Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Chemical Mortars

Chemical Mortars is one of the Alliance's support powers.

Overview
"It's non-lethal."

-Alliance representative on the subject their chemical weapons

Artillery is a bit of a logistical sticking point for the Peacekeepers; thanks to the politics of their formation, it has been politically difficult to manage artillery units. Mechanization placed a premium on self-propelled guns, but the tank divisions made claim to them as armored, tracked vehicles. They managed to secure the Eclipse Self-Propelled Howitzer immediately after the GVAW, which was such a political boondoggle that eventually it was hastened out of service just to simplify things, replaced with the Horizon in tank divisions and the Valkyrie for artillery units.

Because of this nonsense, a stop-gap close support infantry artillery was ordered in 1960 to ensure the Peacekeepers would never be without constant, on-demand artillery coverage. The response was a (New Zealand) project which blew Peacekeeper Command's expectations out of the water. The M225 81mm Mortar is the longest-ranged infantry-portable mortar in existence thanks to a clever innovation in the shells. Each shell has a small, helicopter-style rotor behind the fins. This rotor is unpowered but set up such that it achieves a sort of autorotation, providing a small amount of thrust for the shell. When the shell reaches the apex of its ballistic arc, it levels off for a short time and travels horizontally, potentially doubling the effective range of the weapon at a 45-degree arc. A timer is built into the shell so the rotor can detach during flight, allowing the weapon a wide variety of arcs; it can achieve a vertical drop out to three-quarters of its effective range, or fire vertically over an obstacle and then glide into a nearby target at a soft angle. Needless to say, this requires extensive training, and ranging this weapon is very difficult, but the advantages of the "10 Kilometre Mortar" more than makeup for it.

Thanks to its complexity and the re-propagation of proper artillery in the Peacekeeper Divisions, the M225 is primarily used for delivering non-lethal ordnance during typical operations. The most common rounds are tear gas; Peacekeepers can operate unaffected due to their equipment, but enemy soldiers will find themselves significantly hindered by the choking, blinding clouds of gas. Technically, the use of tear gas on the battlefield is technically in violation of post-Hawke War treaties on chemical weapons, but the Peacekeepers do not consider themselves bound by these as they are not technically members of a national army. Other common munitions include flash bombs, which are larger versions of flash-bang grenades, GOOP canisters, smokescreen shells, flares, propaganda leaflets, magnetized strips, emergency rations, ammunition packages, and radio beacons.