Black Powder and Rate of Fire

So Charis is making M96s which are bolt action rifles with 10 round magazines. This should give them a rate of fire of close to 1 round per second (plus extra for changing out magazines). This is an improvement over the original Mandrayn which gets 1 round every 5 seconds which in turn is still better than the original flintlocks which got 1 round every 15 seconds.

So my question is, can you REALLY do sustained rate of AIMED fire with these weapons... when using BLACK POWDER ammo?

Black powder when used generates great big clouds of BLINDING smoke. Descriptions of black powder warfare often describe the blinding smoke banks created by black powder weapons that the parties involved need the wind to get rid of before they can see the other side again. And that's with flintlock muzzle-loading weapons, not faster breech-loading percussion cap weapons.

So if the weather isn't cooperative (ie, not windy and not raining), how much can a Rifleman fire with a Mandrayn, St Killman, or M96 before his own self generated smoke bank makes it impossible for him to find any targets without moving?

For that matter, I can see a Church firing line firing not to hit Charisian troops, but to create impenetrable smoke banks to conceal themselves from snipers.

IIRC part of the upgrade is that the M96 rifles can handle smokeless powder, they're just being fed black powder until smokeless powder production ramps up.

evilauthor wrote:So Charis is making M96s which are bolt action rifles with 10 round magazines. This should give them a rate of fire of close to 1 round per second (plus extra for changing out magazines). This is an improvement over the original Mandrayn which gets 1 round every 5 seconds which in turn is still better than the original flintlocks which got 1 round every 15 seconds.

So my question is, can you REALLY do sustained rate of AIMED fire with these weapons... when using BLACK POWDER ammo?

Black powder when used generates great big clouds of BLINDING smoke. Descriptions of black powder warfare often describe the blinding smoke banks created by black powder weapons that the parties involved need the wind to get rid of before they can see the other side again. And that's with flintlock muzzle-loading weapons, not faster breech-loading percussion cap weapons.

So if the weather isn't cooperative (ie, not windy and not raining), how much can a Rifleman fire with a Mandrayn, St Killman, or M96 before his own self generated smoke bank makes it impossible for him to find any targets without moving?

For that matter, I can see a Church firing line firing not to hit Charisian troops, but to create impenetrable smoke banks to conceal themselves from snipers.

I suspect your round per second is optimistic at best---nore like a round per every three seconds by the time you get the gun back on target from reload and recoil.

You are right about the smoke. It is, however, a temporary problem. Smokeless powder is on the way.

Don

evilauthor wrote:So Charis is making M96s which are bolt action rifles with 10 round magazines. This should give them a rate of fire of close to 1 round per second (plus extra for changing out magazines). This is an improvement over the original Mandrayn which gets 1 round every 5 seconds which in turn is still better than the original flintlocks which got 1 round every 15 seconds.

So my question is, can you REALLY do sustained rate of AIMED fire with these weapons... when using BLACK POWDER ammo?

Black powder when used generates great big clouds of BLINDING smoke. Descriptions of black powder warfare often describe the blinding smoke banks created by black powder weapons that the parties involved need the wind to get rid of before they can see the other side again. And that's with flintlock muzzle-loading weapons, not faster breech-loading percussion cap weapons.

So if the weather isn't cooperative (ie, not windy and not raining), how much can a Rifleman fire with a Mandrayn, St Killman, or M96 before his own self generated smoke bank makes it impossible for him to find any targets without moving?

For that matter, I can see a Church firing line firing not to hit Charisian troops, but to create impenetrable smoke banks to conceal themselves from snipers.

A round a second is not going to happen with a bolt action. At least not for the average soldier on the battlefield. A world class, champion shooter working under ideal circumstances *might* be able to achieve that rate. But for average soldiers in the field, I expect the highest rate of sustained fire is going to be more like a round every 3 seconds. Maybe a round every 2 seconds in point-blank range situations such as fending off an enemy charge.

Smoke doesn't always hang around, it depends on the environmental conditions. No wind and of course it will hang around approximately fifty or so feet in front of artillery and probably 15 or so feet in front of a heavy infantry formation. However, the emphasis with repeating rifles would be to spread your formation out into a skirmish line or similar formation, meaning less gun-smoke per volley fired when compared to the length of the line. From merely an amateur's point of view, I've noticed that gunsmoke continues to hang around more often on damper days than on clearer, sunny days.

And even smokeless powder creates a faint haze. reference the Royal Artillery in the Boer Wars, they'd follow the manual, placing their guns exactly X feet apart in battery positions and they'd fire as a battery, the "smoke" from the smokeless powder creating a slight haze or shimmer in the air above the position of the battery. The Boers would conceal their few artillery pieces separately, and without the concentration of guns it takes longer for one cannon to generate the amount of haze that would be visible to an alert observer.

High rates of fire are indeed possible with bolt action rifles, assuming they have the "right" sort of locking action. Lee Enfield rifles could generate astonishing rates of fire in the hands of trained troops (ask the Germans during the Battle of Loos, when they thought they were being machine gunned by British battalions, even though the British only had two machine-guns per battalion at the time).

Canadian Ross rifles also were capable of high rates of fire under the right conditions (proper ammunition and a clean gun) due to the straight pull bolt, which could be manipulated faster than the usual "turning" bolt.

German rifles using the "front locking" Mauser action generally could not be fired as fast as their counterparts, but German tactics even then were more "combined arms" and emphasized fire, movement, artillery and machine-gun fire rather than "just" the employment of riflemen.

WRT black powder weapons, yes, smoke will be a huge issue, but dispersed skirmish lines will help reduce the effects and the riflemen (and gunners) should be trained to fire on "fixed lines", covering areas with fire and suppressing enemy movement, even at night or when observed fire isn't possible.

Thucydides wrote:High rates of fire are indeed possible with bolt action rifles, assuming they have the "right" sort of locking action. Lee Enfield rifles could generate astonishing rates of fire in the hands of trained troops (ask the Germans during the Battle of Loos, when they thought they were being machine gunned by British battalions, even though the British only had two machine-guns per battalion at the time).

Canadian Ross rifles also were capable of high rates of fire under the right conditions (proper ammunition and a clean gun) due to the straight pull bolt, which could be manipulated faster than the usual "turning" bolt.

German rifles using the "front locking" Mauser action generally could not be fired as fast as their counterparts, but German tactics even then were more "combined arms" and emphasized fire, movement, artillery and machine-gun fire rather than "just" the employment of riflemen.

WRT black powder weapons, yes, smoke will be a huge issue, but dispersed skirmish lines will help reduce the effects and the riflemen (and gunners) should be trained to fire on "fixed lines", covering areas with fire and suppressing enemy movement, even at night or when observed fire isn't possible.

Yep. But at the same time we need to bear in mind the difference between aimed fire and the sort of massed fire needed to stop a charge.

Don

With magazines they should able to fire once per 3-4 seconds, but not for very long. There is no alloy which has very high melting point. So maybe ten minutes at that speed, after that guns will be useful only as club.

Draken wrote:With magazines they should able to fire once per 3-4 seconds, but not for very long. There is no alloy which has very high melting point. So maybe ten minutes at that speed, after that guns will be useful only as club.

That is why early stationary machine guns had water cooled barrels. Anyone know if that problem still exists? I think moving MG shooters are trained to fire short bursts.

DDHv wrote:

Draken wrote:With magazines they should able to fire once per 3-4 seconds, but not for very long. There is no alloy which has very high melting point. So maybe ten minutes at that speed, after that guns will be useful only as club.

That is why early stationary machine guns had water cooled barrels. Anyone know if that problem still exists? I think moving MG shooters are trained to fire short bursts.

5-9 rounds per burst. Basically stroke the trigger and then immediately let up. Which AFAIK is true whether you're operating an M249 SAW, a Browning Machine Gun, or GAU-8 (although the last obviously fires a larger burst for the same trigger action simply by virtue of having a vastly greater rate of fire).

But 1 round every 3-4 seconds (10 rounds a minute or less) is hardly machine guns speeds for rate of fire and would be slow even for semi-automatic rifles. I seriously doubt you're going to melt the barrel of even a Safeholdian rifle at that rate of fire in 10 minutes... assuming the rifleman in question doesn't run out of ammo first.

What's the standard ammo loadout for a rifleman in Safehold again? A modern real life infantryman's standard loadout is 210 rounds in seven 30-round magazines. A Charisian Rifleman is going to be using a TEN round magazine which holds larger bullets, and I'm pretty sure I saw a figure somewhere that was substantially less than what a modern infantryman carries.