(SPOILERS) New Weapons

SciFi90 wrote:Of greater use would be a machine gun, either water-cooled (like a .30 caliber) or air-cooled (like a .50 Caliber). Ammunition and linkage problems would have to be solved.

RogueWarrior wrote:It is time for Hovercraft to enter Lake Pei in winter with platoons of mortars for a surprise attack on the Temple.

pokermind wrote:

C. O. Thompson wrote:OK... the demand to surrendered Cltnthan, Rayno and top staff would be in the pamphlets/leaflets along with a basic "do at home" experiment that explains how an airship operates; but yes, I saw the parallel to Oz when I submitted part of the idea. I think you have to admit that such a demonstration of superior capacities along with invitations to Rainbow Waters to negotiate an alliance with Charis and an invitation to avoid destruction of the entire city of Zion... which I don't think that Cayleb and/or Stohnar would approve anyway. Taking the Temples rocket production off the table would produce a big enough bang that it might be heard across the lake/bay and wold also demonstrate concern for the factory workers.

So you hardware historians...
How many steps in development from the Trapdoor to a version of the Browning .50-caliber M2 machine gun? How about a version of a Gatling gun. My recall is that the Trapdoor version of the bolt action rifle is more like a WWI weapon and the breach loading rifles were Civil War. I know that Winchester had leaver action repeating rifles between then but Safehold development seems to bypass that approach.

If air ships were introduced (and hot air recon platforms were on hand in the Civil War) they would need armaments that scare the cr*p out of the AOG and Mighty Host but must avoid the open flame of the rockets

I don't know anything... I only ask questions

On our world the Gatling gun was introduced before the trap-Door, the trap door Springfield was a conversion of the Civil War Springfield rifled musket into a breach loading metallic cartridge firearm.

With OWL's help they are bypassing steps the Gatling Gun is much heavier than a Ma Duse, the Gatling was often mounted on a cannon like carriage. It used more material than a Browning MG, in short better to go to the Browning direct probably the same cartridge as the M-96 to save the logistic headaches of another type of ammunition.

Poker

evilauthor wrote:I seriously doubt Charis is going to develop dedicated machine guns for a while now. Everyone who isn't in the Inner Circle is still thinking in terms of aimed fire for infantryman. That means the next logical step is semi-automatic weapons that automatically chamber a new round every time one is fired but only fires one bullet per trigger pull. Fully automatic fire in that view would be a waste of ammo.

Besides which, with a semi-auto weapon, you can approximate full auto just by pulling the trigger many times really, really fast. Edit: Until situations where soldiers need to do this become relatively common, no one is going to think putting a full auto function on a rifle is going to be worthwhile.

As for killing infantry en masse, that's what grenades, mortars, and artillery is for. I'd expect to see Charis develop a semi-auto grenade launcher before I see a machine gun of any kind.

n7axw wrote:I doubt that we will get to semi-automatics or machine guns before the end of the current war sinse the M96s are superior to the St. Klymans and the current challenge is to produce enough breech loading fifles to get the allied armies rearmed with breech loaders.

My own thought is to wonder if perhaps as a stop gap measure, the allies might not make use of Zhwaigair's design to convert over their own muzzle loaders which at the moment are concentrated with the RSA. That could be a fix until the better stuff is more widely available.

Don

Henry Brown wrote:

n7axw wrote:I doubt that we will get to semi-automatics or machine guns before the end of the current war sinse the M96s are superior to the St. Klymans and the current challenge is to produce enough breech loading fifles to get the allied armies rearmed with breech loaders.

My own thought is to wonder if perhaps as a stop gap measure, the allies might not make use of Zhwaigair's design to convert over their own muzzle loaders which at the moment are concentrated with the RSA. That could be a fix until the better stuff is more widely available.

Don

I've wondered about converting all the muzzle loaders the RSA is using to the St. Klyman design myself. It seems like a quick way to dramatically increase the effectiveness of the RSA. Assuming the conversions can be done without cutting into the production of new rifles...

Henry Brown wrote:I've wondered about converting all the muzzle loaders the RSA is using to the St. Klyman design myself. It seems like a quick way to dramatically increase the effectiveness of the RSA. Assuming the conversions can be done without cutting into the production of new rifles...

They probably could do it - if they officially knew how. I don't think we have seen any textev that anyone but the inner circle knows what the AoG is doing to convert their rifles to breechloading.