Ammunition AIA U

U 6/8mm
Affiliation	Antarean Imperial Army
Manufacturer	Avex
Perforation	4.0
Caliber	6/8 mm
Class	Heavy
Used By	EVR Heavy Rifle (UP)

The U-Class of ammunition is developed solely by Avex for use in their Magnetic acceleration weapons. Due to the lack of any propellant requirements U-class rounds take up even less space than caseless chemical charges. This allows an EVR magazine to store far more shots than its contemporaries.

UB round - Solid-state slug of a unique alloy. Cheap to manufacture as it is essentially nothing more than a lump of shaped metal. Avex weapons are all based around Magnetic Acceleration. The benefits over more conventional weaponry that requires a chemical propellant is that Avex weapons have a far lower recoil and rate of fire. However the caliber of their ammunition is deliberately misleading.

The Advanced U-class ammunition comes in both 8mm and 6mm flavors. These calibers were intended to effectively re-brand their ammunition to make it more appealing than Salier's 7.4mm rounds. The 8mm is actually only an indication of it's equivalent stopping power rather than it's physical size. The nature of magnetic acceleration means the slug leaves the weapon at a far higher muzzle velocity than a traditional propellant based round. This increased speed is directly responsible for the over sized stopping power of the physically smaller round. The benefits of the smaller physical size and lack of requirement for propellant means more rounds can be packed into a single magazine than traditional ammunition.

Just as with a regular assault rifle though accuracy and range is determined by the length of the barrel. Although Avex weapons traditionally make up for lack of rifled barrels and other more traditional methods of improving accuracy by pure brute force.

UI round - Accelerated Ion packet

UP round - Gases suspended in a frozen "charge" that is superheated into a plasma state before firing. Soldiers have lamented the lack of a quality armour piercing slug for Avex weapons and that while the raw stopping power of a UB 8mm slug is greater than a 7.4mm round modern armoured vests absorb far more of the impact reducing it's overall effectiveness. In response to this Avex developed the UP round which is actually a concoction of highly volatile gases frozen into a shaped charge. The more recent Avex weapons have been able to melt and then superheat these slugs into a plasma state before they are fired. The extreme heat of the charge has been known to cause extensive burn damage and even in some cases set a target on fire causing injuries far in excess of the regular solid rounds. The drawback is that the already considerable heat generation of the weapon is increased and a UP clip has a third of its space reserved for cooling mechanisms to keep the frozen slugs in such a state leading to smaller magazine sizes.