Zoids: Chaotic Age Zero

Name: Fuel Air Explosives
Cost: $25,000
Weight: 8 Tons
Function: Long-Range Area Effect
Mounts On: Aro Saurer, Black Rhimos, Cannon Tortoise, Cannonfort, Gorhecks, Gravity Saurer, Heldigunner
Mount Location:
--On the Aro Saurer and the Gravity Saurer, one Fuel Air Explosive mount to each shoulder
--On the Black Rhimos, Cannonfort, Gorhecks, and the Heldigunner, one Fuel Air Explosive mounts to each rear hip
--On the Cannon Tortoise, one Fuel Air Explosive mounts to either side of the Long Range Heavy Mortar. It cannot be used with the Attack Unit, Gatling Mortar, or Large-Bore Beam Cannon.
In Brief: Fuel Air Explosives are area-effect weapons that produce tremendous heat and damage and a powerful shockwave.

Weapon Type: Two Fuel Air Rockets
Ammo Type: Fuel Air warheads
Firing Rate: Pilot’s Discretion

Description: One of the things that humanity is known for is packing the biggest boom into the smallest possible package. With the Fuel-Air Explosives, they succeeded. The Explosives were mounted to rockets, and two of those rockets were mounted to a number of what pilots call “midget-tanks”- the level two and three tank zoids. They were a wonderful success, providing a huge amount of bang for their buck. Engineers had originally intended to mount the Fuel Air Explosives in paired four-shot pods, but the ZBC shot that down on the grounds of excessive firepower, limiting the FAE to a pair of single-shot Rocket Pods.

Still, the two rockets pack quite a bit of firepower. When fired, they act like normal rockets, only larger- they’re still fast and dumb. However, when they hit their target (or ground nearby, or what have you), they act nothing like normal rockets. Essentially, the Fuel Air Explosives release a cloud of gaseous fuel, which is then ignited by an explosive. In layman’s terms, that means it makes a really big boom- big enough to encompass most zoids completely.

The boom also lasts longer than a standard explosive, and has a much larger shockwave. While it’s no CPG, the shockwave itself can cripple or destroy smaller zoids, and it has a nasty habit of devastating terrain. The duration of the actual blast allows it to deal considerably more damage than a normal explosive, over a larger radius. As a general rule, a zoid caught in the blast will feel like it got pegged by four or five missiles over its entire armor. Get caught in both… and it’s not pleasant. To make it more effective against armor, the Fuel Air Explosives have had their blast radiuses reduced more than the anti-infantry version of the weapon might -- packing more energy into a smaller area as it were -- but these weapons still boast a substantial 40 meter blast radius plus the shockwave -- so these aren't weapons to be taken lightly.

The rockets the Fuel Air Explosives are mounted to also have the advantage of boasting vectoring thrusters, allowing the Fuel Air Explosives to be used as indirect fire weapons as well. When used thusly, they have a range of roughly three kilometers.

While the pods are fairly heavily armored, with Aro Saurer grade armor, they are not invulnerable. Having the rockets get blown in their pods would not be pretty. It wouldn’t deal the same amount of damage as the rockets would upon an actual detonation, but it would hurt like hell.