CCCP PPC

The Soviet Particle Projector Cannon, also known as CCCP PPC, was a weapon of Primitive Technology deployed during the Second Soviet Civil War.

Development
It was based on the blueprints of Nikola Tesla's work, obtained by a United States deserter and spy. It reached operational capability in the early 2010's.

Capabilities
The CCCP PPC weighted 30 tons, making it barely able to be mounted into vehicles or armored trains. Worse still, this weight didn't include the power source or heat dissipation gear. The Soviet PPC had to wait a considerable amount of time between volleys, as even in the icy tundra of northern Russia, it just coudn't cool down on par with its firing capabilities. Even worse, as Fusion Reactors hadn't reached commercial level then, much less portability, the CCCP PPC consumed about as much electrical energy as that needed to power a city - indeed, it was necessary to connect the mammoth weapon with a civilian or military town-grade power supply only to start it up.

Operations
These limitations made the cannon suitable only for defending the motherland. It was intended to be mounted on self-deployable rail platforms, and stored in railed tunnels when not in use. Even then, a tragic twist of fate would make this intended role quite ironic. All four functional CCCP PPC systems (including an unfinished one working at 44% efficiency) would be seized in the chaos of the civil war and used against domestic targets, including the unfortunate high tech village of Schatzsevo, where a unit was stationed for tests and for the perfecting of its targeting systems. The arrays proved fragile, however, and without the combined arms approach necessary they were all destroyed in short order. Not only were the weapons damaged but also their reputation; it took centuries (and a good deal of technological advances) before PPCs were militarized again. Two of the units could be repaired after the war and four additional ones finished (mostly in secret) from their extant parts in the next years (by post-Soviet sucessor states), but the system never saw combat again and without replacement parts the remaining units were soon enough abandoned and dismantled. Some PPC blasts in the Russian region of Terra may be viewed even today, in ruins and the scorched trunks of ancient trees.

Timeline

 * Prototyped: 2011 (Soviet Union)
 * Production: 2014 (Soviet Union, aborted)
 * Common: -
 * Extinct: 2029