Shotgun

This article is about the weapon. You may be looking for the corvette of the same name.

"Shotguns? I didn't think anyone used projectile weapons anymore."

―RC-1138, after encountering Trandoshans with shotguns^[src]

The shotgun was a powerful, heavy, and compact blaster or slugthrower that emitted several bolts or pellets at once when fired. They could often hit multiple targets or eliminate one target with a single blast. However, its damage decreased as range to the target increased, since the pellets scattered if fired from too far away; this made the weapon more suited for close-quarters combat.

A common shotgun weapon was the blast cannon, used by Imperial engineers during the Galactic Civil War. The TriShot could be considered the pistol form of a Shotgun, since it fired multiple laser bolts, but only three instead of the usual five. The elite Rebel SpecForces team Renegade Squadron used both shotguns and tri-shots. Trandoshan slavers sometimes used them, as did some B1 battle droids of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and Republic clone troopers during the Clone Wars.

Slugthrower versions include the scatter gun and C-M Frag Storm. A flechette launcher could also be considered similar to a shotgun in functionality, throwing hundreds of razor-sharp flechettes over a small area.