Black Powder and Rate of Fire

Somebody mentioned that now barrels are made of cobalt alloys. Is there any big problem in switching from old steel to cobalt?

Draken wrote:Somebody mentioned that now barrels are made of cobalt alloys. Is there any big problem in switching from old steel to cobalt?

The first hurdle to overcome is finding cobalt deposits to use. Normally found in the forms cobaltite, smaltite, chloranthite, and linnaeite. This would mean referring to geological surveys from Shan Wei terraforming to find where the deposits are located.
The next problem is having aluminium handy to help in the extraction of the cobalt from the ore along with having hydrochloric acid in sufficient quantities to help free cobalt from its oxide form.

The first process may be pushing the proscriptions considering the chemistry/metallurgy required.
The second process will completely blow through the proscriptions as it requires an electric current to pass through the CoCl3 (formed after reacting with the HCl and Co2O3) to release the Co metal.

The next problem is that while trace amounts of cobalt are required for continued good health - excessive exposure is not good for ones lungs.

The next problem is producing the required temperatures to make the Co-alloys.

Hope this has helped

Let's not forget that Charis has moved on to the doctrine of its riflemen picking their own targets and aiming at them. If they're each firing one round every 3 seconds for 10 minutes straight, that's 200 rounds aimed at live targets. 50,000 Charisians could potentially kill up to ten MILLION enemy soldiers in that time. If they're actual hit rate is only 50% (the standard for the US Army is slightly greater than that against pop up targets), that number gets reduced to "only" five million targets killed.

The Harchong army is what? Two million at best? Charisian accuracy would have to be less than 1 hit in 5 shots fired to not completely annihilate the Harchong army in ten minutes of continuous fire.

And of course, the Harchong Army (or any other Temple force) would have to not break and run in the face of such an overwhelming kill rate.

Of course, this assumes no artillery adding their weight to the slaughter, that the Church is using zerg rush tactics instead of Charisian type tactics of using cover and such, etc etc. If the Church forces ARE fighting Charisian style by using cover and Charisian forces are using artillery, then the Charisian's ACTUAL rate of fire goes down as they have to wait for targets to expose themselves in order to shoot at them while themselves ducking behind cover if they get shot at themselves.

Don
You realise your original discussion of this problem cheats a fair bit? You divide the 1.6M rounds they can produce a month currently by the 500k rifles there will be in service eventually. As you also point out, they know there is a bottleneck in part of the ammunition production process, so they will be taking steps to deal with that and increase production well before anything like that number of M96s get issued. The Charisian quartermaster corps does seem able to count.

Randomiser wrote:Don
You realise your original discussion of this problem cheats a fair bit? You divide the 1.6M rounds they can produce a month currently by the 500k rifles there will be in service eventually. As you also point out, they know there is a bottleneck in part of the ammunition production process, so they will be taking steps to deal with that and increase production well before anything like that number of M96s get issued. The Charisian quartermaster corps does seem able to count.

Absolutely right. I was just getting started thinking about the whole subject at that point and was needing a frame of reference to get going. I believe I began refining my thought in my subseqent posts although I didn't take quite the tack you pointed out.

Your comment advances the discussion nicely. Undoubtedly they will be increaing production as you say after the primer issue is solved. I'm sure it wiil be dealt with. In his conversation with Father Paityr, Howsmyn doesn't seem too worried.

Don

n7axw wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Don
You realise your original discussion of this problem cheats a fair bit? You divide the 1.6M rounds they can produce a month currently by the 500k rifles there will be in service eventually. As you also point out, they know there is a bottleneck in part of the ammunition production process, so they will be taking steps to deal with that and increase production well before anything like that number of M96s get issued. The Charisian quartermaster corps does seem able to count.

Absolutely right. I was just getting started thinking about the whole subject at that point and was needing a frame of reference to get going. I believe I began refining my thought in my subseqent posts although I didn't take quite the tack you pointed out.

Your comment advances the discussion nicely. Undoubtedly they will be increaing production as you say after the primer issue is solved. I'm sure it wiil be dealt with. In his conversation with Father Paityr, Howsmyn doesn't seem too worried.

Don

What would be the fun if we couldn't have a balanced fruit salad - you know mixing apples and oranges?

Thrandir wrote:

Draken wrote:Somebody mentioned that now barrels are made of cobalt alloys. Is there any big problem in switching from old steel to cobalt?

The first hurdle to overcome is finding cobalt deposits to use. Normally found in the forms cobaltite, smaltite, chloranthite, and linnaeite. This would mean referring to geological surveys from Shan Wei terraforming to find where the deposits are located.
The next problem is having aluminium handy to help in the extraction of the cobalt from the ore along with having hydrochloric acid in sufficient quantities to help free cobalt from its oxide form.

The first process may be pushing the proscriptions considering the chemistry/metallurgy required.
The second process will completely blow through the proscriptions as it requires an electric current to pass through the CoCl3 (formed after reacting with the HCl and Co2O3) to release the Co metal.

The next problem is that while trace amounts of cobalt are required for continued good health - excessive exposure is not good for ones lungs.

The next problem is producing the required temperatures to make the Co-alloys.

Hope this has helped

Cobalt extraction can be done with hot sulfuric acid and precipitation can be performed with ammonia - been there done that (at least on laterite ores).... These are obtainable with the current Safehold technology (although ammonia synthesis needs to be a priority due to the volume used).

Some dated (1987) US Army logistical planning data:

Armored Division (5 Tank 4 Mech Battalions)
Rifle 5.56 M16A1 Number: 13,160
Defense of Position:
1st Day 1,947,680 rounds 40.0 STON
Succeeding days 1,184,400 rounds 24.9 STON
Attack of Position
1st Day 1,631,840 rounds 34.3 STON
Succeeding days 881,720 rounds 18.5 STON

Infantry Division (probably closest to EOC Army corps) (9 Infantry Battalions)
Authorized Strength 17,423 Assumed Strength begining of first day: 15,341
Rifle 5.56 M16A1 Number: 14,242
Defense of Position:
1st Day 2,107,816 rounds 44.3 STON
Succeeding days 1,281,700 rounds 26.9 STON
Attack of Position
1st Day 1,766,009 rounds 37.1 STON
Succeeding days 954,214 rounds 20 STON

Mechanized Division (4 Tank and 5 Mech Battalions)
Rifle 5.56 M16A1 Number: 13,387
Defense of Position:
1st Day 1,980.240 rounds 41.6 STON
Succeeding days 1,204,200 rounds 25.3 STON
Attack of Position
1st Day 1,659,120 rounds 34.8 STON
Succeeding days 896,460 rounds 18.8 STON

While the tonnage associated with this 5.56mm ammunition is significantly less than the ammunition used by the EOC, the rates of expediture show the need for the EOC to significantly increase their ammunition production capabilities. Extremely rough math shows an expenditure of between 120 and 70 rounds a day per rifle in the offense.

For your consideration and comment.

USMA74 wrote:Some dated (1987) US Army logistical planning data:

Armored Division (5 Tank 4 Mech Battalions)
Rifle 5.56 M16A1 Number: 13,160
Defense of Position:
1st Day 1,947,680 rounds 40.0 STON
Succeeding days 1,184,400 rounds 24.9 STON
Attack of Position
1st Day 1,631,840 rounds 34.3 STON
Succeeding days 881,720 rounds 18.5 STON

Infantry Division (probably closest to EOC Army corps) (9 Infantry Battalions)
Authorized Strength 17,423 Assumed Strength begining of first day: 15,341
Rifle 5.56 M16A1 Number: 14,242
Defense of Position:
1st Day 2,107,816 rounds 44.3 STON
Succeeding days 1,281,700 rounds 26.9 STON
Attack of Position
1st Day 1,766,009 rounds 37.1 STON
Succeeding days 954,214 rounds 20 STON

Mechanized Division (4 Tank and 5 Mech Battalions)
Rifle 5.56 M16A1 Number: 13,387
Defense of Position:
1st Day 1,980.240 rounds 41.6 STON
Succeeding days 1,204,200 rounds 25.3 STON
Attack of Position
1st Day 1,659,120 rounds 34.8 STON
Succeeding days 896,460 rounds 18.8 STON

While the tonnage associated with this 5.56mm ammunition is significantly less than the ammunition used by the EOC, the rates of expediture show the need for the EOC to significantly increase their ammunition production capabilities. Extremely rough math shows an expenditure of between 120 and 70 rounds a day per rifle in the offense.

For your consideration and comment.

Nothing like a little hard data to trump opinions. Thanks for this, it is a lot of help. Being greedy, do you also have artillery expenditures as well?

A few comments:

1: I see only a minimal mention of the fouling due to black powder (1 post). You will foul the BBL beyond use long before heat is a major issue from a metallurgical point of view. This is the largest issue with black powder weapons and sustained fire.

2: in response to the BBL life question. For a bolt action target rifle throat erosion becomes an issue at between 2000 - 4000 rounds depending on the caliber. However this assumes slow fire with reasonable cool down. Erosion increases significantly with heat reducing BBL life but sub MOA accuracy is not needed in a military rifle. Thus even with max rate fire (till you burn through your combat load 100-150 rounds at a time) from bolt actions the useful life is typically in the 10,000 round range

3: The idea that a bolt action is not significantly superior to the mandrayen is flawed. You must think about at least 4 steps to fire that design (get cartridge, load cartridge, seat cartridge, place cap, cock hammer) for each shot a 10 round bolt design requires only 1 per shot with a reload every 10th shot AND you do not need to look at your weapon to operate it. The cartridge design also weather proofs the system. The bolt action is also much stronger than any type of press seal/trap door design.

Smokeless powder burns hotter and longer than black powder and drives bullets to higher velocities at lower peak pressure levels which is actually harder on BBL life. In general you shoot a BP weapon until you must clean it which is all to often