Zoids: Chaotic Age Zero

Name: Flak Cannon
Cost: $10,500
Weight: 4 Tons
Function: Medium Ground-to-Air Support
Mounts On: All Terrestrial Quadrupedal Zoids
Mount Location:
--Mounts to the back of all Zoids.
--On the Dark Thrasher, the Flak Cannon mounts to the machinegun mount. This modification cannot be used with the Assault Unit, Attack Unit, or Large-Bore Beam Cannon.
In Brief: A flak cannon is essentially a cannon that fires anti-air shrapnel shells. The Flak cannon can be used in two firing modes, shrapnel or solid rounds. The cannon's caliber is 50mm.

Weapon Type: Flak Cannon
Ammunition: 50mm Flak Rounds
Rate of Fire: Semiautomatic

Description: When aerial Zoids first emerged on Zi, it was the Surface-to-Air missiles that stepped up to counter them, as they had done so many times in the past. SAMs have significant advantages, however, humanity quickly discovered that it was as easy to build jamming systems as it was to build guidance systems. Ironically, instead of looking forwards to new, innovative solutions, humanity looked backwards and ressurected the archaic flak cannon. This seemingly antiquated system developed side-by-side with the missiles, and is ironically still in use today. The reasoning? As many jamming systems as there are, no one has ever found a way to effectively deceive the Mk. I eyeball.

The Flak Cannon consists of a pivoting mount, and, of course, the 50mm cannon itself ontop of that. The mount allows the cannon to pivot 360 degrees horizontally, and incline up to 70 degrees upwards vertically. This allows the Flak Cannon to hit essentially any target in the sky, although there is a blind spot directly above the weapon. Shells fired from the Flak Cannon will explode either on impact or (by far the more common) at an altitude set by the pilot by means of a dial next to the trigger. This produces a large cloud of shrapnel, which can do severe damage to an aircraft passing through it. This is because the flying fragments use an aircraft's own momentum and speed against it: the faster the plane is moving, the more damage the fragments will do. Also, the pilot can turn the fuses off and use the flak rounds as standard solid shells -- though this has limited usefulness at best against both ground and air targets. The inability of the cannon to pivot downwards prevents it from being effectively used against ground targets, and air targets are extraordinarily difficult to hit with standard, unguided bullets.