Continental Arsenal LAC-57

No. If I wanted you dead I would've blasted you with our lances long ago.

— Anonymous, 376

The Continental Arsenal LAC-57, also known as the Lance cannon, is a Vestan 720MJ anti-ship Oström railgun designed and manufactured by the Continental Arsenal. Its main goal was to engage and destroy hostile spacecrafts at extreme ranges while retaining the capability to engage ground targets from orbit. The Lance is the most powerful weapon created by the Arsenal, and among the most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed by the Federation. Capable of reaching velocities nearing relativistic scale, the Lance cannon has been the primary armament of Vestan warships for nearly a century, receiving regular upgrades to remain at the forefront of space warfare technologies.

The LAC-57 was initially designed in 295 to improve the Vestan Aerospace Defense Force's capabilities against the growing threat of open conflict with the Enodian Ascendancy. Improving on the existing LAC-51 used by the military, the LAC-57 used new materials such as Resilium to increase its cooling capacity and overall range and rate of fire. Encompassing numerous other improvements, the LAC-57 was a serious upgrade over an already robust platform, and was officially adopted in 298. It took more than fifteen years to retrofit the LAC-57 onto all ships of the ADF, during which several upgrades were made to the LAC-57.

Design

The LAC-57 is fundamentally built as an enormous 16.8m long helical railgun connected to an Oström condensate core. Each core holds enough condensate for a single shot of massive proportions, but needs to be reloaded after being fired. The massive capacitor banks used by the LAC-57 also need time to recharge after each shot, taking roughly 23 seconds to reach full charge. Due to its nature as a railgun, the barrel's life is severely limited in comparison to coilguns, but the weapon's muzzle velocity is unrivaled.

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General Characteristics

Type

Anti-ship railgun

Place of origin

Vesta

In service

298-present

Used by

Vestan Defense Forces

Specifications

Mass

17 750 kg

Length

16.8 m

Caliber

720MJ Oström

Muzzle velocity

6 780 km/s

Effective range

47 000 km

History

The LAC-57 was created to provide the ADF with better means to engage Enodian ships in combat. With the Enodians possessing superior stealth and engine technologies, the ADF's doctrine revolved around overwhelming firepower to score any hits at longer ranges. This required a weapon capable of reaching extreme ranges accurately, and so was born the LAC-57. Replacing the existing LAC-51, which had shown its limits at rangers beyond 35 000 kilometers, was no easy task. As the Enodian vessels became harder to detect and track, creating a weapon capable of engaging them at an equal footing required heavy investment in space detection systems as well as improved armament. As a result, Mikoto Systems partnered with the Continental Arsenal to implement a new targeting system along with the main weapon, creating an all-round package capable of tracking andengaging targets reliably up to 47 000 kilometers away, and at a maximum of up to 280 000 kilometers away.

Operators

Due to its destructive potential, the sole operator of LAC-57 is the Vestan Aerospace Defense Force. Unfortunately, some LAC-57 eventually found themselves in the hands of pirates after being looted of Vestan warship wrecks, but these are exceedingly rare. Most Vestan vessels are equipped with at least one LAC-57, and on average between 8 and 12 of such weapons to provide an overwhelming barrage.