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HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)

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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by Undercover Fat Kid   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:10 am

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Thank you, as always, for the snippet, and I'm glad to hear that, despite some issues, things seen to be going well at casa de Weber.
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Death is as a feather,
Duty is as a mountain
This life is a dream
From which we all
Must wake
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by anwi   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:11 am

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Hooked again. And it hard to decide whether these longer snips are more interesting than more frequent ones. Well, the latter make for more speculation, though.

Speaking of that: These breechloaders seems to be decisive on the battlefield. It'll be interesting to see if Rychtair and his Dohlarans can find a viable defensive position. At least the Dohlarans seem to have the moral courage to run for it. However, it'll be interesting to see how the Inquisition will stomach that. If the inquisitors decide to hammer those commanders out of their chairs, it'll be another disaster for the CoGA.

Another interesting point is of course Ahlverez' bandwaggon. It seems there's no hot pursuit on his heels, given the apparent lack of casualties. That should be because the ICA knows where to find him :).
Anyone there who's betting on him getting back to the CoGA lines with his command somewhat intact? I don't. He'll likely not make it to the river in time for a retreat, and then he's trapped like a fish in the desert and no water in sight...
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:18 am

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Dilandu wrote:
But the heretics were doing it. Somehow, they must be loading the accursed things from the breech end, like their damned infantry’s rifles!


Hm. Technically, the early bombards were breechloaders; so, the concept of breech-loading guns would not be something really surprizing. The main problems was the durability and reliability; up until the middle XIX century, the avaliable metal and technology simply was unable to build reliable breechloading gun of great calibre. But the concept was very well-known, so the surprise seems a bit too... surprising.

But do we have any evidence that Safehold ever had a bombard equivalent - so the surprise at a major gun loading from the breech could well be valid.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by Louis R   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:25 am

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You are once again repeating the "if it looks medieval and it walks medieval, it must be medieval" mistake.

Safehold smiths & founders have always been up to the task of creating relatively sophisticated muzzle-loading barrels, and have always had the accompanying understanding of the properties of the materials they were working with: don't ever confuse understanding the _why_ of those properties with the _what_. There is absolutely no reason to think that whoever created the first heavy firearms ever attempted to build anything remotely like those bombards to start with. If they did, it's very unlikely that the idea was not abandoned after the 1st or 2nd experiment blew up, because they'd have been able to figure out why it wasn't working so well. However, it's at least as likely that they never tried it, because they already knew they couldn't get it to work reliably, in the same way that they 'knew' they couldn't get cast iron to work reliably and made their guns with bronze.

AAMOF, properly engineered cannon would have been built in Europe a couple of centuries earlier than they were if the gentlemen with the education to do engineering had been willing to pay enough attention to the filthy creatures who actually worked with their hands to discover that they had an excellent empirical understanding of the properties of the material they worked with and applied that understanding to the development of their marvelous theories.

Dilandu wrote:
But the heretics were doing it. Somehow, they must be loading the accursed things from the breech end, like their damned infantry’s rifles!


Hm. Technically, the early bombards were breechloaders; so, the concept of breech-loading guns would not be something really surprizing. The main problems was the durability and reliability; up until the middle XIX century, the avaliable metal and technology simply was unable to build reliable breechloading gun of great calibre. But the concept was very well-known, so the surprise seems a bit too... surprising.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by BobG   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 11:59 am

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I'm glad to hear that thing are merely busy and chaotic, and not health related. I was getting ... concerned.

Thank you for the snippet!

-- Bob G
SF & Fantasy: The only things better than Chocolate.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by Kakai   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:05 pm

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Thank you, O Mighty Wizard Weber! That sounded like all the troubles in the world decided to fall on your head at the same time, so I hope it will all come to pass soon and without further nasty surprises.

It's good to hear from general Ahlverez. Forty thousand is, I believe, about as many as it was estimated here on the forums? Pretty good result, really, although seeing how he had just appeared in the story, things are about to turn for worse for him.

anwi wrote:Anyone there who's betting on him getting back to the CoGA lines with his command somewhat intact? I don't. He'll likely not make it to the river in time for a retreat, and then he's trapped like a fish in the desert and no water in sight...


I'm actually giving him a fairly good chances of returning home (or at least close to it), if only because I don't think RFC introduced him only to discard him after two books. Not to mention that it seems that Dohlar is about to become another hot zone on the map and army commander with experienced soldiers would be a nice addition to the mix.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by USMA74   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:21 pm

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Great to hear from our collective drug dealer again. Can well imagine what the Weber three ring circus is like. Glad that it wasn't anything real serious.

Given what the EOC and RoS know about the Sword of Schuler crimes I didn't see anyone really caring about one side battle outcomes.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by Randomiser   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:39 pm

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RFC wrote: I can’t promise that I will be maintaining a regular schedule with snippets from here on, because of those other projects I mentioned, but I will try to be least a little more punctual than this last round.


We quite understand and forgive you entirely - provided you tell us what the other projects are. :D
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by Dilandu   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:41 pm

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But do we have any evidence that Safehold ever had a bombard equivalent - so the surprise at a major gun loading from the breech could well be valid.


They used meal powder for some long time; the early breech-loading bombards was build breech-loading not because of "inadequate metal", but because with meal power, the really big cannon is much easier to reload and clean from breech than from muzzle.
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Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)
Post by Dilandu   » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:49 pm

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You are once again repeating the "if it looks medieval and it walks medieval, it must be medieval" mistake.


The corned powder appeared only in 1500th; the artillery were in common use at least for a century before. The reason of building the breech-loading bombards was not the metal, as far as i knew, it was the powder. The meal powder isn't wery powerfull; to have a good anti-fortification effect, you must have a very heavy shot. And a very heavy shot in this time means VERY big guns. And to load and clean and transport a VERY big muzzle-loaders, that worked on meal powder...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ze_15c.png

Do you think Ottomans were incompetent in metallurgy, or they simply have a lot of fun, building this enormously big and enormously expencieve guns? ;)
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Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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