Magnetic Accelerator Cannon: Difference between revisions

A larger variant is in service aboard [[Orbital Defense Platform]]s. Within the UNSC arsenal, only nuclear ordnance exceeds the power of the MAC. The [[M68 Gauss Cannon]] used by UNSC ground forces mounted on some [[Warthog]]s may be regarded as a relative of the MAC, albeit on a much smaller scale.

A typical ship-based MAC fires slugs of either ferric [[Tungsten]] or depleted uranium at 30,000 m/s. The high muzzle speed gives the 600 ton slug the kinetic energy and momentum necessary to damage a target and partially mitigates the unguided nature of the slug and its lack of maneuverability. [[ODP|Orbital Defense Platforms]] fire a 3,000 ton slug at 40% of the [[wikipedia:Speed of light|speed of light]] about 120,000,000 m/s, enough to pierce the shield of a Covenant ship, destroy it and keep going (as seen in ''[[Halo: Uprising]]'' pt 4.) (similar to the Stanchion Rifle of ''[[Halo: Contact Harvest]]'' on how it pierced office buildings and its trajectory and velocity were unchanged). Hence demonstrating the ability of the MAC round to pierce multiple obstacles before fully stopping the projectile, if needed.

The firing process of a super MAC gun can be seen in the level [[Cairo Station (Level)|Cairo Station]]. The process uses electromagnetism to fire a ferromagnetic-tungsten slug at high velocity. An extremely large amount of current is put through the first solenoid (coil of conducting wire) which creates a strong magnetic field which attracts the metal slug. As the slug passes into the solenoid, the solenoid is quickly turned off and the second solenoid, which is further up, turns on, which attracts the now high velocity metal slug just like the first solenoid, and the process is carried on. By the time the slug is fired out the end of the barrel it has been accelerated to a speed 40% of the speed of light or 120,000,000 m/s. At the same time, a pair of thrusters on the bottom side of the station fire for a couple of seconds to counteract the acceleration imparted to the station. The process then repeats. It normally takes five seconds to recharge capacitors as well as load the slug, which is why boarding craft have to be deployed to take the stations out.

The standard ship-mounted MAC fires a 600-ton ferric-tungsten projectile with a depleted uranium core at 30 km/s. The large amount of energy needed to fire the weapon is particularly onerous on a warship at 2.7E+14 joules, and the extended recharge time is a significant factor in combat against Covenant warships as multiple MAC rounds are required to penetrate Covenant shields. At 64.5 kilotons per shot, the standard MAC is sufficient to destroy any human vessel or severely damage an unshielded Covenant vessel.  

These cannons fire a 3000-ton ferric-tungsten round at 4% the speed of light, impacting with a massive amount of relativistic kinetic energy, in the range of 2.16E+20 Joules, which equals 51.6 Gigatons of TNT. However, because of the power of such a weapon, no Covenant ship has been able to take all the kinetic energy. Instead the round goes right through and keeps on going, probably hitting another ship and even the second ship possibly couldn't take all the energy thus resulting to its destruction. If a ship was able to take all the kinetic energy of a MAC round it would most likely vaporize the ship thus making the intense power of a MAC equal to a nuclear bomb. A volley from the 20 MACs in orbit around Reach would have an exceeding impact energy to the meteorite that caused the Chicxulub crater. Although in Contact Harvest and Halo: First Strike, it says it takes almost 5 volleys to fully destroy a Covenant warship because the UNSC warship's MACs could barely put a dent in a Covenant ship. Since the ''Pillar of Autumn'' was almost built around the MAC, their MAC could fire three volleys every charge, but it would eat up their power and take it down to 10%. By receiving power from [[Orbital Defense Generator|ground-based power plants]], orbital platforms could achieve recharge and reload times as short as five seconds.

While never officially incorporated as a weapon, Mass Drivers have been used, most notably at the Rubble and Harvest, as MAC weapons. Their purpose is for drilling holes into asteroids and moving giant metal ingots to other in-system locations, but can be a very powerful weapon. They use MAC technology to fire a large, dense slug across whatever distance necessary. It has been noted they could launch a slug across the entire system of Hesoid. While not a purpose built weapon like a MAC, these platforms are still potent weapons of opportunity. As stated in [[Halo: Contact Harvest]] where [[Mack]] used two mass driver rounds to cripple the [[brute]] controlled cruiser [[Rapid Conversion]].

*The Magnetic Accelerator Cannon is twice mistakenly referred to as the "Mass Accelerator Cannon" in the [[Halo Universe]] - in ''[[Halo: Contact Harvest]]'', and in [[Halo Wars]], in which it is referred to as a "Mass ''Accelerated'' Cannon", which seems to be a simple typo as it does not make sense grammatically. It may be a confusion between the MAC and the [[Mass Driver]], a non-military application of similar technologies.