Wave-Force Artillery

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*"We will take them by force."*

- Wave Force Artillery driver

## Tactical Analysis

* **Wave-Force Technology!**: This artillery piece's Wave-Force technology is used to generate a tremendous beam of energy. The beam maintains its focus and power over long ranges, allowing the Wave-Force Artillery to bring immense destruction down upon any forces caught in the blast. Making it ideally suited to destroying enemy structures, base defences, and slow-moving vehicles, and the Empire need use but a few such units in any given engagement in order to bring ruin to any enemy facilities or defences.

* **Firing Options**: The variable setting capacitors allow the Wave-Force Artillery to fire at different energy settings. Crews are under order to always fire at max-capacitance unless otherwise instructed, and at full-blast, the beam has a truly devastating effect on targets. Alternatively, with new reforms, the crew can be ordered to fire their cannon at half capacity, allowing a quicker series of less-powerful bursts.

* **The Demolitions Expert**: Wave-Force technology comes at a premium price, as this weapon seems to be considerably more expensive than its conventional counterparts such as the Soviet V4 rocket launchers. It is very vulnerable to anti-armour infantry and ground-attack aircraft, so Imperial commanders often bring it in to clean up after the enemy forces have been scattered. Because quicker vehicles can avoid the devastating full-power burst of the Wave-Force beam, the unit is rarely seen without the support of a highly manoeuvrable Rising Sun strike force.

* **By Land Or By Sea**: Recently, a new stabiliser based on gyroscopes has been introduced by Kanegawa Industries and is slated to replace all stabilising systems used in every Model 89 platform currently in active service. The new system enables the Wave-Force Artillery to load and fire on the move (something formerly thought impossible), which came with the bonus of the new generator using its surplus power to generate a forcefield, giving them a better chance of survivability. But right now only the most honourable of crewmen are allowed to receive it for their vehicle.

## WWIII Operational History

 File:WaveForceArt.jpg  When Shika Hiromoto, leader of the outspoken Cherry Blossom party and daughter of Vice Admiral Iwao Hiromoto, was found dead in her family's palatial estate in Hyogo Prefecture, the Empire of Japan seemed remarkably unfazed. The nature of the killing - the poisoned dagger, the revenge haiku written on the most delicate rice paper - plainly implied the work of one of the Empire's largest Yakuza crime syndicates, but subsequent investigations revealed the murder may have been motivated by Hiromoto's opposition to one of the Empire's most-secret weapon systems: the **Wave-Force Artillery**.

This state-of-the-art long-range bombardment technology turned out to be instrumental in the assault on the Soviet heartland, yet was highly controversial. Of course, these details were unearthed only recently, and only after the Wave-Force Artillery was successfully deployed in frontline combat against an unsuspecting and woefully unprepared Soviet border defence. At least now the origin of this strange and catastrophic weapon is better understood.

The result of a competition between two rival weapon manufacturers, the Wave-Force Artillery is in many ways a marvel of technology. Supposedly inspired by the Empire's famous anthem, the Wave-Force uses a powerful generator to collect, store, harmonize the waveforms and align Minofusukī particles. As the particles are aligned, they begin to resonate, and soon this closed system takes on tremendous destructive potential.

At the moment in which the system's energy can no longer be contained in the supercapacitors, all of it is channelled in a powerful long-range beam, which can tear through most known matter. Chaos and devastation consume all that comes in contact with this beam, yet the effects are so focused and precise that the Wave-Force Artillery can effectively be used to minimize collateral damage if necessary.

 File:WaveForceConcept.jpg  This technology supposedly existed in research facilities for years, but engineers at Kanegawa Industries were the first to be able to create a version of the weapon that could effectively operate in the field. The energy weapon requires no bulky ammunition and very infrequent recharging due to a sophisticated energy recovery system.

However, the delicate electronics require a nearby clean-room environment and regular maintenance. The intricate filtration system, large power source, and banks of complicated electronics preclude the use of heavy armour in protection of the platform, making the Wave-Force Artillery a powerful, yet vulnerable, weapon. The Empire of the Rising Sun naturally keeps these artillery pieces in the rear ranks, taking care to keep their firing lines clear of friendly forces.

The competitor to the Wave-Force Artillery was a more-traditional artillery piece designed by Shirada Shipworks, based on its successful Shogun-class battleship main gun. The Shirada vehicle gained political support after Kanegawa, in an overzealous and politically insensitive moment, referred to its Wave-Force technology as *"The Divine Cauldron of Justice"*. This was blasted as an affront against the Emperor, in the sense that none save the Emperor could arbitrate divine justice against the enemies of the Empire of the Rising Sun.

And at this time, Cherry Blossom party leader Shika Hiromoto became a leading voice against the Wave-Force, urging the Empire of the Rising Sun to embrace its traditional roots rather than give in to *"the perverse temptations of counter-traditionalism and technological hedonism"*. In the weeks leading to her assassination, she engaged in a very public, very bitter disagreement with her father, now a high-ranking Kanegawa official, to the embarrassment of the entire Imperial court. Her assassination seemed to cast under the rug a scandalous incident that the Empire needed to move past.

Upon Hiromoto's death, the chief opposition to Kanegawa had lost its voice. At the same time, a string of accidents with the Shirada prototypes, supposedly due to calibration errors, crippled Shirada's effort and soon afterwards the Wave-Force Artillery went into full production - under order from none other than the Emperor's own son Crown Prince Tatsu. Subsequent investigations have implied that Hiromoto's assassin, and possibly the calibration errors, had ties to Kanegawa, and specifically to the Admiral, her father; and, while there is no clear proof, it seems improbable that the events that led to the Imperial military's adoption of the Wave-Force Artillery were coincidence.

And yet for all this, the Wave-Force Artillery is unquestionably a successful design and was integral to the Empire of the Rising Sun's ability to push into the Soviet heartland, past long stretches of Tesla Coils previously assumed to be unbeatable. By now, those who once criticized Wave-Force technology as being too exotic or unpredictable would have trouble arguing with its performance record; and those who stand against the Empire pray never be caught within its targeting array.

## Post-War Operational History

After reports of the Wave-Force Artillery AI-assisted targeting system not using its penetrating firepower to its full extent reached Kanegawa Industries, the engineers quickly reprogrammed the complex targeting systems, allowing the Wave-Force Artillery to be able to fire upon multiple hostile units in a single shot.

However, the reprogramming turned out to be much more complex than the engineers expected. The target that the weapon is about to fire in the direction of must be carefully factored into the targeting systems, and to compete with the additional load of A.I. programming they had to remove several external sensors so more of the computer's processing power could be used to cope with the extra calculations needed. This led to a smaller sight radius, but the Wave-Force Artillery no longer aims at the ground where the target is, vastly increasing its potential for causing havoc. The chunk of empty space left behind by the sensors' absence was then put to use by the engineers by adding more capacitors, which greatly increased the range of the Wave-Force cannon itself.

Another modification to the Wave-Force Artillery was to add amphibious abilities to the vehicle. This was done by sealing the A.I. command chamber completely and installing a new life-support system for its crew by using the rest of excess space won by removing the external sensors. Giving it some much-needed capability to quickly get to where it is needed and a new avenue of escape by simply going to the shore.

Finally, after the AI compiled all defeat reports. All Wave-Force crews are now drilled to either fire at full charge or half charge only, and the system has been similarly hard-wired to only fire at either options. This stemmed from the reports noting that, in the heat of battle, most commanders are too busy, or can't be bothered, to tell the crew to fire prematurely at any point, or ordering them to fire way too early in panic and/or thinking it's enough, leading to either unnecessary overkill or not dealing enough damage to disastrous results. Though this new reform loses the ability to use the right amount of force, it is much easier to handle as it's only a flick of a switch rather than having to gauge while being under fire.

Recently, a new stabiliser based on gyroscopes has been introduced by Kanegawa Industries and is slated to replace all stabilising systems used in every Model 89 platform currently in active service. The system is undergoing field trials and tests show positive results so far, enabling the units to load and fire on the move without power drain (something formerly thought impossible). But since the entire turret connection has to be taken apart to install it, right now only the most honourable of crewmen are allowed to receive it for their vehicle.

## Just the Stats

 **Armour Type** | Weak Armour

 **Kill Reward** | 16000

 **DPS** | N/A