founders committed suicide.

In 2097 an upgrade kit to the R-670 was issued, using breakthrough polyceramic magnetic superconductor alloys that were almost entirely resistant to heat cracking, as well as resisted "environmental conversion damage" to the rails from sand or other debris being melted to the rails. However, not all R-670's were upgraded to R-670A1's before the coming of the Cataclysm.

The weapon is primarily used by power armors, heavy infantry cyborgs, fixed defenses, and vehicle weapon mounts.

During the Second Dark Ages, this weapon was found to be able to powered without the "energized rounds" via the power conduit circuitry, which was merely disabled rather than removed (a 10 minute fix that required no parts, just microswitch settings changed, the majority of the time taken to remove the housing) meaning this weapon could be used to fire machine lathed "home-made" rounds, as well as rounds scavenged from ruins.

In Rifts Earth, possession of this weapon in CS territory is a Class A Felony, as well as "Conspiracy to commit murder/mayhem" charges. However, outside CS territory this weapon can be found in fixed positions, attached to old vehicles, and located in old ruins.

The illustration shows the weapon with the built-in tripod retracted, folded, and put in the storage position.

The sight is simple IR/VIR/UV/Passive nightvision/Thermographic/50X vision, is hardy, and powered via a motion generator similar to that found in vibroweapons.

In 56 PA the Colorado Baronies discovered a stockpile of more than 2000 of these weapons, along with over 20 million"energized rounds" for them in a "Cold Storage Locker" discovered in the Rocky Mountains, and sold them to Free Quebec in 62 PA. Despite their best efforts, Free Quebec was unable to duplicate the energized rounds technology, expending every shell in their efforts. For the massive trade, the Colorado Baronies recieved a massive influx of medical, communications, repair, and vehicle components and equipment. While nobody is talking, unofficial estimates put the trade in the hundreds of millions of credits, paid over a 10 year term. It is known that Free Quebec offered up 125 Glitter Boys for the weapons and mostly, the ammunition. (Which only added up to 10,000 rounds per weapon, a typical war stock and not that unheard of as far as quantity goes)

Weight: 82 lbs
Length: 65 in
Caliber: 14.5mm
Muzzle Velocity: 3793 m/s
Maximum Range: 17km (10 miles)
Maximum Effective Range: 4700m (14100 ft)
Typical Combat Range: 2300m (6900 ft)
Magazine Capacity: Drum or belt fed

Note: The energized round is much more than just normal capacitance gel, ala the famed energy clip, as it seems to produce more than 27X the normal amount of energy when it vaporizes, and without the superconductor coating the gel evaporates at room temperature rather quickly. Free Quebec researchers tried coring out a rail gun round made out of conductive materail and filling it with capacitance gel, but this proved unable to carry the charge needed to activate the rails. As of this writing, Free Quebec is willing to pay good money, or excellent trades, for stockpiles of this ammunition.