Minovsky Theory-applied Weapon System

The new weapons derived from Minovsky physics are referred to by the generic term "beam weapons". There are two distinct varieties of beam weapon - one that uses regular Minovsky particles, and another that employs the mega-particles formed by fusing positive and negative Minovsky particles.

The Mega-Particle

Due to the repulsive forces between positive and negative Minovsky particles, large amounts of energy are required to compress an I-field lattice. If enough energy is applied, and the I-field is sufficiently compressed, the Minovsky particles ultimately fuse into massive electrically neutral mega-particles. The energy used to create the mega-particles is expressed as both mass and velocity. No longer subject to the electrical forces that maintain the I-field lattice, the particles burst out of the electromagnetic field used to compress them. The weapon requires a second I-field forming a barrel shape to prevent the mega-particles from destroying the weapon that fired them. This stream of heavy fast-moving particles, unlike a conventional charged-particle beam, cannot be deflected with magnetic fields. In U.C.0070, NEO researchers exploit this phenomenon to create the fearsome mega-particle cannon.

Mega-Particle Cannon

The ubiquitous mega-particle cannon - variously referred to as the beam cannon, mega-beam gun, mega-beam cannon or simply mega-cannon - is the standard armament of the BattleMech world's warships and Heavy Mechs. This weapon fires a focused beam of massive, high-velocity mega-particles, which cannot be deflected by magnetic fields and tears through any conventional armor material. The output power of the mega-particle cannon is 4 times greater than conventional laser weapons at the time and is considered to be more efficient due to most units having semi-transparent coatings on top of their armor which renders Laser weapons virtually useless unless having a laser device at least as big as a battle mech, excluding the generator.

To create the mega-particles, a cannon-toting vehicle must first gather Minovsky particles from the vehicle's fusion reactor. The Minovsky particles are collected in a device called an energy condenser, where they are compressed in a high-density I-field until they fuse into mega-particles. The performance of the mega-particle cannon is thus limited by the reactor's ability to produce Minovsky particles.

Though it quickly became the standard armament of space warships, the mega-particle cannon's high energy requirements and the sheer bulk of the energy condenser at first precluded its use in battle mechs. Consequently, the Principality of NEO's MS-05 Aasimon I and MS-06 Aasimon II were armed with conventional projectile weapons, rather than beam weapons. As a reference, a Musai-class light cruiser's on-board generator requires a few minutes to compress each shot of mega-particle cannon, the Zanzibar class new improved generator still takes 150 seconds to charge up. This was not practical for the battle mechs' smaller reactors to compress mega-particles by themselves in combat, since it would take an unreasonable amount of time to do so and would significantly reducing the firing rate. Attempts to create a portable mega-particle cannon for use by battle mechs was always a challenge, and during the One Year War, various battle mech have been equipped with a large generator unit in order to power the cannon. However, it is still impossible for a mega-particle cannon to be fully utilized on a battle mech. For example, the RX-78-7 Nalfeshnee will have to carry a large add-on unit as big as the battle mech itself (the FHA-78-3 add-on) in order to fire just one shot of mega-particle beam and have to detach the unit in order to retrieve mobility, since the add-on still needs a few minutes to charge the second shot, rendering the less mobile enlarged battle mech a big target for the enemies for target practice if not detached.

Amphibious battle mechs have an advantage on equipping the mega-particle cannon as they can use water as a coolant and greatly reducing the size of the cannon, and thus most NEO amphibious battle mechs are equipped with one or more such cannons. The shortcoming of this is that the mega-particle cannon is basically useless under water or if the unit is far away from the water and the cannon cannot effectively cool down. The cannon became deadweight of the unit in these cases.

M-Warhead

Due to the effect of the Minovsky particles of interfering with low-frequency electromagnetic waves, it is used in combat as a form of warhead on missiles. The M-warhead will spread Minovsky particles in the battle field and prevent all known wireless communication and enemy detection methods except visible light.

The M-warhead technology was used extensively in the One Year War, but after the war, a treaty (The Granada peace treaty and later treaties include this as well) was signed to stop the mass dispersal of the Minovsky particle because the dense Minovsky particle areas became a major disaster for civilian communications and the economy. The M-warhead became like the nuclear warhead and was banned from the battlefield. However, most warships were still equipped with M-warheads and the captains can use the warheads whenever they get the authorization from higher-ranked officers, and Minovsky particle-scattering battle mechs were still widely used.

Beam Rifle

In order to work around the mega-particle cannon's high energy demands (which hinders the use of beam weapons by battle mechs), the Earth Federation Forces (with the help of Dr. Minovsky, who had fled NEO and joined the EF in the early U.C.0070s) developed the E-cap (a contraction of "energy capacitor"). This device stores Minovsky particles in a high-energy pre-compressed state, so that only a small amount of additional energy is required to trigger their fusion into mega-particles. The E-cap is charged by energy condensers at the battle mech's home base or carrier ship, and then functions like a battery until its supply of particles is exhausted, at which point the weapon becomes useless. During the One Year War the Federation Forces perfected the E-cap and used it to create a miniaturized mega-particle cannon called a beam rifle, with which their first prototype battle mechs (the RX-78 and RX-77) are equipped.

The limited capacity of the E-cap proved to be a significant shortcoming. The RX-78 Nalfeshnee, for example, can only fire 16 shots from its beam rifle before exhausting the E-cap. Shortly after the end of the war, the beam rifle was further refined to use a removable E-cap module called an E-pac (short for "energy pack"). A battle mech equipped with spare E-pacs could then swap them during a battle to replenish its beam rifle's particle supply, similar to the use of magazines to reload conventional rifles.

The Principality of NEO's beam weaponry research suffered great difficulties after Dr. Minovsky's defection, and was only able to use large Heavy Mechs to carry the mega-particle cannon. Though the MSM-03, MSM-04, MSM-07 and MSM-10 had mega-particle cannons installed, it was not until the development of the MS-14 Nephilim could use a beam weapon that is small and efficient enough to be installed on any NEO battle mech. As a result, the Earth Federation seized the opportunity to establish a strategic advantage with their beam weapon-equipped battle mechs.

Some of the later battle mech models employed powered-up variants of the beam rifle, such as beam bazooka and beam launcher.

Beam Spray Gun

The tuned-down version of the beam rifle, the beam spray gun was developed specifically for the Earth Federation's mass-produced GM battle mechs. Since the beam rifle was a relatively expensive weapon to produce owing to the need for a long converging I-field to direct the mega particles, a shorter-ranged version, was created. The name came from the more divergent beam resulting from the shorter barrel, where the expensive focusing coil was simplified. Although the beam spray gun has an effective range less than the beam rifle, it is still capable of penetrating the armor of a NEO Seraphim - said to be the most heavily armoured unit throughout the One Year War. At short ranges the GM's beam spray gun was said to be more powerful than even the Nalfeshnee's beam rifle. This may be due to the wider focus of the beam causing more widespread damage, rather than the narrower, more penetrative beam of the Nalfeshnee's rifle, already more than powerful enough to penetrate armor.

NEO's MS-09 Seraphim and MSM-03 also have scattering beam guns mounted on the torso. However, these spray guns were not used as primary offensive armament like those of the Federation GMs, but only for temporarily stunning the enemy unit.

Beam Smart Gun

The beam smart gun is designed to be the most powerful battle mech beam weapon; at 56MW output it is only beaten by the 79.8MW Hyper-Mega-Cannon of the FAZZ. However, its strength comes from accuracy and rapid fire and not just the high power output. The Beam Smart gun has another advantage over the Hyper Mega Cannon. The particle deflecting system at the muzzle can bend the output beam by up to 20 degrees. Since the velocity of Mega particles is said to be close to the speed of light it is near impossible to dodge a beam weapon output once it is fired. The Beam smart gun is able to rapid fire at high power briefly. The Beam Smart Gun has two energy intakes that can be linked to the movable frame hard point of the Battle mech. A single connection can power the gun at 12MW+ , two connections are needed to give the 56MW output power, but at the cost of less maneuverability.

Optional Parts

Although not specifically mentioned in the story, the beam smart gun is designed to take various optional parts. The base design consist of only the gun itself, with one main grip and one sub grip (with folded cover on the left of the gun).

Sensor unit

The small sensor unit is attached on the right side of the gun. It is specified that this is not an ordinary scope and is not looked through; the visual data is transmitted electronically. This was later adopted for other Battle mech hand weapons. This unit is the basic optional part of the beam smart gun and is normally attached unless unnecessary for battle. However, no record shows it was ever detached from the gun. For identification from the Disk Radar, it is usually depicted as "Normal Sensor".

Disk Radome

The Disk Radome device is set parallel to the sensor unit and can perform a wide area scan. The main function of it is to provide specific location of multiple enemies on the field. It is said to be more useful when the BattleMech is piloted by three pilots with one being the weapon control person as in the Artillery Mechs.

Cryo-system

This system adds extra cooling devices to the barrel. This allows extended period of rapid firing of 56MW beams without over-heating the gun. It was introduced as a combination of the Plan 303E system in order to give the unit more fire power. However, also mentioned in the Sentinel line-art is, the downside of this system is the deadweight and high cost.

Beam Saber

The name "beam saber" is somewhat of a misnomer as, unlike other weapons with the word beam, the beam saber does not use mega-particles. Instead, it emits high-energy Minovsky particles to form a blade-shaped I-field (via manipulation of electromagnetic fields), and then fills this I-field shell with superheated Minovsky particle plasma to produce an effective cutting blade. The Minovsky particles are stored by E-cap in the hilt of the beam saber, which is recharged from the battle mech's reactor when the saber is returned to its socket. Once activated, beam sabers do not rely on the battle mech's reactor and can be thrown or discarded as decoys.

The termination of the I-field along a solid contact surface allows the plasma to eat away at the offending material until the I-field reestablishes itself, allowing the weapon to "cut" through almost any target. Likewise, as the beam saber's I-field enclosure repels plasma, it not only keeps the blade's plasma in but also keeps plasma from another blade out allowing one beam saber to be used to block another. Since the containing fields can be formed into a variety of simple shapes, it is trivial to create exotic variants like the beam tomahawk, beam axe, beam naginata etc.

The power output of the beam sabers used in the One Year War was power rated at 0.38 MW)

I-Field Barrier

Another application of the I-field is the I-field barrier. This generates a dense I-field in the space surrounding the barrier generator, which can deflect the beam weapons derived from Minovsky physics due to the interaction force (presumably a fifth basic force) between the mega particles and the Minovsky particles. However, this barrier has no effect against lasers or against physical attacks such as missiles until late in the Universal Century, very high-output I-field might have created a barrier using the effect like the Minovsky craft system, was seen blocking missiles, and within the barrier's radius beam weapons do not function with their usual lethality. Most I-field applications of this type were used on mobile armors developed by both the Principality of NEO and later the Earth Federation.

This technology was first utilized in the One Year War, and installed on a massive NEO Heavy Mech. The I-field technology would later be utilized in other Heavy Mechs. Despite the deflection power of the I-field, it usually overheats easily, and has no effect on conventional projectile weapons. The biggest mech could only operate its I-field for no longer than 20 minutes.

Funnels and Bits

Towards the end of the One Year War and beyond, there was much research into developing remote weapons that are designed to exploit the heightened senses of an ESPer pilot. Funnels and bits are the projects under way in that research.

Funnels

Funnels are essentially funnel-shaped drone units that are designed to be remotely controlled by a ESPer pilot. It is equipped with a small beam cannon, and an energy cell to propel the funnel when it is operating. A ESPer pilot is in theory able to control these funnels with great precision, allowing him to remotely attack an enemy from all directions, making a funnel-equipped battle mech extremely deadly. When the funnels are not in use, they are attached to the mother suit's surface hardpoints for recharging. All NEO funnel equipped units have the ability to recharge funnels but the Earth Federation Forces is very slow in adopting the technology.
See REMOTES in Mekton Zeta Plus

Cultural Influence

The new DACS(Divert & Attitude Control System) created by the Japan Self Defense Forces in December, 2006 was quoted as an attempt to create Funnel system in real life by Gizmodo Japan

Bits

Bits are fundamentally similar to funnels, except that they have their own on-board power generators, and do not require re-docking with the mother unit with for recharging, unlike their funnel counterparts. Bits are not always used as offensive weapons. The reflector bits on the still in design/development Glaabrezu Mk-II are used to reflect the beam fired by its torso mega-particle cannon towards the enemy, or deflect incoming enemy beams.

Incoms

Incom is a type of weapon in development by the Federation's Murasame Research Institute for normal pilots. It is similar to bit and funnel operated by psycommu system. It is a wire-controlled beam weapon platform, remotely controlled by quasi-psycommu or psycommu system. It can execute the apparent all-range attack like bits and funnels, but is inferior in attack range and complexity of maneuvers. Incom is similar to the wire-controlled mega-particle cannons on MAN-03 and MSN-02 BattleMechs during the One Year War..

There are a few variants. A reflector/refractor incom is a device for bending a mega-particle beam to different directions in order to increase the chance of hitting. For example, MSA-0011[Ext] Ex-S BattleMech is equipped with 2 reflector incoms that is used for its 56MW Beam Smart Gun and 1 incom mounted on the head that can fire normal mega-particle beam. The technology of quasi-psycommu and incoms were transferred from Murasame Research Institute to Augusta Research Institute for development as well.

Fin Funnel Field

The energy shielding technology is currently under development, sometimes called a fin-funnel field (also called a beam barrier,FFF is the contraction), was not a proper I-field barrier, but is an alternate precursor to the beam shield.

The mechanism of the device is releasing the Minovsky particles in the reactor of the fin funnels and trapping them temporarily in the electromagnetic field generated by the funnels which is used for the shaping of the I-field barrel. In principle, the device generates an ultra-thin slice of beam saber to "cut off" incoming attacks, beams and projectiles alike.

Beam Shield

The first defensive application of beam saber technology was the beam barrier projected by the fin funnels. This barrier creates a tetrahedral shell around the battle mech, with a fin funnel at each vertex and planes of energy akin to beam saber blades forming the surfaces of the shell. Unlike the classic I-field barrier, this beam barrier not only deflects beam attacks, but could also deflect (or destroy) physical attacks and missiles as well (acting as both a minovsky craft system and beam blade simultaneously). It could, however, be collapsed by a sufficiently powerful attack. This so-called fin funnel field (or FF field for short) could not be used as a weapon due to the limits on the funnels and the I-fields involved.

A beam shield is composed of a simple plane of beam barrier, radiating from a central generator unit, which can be used like a physical shield to deflect enemy attacks. Since the edges of the beam shield are as deadly as a beam saber blade (because they are simply beam sabers formed like a shield), the battle mech's computer automatically deactivates sections of the shield that would otherwise lop off the battle mech's own parts.

Though it was limited to a single direction and, like its beam barrier ancestor, could be collapsed by a powerful attack, the beam shield's lower energy requirements and effectiveness against every type of weapon made it a perfectly satisfactory alternative to the I-field barrier.

However, a relatively low-energy beam weapon is also being developed to counter this technology due to espionage leaks of research information. The VSBR (Variable Speed Beam Rifle) is being developed to make the beam rifle output power adjustable in a form capable of penetrating a beam shield.

Variable-Speed Beam Rifle

By U.C.0120, even the weakest mass-production mobile weapons were mostly equipped with a beam shield impenetrable to common MS weapons. This forced developers to either design battle mechs for close-range encounters, or to develop much more powerful ranged weapons. However, both options were very expensive, and the latter too energy-intensive to be feasible. Eventually, the VSBR was developed to be able to switch between two fire modes.
1) high-penetration mode

2) high-damage mode

The first mode emits a higher-velocity mega-particle beam with enough momentum to breach a beam shield. However, the damage dealt to the target without penetrating a beam shield is significantly reduced due to its lower energy transfer.

The second mode is like a classic beam rifle: the mega-particles have less velocity and, while less penetrating, quickly transfer their energy to the target material upon impact, reverting back to Minovsky particles and destroying the target from within.

The only method of stopping a VSBR attack is by generating a very strong I-field.

Generative Beam Rifle Device

The GBRD is a special variant of beam rifle installed IN LONG-RANGE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT. The weapon's concept was long-developed, and contains a separate energy generator installed just for the beam rifle. GBRD also have the "selective fire" ability seen in VSBR.

Minovsky Drive

The latest of all Minovsky technologies, the Minovsky drive is a theoretical system for propulsion of Star Cruisers. Development in November 0078 and is projected to be complete by U.C.0152.

The device emits a vast amount of Minovsky particles as a propulsion reaction. Although it may appear that the technology violates Newton's Second Law of Motion, the physics is very similar to that of a photon drive, because Minovsky particles have near-zero rest mass.The Minovsky drive is going to be the most powerful drive unit in the U.C. timeline. It is capable of a maximum acceleration of 20G (196.2 m/s^2). It can, theoretically, accelerate up to a speed close to the speed of light. The external manifestation of the Minovsky drive will be two large Minovsky particle plasma flames, or "Wings of Light" (Hikari no tsubasa), projecting approximately 1km out from the drive. These beam wings have a similar destructive effect as a beam sabre.