Laser Rifles

Introduction

by the BattleTechnology Staff

They're becoming harder and harder to find, for throughout human space the breakdown of civilization has ruined the factories and killed or scattered the technicians capable of assembling these legendary weapons. They combine the awesome, high-tech wizardry of modem energy weapons with the range of conventional rifles and the rapid-fire havoc of machine guns. Most combat infantrymen would gladly put up with the disadvantages generally attributed to them--their weight, their clumsiness, and the need for bulky power packs. Battlefield units fortunate enough to be equipped with laser rifles can be as effective, and as feared, as conventional infantry units much larger in size.

Laser rifles have won a considerable reputation for themselves during the past nine hundred years. First introduced as personal infantry combat weapons late in the 21st century, the earliest models were massive, semi-portable energy cannon far more unwieldy than models in use today. The laser rifle reached its current level of sophistication during the height of the Star League era perhaps four centuries later, and designs have changed little since then.

Laser weapons fire beams of coherent light Power output is measured in megajoules (millions of joules, abbreviated "mj'), and refers to the number of watts of power applied to the target per second. By way of comparison, 5 megajoules represents the energy equivalent to the explosion of 1 kilo of TNT. A laser weapon rated at .8 mi with a .01-second pulse would actually deliver. 8/1000 = .008 megawatts of energy to the target in its 1/100 second of operation.

As with laser pistols (discussed in BattleTechnology Issue 0101), there are two basic categories of laser rifle. Pulse lasers fire extremely short bursts of light, generally lasting on the order of 1/100 of a second. Beam lasers fire a continuous beam. While more powerful and carrying a greater destructive punch than pulse lasers, they require heavy backpacks to meet their power requirements and are prone to power overloads and core chamber burnout. Pulse lasers are less powerful but somewhat more reliable, and they make up for their lack of punch through the capability of cycling a number of shots in a short period of time, in a manner similar to SMGs.

Pulse lasers are more commonly encountered on the modem battlefield than the heavier beam weapons. Neither weapon type is easy to find anymore, however, and personnel skilled in servicing and repairing them are becoming scarce. Several professional scavengers have made reputations and fortunes for themselves by stumbling across forgotten Star League caches of these almost mythical weapons.

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