Campaign:NHNE/Equipment/Heracles B-4
The Heracles B-4 is a beam laser system that fits the standard Fleet Laser Mount.
The Original vessels of the Fleet mounted a small array of Laser Systems designed to act as emergency anti-meteoroid protection systems. To ensure effective diversion of the rocks with minimal spalling the mounts had multiple low-powered laser systems.
The Heracles B-4 is developed from those Fleet systems.
Description
Each Heracles B-4 comes in several parts.
- The Traversing Mechanism
- The Targeting System
- The main Beam Generator
- The Beam Amplifier
- The Beam Focusing Array
- The Cooling System
The Traversing Mechanism
This is capable of holding a laser beam steady on a 10cm target at 10,000km and floats the main beam itself on a magnetic bearing systems. In practice, this level of accuracy is more than adequate as the movement of the target and the firing platform ensure that this level of accuracy is impossible to achieve in practice.
The Targeting System
The Heracles B-4 proudly claims that it comes with a system capable of identifying and engaging incoming missiles accelerating at up to 12g.
The Beam Generator
The beam generator is a tiny, but vital affair that starts the cascade that generates the laser beam
The Beam Amplifier
This complex arrangement of mirrors and exciters allows the power fed into the Beam Laser System to be transformed into a strong and continuous beam of coherent light.
Beam Focusing Array
This virtual lens arrangement allows the beam to be focussed so that it is effective in operating at a range of 10,000km.
Cooling System
While the system is extremely efficient at converting energy to light, a small fraction is converted to heat - and even this small fraction is more than adequate to melt the entire mechanism if not managed. The cooling system provides the Heracles B-4 with the means of dispersing that heat without melting the weapon or its gunner.