[Spoiler] Machineguns

PeterZ wrote:All true. Yet who does Charis want to attack? No one. Who WANTS to attack Charis? No one. Complicated machineguns help the defenders without offering much to attackers.

When things progress to a stage where Charis needs to attack, break out the automatic rifles and steam tank designs for production. We know there are better ship designs in reserve. Why not have other weapons in reserve as well?

The question, how do you keep a relatively simple concept like a blow-back weapon from being developed independently?
For the turbine driven ships they keep the lids on developing the necessary transmission in the hope that no one can make them without a pressing need to develop accurate enough machining.
Machining standards on machine guns can be awful, still resulting in a working gun.

Whitecold wrote:

PeterZ wrote:All true. Yet who does Charis want to attack? No one. Who WANTS to attack Charis? No one. Complicated machineguns help the defenders without offering much to attackers.

When things progress to a stage where Charis needs to attack, break out the automatic rifles and steam tank designs for production. We know there are better ship designs in reserve. Why not have other weapons in reserve as well?

The question, how do you keep a relatively simple concept like a blow-back weapon from being developed independently?
For the turbine driven ships they keep the lids on developing the necessary transmission in the hope that no one can make them without a pressing need to develop accurate enough machining.
Machining standards on machine guns can be awful, still resulting in a working gun.

Let others develop the automatic action. Let them discover all the requirements to deploy an automatic rifle. Let them solve for ammo production problems. If they solve all that, they have just ran hard along the industrialization path.

My point is that Charis shouldn't develop automatic rifles until they need to attack some nation. Developing heavy machineguns is a better transition step.

PeterZ wrote:Develop Gatlings and pneumatic powered rotating machineguns first. Keep automatic rifles and semi-auto pistols in reserve. Better to promote designs that advantage defense initially. Keep semi-auto and automatic weapons in reserve. If others develop them, so be it. Automatic rifles are attack oriented weapons and will lead to more aggressive diplomacy. Better to highlight defense and encourage nations to ompete in economic contests.

Hey folks! Have none of you heard of the Lewis or Bren guns?!
Bren especially is the best light machine gun ever built, it allows mobile machine gun support
Please go check on such things all of you

As I said in other threads, if Charis introduced a SANE combat round like the Grendel 6.5mm rather than the overpowered "buffalo killers" dumb military mentality had prior to experience late in WW2
Then you'd have a superb round for any battle rifles or light machinegun or GPMG you have

PeterZ wrote:All true. Yet who does Charis want to attack? No one. Who WANTS to attack Charis? No one. Complicated machineguns help the defenders without offering much to attackers.

When things progress to a stage where Charis needs to attack, break out the automatic rifles and steam tank designs for production.

Waiting until you're attacked to put a new rifle into production is about the dumbest strategy I can think of. If the attacker happens to have developed something like the PPSh-41 submachine gun, Charis could be over-run before production could be ramped up.

The PPSh is a magazine-fed selective fire submachine gun using an open bolt, blowback action. Made largely of stamped steel, it can be loaded with either a box or drum magazine and fires the 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol round.

There are other similar examples around, like the US' M3 "Grease Gun" in .45 ACP.

Especially in Peacetime Charis isn't going to want to spend the time and money required to equip every strong point an strategic installation with Crew-served Machine Guns when they can equip a dozen guards with select fire weapons for the same cost and spread out the eyes and ears needed to detect an attack.

You always go to war with the equipment you have when war breaks out. If the enemy has equipped for attacking, and you've equipped solely for defense, you're going to find out your "Maginot Line" is the wrong defense in the wrong place and find out that an "impregnable defense" is just a speed-bump to your enemy.

Whitecold wrote:The question, how do you keep a relatively simple concept like a blow-back weapon from being developed independently?
For the turbine driven ships they keep the lids on developing the necessary transmission in the hope that no one can make them without a pressing need to develop accurate enough machining.
Machining standards on machine guns can be awful, still resulting in a working gun.

Well, so far I think Charis is the only nation with smokeless powder. It is not impossible to build a recoil operated BP machine gun. In fact Hiram Maxim did exactly that, the Maxim gun is several years older than the first smokeless powder cartridge. But a BP machine gun is going to be MUCH less effective. Think about it, after 10 or 20 rounds the machine gunner's vision is going to be completely obscured by smoke.

Who's arguing for Charis waits until it's attacked? I said wait until they NEED to attack. Given their electronic recon, they'll know in enough time to ramp up production.

phillies wrote:There is this automatic weapon named after its illustrious INventor...Kalashnikov. Working copies have been made by Afghan blacksmiths, though I suspect they had some machine tools. It is useful on the attack, and relatively speaking not hard to make.

And the AK was designed with the assumption the workers making it might be drunk so tolerances couldn't be that precise, and that it would not be properly maintained in the field. I remember hearing about one dug out from sand after laying there who knew how long that still fired after being cleaned. Relatively slow firing, not terribly accurate, but robust as hell.

For another example, consider the British Sten gun from WWII, designed to be made if needed by village smiths. Highly portable, relatively easily concealed, and good for irregular forces, but poor range and accuracy and not a weapon for regular troops concerned with being able to accurate engage the enemy at a distance.

Fully automatic weapons are within the capability of Safehold industry (or at least Charis's industry), but fully automatic isn't the advantage you might think. Put the weapon on full auto and fire off a magazine. The muzzle climbs uncontrollably, and you're lucky if you get two or three rounds on target. US troops are trained to stay on single shot or perhaps three round bursts.

Machine guns are bipod or tripod mounted in fixed positions and can be fired full auto. Weapons carried by an individual intended to be used as a rifle shouldn't be save in special situations.
______
Dennis

PeterZ wrote:Who's arguing for Charis waits until it's attacked? I said wait until they NEED to attack. Given their electronic recon, they'll know in enough time to ramp up production.

Note that

A) having a new cartridge, which they desperately need and stockpiles of it in huge amounts

B) manufacturing systems and experience

C) suitable designs WITH practical experienced feed back from the troops

Requires a truly monumental amount of effort and time
This cannot be done in a quick response, it's absolutely impossible!


They should do extensive testing in as secure places as they can to work out practical issues that require feedback on all sides so initial production is secure and weapons are.ok
Then ship machining out where factories are

Note that with Owl's help they can come up with improved designs much quicker, but it's still a LOT of work to make a practical weapon system, enough to equip troops, spares, training and ammo
Creating a weapon system for a nation's military is a colossal under taking


EM 2 rifle and Bren gun are IMHO perfect for Charisian combat tactics, which are about manoeuvre....belt fed guns suck doomwhale nuts as *squad weapons* cause they are just too damn heavy, awkward,
belts are a major source of trouble and dirt jams...magazine fed gun is vastly easier to wield and feed when it also can use same magazine as squaddies' rifles henceforth I keep saying BREN GUN! Love it praise it and cuddle it!
It's also the first practical quick change barrel system

Other types can be designed for defence, vehicles etc
Quick change barrel .50 Browning, for example
Also....auto cannons

Steam powered .50 cal minigun might be an idea for ships or rather, riverine vessels, as they can take weight of weapon, enormous ammo supply and also can supply steam
Not so good for land vehicles imho for same reasons
You do NOT want.live steam lines in a fighting vehicle as that is just asking to get crews parboiled
and miniguns chew through huge quantities of ammo where as cargo space in an armoured car or tank is limited
Great weapon for a river gun boat however as it has range and power to be able to suppress or penetrate/destroy light fortifications and light vehicles...and sheer intimidation which is a useful factor

.50 minigun damn that would scare hell out of you ripping over a river!

PeterZ wrote:Who's arguing for Charis waits until it's attacked? I said wait until they NEED to attack. Given their electronic recon, they'll know in enough time to ramp up production.

SilverbladeTE wrote:
Note that

A) having a new cartridge, which they desperately need and stockpiles of it in huge amounts

B) manufacturing systems and experience

C) suitable designs WITH practical experienced feed back from the troops

Requires a truly monumental amount of effort and time
This cannot be done in a quick response, it's absolutely impossible!


They should do extensive testing in as secure places as they can to work out practical issues that require feedback on all sides so initial production is secure and weapons are.ok
Then ship machining out where factories are

Note that with Owl's help they can come up with improved designs much quicker, but it's still a LOT of work to make a practical weapon system, enough to equip troops, spares, training and ammo
Creating a weapon system for a nation's military is a colossal under taking


EM 2 rifle and Bren gun are IMHO perfect for Charisian combat tactics, which are about manoeuvre....belt fed guns suck doomwhale nuts as *squad weapons* cause they are just too damn heavy, awkward,
belts are a major source of trouble and dirt jams...magazine fed gun is vastly easier to wield and feed when it also can use same magazine as squaddies' rifles henceforth I keep saying BREN GUN! Love it praise it and cuddle it!
It's also the first practical quick change barrel system

Other types can be designed for defence, vehicles etc
Quick change barrel .50 Browning, for example
Also....auto cannons

Steam powered .50 cal minigun might be an idea for ships or rather, riverine vessels, as they can take weight of weapon, enormous ammo supply and also can supply steam
Not so good for land vehicles imho for same reasons
You do NOT want.live steam lines in a fighting vehicle as that is just asking to get crews parboiled
and miniguns chew through huge quantities of ammo where as cargo space in an armoured car or tank is limited
Great weapon for a river gun boat however as it has range and power to be able to suppress or penetrate/destroy light fortifications and light vehicles...and sheer intimidation which is a useful factor

.50 minigun damn that would scare hell out of you ripping over a river!

Design the guns. Build and then test the guns. Heck, produce and train troops in the use of guns then store them. All that is fine. Just don't deploy the guns so that others can copy them.

DMcCunney wrote:

phillies wrote:There is this automatic weapon named after its illustrious INventor...Kalashnikov. Working copies have been made by Afghan blacksmiths, though I suspect they had some machine tools. It is useful on the attack, and relatively speaking not hard to make.

And the AK was designed with the assumption the workers making it might be drunk so tolerances couldn't be that precise, and that it would not be properly maintained in the field. I remember hearing about one dug out from sand after laying there who knew how long that still fired after being cleaned. Relatively slow firing, not terribly accurate, but robust as hell.

For another example, consider the British Sten gun from WWII, designed to be made if needed by village smiths. Highly portable, relatively easily concealed, and good for irregular forces, but poor range and accuracy and not a weapon for regular troops concerned with being able to accurate engage the enemy at a distance.

Fully automatic weapons are within the capability of Safehold industry (or at least Charis's industry), but fully automatic isn't the advantage you might think. Put the weapon on full auto and fire off a magazine. The muzzle climbs uncontrollably, and you're lucky if you get two or three rounds on target. US troops are trained to stay on single shot or perhaps three round bursts.

Machine guns are bipod or tripod mounted in fixed positions and can be fired full auto. Weapons carried by an individual intended to be used as a rifle shouldn't be save in special situations.
______
Dennis

Sten sucked enormously because of a few but severe flaws :/
Sterling submachine gun on other hand is extremely sweet...bar fact it's a bit uncomfortable to carry lol
A happy medium could be made by Owl

All magazines have to have enough stiffening to prevent them pinching and jamming the rounds, big flaw with the Sten, MP40 and many others
Hence Bren and Sterling had the convoluted magazine design which goes back to the Lee Enfields

Submachine guns in smaller calibres, NOT .45 ACP!, work fine full auto provided the fire rate is tuned to the specific design, some work fine at 1000rpm others at 600rpm or ehatevr
Problem was idjits set the fire rate by what the military thinking was, not on what practical experience proved
They can be perfectly ok out to 200 yards which is enough for a lot of fights, provided carry is taken with design

Real problem with all automatic weapons, above all submachine guns though, is risk of friendly fire
Was so easy to shoot mates in the back with a short barreled gun like a Sten as they have such huge cones of fire...and not helped by the Sten's damn problems
Not something talked of much in public but all sides had huge problems with that as it was so easy to gun down friends by accident...on the other hand, when you needed a room and everyone in it chopped to bits...Submachine gun ruled. Also good for sentries at night

Rifle calibre automatic weapons require real mass and bracing to fire effectively, even a FAL, which isn't a light weight, will go all over the place on full auto

And everyone conveniently forgets some poor berk has to CARRY a heavy chunk of metal that usually weights about 25+lbs
anyone think lugging a GPMG or whatever is easy or even healthy/smart?
It's not at all funny, it slows everyone down and belted ammo is a damned nuisance to carry