[AuinMyrrath]

Well, the BFG rulebook gives us only the following:
"It fires a projectile at icredible velocity, using graviometric impellers to accelerate it to close to lightspeed. The projectile implodes at a preset distance after firing, unleahing a force more potent than a dozen plasma bombs."

I can't find anything on Wiki or Google, and a friend and I were debating their mechanism and firepower.

[Fish Ead]

Well its gotta be pretty darn powerful. I'm not sure if GW has ever really explained the effect of being in a nova cannon blast in detail. Of course I'm probably no where near up to date on my BFG knowledge (please dont hurt me)

[Crisis 541]

I think the projectile works like bombs today work. The shot is fire useing the gravic what-evers sending the cannon shell fly really fast to say the least, then, like bombs, it explodes before contact to create a larger blast radius and larger area of effect. And when you factor in the high speed it gives it a whole new set of kenetic energy to be used against the target.

[Wargamer]

I very much doubt this is a conventional bomb. If Gothic-scale is correct, it has a detonation radius measured in thousands of kilometres. This thing could take out Texas in one shell.


It also sounds remarkably like a highly-advanced Railgun to me...

[Elessar]

what are graviometric impellers? never heard of that before

[Wargamer]

This is just theory, you understand...

I believe the graviometric impeller works by creating a massive density-spike, presumably via some form of electromagnetic techno-sorcery, infront of the projectile. This would cause the shell to be "pulled" towards the end of the barrel. At the same time, a null-point behind the projectile creates a repelling-effect. These dual-anomalies are moved along the barrel, pushing/pulling the shell with them, and accellerating it to mind-numbing speeds.

What is difficult to explain is the tremendous recoil these guns are reported to have...

[AuinMyrrath]

Well, regardless of the mode of propulsion the barrel is roughly the size of a small escort... reason enough there for recoil, I'd think.

[Wargamer]

Not really... Railguns (if that's what this is) have a recoil that is perpendicular to the barrel... so the recoil would be up/down/sideways, not backward.

[AuinMyrrath]

Truesay... Gothic mentions that the weapons are prow-mounted so the engines can compensate for the 'recoil'. Two possible solutions I see are:

1) GW is technobabbling without any attention to realism (as usual).

2) Nova Cannon tend to be anchored directly below the armoured prow of the ship - perhaps that lovely 6+ battering ram is the only area that can realy handle the stress exerted on it (perpendicular force would attempt to wrench the gun off the hull). And also, if the weapon was mounted say on the broadside or rear of the ship, a recoil effect might cause the leviathan to fishtail... but the force being exerted on the front of the craft would simply mean that the engines would have to make a thrust adjustment to bring the ship back in line... recoil in an odd direction would also make sense for why you can't fire them when burning retros, since you're already compensating for enough force there.

[Wargamer]

Makes sense... after all, Burn Retros, Come to New Heading and All Ahead Full all involve complex maneuvers... and when you're trying to get something 5km long to all go in the same direction, the last thing you need is the prow to decide it wants to be 900m above where it is now, and heading in a totally different dirction.