(SPOILERS) New Weapons

unlucky caz wrote:
The "knee mortar" could be very useful. Something light weight that a infantry squad could use for suppression fire. Each trooper carries a few rounds for it in thier standard pack with all their normal stuff. Similar to how a squad would carry the ammo for the support MG in WWII. And as the HE rounds come into production the large mortars will not be needed as much as they could have the same blasting charge size in a smaller "shell".

If you are referring to the WW2 Japanese 'knee mortar', first, it wasn't a mortar- it was a grenade launcher. Secondly, the name is a serious misnomer. The base plate is curved but was intended to be placed on the ground. Shooting a 'knee mortar' off your thigh when kneeling will get you a broken femur. It is a kind of cool invention. There's no bipod, so to the shooter has to keep one hand on the tube and adjust the angle by guesstimate and experience. To fire, you pull a lanyard at the bottom.

I heard the story about shooting a knee mortar in that manner when I was a little kid. My Grandfather was in a heavy weapons platoon on Guadalcanal and saw the results of trying to shoot a 'knee mortar' that way first hand.

I do agree that something like it would be handy but let's go with a different design on the base plate this time. Even with a single operator, you should be able to put out a pretty good rate of fire. Someone well trained with a good 'eye' for shooting one would be quite deadly.


On a different topic, I found a link of Mike Venturino discussing a trip he made to a military testing facility where they were using state of the art equipment (radar telemetry and such) to test several Sharps buffalo gun rounds. Since the current Charisan rifle round is quite similar, I thought that some here would enjoy it. The results (especially the maximum range achieved) is jaw dropping. They were able to match the distance of the legendary Billy Dixon shot at Adobe Walls with only a 4.5 to 5 degree elevation of the muzzle. That much elevation would have been easy to adjust for with even just the barrel mounted rear sights of the guns of the period- much less something designed for long range sighting like a tang sight.

http://powderburns.tripod.com/sharps.html

All they really have to do is send out conversion kits to the unit armorers like the AOG did. They would have to come up with the screws, the taps and whatever other parts needed. Nybar had gotten kits at Fairkyn and was achieving a respectable number of conversions a day. No reason the RSA can't do the same. The kits can probably be manufactured in Siddarmark at one of the Protector's new manufacturing plants.

Don

I suspect the biggest bar to the Allies churning out conversion kits for Church rifles is that lack of standardization (at least by Charisian standards) in Church Rifles. Conversion kits and spare parts made for rifles from one shop won't fit rifles made by a different shop.

Remember that Chuch rifles, especially its older ones, won't be standardized enough to have fully interchangeable parts. That's changed somewhat for more recently produced weapons, but only for weapons from the same maker.

evilauthor wrote:I suspect the biggest bar to the Allies churning out conversion kits for Church rifles is that lack of standardization (at least by Charisian standards) in Church Rifles. Conversion kits and spare parts made for rifles from one shop won't fit rifles made by a different shop.

Remember that Chuch rifles, especially its older ones, won't be standardized enough to have fully interchangeable parts. That's changed somewhat for more recently produced weapons, but only for weapons from the same maker.

Remember that they aren't standardized for the church either. From the sound of things about all that's done to to the rifle itself is to drill the hole, tap and apply the screw. About the only thing that actually has to match would be the tapped out hole in the barrel and the screw.

Unless you are aiming for interchangability of parts among weapons, the only real standardization you need is to get the barrels close enough to the same that you can manufacture ammumition in bulk. The church has accomplished that much.

Don

n7axw wrote:All they really have to do is send out conversion kits to the unit armorers like the AOG did. They would have to come up with the screws, the taps and whatever other parts needed. Nybar had gotten kits at Fairkyn and was achieving a respectable number of conversions a day. No reason the RSA can't do the same. The kits can probably be manufactured in Siddarmark at one of the Protector's new manufacturing plants.

Don

Which probably means the Allies now have the conversion kits in hand. I don't think they will have any problems, and shouldn't have any hesitation, about using them and making their own versions. I think by this time the Siddarmarkian command will have that amount of initiative even without any Charisian prompting.

n7axw wrote: SNIP

I s.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 loader

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

Haha - neat idea - very much poetic justice, turning the COGA inventiveness against themselves

After Merlin and Nahrmahn have spend some much time kicking themselves over being 'too clever' with the original Mahndryns, I'd say this would appeal to them immensely!

Weird Harold wrote:

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.

Better would be an assault rifle with select fire -- an AK or BAR derivative in a battle rifle chambering (the same ammo as the bolt-action rifles being issued now.)

Heavy machine guns like you propose are defensive, crew-served artillery. What the ICN needs is a light, offensive, weapon in wide circulation, that doesn't tie up an entire squad for each weapon.

From a technical standpoint, is it harder to manufacture something like the AK or the BAR (or the Bren, which was not mentioned) than the heavy belt-fed machine guns?

I know in historical terms, the heavy belt fed guns like the Maxim, the Vickers, and the .50 M2 came first. Then light machine guns such as the Bren and the BAR came. Finally, assault rifles such as the AK were introduced. What I'm wondering is, are the later, lighter weapons more complicated and harder to make? Or is the reason they were slower to come historically because the concept of the light machine gun needed time to develop?

Henry Brown wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Better would be an assault rifle with select fire -- an AK or BAR derivative in a battle rifle chambering (the same ammo as the bolt-action rifles being issued now.) ...

From a technical standpoint, is it harder to manufacture something like the AK or the BAR (or the Bren, which was not mentioned) than the heavy belt-fed machine guns?

The BAR and Thompson SMG were precision machined firearms. The Thompson was later redesigned for easier mass production. Both are within Charisian technical abilities. The AK-47 was designed for ease of manufacturing from the start and is probably even within CoGA technical abilities.

A Bren derivative is probably also possible as is a Sten derivative. (Although RFC has said in previous discusions he sees no immediate need for a sub-machine gun like the Sten or Thompson.)

The main advantage of any magazine-fed automatic weapon is that Charis is already using magazine fed actions on their Bolt Action Mandrayhns. They wouldn't have to develop or design that part of the system.

Further advantages in making a select fire, man-portable automatic rifle (aka "assault rifle") is that an entire squad can lay down automatic fire instead of a single machine gun for half a squad -- and they can fire-and-maneuver while doing so.

The CoGA is going to bring to the battleground some new rockets that were compared to Russian katyusha rockets from WWII.

Charis is intending to bring to production a better version using better propellants with dynamite explosive charges that results in longer range and more destructive power.

What I am wondering is if they couldn't also start to make man portable shoulder fire versions of these. Can any body say "R P G." They could come in handy in street fighting or in ambushes. And unlike the Harchong "sling" weapon they can be fired from cover. (more or less)

The CoGA katyusha is going to change things about fixed fortifications and trench warfare. I see next summer's battles being more a case of manoeuvre and fire operations. I can see modified gorilla style of fighting where you hit them hard then reposition before the katyusha's can be put to use and then fire again. I want lots of 3 inch mortars that small units can move around with easily.

When katyusha's are involved, I cant see sitting in one place letting the CoGA armies use them effectively. Manoeuvre the enemy into an open position where anti-personal shrapnel shells can be used to devastating effect.

The actual biggest bar to machine guns and other full auto weapons is the limited amount of brass cartridges. Charis' current brass cartridge production is projected BARELY to keep up with demand of existing weapons. And that only if they use the ammo conservatively.

Maybe in the next war, ammo stocks will be plentiful enough to justify full auto weapons. But production of brass cartridge ammo for THIS war started in the middle of it, so there's built up stockpiles to draw from.