HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)

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.

In Real Life you may well be right, but is there any textual evidence for breech-loading bombards on Safehold? If not, then they obviously didn't follow that track. What happened in RL doesn't necessarily happen on Safehold, as your complaints about the absence of Monitors shows.

Dilandu wrote:

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?

I vote for fun

There are days I would kill for a good map.


.VI.
Fifty Miles East of Malys,
The South March Lands,
Republic of Siddarmark.

Anybody know where there is a map that shows Malys?
I can't seem to find this on any of the online maps.

Also any idea what that time delay fuse is made of.
I'm not a pyrotechnics expert or chemical engineer so I'm hard pressed to think of a compound that burns that slowly and reliably for that long.
" a very slow-burning compound that crept along the channel at a rate of only a foot an hour."
Slow match maybe?

Maximum of two hours and burns at a foot an hour so two feet of material. Disk shaped bronze casting so the two feet is coiled. So about five to six inches across? (I'm allowing for a barrier between turns of the fuse)with divisions for two minute times. 120 minutes divided by two, 60 divisions. or 30 divisions a foot, so 30th of a foot, Comes to 4/10's of an inch between divisions. OK that accuracy seems doable. Actually thought the divisions would be closer together than that for some reason.

As for the effects of the guns on the earthen batteries, all I could think was Vicksburg, but that's probably an American perspective. ( I must admit I did have a quick flash on "The Guns of Navarone" though for the visual picture. but naaaa)

Larry

We all speculated on the number of troops Sir Rainos still has--30 thou of his own isn't much given what he started with.
Those 10 thou Desnairians "may" be a huge pain for him. Do they try to insist on any of their earlier prerogatives? Are they horse? Are they dismounted horse? Are they those woeful abused infantry? Are they just hungry mouths? Who are their commanding officers? How many of those thousands of his own are his supply train people?

Food shouldn't be too much of a problem- I'm sure they are butchering their dead animals-(ick).
I am surprised that he hasn't considered abandoning most of his artillery already. He must know that he's only trying to save his troops at this point. He must have transport problems that artillery animals would help with.

Interesting place to end.

Randomiser wrote:
In Real Life you may well be right, but is there any textual evidence for breech-loading bombards on Safehold? If not, then they obviously didn't follow that track. What happened in RL doesn't necessarily happen on Safehold, as your complaints about the absence of Monitors shows.

Well:

1) The tehcnical progress generally follow the logical path.

2) The "Writ" definitely aren't include anything about artillery, so the pre-knowlege isn't the factor.

3) The major reason for bombards was the need of destruction of heavy fortification; which, obviously, the Safehold also have.

So, logically, the Safeholdian should at least try this concept.

Dilandu wrote:

Randomiser wrote:
In Real Life you may well be right, but is there any textual evidence for breech-loading bombards on Safehold? If not, then they obviously didn't follow that track. What happened in RL doesn't necessarily happen on Safehold, as your complaints about the absence of Monitors shows.

Well:

1) The tehcnical progress generally follow the logical path.

2) The "Writ" definitely aren't include anything about artillery, so the pre-knowlege isn't the factor.

3) The major reason for bombards was the need of destruction of heavy fortification; which, obviously, the Safehold also have.

So, logically, the Safeholdian should at least try this concept.

Dilandu, I think you are missing one thing: There has been no real need for that on Safehold until now, which means there has been no pressure do develop it and on top of that we have the proscriptions which slows development.

Which in the end means that it has not been that logical for Safeholdians to try the concept.

Joat42 wrote:Dilandu, I think you are missing one thing: There has been no real need for that on Safehold until now, which means there has been no pressure do develop it and on top of that we have the proscriptions which slows development.

Which in the end means that it has not been that logical for Safeholdians to try the concept.

Are there no war on Safehold before? And the artillery were invented only for saluting and shooting against especially bad wyverns?

I must admit that it's theoretically possible to miss the early breechloading guns. But not likely.

Larry wrote:There are days I would kill for a good map.


.VI.
Fifty Miles East of Malys,
The South March Lands,
Republic of Siddarmark.

Anybody know where there is a map that shows Malys?
I can't seem to find this on any of the online maps.


Larry

That's what I want to know too. I can't find it anywhere either.

Interesting snippet. Thanks David. I found myself a bit sorry that Dohlaran major didn't make it.

So we finally get a sniff of Ahlverez... My own bet is that he makes it home. If he can manage a crossing if the Sherdian, he probably will. So there is no hot pursuit. Or at least we haven't been told about it yet. Perhaps that means that additional troops are being rushed to Hanth...

The next snippet probably picks up with Ahlverez. We will probably learn what he knows, where he is at, and where he anticipates going. Ahlverez's situation reminds me a bit of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow....

Don

n7axw wrote: Ahlverez's situation reminds me a bit of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow....

Don

Hmm, that is an interesting comparison.
.