'Seran' Pattern Mortar

Throughout the lifespan of the Monastic Ascendants legion there have been many esoteric practices that have been adapted from Ganden life to astartes philosophy, but the Ganden Mortar may be the simplest of them all. Taking the original celebratory tradition, along the newly available armoury given to them upon reunification with Tenzin, VIIth legion has adapted it's home culture and warfare style rather well.

History
As one of the many cultural festivals and rites that take place amongst the monks of Ganden, Guran Par -roughly translating to 'Winter Pinnacle' in Low Gothic- sees the planet celebrate the longest period of night on the planet, believing it to be a time of great import. As part of this celebration the individual towns and cities that litter the peaks arrange a fireworks display. Each town takes it's turn from the southernmost to the northernmost, setting off it's display of fireworks from ornately crafted sets of double-barrelled firing tubes creating unique percussive sounds that is said to represent the heartbeat of Ganden people.

Remaining a festival for generations it was after the arrival of Tenzin and his first campaign to liberate the worlds of Rukarr that saw this tradition turned to military use.

During the extensive insurgent campaign undertaken by Tenzin and those brave Ganden people, raids of military supply caches saw mortars come into the possession of the Primarch's forces. As with many tools of insurgency and guerrilla warfare, small cells would operate with at least one mortar team with a relatively light load, sharing the ammunition between soldiers to allow them to manoeuvre swiftly once fired.

It wasn't long after the reunification of Tenzin with the Emperor that he charged his new Legionary techmarines -recently renamed Gauss Scholars- with the task of adapting a mortar for astartes use. Having seen his brother's Iron Revenants Legion using such a similar technology to that which he himself had used on Rukarr drove him to pursue the design, deeming it's tactical advantages far too significant too ignore.

Within several years the platform finished development and proved itself an outstanding asset on the battlefield with it's variety of ammunition, fire-on-the-move and direct-fire capability. The versatility and simplicity of the system was such that, the Legion tended to prefer the mortar over the traditional missile launcher system, which would itself hasten further changes to the VIIth's armoury.

Description
As with most mortar systems throughout human history, that employed by the Monastic Ascendants was at it's base just 2 tubes that, when fed ammunition, could output significant firepower. The details of the design however, were where the VIIth Legion had turn the Iron Revenants design to their own purpose.

Due to the nature of the ammunition it was decided that it would be given to those trained as Devastator marines, as the larger backpack could hold far more rounds and even be directly connected to the weapons system much like a heavy bolter by means of a belt feed. The twin-barrel design is fed through the autoloading ammo belt from the bottom of the tubes on one side of the assembly. Able to load either a single or twin rounds into the tubes, the firer has full control over the loading process but can choose to leave it to the machine-spirit if necessary.

As part of the link to the marine themselves, a small on-board cogitator helps with calculations and firing solutions that, in concert with the autosenses of power armour, allow experience marines to even fire while on the move. For those using the system normally however a small articulated footplate is mounted onto the bottom, allowing for a stable firing position combine this with the rifling on the inside of the tubes enables deadly accurate rounds on target.

Mounting this all to the Devastator marine is the newly standardised method for attaching heavy weapons onto marines, namely the Heavy Arm-Assist system. Mounted onto the midsection of the marine this free-moving arm is fitted with a servo system to spread weight distribution across the whole body. In regards to the mortar system it is sturdy enough to even allow the weapon to be manoeuvred with one hand, freeing up the other hand for other tasks such as personal defence or loading specialised rounds.

Mirroring the limitation of bolt rounds though, when used in direct-fire, the rounds have to reach a certain set distance from the barrel before detonating to avoid friendly fire.

Overall the sheer versatility of the weapons system cannot be overstated, with variable ammunition allowing for an immediate appropriate response to specific threats, and the ability to direct-fire the weapon.

Miscellaneous
While the system itself is rather simple, there are the vast range of ammunition types and several accessories that are available to those who use the mortar.

In terms of accessories, the marine can be given a simple plasteel slab shield measuring about the length of their forearm and mounted there or onto the mortar barrels when not in use. With the lower edge sharpened to act as a trench tool to dig out rough foxholes for Monastic Ascendants who are setting up firing positions. With the strength of an astartes the tool can easily dig a small pit and be planted into the ground facing towards the enemy, this is normally used as an extra shield where spare ammunition can be kept to supply the marine if necessary.

The topic of ammunition for such a weapons system is easily an extensive one as humanity has found many and varied deadly munitions to fire over the millennia and that is no different here. Standard operating procedure usually means carrying a full load of High Explosive mortar rounds and several specialised rounds on the marine when going into battle. These special rounds can vary from simple things such as smoke, illumination and anti-tank rounds all the way up to small yield atomic rounds should they be given permission. It should be noted that specialist ammunition is normally loaded in a traditional manner by hand rather than having it in the middle of a feed belt.

With resupply a possible issue with the system, several standard packs have been adapted so a marine can take what extra he feels necessary. These all feed into the chute on the back of the ammunition backpack or fed into the tube by hand if alone. The packs themselves consist of:


 * A 3-tube carry case in a triangular formation that is popular for stowing specialist rounds, it can also be magnetised to a marine's armour with a mag-clamp if available.


 * A 4-tube carry case stacked 2 by 2. With the extra weight they cannot be mag-clamped and must be carried by hand.


 * A 14-round ammunition belt specifically designed to fully reload a Devastator by being fed into the backpack. These are heavy even for marines, at most being able to carry 1 belt per person.