Future weapons based on LAMA small SPOILER.

MWadwell wrote:

Thucydides wrote:
Bolt action rifles along the line of the Lee-Enfield coupled to rigorous training will probably suffice; British riflemen at the Battle of Loos in 1915 poured so much aimed, accurate rifle fire into the advancing Germans they thought they were being machine gunned (and this at a time the British Army still only had two machine guns per battalion). No CoGA formation will be able to reply to that storm of firepower, yet the regular British Army of the day would have the command and internal structure that the Safeholdians would be able to understand and emulate.

VERY good point there - having the weapon (i.e. semi-automatic rifles) is not the entire story.

You need the means to effectively use it.

As you point out, this is effective small unit tactics, appropriate leadership selection and training, communication ability, logistics, etc.


Taking this point further, this means that weapon tech will eventually plateau, until other tech (i.e. communications) catches up. (For example, there is no need for massive artillery pieces with a large reach, if you lack the ability for the FOD to direct it.)

Effective battlefield communication is hard enough with telephones, radio's and smokeless powder, without these its pray and hope and wait for the smoke to clear. The battle field vanishes in a cloud of smoke and coordination becomes impossible beyond the range of voice and bugle, one of the reasons for marching in files is to keep the troops heading in the same rough direction - add automatic (or even reliable magazine rifles) to this mix and you are looking at a blender loaded with an army. (This is the First World War scenario with asymmetric arms thrown in - a one sided blood bath, possibly similar to the Chinese Boxer Rebellion). Charis has advanced strategic communications and intelligence but like the church lacks rapid tactical communications.

Thucydides wrote:Semi automatic or automatic firearms may not be the best way to go, for some reasons that have more to do with leadership and experience than technical ability.

snip

Equiping the scout snipers with automatic rifles like a magazine fed version of an M1 Garande would be very effective. Making the weapon capable of semi-auto as well would be better. Small units using a semi or fully automatic weapons makes them much more effective. Training spec ops, scout snipers and the Imperial Guard to use those types of weapons seems a slam dunk to me.

Expanding from that base tech into crew served machine guns would follow. I doubt that Charis will ever develop a manual crank type of machine gun like the Gatling gun. I can see pneumatic powered versions on smaller ships or River Class variants down the road.

Desnair and the Temple might well develop a Gatling gun. Even if the Temple could manufacture automatic weapons, they might not be capable of producing enough ammunition to supply their army for quite some time.

Taken all together, I think Charis will continue to develop tech and modify their tactics to fit their new capabilities. Once additional tech becomes availble, that can be applied to existing tech to make it more effective. Heck for all we know RFC has something in mind for tactical battlefield communication that would make general use of automatic weapons effective.

Reading this makes me think of the story of the "Lost Battalion". The unit was equipped with the sorts of weapons and equipment that we are talking about here (bolt action rifles, grenades, Chauchaut light machine guns and so on), with access to artillery and even air support, but since (like virtually every unit in the Great War) they had no tactical communications they ended up stuck in the woods, surrounded on three sides by the enemy.

They had no way of being warned what they were going into (assuming scouts were employed ahead of the main body), no way of being warned that their flanking units had failed to keep up, and no practical means of communicating back to their higher command (eventually they were able to send a message via carrier pigeon).

Even further in the past, many units could be surprised because of poor communications, although this could work both ways. General Mead was able to bring his division through the woods and to the flank of the Confederate position at Fredericksburg, surprising the Confederates (who at first thought Mead;s division was a Confederate force coming to support them), but unable to follow up this success since they had no effective means of alerting their "Grand Division" or higher command for support and reinforcements.

So without effective communications, I suspect battles will be even more confusing and involve even more casualties as firepower increases.

What about small cannon say 37mm with canister shells for massed infantry or AP for armored screw galleys for use on ironclads, the falling breach block is understood with steel barrels like for morters.

WebFan47 wrote:What about small cannon say 37mm with canister shells for massed infantry or AP for armored screw galleys for use on ironclads, the falling breach block is understood with steel barrels like for morters.

I'll bite. What would you use this for and why is it better than the currently existing weapons and equipment?

Thucydides wrote:

WebFan47 wrote:What about small cannon say 37mm with canister shells for massed infantry or AP for armored screw galleys for use on ironclads, the falling breach block is understood with steel barrels like for morters.

I'll bite. What would you use this for and why is it better than the currently existing weapons and equipment?

Direct fire artillery.

Something smaller (and so able to be handled forward by hand, and also a small target) then the existing 12 pounder, and able to support attacks onto fortified targets.

It was widely used in both WW1 and WW2. http://www.forgottenweapons.com/vintage-saturday-french-troops-with-an-m1916-cannon/

Henry Brown wrote:Once they get smokeless powder and some form of high explosive, a single shot grenade launcher (along the lines of the M-79) to provide additional firepower at either the platoon or company level might be a useful addition. Charis also might consider something along the lines of the Katyusha rocket launcher to augment their artillery.

Katyushas are loud and generally ineffective after the first shock wears off.
Changing the mortars from a caplock design to a unitized round in line with modern practice (and higher yield explosive loading than is possible with black powder) would be a useful use of smokeless powder and cartridge technology. Conversion would require the removal of the existing caplock on the mortar tube and plugging the hole, a second hole will need to be drilled and tapped for a firing pin. The advantages would be a mechanically simpler (and hence more reliable)firing system and the elimination of most of the smoke marking the mortar locations.
Recoil-less rifles and rocket propelled grenades are another option using smokeless and synthetic explosive technologies in man portable applications. (Ammonia, Nitric Acid and Ammonium Nitrate production will become more significant very soon - particularly with the requirements for mining on Silverload, Sodium Cyanide is going to be needed in bulk too for mining purposes.

AirTech wrote:(SNIP)

Recoil-less rifles and rocket propelled grenades are another option using smokeless and synthetic explosive technologies in man portable applications. (SNIP)

The poor man's mortar - rifle grenades.

37mm direct fire weapon was used in trench warfare to attack enemy machine gun positions and pillboxes. Since I don't see too many of these in the CoGA arsenal right now, the 37mm is a solution looking for a problem. Many weapons are solutions to particular tactical problems, and the 37mm looks to be one of those. For dealing with massed troops, supressing field fortifications or shooting in attacks, a mortar seems to be much cheaper and more versatile.

Recoiless weapons generally reveal themselves quickly due to the backblast (burning propellant being blown out of a venturi at high speed to counter the mass of the projectile moving out of the muzzle), which is why they are not more common in the modern world. Where weight is a factor (man portable anti tank weapons, or artillery support for mountain and airborne troops), then the balance shifts towards recoiless weapons until something better comes along (rockets and ATGMs in our world). Weapons like the 120mm MoBAT or WoMBAT could deliver a tank killing HESH warhead, but once they fired, all the tanker's friends would know exactly where to fire back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobat

One possible exception would be a recioless weapon utilising the "High/low pressure" principle. Near the end of WWII, the Germans developed a light anti tank cannon using this principle, and the M-79 grenade launcher also uses this principle to allow a large grenade to be shot from a shoulder fired weapon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_cm_PAW_600

Thucydides wrote:37mm direct fire weapon was used in trench warfare to attack enemy machine gun positions and pillboxes. Since I don't see too many of these in the CoGA arsenal right now, the 37mm is a solution looking for a problem. Many weapons are solutions to particular tactical problems, and the 37mm looks to be one of those. For dealing with massed troops, supressing field fortifications or shooting in attacks, a mortar seems to be much cheaper and more versatile.

Recoiless weapons generally reveal themselves quickly due to the backblast (burning propellant being blown out of a venturi at high speed to counter the mass of the projectile moving out of the muzzle), which is why they are not more common in the modern world. Where weight is a factor (man portable anti tank weapons, or artillery support for mountain and airborne troops), then the balance shifts towards recoiless weapons until something better comes along (rockets and ATGMs in our world). Weapons like the 120mm MoBAT or WoMBAT could deliver a tank killing HESH warhead, but once they fired, all the tanker's friends would know exactly where to fire back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobat

One possible exception would be a recioless weapon utilising the "High/low pressure" principle. Near the end of WWII, the Germans developed a light anti tank cannon using this principle, and the M-79 grenade launcher also uses this principle to allow a large grenade to be shot from a shoulder fired weapon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_cm_PAW_600

A RPG may sound like overkill but they are useful for taking out fortifications. A RPG works really well as a long range battering ram against a steel shod timber door as fitted to the classic castle. The Bazooka was used in this mode against pillboxes and other strong points more often than against tanks in the second world war. An alternative would be dusting off the use of flame throwers as an antipersonnel weapon (one way to break up a cavalry charge not yet considered).