Waterknife
| Waterknife | |
|---|---|
| Type | Tool |
| Tech Level | TL–10 |
| Cost | Cr2,000 |
| Size | 10 liters |
| Weight | 9 kg |
The waterknife is a military application of a TL–7 industrial technology. An extremely high-pressure stream of abrasive-loaded water is pumped through a very small diamond nozzle, and the resulting pinpoint jet is capable of cutting through any material up to diamond hardness. As the possibility of boarding actions on starships became a reality, the waterknife became the melee weapon of choice for selective disabling of systems and opponents without undue damage to the boarded ship in general. Normal application would be a small high-pressure tank on the back, with armored hose leading to a nozzle on top of one wrist. This could be used as a cutting tool, or a melee weapon capable of cutting through virtually any space suit without too much effort. It is "fired" with a hand-mounted trigger, tied either to a hand motion or by nerve impulses fed through a port on the suit.
A full pressure charge, 4 liters of treated water, will last for one minute of continuous use. They can bore a deep hole like a drill bit, to provide a small access hole for an observation device, introduction of incapacitating agents, and so on. As a melee weapon, its cutting ability varies widely with the actual range when the jet intersects something.
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This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Water_jet_cutter. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. |
- Greg Porter. Emperor's Arsenal (Imperium Games, 1997), 68.