Gun evolution

Ishkandar wrote:
Given that the machinegun can shoot in ONE direction at a time, it would have to spray bullets all over the place to ensure some effect. Whereas, a platoon of rifle armed men can shoot in many directions and effectively wipe out the crew of a machine gun when it is no pointing at them !! Effectively, a mob of pygmies can take on a giant if they are willing to take causalities !! Hence, machineguns are usually only effective when they are massed in overlapping fields of fire !!

That is simply not true.

Machine guns are most effective when used for defensive purposes, and not for moving around and advancing. They are useful for suppressing fire and can kill large masses of troops in a short period of time. They are most effective when in high ground or bunkered emplacements.

To say that a machine gun can only fire in one direction is absurd - have you never heard of tripods and bipods? I have fired an M60 from both, and I can tell you it is EASY to cover a wide field of fire. If a civil war era regiment advanced on me with bayonets fixed and I had an M60 with a spotter and a reloader I would pitch a shutout.

Remember, as RFC so effectively demonstrates, a withering volley of fire collapses morale very quickly. This is real life, not a Call of Duty Zombie map.

Someone mentioned that the Maxim fired 600 rounds a minute. Just think of this. Unless you are firing from a prepared position with lots of pre-supply, the gun will fire 600 rounds and then suddenly turn into a very heavy lump of metal !! Whereas, a platoon may fire slower but they can keep firing when the Maxim runs out of ammo !!

An example was when the Gatling armed American troops ran out of ammo fighting sword and spear armed Moros in the Philippines !! The Moros just weaved through the jungle until the Americans ran out of ammo !! Then, they closed in !! Swords and spears don't run out of ammo !!!

Ishkandar wrote:Someone mentioned that the Maxim fired 600 rounds a minute. Just think of this. Unless you are firing from a prepared position with lots of pre-supply, the gun will fire 600 rounds and then suddenly turn into a very heavy lump of metal !! Whereas, a platoon may fire slower but they can keep firing when the Maxim runs out of ammo !!

An example was when the Gatling armed American troops ran out of ammo fighting sword and spear armed Moros in the Philippines !! The Moros just weaved through the jungle until the Americans ran out of ammo !! Then, they closed in !! Swords and spears don't run out of ammo !!!

Well there you have it - the US military should abandon all machine guns in favor of hundreds of sword and spear wielding warriors.

Swords and spears will turn and RUN when they see thick walls of their fellow warriors dropping in huge masses.

And it is understood military doctrine that any machine gun emplacement is fired by a TEAM, not just one person. You're having to bend yourself into a pretzel trying to envision a scenario where the MG loses, because normal military operations will ensure that it wins.

Ishkandar wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:The disadvantage is the the Maxim or Gatling are cumbersome crew-served artillery pieces where the Bolt Action rifles are individually mobile and versatile.

Given OWL and Merlin's encyclopedic knowledge of history, I really expect Charis's next firearm development to be similar to the AK-47; made of stamped metal with low machining tolerances, the AK-47 fits the industrial capabilities and battlefield conditions of Safehold a lot better than a Maxim, M1 Garand, BAR/BMG, or M-16 clones would.

Given that the machine gun can shoot in ONE direction at a time, it would have to spray bullets all over the place to ensure some effect. Whereas, a platoon of rifle armed men can shoot in many directions and effectively wipe out the crew of a machine gun when it is no pointing at them !!

You pretty much ignored the fact that I don't think Charis will develop Maxim or Gatling artillery style machine guns.

History pretty much disagrees with you about whether a single machine gun or a platoon of bolt-action rifles is more effective, but a squad of AK-47 armed troops combines the best of both scenarios and is more effective than either.

On a different tack-
RunsFor really likes handguns. Merlin now has one that handles rifle shells. Irys and Sharly, and Cayleb have handguns. The Dragoons that cut off the Desnarians used pistols to save the day in some of the hand to hand fighting that occurred during that first day's (night's) fighting.
I'm thinking that the weapons they have now- plus RFC's handguns will be enough in this war.

Ishkandar wrote:

n7axw wrote:I would expect a more sophisticated system for sighting naval guns to allow them to be used more accurately at greater range.

Don

Don,

Naval gunnery was *NEVER* about the use of systems until highly sophisticated computers were available !! All good naval gunners were *TRAINED* in "sighting" in their guns based on the relative motions of his own ship as well as the enemy ship, both moving in 3D (roll, pitch and yaw) !!! Therefore, a naval gunner is rather like a bird hunter, anticipating where the target will be, not where the target is right now !!

Absolutely. But I would think that sighting could become more precise and reliable, now that rifled cannon with high velocity ammumition and flatter trajectory fire is the norm for the ICN. In short, it is very different than when you were dealing with slow burn fuses, comparatively uneven quality powder and smooth bore cannon with ball that probably isn't completely round.

Then too, remember that the King Haarahds are huge compared to anything that has gone before. One of the advantages of that will be a more stable gunnery platform which will lessen but not eliminate the obstacles you mentioned. In fact we are already seeing some of that with the Rotweilers.

Just one example of something that could be done. Visualize a sighting arrangement where the guy doing the aiming would not stand in the path of the recoil while aiming but instead could stand off to the side and pull the trigger and have the gun go off as he finds his target. Anything you can do to decrease the time between target aquisition and firing will improve accuracy. And maybe other things can be done.

Will any of this eliminate the issues you mentioned? No, but it will improve accuracy in step with the improvement in gunnery and that was the point of my proposal.


Don

Far too many people seem to get their tactical knowledge from watching the movies. While I think many of the readers on this board will understand why a machine-gun emplacement should be to the flank of the attacking enemy (rather than facing them from the front), if you tried to show this in a Hollywood movie or typical TV show, the audience would go "Huh?" (for readers who don't know, this is called enfilading fire, so the line of fire goes across the length of the advancing line of troops, who will be side by side in a long skirmish line).

Machine-guns should always be crewed by teams and placed in pairs (as a minimum) to cover both multiple targets and provide the ability to deal with contingencies (gun one runs out of ammunition or breaks, so gun two covers). And of course, machine-guns are much more effective when mounted on a tripod (more accurate and generally have a much longer effective range. When on a bipod they tend to "bounce" around a lot, creating a much wider dispersion of shot, which is what we don't want). Using machine-guns is really a science, and making effective machine guns also requires a great deal of attention not only to manufacturing the guns, but also training the gunners and logistics to support them. In the example above, you would actually want a minimum of 4 machine-guns (two per flank), plus gun crews, ammo carriers and a huge pile of ammunition.

For now, if the ICA develops an effective bolt action weapon like the Lee Enfield rifle, and makes the training focus marksmanship, they will be able to deliver devastating fire even without machine-guns or automatic weapons, and this should also fit in with existing production and logistics.

As for ships, long range fire requires not only accurate sights, but also range finders, fire control calculators or computers, effective communications within the ship (rangefinder station to fire control centre to the gun captain in the turret), and the ability to control large canon in three dimensions to compensate for the ships movement (somewhat like a stabilized cannon on a modern tank).

Thucydides wrote:Far too many people seem to get their tactical knowledge from watching the movies. While I think many of the readers on this board will understand why a machine-gun emplacement should be to the flank of the attacking enemy (rather than facing them from the front), if you tried to show this in a Hollywood movie or typical TV show, the audience would go "Huh?" (for readers who don't know, this is called enfilading fire, so the line of fire goes across the length of the advancing line of troops, who will be side by side in a long skirmish line).

Machine-guns should always be crewed by teams and placed in pairs (as a minimum) to cover both multiple targets and provide the ability to deal with contingencies (gun one runs out of ammunition or breaks, so gun two covers). And of course, machine-guns are much more effective when mounted on a tripod (more accurate and generally have a much longer effective range. When on a bipod they tend to "bounce" around a lot, creating a much wider dispersion of shot, which is what we don't want). Using machine-guns is really a science, and making effective machine guns also requires a great deal of attention not only to manufacturing the guns, but also training the gunners and logistics to support them. In the example above, you would actually want a minimum of 4 machine-guns (two per flank), plus gun crews, ammo carriers and a huge pile of ammunition.

For now, if the ICA develops an effective bolt action weapon like the Lee Enfield rifle, and makes the training focus marksmanship, they will be able to deliver devastating fire even without machine-guns or automatic weapons, and this should also fit in with existing production and logistics.

As for ships, long range fire requires not only accurate sights, but also range finders, fire control calculators or computers, effective communications within the ship (rangefinder station to fire control centre to the gun captain in the turret), and the ability to control large canon in three dimensions to compensate for the ships movement (somewhat like a stabilized cannon on a modern tank).

I would think that it would depend on how long of a range you are talking about. IIRC, Bismark hit Hood at a range of 15 miles. For that kind of range, you are right. But how about ranges ship to ship from about 500 to 1000 yards? I think refining the sighting system in the manner I have proposed would not eliminate the problem of wind and wave, but being able to fire immediately upon target acquisition would increase the percentage of hits as would having a system for knowing where your gun is pointed rather than rough guessing it. That kind of improvement is within reach of EOC tech right now.

Don

Hi Don,

Firing under local control, as you suggest for such ranges is probably what's intended for now, since as Thucydides pointed out, the equipment needed for more advanced techniques doesn't exist yet.

NTM the targets are easier to hit at these close ranges, where even the low muzzle velocity [~500 yards/second] reduces the time for errors to multiply and permit misses.

My main concern is that the impact fuzes find enough resistance from the wood hulls to detonate before they exit the galleon or galley.

More technical improvements are probably unlikely unless pushed by the inner circle [which I expect] because the enemy navies are so far behind they've never considered the various questions in the first place, so the threat potential is pitiful and probably should continue for the next 20 years, particularly compared to what the ICN capabilities will be by then.

L

n7axw wrote:

Thucydides wrote:Far too many people seem to get their tactical knowledge from watching the movies. While I think many of the readers on this board will understand why a machine-gun emplacement should be to the flank of the attacking enemy (rather than facing them from the front), if you tried to show this in a Hollywood movie or typical TV show, the audience would go "Huh?" (for readers who don't know, this is called enfilading fire, so the line of fire goes across the length of the advancing line of troops, who will be side by side in a long skirmish line).

Machine-guns should always be crewed by teams and placed in pairs (as a minimum) to cover both multiple targets and provide the ability to deal with contingencies (gun one runs out of ammunition or breaks, so gun two covers). And of course, machine-guns are much more effective when mounted on a tripod (more accurate and generally have a much longer effective range. When on a bipod they tend to "bounce" around a lot, creating a much wider dispersion of shot, which is what we don't want). Using machine-guns is really a science, and making effective machine guns also requires a great deal of attention not only to manufacturing the guns, but also training the gunners and logistics to support them. In the example above, you would actually want a minimum of 4 machine-guns (two per flank), plus gun crews, ammo carriers and a huge pile of ammunition.

For now, if the ICA develops an effective bolt action weapon like the Lee Enfield rifle, and makes the training focus marksmanship, they will be able to deliver devastating fire even without machine-guns or automatic weapons, and this should also fit in with existing production and logistics.

As for ships, long range fire requires not only accurate sights, but also range finders, fire control calculators or computers, effective communications within the ship (rangefinder station to fire control centre to the gun captain in the turret), and the ability to control large canon in three dimensions to compensate for the ships movement (somewhat like a stabilized cannon on a modern tank).

I would think that it would depend on how long of a range you are talking about. IIRC, Bismark hit Hood at a range of 15 miles. For that kind of range, you are right. But how about ranges ship to ship from about 500 to 1000 yards? I think refining the sighting system in the manner I have proposed would not eliminate the problem of wind and wave, but being able to fire immediately upon target acquisition would increase the percentage of hits as would having a system for knowing where your gun is pointed rather than rough guessing it. That kind of improvement is within reach of EOC tech right now.

Don

I remember how we used to sight in our rifles before hunting season to be sure that they were firing true. We had four power scopes and usually we'd set things at 250 yards.

Same thing for sighting in cannon in principle at least. Pick your range and go from there. Might even set up a scope/periscope arrangement for the guy aiming and pulling the trigger. I bet it would improve results. Right now what they are doing is just a bit better than throwing rocks.

Don