The warlord was one of the first individuals to perfect mechanized combat, entire star systems surrendered in the face of his ruthless automated armies. Xim Droids were virtually unstoppable in their day.
The wasteful energy generates heat, which while the weapons electrical components are protected, the wearer gets a hot air blast in their faces making it uncomfortable. The beam tube's sensitive electronic components are protected by twelve cooling motors, although they direct the hot air into the soldier's face, making it quite uncomfortable to use. The wasteful energy conversion process generates tremendous heat. It takes several seconds for a blast, the range is only up to 50 meters and with limited ammunition and needing for recharge, squads often carried large power generators.
Because of the beam tube's limited ammunition and need for recharging, squads often carried a large power generator on a repulsorlift sled. The Emperor-4 requires several seconds to process enough power for a blast, with an optimal range of twenty meters and max range of fifty. The tubes(which there's 12 of them) can easily be thrown out of alignment and fixing that takes nearly 4 hours. In pounds that would be 66 pounds and 33 pounds respectively, so the trooper is lugging around a total of 99 pounds in just weapon equipment, this isn't even including any means of armor.Īnother design limitation is manifested in the sensitive internal refinement tubes, which are easily thrown out of alignment, re-configuring them takes nearly 4 hours.
The backpack cell weighs over 30 kilograms while the weapon weighs over 15 and needing to be fired with both hands and fires less than 100 shots. The weapon itself severely restricts the soldier's mobility because it must be fired two-handed and weighs over fifteen kilograms. The Emperor-4 beam tube is powered by a massive backpack power cell that weighs over 30 kilograms but delivers less than one hundred shots. It also includes a reserve power cell and comlink with a homing beacon to guide rescue crews. A switch next to the comlink antenna activates an emergency homing beacon to guide rescue crews. The vest includes a reserve power cell and a comlink with a four kilometer range. Has a refrigeration unit to keep the power cell within safe temperatures. This beam tube's power system includes the backpack type power cell, a recharge port and a small refrigeration unit(to keep the cell within safe temperature levels.) The whole system snaps onto a heavy blast vest, which has several layers of ceramics to protect against high-impact projectiles. The entire system snaps onto a heavy blast vest that is padded with several layers of composite ceramics to absorb and dissipate kinetic energy from high-impact projectiles. They changed the balance of power on the battlefields, easily destroying armor that was protecting against projectile and accelerator weapons. Taken from Essential Guide to Weapons & Technology Their energy-particle beams easily defeated the armor of the day, which had been designed to protect the wearer against the high-velocity projectiles, not energy beams. Despite numerous limitations, the first Beam Tubes changed the balance of power on those legendary battlefields. Over twenty thousand years ago during the days of barbarian warlords such as Xim the Despot and long before the rise of the Old Republic, projectile guns and magnetic accelerators ruled the battlefield. Pretty straightforward really, they displaced heatbeams and plasma cannons, being easier and safer to use. The ancestors of handheld blasters were beam tubes, which gradually displaced heatbeams and plasma cannons(both which used lasers to heat plasma) because they were safer to carry and wield and required less maintenance. But make no mistake, the Beam-Tube and Pulse-Wave weapons were still plenty powerful, just not as powerful as the Blaster but more powerful than Slugthrowers, so lets get into it! So another blog surrounding Star Wars tech, this however going over the precursors to the modern Blaster that everyone uses(or just about everyone) in the SW Galaxy. Star Wars: Beam-Tubes & Pulse-Wave Blasters(Legends)