Californium Drone (TL 13)

[Dr. YoKai]

The inspiration for this comes from a short data entry in a timeline of military technology from the Science Fiction role playing game, Traveller. Managed to find the relevant quote pretty easily:

LBB:4 Mercenary
"Tech level 11: All combat vehicles are now grav powered. The grav tank generally utilizes the more compact plasma A gun and/or tac missile racks. Very heavy grav tanks mount the plasma B gun. Light grav sleds are used for scouting, generally mounting tac missiles and autocannons.
Close support sleds mount VRF gauss guns and tac missiles. All vehicles have pronounced free-flight capability.

Tech level 12: All vehicles have sufficient free-flight performance that ground combat vehicles effectively no longer exist, having merged with aircraft. The primary weapon of the heavy gunships include plasma B guns, VRF gauss guns, and tac missiles. VRF gauss guns are also widely mounted on personnel carriers, as are plasma A guns.

Tech level 13: The first damper fields allow protracted storage and transportation of elements with short half-lives. The first major use of the damper field militarily is to enable the manufacture, storage, and transportation of 2 cm californium rounds, fired from auto-cannon mounts in remotely piloted drones. Each round is hollow and collapses on impact, the collapsed round having sufficient mass to go critical, thus causing a small nuclear explosion. More conventional gunships mount plasma C guns or fusion X guns along with missiles.

Tech level 14: More sophisticated damper fields render the californium drones obsolete.
Gunships now carry fusion Y guns or rapid pulse X guns.

From here: https://www.travellerrpg.com/threads/grav-tanks.7348/

Started with this pile of parts-
DSCF1250 by VileDr.Yo, on Flickr

Got this done over the last two days-
DSCF1251 by VileDr.Yo, on Flickr
DSCF1252 by VileDr.Yo, on Flickr

This is 1/35 scale.

[Buzzbomb]

This looks exciting already 

[Kerick]

Very different! I’ll be watching.

[apophenia]

This looks exciting already 

It does indeed 

And those californium rounds are at that intersection between intriguing and creepy 

[Frank3k]

This does look good! Why even fire the Californium? Just sprinkle it on the ground and let the ridiculous amount of neutrons it emits do the job.

[Dr. YoKai]

This does look good! Why even fire the Californium? Just sprinkle it on the ground and let the ridiculous amount of neutrons it emits do the job.

 Like a lot of things, it is the sheer goofiness of the concept that appeals to me. A 20mm Davy Crockett? What's not to love?

 This is actually a very old concept on my bench. Back in the 1980s, a company called Gamescience released a series of Star Trek ship in
 styrene plastic. I had several, including the 'Dreadnought', which had a slightly thicker saucer section. I used that to create a earlier, smaller
 version of this build with a turret fashioned from a spare aircraft wheel and some landing gear bits. I know it is still lurking in storage someplace in
 the shop...

[apophenia]

... A 20mm Davy Crockett? What's not to love? ...

 

[Dr. YoKai]

Getting closer, but the weather and the holidays have slowed things down a bit. Still first primer is on, and if I can get one more warmish day, I should be able to finsh...as soon as I can settle on a paint scheme.
DSCF1267 by VileDr.Yo, on Flickr
DSCF1266 by VileDr.Yo, on Flickr

I know it is not Thanksgiving for a lot of the folks on here, But I am mighty thankful for all my friends at BTS.

[Old Wombat]

That's coming along nicely, Doc! 


Happy Thanksgiving! 

[Buzzbomb]

That is so right to my eye.. 

And a happy Thanksgiving to you too