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Back to U.S.
Colonial Marines
The United States Colonial Marine Corps is
America's interstellar force-in-readiness. The USCM is America's
only major means to forcibly enter a hostile area from space.
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 Body Armour
The marine combat armour is designed to balance
lightness and comfort with the utmost protection. The outer layer
of the armour is an ultra light titanium aluminide alloy to provide
structural strength and ablative protection from lasers. Beneath
this is a core of boron carbide, an incredibly hard ceramic designed
to shatter a bullet on impact while simultaneously forming a
conoid base to absorb the energy of the bullet. Beneath this
is the carbon fiber layer that provides ballistic protection
by delaminating across a large area. Finally, on the inside of
the armour is a liner made of 1500 denier Venlar fibers. This
woven liner dissipates the remainder of the energy by deforming
in the area of the impact. It is also capable of catching any
spalling or fragmentation from the first three layers.
The M3 armour comes in different pieces, the
main component is a rigid vest that protects the upper-half region,
both front and back, and between the groin and neck. This has
a two piece clamshell secured at the sides by plastic clips.
The two segmented pieces are attached by the webbing straps to
protect the sides and front and back of the shoulders. Inside
of this clamshells are remote biomonitors which measure the marines
life signs which include heart-rate and breathing. An optical
cable connects this to the PRC 489/4 transmitter in the M10 helmet.
On the rear left of the shoulder of the armoured
vest is a mounting bracket for a high powered halogen white light
TNR lamp. The lamp runs off of a rechargeable internal battery
and has a handle so that it can be detached and used as a hand
torch. Also on the back of the armour are three mounting brackets
that can be used for an Individual Marine Pack, a lightweight
medium sized pack designed to carry up to 24 kg. It is attached
also to a carbon fiber frame which clips to the rear of the armour
mount. The pack is water repellent but not waterproofed, but
there are waterproof liners that are issued for each of the main
compartments and pockets.
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 ZX Shotgun
The ZX is a 12 guage pump-action shotgun.
Made solely of lightweight metal alloys, the ZX is as sturdy
as it is dangerous. The weapon can hold a maximum of 12 shots
which are contained in the bulky magazine located in the base
below the round chamber. The fact the ZX takes a magazine reduces
manual reload time.
The rounds themselves are specialised. Instead
of the buck-shot round typical of previous models, the ZX utilises
the M10 rounds. The M10 rounds house approximately 20 smaller
explosive projectiles, which have a minimum spread out of only
a foot in diameter at 30 meters after the weapon is fired.
The ZX has an automatic spent cartridge discharger
to free the firing breach for successive rounds.
STATISTICS
- Muzzle Velocity: 355 m/s
- Length: 87.6cm
- Weight: 4.5kg
- Maximum Range: 80m
- Effective Range: 30m
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 M-41A Pulse
Rifle
Type : M-41A Pulse Rifle 10mm with 30mm pump
action grenade launcher and Digital Counter
Ammunition: 10mm explosive tip cassless standard
light armour piercing round .M-40 Grenades
Capacity: 99 rounds
The M41A Pulse Rifle is the standard issue
for all United States Colonial Marines. It fires a 10mm Explosive
Tipped Caseless Light Armour Piercing round. The M41 uses electronic
pulse action to fire, controlled directly from the trigger. The
internal mechanism, including the rotating breech, is mounted
on free-floating rails within a carbon-fiber jacket. This assembly
is recoil dampened to reduce the effects of muzzle climb during
burst and full automatic fire. From the thumb selector, the weapon
can be set to selective, four-round burst, or full automatic
fire, the latter allowing a rate of fire up to the weapon's cyclic
rate of 900 rpm.
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 M56 Smart Gun
The core of a Colonial Marine squad's fighting
power is its machine guns. More effective than a rifle, machine
guns can sustain large columns of continuous fire both in the
attack and defence, and are frequently the most decisive weapon
in a firefight. The M56 Smart Gun is the Colonial Marines' primary
squad machine gun. The M56 is carried with a self aiming stabiliser,
and is linked to an infrared target tracking system.
The M56A2 is a 10mm general-purpose automatic
squad support weapon, effective out to 1500 meters. The pulse-action
system employs a free-floating recoil-dampened motorised rotating
breech mechanism chambered for the M250 series 10 mm x28 caseless
round. The replaceable barrel system is air-cooled. The system
is mounted on an operator's harness and slaved to an infrared
tracking system. The gun is self-steering on the mount, though
firing must be commanded manually.
All firing is controlled from either the forward
hand grip or the rear firing handle; the operator fires the weapon
by depressing the red 'fire' switch or pulling the firing handle
upwards. There are three setting on this switch; Safe, Burst
and Autofire. The Burst setting will fire four round bursts,
while the autofire feature will continue to fire the weapon at
its full cyclic rate so long as the fire switch remains depressed.
The M250 10mm x 28 ammunition is stored on a roll of continuous
plastic non-disintegrating link belt in the ammunition drum,
which can be reloaded in the field.
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 M240 Flame Unit
The M240 is in reality, a lightweight carbine-format
flamethrower. It is designed to be solely used in close combat
situations at the squads and fireteams level. The weapon uses
a pressurised, ultra-thickened Napthal gel as a base and is ignited
at the nozzle burner, and can be used to cover an area up to
25 meters. Once as the target is hit, the gel will adhere and
continue to burn for up to one minute.
With a sufficient fuel in a standard fuel
reservoir for up to 20 bursts, the flame-thrower is considered
to be one of the most fierce weapons in the marines armoury,
and has even been useful in close combat situations and as well
as xenomorph exterminating operations. However, this weapon is
one of the most unpopular with its operators, basically because
of the fuel reservoirs tendency to rupture violently when hit
by shrapnel or from small arms fire.
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 UA 571-C Remote
Automated Sentry System
The UA 571-C Robot Sentry is an automated
point defence system. It consists of a 7.62 mm machinegun mounted
in an automated servo system with IR, motion and ambient light
sensors for target acquisition. The entire package is armoured
(SP 20, SDP 30) and mounted on a sturdy tripod (Leg SP 20, SDP
15). The weapon cannot be detached from its base or used by hand.
Each weapon comes with a control terminal microwave-linked to
its Sentry gun, which can be placed up to 1000 metres away from
the Sentry.
The system is sophisticated and can be set
to search based on a target's visual and/or thermal profile or
'auto-remote', using the system's built in IFF transponder and
stutter-chipping, allowing it to avoid firing on a target wearing
a personal data transmitter or M10 helmet IFF transponder with
the right IFF code (this may be deactivated at the operator's
command). Because the UA 571-C lacks a human's judgement, clearance
of the ranking officer is required by law (although not needed)
to use the system.
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