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Machine Guns in Safehold

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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by Castenea   » Thu Nov 19, 2015 7:22 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
Panzer wrote:In trench warfare, though, I believe that the doughboys during WW1 found shotguns useful.


Charis is developing (has developed?) and probably fielding a pump-action shotgun (and may be developing a pump-action rifle.) If they make them with replaceable magazines they'll be almost as good as automatic weapons.

Harold, while I believe there is no reason pump action rifles cannot be made, you will run into the same problem as in lever action, where is the magazine located and how is it shaped? Most modern pump action shotguns and lever action rifles use tube magazines, which work fine for most shot gun rounds, but are very contraindicated for center-fire spitzer pointed rounds. Charis has skipped the rim-fire rounds that most lever action rifles were originally designed to use. Almost all shotgun rounds I have seen are flat tipped.
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by Weird Harold   » Thu Nov 19, 2015 8:03 pm

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Castenea wrote:Harold, while I believe there is no reason pump action rifles cannot be made, you will run into the same problem as in lever action, where is the magazine located and how is it shaped? ...


The first google hit for "pump action rifle" is the Remington Model 7600™

Image

Note the removable box magazine (holding five rounds but probably adaptable to a high capacity Magazine).

That is the pump action rifle I hunted with in my youth and what I picture when I think "pump-action rifle." If you hold the trigger down and work the action, you can empty the five round magazine -- with some accuracy -- in about four seconds.
Last edited by Weird Harold on Fri Nov 20, 2015 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by doug941   » Thu Nov 19, 2015 10:15 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
Castenea wrote:Charis is developing (has developed?) and probably fielding a pump-action shotgun (and may be developing a pump-action rifle.)

Harold, while I believe there is no reason pump action rifles cannot be made, you will run into the same problem as in lever action, where is the magazine located and how is it shaped? ...


The first google hit for "pump action rifle" is the Remington Model 7600™

Image

Note the removable box magazine (holding five rounds but probably adaptable to a high capacity Magazine).

That is the pump action rifle I hunted with in my youth and what I picture when I think "pump-action rifle." If you hold the trigger down and work the action, you can empty the five round magazine -- with some accuracy -- in about four seconds.[/quote]

The Winchester M1895 was a lever action rifle/carbine made with a box magazine. Approx 300,000 were made for the Imperial Russian Army during WW1, many were not delivered due to various Russian excuses. It was chambered for a number of shells including 7.62x54mm R (Russian), .303 British and 30-06. The main problem with a lever gun other than the afore mentioned bullet/primer strike issue is the difficulty of operating the lever when prone. The French avoided the bullet/primer issue with their Lebel rifle in two ways. 1) a sharply tapered case and 2) a groove surrounding the primer which caught the tip of the bullet.
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by Henry Brown   » Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:07 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:All of the examples you listed are crew-served "light artillery" weapons best used from fixed defensive positions. None of them are particularly useful for the Charisian preference for mobility and offense.
*****SNIP****


It is true that the early machine guns were heavy and not ideally suited for mobile operations. However, they could still serve as a indirect force multiplier for offensive operations. For example, a good general such as Green Valley or Eastshare could use machine guns in a defensive manner to secure portions of the line. With the firepower of machine guns, the number of troops needed to hold those positions would be reduced. Which in turn would free up more men for offensive operations in other areas of a battlefield.
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by jtg452   » Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:39 pm

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Castenea wrote: Charis has skipped the rim-fire rounds that most lever action rifles were originally designed to use. Almost all shotgun rounds I have seen are flat tipped.

Actually, most lever action rifles were chambered for centerfire rounds.

I can think of only 3 successful designs that were rimfire- the Spencer in all it incarnations, the Henry and the 'improved Henry' the Winchester 1866.

The other two descendants of the Henry (they used a toggle link action based on the Henry design), the Winchester 1873 (the original platform for the .44-40 or .44WCF) and 1876 (best known for being chambered in .45-75 Winchester), were centerfires. So were the Evans (interesting guns, had a helical magazine in the buttstock with a high capacity but it took forever to load), All the Marlins (1881, 1889, 1894, 1895) and all of the John Moses Browning Winchester designs (1886, 1892, 1894 (the original platform for the .30-30), 1895). The last 3 Browning designs are also smokeless proofed guns. The Winchester '76, '86, and '95 along with the Marlin '95 were chambered in rounds comparable to what Charis is presently using and the Winchester '95 (the magazine fed lever action mentioned above) was also chambered in 7.62x54R, .30-40 Krag, and .30-'06.

Then there's the Savage '99. It had a rotary box magazine and some of the later ones were chambered in .308 Winchester.
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by Duck6actual   » Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:56 pm

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You all make good points about why early machine guns won't/can't work.
But I think you are going about this wrong. First of all what about the naval side? Gattlings or Maxims would be ideal for CIWS rolls and then let's think bigger. What about a black powder variant of a 40mm Bofors or even a hand cranked 25mm Bushmaster? To top it off these rounds are small enough it could be fairly easy to make the sabot rounds. This could be a great deterrent for those screw galleys
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by Weird Harold   » Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:57 pm

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Henry Brown wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:All of the examples you listed are crew-served "light artillery" weapons best used from fixed defensive positions. None of them are particularly useful for the Charisian preference for mobility and offense.
*****SNIP****


It is true that the early machine guns were heavy and not ideally suited for mobile operations. However, they could still serve as a indirect force multiplier for offensive operations.
*****SNIP****


Which provides more weight of fire?

1) A ten-man squad serving two light artllery "heavy" machine guns.

2) that same ten-man squad with ten magazine fed select fire weapons of the same caliber and roughly equivalent rate of fire?

Which is more mobile and can attack, retreat, or engage multiple threats better?

Even if downgraded to assault rifle calibers, number 2 is the correct answer to both.

Charis might find larger automatic weapons -- like a 40mm Bofors or Hotchkiss Rotary cannon -- useful for the Navy, but smaller, man-portable automatic weapons (or even pump action rifles/shotguns with replaceable box magazines) will provide more offensive advantage than "Heavy Machine Guns."

Once the ICA gets motorized and/or gets tanks/self-mobile artillery, something like the M2 .50 BMG or a .37mm Maxim might be useful for the ICA, but as long as they're packing everything on men and horses, they don't need heavy, belt-fed, crew-served machine guns.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by Keith_w   » Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:00 am

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Weird Harold wrote: quote="Henry Brown" quote="Weird Harold"
All of the examples you listed are crew-served "light artillery" weapons best used from fixed defensive positions. None of them are particularly useful for the Charisian preference for mobility and offense.
*****SNIP****
/quote

It is true that the early machine guns were heavy and not ideally suited for mobile operations. However, they could still serve as a indirect force multiplier for offensive operations.
*****SNIP**** /quote

Which provides more weight of fire?

1) A ten-man squad serving two light artllery "heavy" machine guns.

2) that same ten-man squad with ten magazine fed select fire weapons of the same caliber and roughly equivalent rate of fire?

Which is more mobile and can attack, retreat, or engage multiple threats better?

Even if downgraded to assault rifle calibers, number 2 is the correct answer to both.

Charis might find larger automatic weapons -- like a 40mm Bofors or Hotchkiss Rotary cannon -- useful for the Navy, but smaller, man-portable automatic weapons (or even pump action rifles/shotguns with replaceable box magazines) will provide more offensive advantage than "Heavy Machine Guns."

Once the ICA gets motorized and/or gets tanks/self-mobile artillery, something like the M2 .50 BMG or a .37mm Maxim might be useful for the ICA, but as long as they're packing everything on men and horses, they don't need heavy, belt-fed, crew-served machine guns.


On the other hand, you have a 1.5 million man Mighty Host of God and the Archangels starting offensive operations next summer. Heavy machine guns, heavy artillery, heavy "man-portable" mortars all sound like a good idea to me.
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A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by JeffEngel   » Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:42 am

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Keith_w wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:Once the ICA gets motorized and/or gets tanks/self-mobile artillery, something like the M2 .50 BMG or a .37mm Maxim might be useful for the ICA, but as long as they're packing everything on men and horses, they don't need heavy, belt-fed, crew-served machine guns.


On the other hand, you have a 1.5 million man Mighty Host of God and the Archangels starting offensive operations next summer. Heavy machine guns, heavy artillery, heavy "man-portable" mortars all sound like a good idea to me.

Ammunition is going to be a harsher bottleneck than guns or even soldiers for some time - and it's going to stay harsher than guns for a long time. Rate of fire is very nice, but they don't have supplies to keep up higher rates of fire indefinitely, and keeping troops supplied with them with a muscle-powered logistics train is going to be difficult.

I'm sure all sorts of very high fire rate options would dance like delightful death fairies before BGV's eyes, and Howsmyn would chortle at the though of his artificers taking on those challenges. But they won't be able to make extensive use of such weapons without having the production lines and logistics trains to feed them ammunition at the rate they'd be chewing it up, and those aren't likely to be present in this war.
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Re: Machine Guns in Safehold
Post by Expert snuggler   » Fri Nov 20, 2015 1:41 pm

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Yes, "experts study logistics".

I hope someone in the Empire is thinking seriously about diesel supply trucks.
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