magazine which compresses the magazine spring from the center/rear. The bolt and bolt carrier then return forward, finishing the loading of the next round begun by the rammer. The bolt then rotates again to lock in position. At that point, and assuming the trigger is still depressed, the rifle will either fire and begin the cycle again (3 rd burst), or will have a very brief, computer-controlled delay before firing (high or low automatic), or will cease fire (rounds). It is the short distance to be traveled by the bolt to load and eject that enables the weapon to attain such high rates of fire.
Note: In the event of battery failure or weakness the magazine may be removed, the trigger depressed and the bolt jacked six to ten times to build up a firing charge.
Ammunition:
The single greatest complaint about the F-26 (called, for reasons best left to etymologists and corporals, a 'Zion' in Balboa and an 'Arraijan' in Zion) is its weight. Between the relatively long barrel, the batteries, the integral thermal sight and range finder, and the flywheel and generator, it is the single heaviest general issue rifle on Terra Nova today. This is made up for by the ammunition.
The 6.5mm SCC round is a high ballistic coefficient, high cross sectional density bullet of 120 grains set into a hollow cylinder of cook-off resistant propellant which is capped at the base with a very high temperature plastic semi-rimmed semi-casing, with dual electrodes, referred to as a 'stub.' The stub is of 10.4mm in width and 9 mm in height. The electronic primer is set into the hollow of the propellant and connected to the electrodes. The stub serves to obdurate (gain gas sealage of) the explosion of the propellant and to transmit the electrical energy that detonates the primer from electrodes in the bolt face.
The ammunition comes prepackaged in sealed, generally disposable snail drum magazines containing 93 rounds. The magazines are approximately 109mm in diameter and 42mm in depth. One fully loaded magazine weighs just under 1162 grams, or about two fifths the weight of a comparable quantity of standard brass cased ammunition of similar caliber and capability. Thus, the F-26 with 465 rounds and a spare battery weighs 10.6 Kg while, for example, the lighter and somewhat less capable Abakanov with a similar sight and 465 inferior steel- cased rounds would weigh approximately 12.3 kilograms, not including the weight of the sixteen magazines required to have each round ready to fire.
The decision to pack and issue the ammunition in drums, rather than to issue accountable magazines and loose or stripper clipped ammunition to individual soldiers was a difficult one for ZMI and BAC. The cost, even when the magazines are recoverable for reprocessing at the plant, is at least twice that of the steel cased ammunition used in the Abakanov and comparable to that of the brass cased ammunition fired by the FSC's Wakefield carbine. Testing, however, revealed that the SCC was simply not up to the rough handling and exposure to weather that the more usual system entailed.
Magazines are known to come issued in at least 8 varieties, specialized but useable by all versions:
Standard: contains standard ball and tracer in a ratio of 2:1.
CQB: composed of equal numbers (31 each) of standard ball, armor piercing (tungsten), and eccentric (a particularly unstable, once it has penetrated flesh, tumbling round) in sequence.
5x1: larger magazine (17.7 cm in diameter) containing 211-213 ball and 42-44 tracer. Generally issued to machine gun crews.
Match: contains 93 rounds of match grade, 6.5mm ball
Humanitarian: match grade frangible ammunition used to engage targets mixed in closely with non-combatants. Like Match, Humanitarian magazines are normally only issued to snipers. There has been complaint from the international humanitarian community that use of the ammunition, in the hands of both Zion's and Balboa's armed forces, has not been uniformly restricted to such circumstances.
Blank: contains 93 rounds of pure blank ammunition.
Training plastic: contains 93 rounds of plastic tipped ammunition fired by underpowered propellant which, upon hitting a human target, is extremely painful but not generally deadly except at point blank ranges.
Moral training: contains 88 rounds of plastic tipped ammunition and 5 rounds of tracer, the tracer being loaded in at random. A perusal of unclassified information on the frequency of use of this magazine indicates a frightful willingness to risk losses in training on the part of the Balboan armed forces.
The magazine rear face has a key which it turned 2.5—3 times to compress the feeder spring. As rounds are fired the rifle's retreating bolt drives a ratcheting rod into the magazine (integral to the magazine not the rifle) to maintain compression.
Further, a portion of the back plate is composed of transparent polycarbonate to allow the firer to visually check available ammunition.
Variants:
Machine Gun:
The adoption of the F-26 rifle has, for Balboa at least, led to the elimination of the belt fed General Purpose Machine Gun from the inventory of its armed forces. In lieu of the GPMG a heavier version of the F-26, called the M-26, has been developed. This weapon has both a heavier, ringed barrel and a variant on the Volgan Pecheneg forced air cooling system. Both the single shot and low rate automatic fire capabilities were eliminated in the M-26 and the burst feature program modified. Thus it fires at either 6 round burst (1975 RPM) or high rate automatic (1200 RPM) only. Though it has a 265 round magazine it will feed from the same 93 round drum magazines as the F-26 (and, uncommonly, vice versa). The M-26 with 2120 rounds weighs 34 Kg, 41 with tripod. Its effective range is 1300 meters. Grazing fire range is 705 meters. It has an automatic magazine drop feature that releases the magazine when the last round is expended.
Marksman's Rifle
Although the Balboan Armed Forces have two heavier sniper rifles, the .34 -caliber LRSS and the .41-caliber VLRSS, both of which fire more conventional, brass cased, ammunition, both Zion and the Legion felt that there was a place in the rifle platoon or squad for a more than normally accurate battle rifle capable of firing the same ammunition as the F-26 and M-26. This rifle, called the F-26FT (francs tireurs) is almost exactly the same as the F-26, differing only in having a longer and heavier barrel and a better and longer ranged (and much more expensive) sight and range finder combo. This rifle weighs 5.4 Kg and has an effective range of 1300 meters. Match grade ammunition is available and issued.
Developmental History:
Although it is sometimes jokingly said that the F-26 began over drinks at the Zion Embassy in Ciudad Balboa, the better truth is that it is the result of several developments, none of them major in themselves, coming to fruition in different parts of the world at about the same time. For example, the semi-cased ammunition is a clear development of two varieties of caseless ammunition, one conventionally primed and one electronically primed, developed independently in Sachsen and Ostmark. The rammer which is so critical to the very high rate of fire and effectiveness of the burst feature is similar to, albeit simpler and sturdier than, that developed for the Volgan Abakanov. The snail drum magazine clearly owes its parentage to the sturdier but much more expensive double snail drum magazine developed for the FSC's Wakefield rifle. The miniaturized computer which controls the rate of fire was a development of Nihon Teppu Jutsu, Inc, of Yamato.
However informally the project may been initiated, very quickly a consortium between ZMI and BAC had been formed to begin development.
The 6.5mm projectile was an early, and happy, compromise between Balboa, which wanted something more in the 6mm range to suit its jungle conditions, and Zion which wanted something closer to 6.8mm in caliber but of great cross sectional density to suit its more commonly found desert and urban environments. Testing and simulation showed that the 6.5 was possibly ideal for neither but certainly more than adequate for both.
Thus, the caliber of 6.5mm was agreed upon.
Development thereafter becomes a very murky and perhaps even sordid subject, with charges of industrial espionage, pirating of personnel, and illegal reverse engineering being raised frequently. Certainly it is true that some design engineers from Volga and chemists from Ostmark and the Federated States of Columbia did emigrate to Balboa and Zion in the few years before the rifle was finally prototyped. It is also true that the magazine bears a suspicious, but apparently superficial, similarity to the double snail drum in use by the FSC (some copies of which, apparently, found their way to Zion).
International Sales:
Although acknowledged to be a superior battle implement, the F-26 and its cousins do only marginally well in international sales. This is for two reasons. The first is that the rifle is extremely expensive, at least twice the price of its next nearest competitor. The other is that both the Legion del Cid and Zion absolutely refuse to sell the rifle to Salafi and certain other states at any price, though the Legion does issue it to its Islamic mercenary battalions, the Pashtun Scouts.
PART III
Chapter Nineteen
