Katzenklavier
A nightmarish multi-barrel artillery system, designed by the Imperial Forces specifically for use against the massed echelon assault formations favoured by the Imperial Jingdaoese Army, the Katzenklavier was in its barest essentials eight 105mm rifled barrels yoked together and mounted on a flatbed truck or tank transporter. Each Katzenklavier would be driven into position with munitions (rocket motor, propellant, warhead) preloaded and wired, necessitating only the connection of the battery to create the firing circuit. The "Katz", as it was affectionately known, was set to fire in salvo only and would be obliged to retire from forward positions in order to reload.
Six-hundred of the artillery pieces were assembled in Kezan by utilising 4,800 rifled barrels which had been half-heartedly concealed mixed in amongst innocuous cargo shipped by convoy Convoy CK47-1653 from Chryste[1] in the last weeks before the commencement of hostilities. After assembly the devices were transported to Fort Nider, installed onto flatbed trucks, and transferred into the custody of the Arboreal Volunteers.
Although the Katzenklavier could only fire off massed salvos periodically, their impact on Jing formations caught out in the open was greatly enhanced by the use of radio frequency sensing proximity fuses, effectively the fuse would emit high-frequency radio waves that would interact with the target and produce, as a consequence of the high relative speed of target and projectile, a Doppler-frequency signal sensed in the oscillator which would trigger the fuse, causing the warhead to detonate before impacting on the ground, causing havoc amongst infantry and soft-skinned vehicles. The warhead itself consisted of a shaped charge of RDX/TNT.
