M45 MACIR

The M45 MACIR Hypervelocity Individual Combat System, or HICS - spoken as the English words "Maker" & "Hicks", respectively - is the standard NATO service arm at the time of the 2057 NATO-Soviet War. Its full name is "M45 Mass Accelerating Coil Infantry Rifle", HICS being the official NATO designation for an individual service arm (i.e. rifle or carbine) firing Kinetic Energy Penetrator (KEP) ammunition using the principles of an electromagnetic linear motor. Distinguished as being the world's first mass-produced weapon designed entirely for operation by the individual soldier to use such technology, the M45 MACIR is possibly the most lethal infantry firearm humanity has thus far devised. Externally, it appears to be a slick and uncomplicated - if rather long - bullpup assault rifle, resembling an XM8 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM8_rifle) with its magazine receiver located behind the grip and trigger complex. Internally, it has no real moving parts and is essentially frictionless and inertialess in its operation.

Design
The M45 is little more than a long graphene/ceramic-composite polygonal barrel ensrouded in powerful electromagnetic coils, with a simple magazine-fed chamber at the rear and an ultra-high capacity graphene nano-composite battery. The barrel and coil cylinder are 'free-floated' and surrounded by air that insulates them against contacting one another. Power is provided to the linear motor system by a graphene nano-complex 'supercapacitor', a sort of extremely high-capacity superconducting battery in the form of a carbon monobloc 'brick' made from 3D crystalline arrangements of graphene nanotubes.

This powersource, similar appearance and dimensions to a small magazine, is inserted upwards into a receiver within the stock, behind the primary grip and trigger complex. Rounds are supplied by an actual longitudinal 'bar' magazine that fits horitzontally into the upper buttstock within a lengthwise cavity behind the chamber, in-line with and partially above the rear end of the barrel. It sits flush over the tops of the battery receiver and primary grip beneath / inside a particular section of the rifle's exterior polymer-reinforced plastic-ceramic shell that 'swings out' automatically as the last round of the load is chambered, pivoting clockwise around a hinge along its bottom outer edge to drop away and expose the now-emptied magazine while simultaneously unlocking it from the socket at the far end of the cavity. A new load is pushed into place sideways and forces the spent container out the opposite side, then locks securely to the socket - triggering the cowl to flip back into place over it. Gravity drops the first bullet down a helical ramp at the back end of the magazine and into the chamber, located directly above the battery receiver. At this point, the M45 MACIR is ready to fire.