Caseless Ammo

Prior to the establishment of vessels capable of travelling the interstellar deeps the holy grail of technology was caseless ammunition. Certainly the ability to travel at close to the spped of light was a major imperative, if humanity desired to forge an interstellar civilisation. But caseless ammunition had long been a desired goal of military forces, national and corporate since the days of the Second World War. Successful prototypes had been developed, but the did not deliver.

The main effort, in the 'modern' aka late 20th Century to develop caseless ammo and a weapon that used such was the HK G11. This was a joint effort by Heckler & Koch as well as Dynamit Nobel. In essence they attempted to develop a weapon that would use caseless ammunition, this would mean a solider could carry more ammo and the weapon with less weight. A major win in terms of future warfighting capacity.

Sadly while the HK G11 delivered on its terms of ammo carrying capacity, its performance was to some degree lacking. The problem with caseless ammo proved to be the heat factor, unlike with a cased round, caseless ammo forced the heat to remain within the weapon itself. Other weapons that used cased ammo disposed of the heat when the round was ejected on firing. That was not so with caseless ammo based weapons.

By the 2020s Fabrique Militaire Group (FMG), Volund Vapenfabrik (a subsidiary of Volund AB) and Union Ordanance Group (UOG) had solved the issues. They had all created a viable caseless ammo for a wide range of calibres. These new rounds were swiftly adapted by various security firm, police departments and later national military forces.

The breakthrough came at an 'opportune' time, several wars (Horn of Africa War: 2020 - 2031 CE, First Narco War2020 - 2025 CE, Sudanese Civil War 2020 - 2027 CE & the First Central Asian Conflict 2026 - 2031 CE) had broken out and were sufficient test beds for the new ammo. Certainly the various forces engaged in these conflicts were able to fight longer due to the ability for their fighters to carry more and their ability to ship more into the battle zones.

Some hailed the development a new age of warfare, others a new age of senseless slaughter as military, corpoates and mercenaries could throw around more bang for their buck. Natrually this technology made its way across the interstellar deeps to Lazarus where it is employed today (circa 2336 CE).