Double Tap: Overview

A high caliber, over/under barrel style anti-armor rifle that fires two shots with a single pull of the trigger. The weapon is only really usable by the most skilled of marksmen and requires leveraging the recoil of the rifle to aim properly.

Sooooooo lemme try to explain the logic behind this one, or at least try to give some context behind the school of thought that propelled this gun’s production. _{There was none, even I think the Double Tap is retarded. – Dr. Baddarick
We often kill a lot of people for our funding, and this is what you mouth breathers are spending it on? – Iza}

The double tap does exactly what it says on the tin, it fires two shots with an incredibly short delay between the first and second shot. Aiming this goddamn thing right is basically an art, and I've only seen a handful of my Vanguards pull it off, usually it's the Intelligence Legion weirdos that actually field them.

Now here's the main use case for a Double Tap: you aim the barrels so that the first shot punches through the torso of a heavily armored target, then the second shot hits the head due to the recoil of the first shot. That's hard as helleven for me, but it's a 100% chance of your target not getting back up. Like you can graze a headshot right, and if a medic is nearby and your aim is off with the torso, miracles can happen. But both? Nah son, you're done, ticket is punched, proceed to the pearly gates.

We never really field these things because there’s better solutions, and even then it’s only during near-peer type operations since some guerilla in body armor made from soup cans isn’t worth the ammo. There’s a few nations that use infantry in heavily armored exo-suits, which is where the Double Tap comes in for those who can’t spare the rockets.
I once saw an after action report on this merc from the Unified Kingdoms that had stolen a BA50 exo-suit on his way out the door from their military, and the thing’s helmet managed to tank a goddamn PTT bullet from a Frostpick. The round didn’t fully penetrate, but it gave him a concussion for sure.

The BA50 had so much firepower strapped to the arms that it kept a Vanguard Squadron behind cover and unable to return fire while the mercs were advancing forward. From the report I read, they eventually took him out with a plasmatic rocket to the face once the squadron’s Heavy Vanguard got the opportunity, but I wanted to use the report as a case for some R&D funding. We thought that by itself plasmatic weaponry for near-peer operations would make enemy armor a non-issue, but this proved otherwise (even if it was a one-off event that hasn’t happened since). Rockets and explosives fill that role of anti-armor, and it did, but we always need as many options as we can come up with.

After I got the funding and had the Science Legion go through the R&D process we ended up with the Arch Hammer as our anti-material rifle for squadron level usage, but in the process of developing that we also got the Double Tap. In comparison to the Arch Hammer, the Double Tap makes no goddamn practical sense due to its operation. But lemme tell ya a secret as to why we went ahead and manufactured them.
Cause I personally think they’re cool, I already paid for them, and you’re not allowed to argue with me.

When I was first shown the Double Tap prototype I asked them to explain the operational concept to me like ten times in a row, because it was both incredibly retarded and incredibly interesting. Once I saw the gun blow an armored ballistics dummy in half though, I was practically yelling at them to work faster. C’mon, how the fuck does anything survive two back to back hits from a .70 caliber PTT round?

What’s cool is that there’s a second use case for the Double Tap, which is that you can use it to hammer on armored areas of something like a Chaff Wraith or other any other undesirable that comes with more plating than a siege tank. The first shot cracks and destabilizes, the second shot shatters and penetrates. But again, it’s near impossible to field Double Taps due to the marksmanship requirements being blatantly unfair in just about every way possible.

If you can use one of these things, awesome, have fun.
If you can't, and you still draw one from the armory, I'm gonna bust your ass for wasting ammo.

-FrW Nahli Lok-Riveria