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>>56839859
How quickly could you reload a wheellock pistol? Would reloading during a close range skirmish be feasible, or would you be better off firing it and then drawing your melee weapon?

How silly would it be for my character to carry an Arquebus and like, five or six pistols that he could fire and toss aside before resorting to his sabre?

>>56839859
Historically, do you know when firearms were the primary cause of deaths and wounds on european battlefields? I know they stopped being such sometime in the mid 19th century with the rise of artillery, but I can't quite pin down when they surpassed melee and more traditional ranged weapons.

>>56839859
3D printer guns, even just one-shot variety - how viable they are with present day technology?

>>56839943
>How silly would it be for my character to carry an Arquebus and like, five or six pistols that he could fire and toss aside before resorting to his sabre?
Not OP but I thought that's what they did

>>56839943
>How silly would it be for my character to carry an Arquebus and like, five or six pistols that he could fire and toss aside before resorting to his sabre?
not OP but its not that silly at all. 2 pistols at least is realistic. Perhaps not 6 but certainly in the Thirty Years War era carrying pistols as a 1-shot weapon to be reloaded after the battle was a thing.

>>56839943
as far as reloading, not very, wheellocks are rather delicate and they not only have to be reloaded, but their lock rewound between shots, you're much better off drawing a sword if you're in any kind of close quarters.

it's not necessarily silly to carry multiple guns, the issue is that wheellocks were EXTREMELY expensive, itd be like towing 6 hondas behind your truck in case you ran out of gas

>>56839967
I'd say it was a relatively brief period, if at all, likely the late 1500's to the 1630's, artillery and larger weapons have pretty much always been where battles are decided.

>>56839973
they're already a reality, guns are extremely simple in operating principle, low pressure cartridges like .32 or .380 acp take very well to a cheap single shot gun. Check out Defense Distributed to get an idea of what one of those looks like. more advanced metal printing has been used to make a 1911 pistol, though the barrel still has to be made conventionally

>>56839967
>>56840020
I'd say it would actually have spanned up to the mid-1800s.
Admission records from the Paris Invalides in 1762:
>68.8% wounded by small arms
>13.4% wounded by artillery
>14.7% wounded by swords
>2.4% wounded by bayonets
These are, by definition, wounds that were survived; but even assuming artillery should have a higher kill ratio, it should only make up about 20% of battlefield deaths.

>>56840129
true, I guess it's a matter of perspective, artillery has typically been where battles are won or lost, even if not necessarily by way of wounds inflicted, I know artillery was absolutely king of the battlefield by the battle of Konnigratz in 1866, and in the US Civil War, Prussian guns made by Krupp mopped the floor with the Austrians, and Pickett's charge was basically blended by Union guns.

>>56840129
I say the late 1800s because of the American Civil War; though it isn't a European battlefield, casualty breakdowns give something like 94% by bullet, thanks to the Minie ball. Artillery didn't really become a huge killer until around WWI with the accelerating development of high explosives and explosive shells.

>>56839973
It's a bright idea as making miniatures using a 3D printer. No one mentions it but you easily shit out a bunch of lower receivers and what not with injection molds, assuming you can get your hands on them.

>>56840220
>Artillery didn't really become a huge killer until around WWI
pretty much this. Before then battles were won or lost with men - either with pikes, swords or guns. Artillery was simply support - albeit powerful support.

Once you get to WW1 with fast firing artillery extremely widespread, and accurate fire all sort of ruthless tactics like box barrages, creeping barrages and the like cause massive casualties.

Read "And now it can be told" by Philip Gibbs to get an idea of just how terrifying and powerful WW1 artillery was. They could literally put up a wall of exploding artillery, through which you couldn't move (and if you did you ran the very high risk of not making it to the other side).

By WW1 they could find your position, box you in with walls of exploding artillery on all sides, then do sweeping barrages on your position until everyone inside was dead. The only thing that helped was deep, concrete dug-outs and even then some of the heavier artillery like the 21cm Morser could still make for a very bad day.

Learning about the different types of artillery in WW1 became vital to survival - combatants talk about whiz-bangs, coal-boxes, among many others. They became acutely in tune with the sound artillery made when it came in. They knew when to dive for cover and when it didn't matter what they did and was down to luck...

>>56840000
>it's not necessarily silly to carry multiple guns, the issue is that wheellocks were EXTREMELY expensive, itd be like towing 6 hondas behind your truck in case you ran out of gas
This analogy has me laughing for a solid minute already

Were autorevolvers ever viable?

>>56841343
Auto revolvers saw more use than people think, but that use was pretty much strictly on a range. The closest the concept ever got to military use was the Webley-Fosberry, and I've actually handled one in my line of work, but a fighting gun it is not. They reportedly recoil very softly and are very accurate, but the system is just way too exposed to the elements for serious use.

As for the more modern Mateba/Unica. I have no experience with them, but from what I've gathered they're perfectly serviceable civilian target/defense revolvers. Big and expensive and complicated, but they work well and are very well made.

As far as their being "viable" in terms of offering anything over a conventional semi-auto, not really, they're just way too machining intensive and offer basically nothing over a regular auto-loader, even assuming reliability issues weren't present.

Would you consider damage drop off at range to be a good foundational mechanic to differentiate a matchlock from a crossbow and by extension bows?

>>56839859
Exactly how difficult is it to home make a gun from scratch, including powder, bullets and all? Any type of gun really, even just a musket. Asking for a junk heap setting - no working goods but tons and tons of scrap.

>>56841888
>Not OP
It really depends on your ingenuity and how much mechanical knowledge you have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIhGCRIQnCA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud5dh4pA-zA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7me_z0Qdcs
I'd say availability of materials and tools is what is going to limit you the most.

>>56841741
it's not a bad idea, and of course you can play with it to suit the balance of what youre building, but theres not a good mechanical way to differentiate the type of damage a gun, even an early one, does in comparison to any bow, at least without getting into sperg tier complexity of rules. I think the best way to differentiate the two is to make reloading a matchlock a very time consuming process, making it more like a power you get to use every so many rounds, rather than expecting it to be a weapon that gets used every round like gunslingers in pathfinder. A longbow is capable of firing many more times in a minute than a matchlock, but one hit from a matchlock (which were usually firing around .75 caliber lead balls) and anything under 400lbs is donion rings, so i'd say use it like a free "kill this motherfucker dead' chance at the start of combat (assuming youre dealing with a conventional party style encounter).

>>56841888
You can build a single shot 12ga shotgun using supplies you can buy right now at home depot, namely 3/4in pipe some fittings, a nail and a rubber band, is it safe? fuck no, will it still kill earth's mightiest warrior dead with a square hit to the chest? you bet your ass it will.

>>56839859
Swing by the /hwg/ thread once in a while, I think you like it. Right now it’s mostly some autist bitching but in general it’s pretty comfy historical discussions.

...

Do you know why Japan went to a 7.7mm cartridge from 6.5? Post WW2 people switched from 7.62 to 5.56/5.45mm since a single soldier could carry more ammo. Why did the Japanese go in the opposite direction during the later part of WW2, especially since most of them were small guys

>>56842515
If reload time is your only differentiation then guns are nothing more crossbows with smoke. At least when crossbows with complex reloading mechanisms are included.

>>56841491
Ian, is that you?

>>56842607
not so much just reload time, as a factor of damage vs reload time, for example, a musket should basically cold roll a human sized creature rolling say a d12 with a hefty modifier on top of that like +6, and should ignore armor thats not magical or very extreme, going off touch AC for example, but that's balanced by not being able to be used as much as a crossbow or bow

>>56842595
Combat data they were receiving from China afcter invading them in 1937 indicated the 6.5mm round wasn't as effective terminally as they would have liked, especially at distance the long, well stabilized heavy bullets would pretty much pass through without yawing or fragmentation. They developed the 7.7x58mm cartridge essentially to increase that lethality at range they observed in cartridges like 7.62x54r and .30-06. However they never really made enough of them and for the duration of ww2 the Japanese military was using a mix of guns in both cartridges

>>56842595
also, bear in mind the 5.56mm and similarly sized cartridges were based on mathematically analyzed combat data that was gleaned from thousands of after action reports in ww2, and even then it took some time to sell the upper echelon of officer's that they were the right choice, post ww2 NATO standardized on battle rifles in 7.62x51mm. Ballistic effectiveness is an easy sell to a military establishment, especially one as hidebound as Imperial Japan's

>>56841888
Your comment made me think that (It might be more /k/, honestly.) it might be a fun collective project to make a book that's whole purpose is that if you got thrown back in time to say, The Roman Republic, the book has the information to kick-start modern civilization. Stuff like Penicillin cultivation, black-powder firearms, and maybe the Bessemer Process.

>>56842617
Dude I fucking wish, that man is my inspiration

>>56841888
The main obstacle to making firearms assuming you have material and machine tools of at least 19th century levels of sophistication is going to be the quality of said materials, steel for smokeless powder is a tricky business, so much as screw up a heat treat and you have a grenade, a good example would be the early 1903 springfield rifles where that defect sometimes occured. Low pressure cartridges are much easier to make, in a junk heap setting it'd likely be tons of shotguns and tube receiver 9mm submachine guns. Assault rifles need good quality steel for their barrels and locking surfaces, but receivers and what not don't require much in the way of sophistication, so theyd be around but used by more organized or proficient groups.

>>56842947
So basically, they'd be making a bunch of black-powder Luty's?
Nice.

>>56842818
>d&d
Ah now I don't even have to feel bad about calling your advice shit.

>>56839859
AVE NEX ALEA

>>56842978
my bad for using the most well known TTRPG to explain my point brochacho

>>56842965
not blackpowder necessarily, anybody with a chemistry set can make basic smokeless powder theoretically, plus blackpowder is just too gross for any kind of autoloader to work for long, trust me I cleaned a customer's muzzleloader today lol

>>56843011
Greetings fellow /k/omrade
Truly the cube smiles upon us.

>>56839859
Do you know common types of jerry-rigged weapons? Stuff you could make in a prison? Stuff that could be sold for very cheap?

My players are in a crime/ mafia campaign and I want to give them access to firearms, but not good guns yet. I want there to be a progression between "you guys need to save every bullet and use all of your surroundings" to "so you need to go downtown to pick up a package, do you take your tank or that aircraft carrier you put wheels on?"

Also, are there any "names" for weapons that you know? The guns are sold out of a hardware store that's been wire tapped. Id like there to be key words that can be used to mean specific types of guns, without outright saying "please supply firearm"

>>56843146
U can make slam fire shotguns out of pipes and a nail

>>56843146
most of the time a criminal organization will just use cheap stolen guns, if you wanna stick to makeshift, google "zip guns" for some ideas of what makeshift pistols are like, or brazillian makeshift firearms. More likely theyd be using some cheapo hi-point or Jimenez 9mm's, that whoever they got them from calls "Glock 40 problem solvers"

>>56843146
Use trucks of peace instead

What kind of pistol did Arizona lawmen have around the 1870s?

>>56841741
Why not just damage itself? Matchlocks were generally very dangerous.

>>56843299
BIG IRON

>>56843323
Yes the character of I am asking this question for is inspired by both that song and One by Metallica because he's an immortal soldier who feels the effects of every time he's died as if he was alive.

>>56842887
That sounds pretty damn cool. I'd buy it. It would be more marketable as a post apocalypse jumpstart guide than a timetravelling alt his jumpstart guide I reckon. Either way it would be great for genuine survival nut /k/ommando or just some fa/tg/uy who wants to run a related game.

Do you have relative penetration data for various kinds of common handgun and rifle ammunition?

Also, what are some fun gun malfunctions that could happen on a Critical Failure?

>>56843608
Not OP, but a soldier.

Common gun malfunctions, loosely ordered from not so bad to very bad.

Failure to feed, solved by cycling the gun again, manually.
Failure to eject, a casing is stuck somewhere inside, usually solved by cycling the gun, perhaps many times or accompanied by shaking the gun upside down, or physically removing the casings by hand or tool.
Failure to extract, a casing is stuck in the chamber. Usually requires a tool to remove.
Weapon explosion, usually there's something in the barrel or the weapons integrity has failed. The gun explodes, sometimes injuring the user.

>>56843832

How often would you have time to do maintence between patrols or other sorts of missions? How long could you hold off on them before it became critical and possibly facilitated an "oh shit" in the field repair?

>>56843899
1) The most basic maintenance is field stripping your weapon, wiping off critical pieces and oiling it all up. This won't take many minutes even if you're very through and you can just about always spare this time. If you can't, you're not sleeping and you'll pass out before your weapon becomes a problem.

2) There are too many factors to say, generally. It depends on weapon model, terrain (mud, sand, etc), how much you shoot, what kind of lubricant you have, the quality of your ammo, temperature, etc.

In my experience, in "normal" temperate climate with daily usage of the weapon, if you can do a 5 minute clean every day and a 15 minute clean once every week, you're not going to have any problems with your weapon unless something unexpected happens. The five minute clean every day isn't vital, but it significantly cuts down on subsequent cleaning times.

>>56843832
I wanted fun ones though, like that SMG on ForgottenWeapons that could fail by having the front half of the gun detach.

>>56844690
What one was that?

>>56839859
What's the difference between a Musket and Fusil?

>>56844748
Yugoslav M56

Thanks /k/-bro this has been a cool thread

>>56839859

Do you have any idea why Revolving Rifles and Lever Actions are never really seen in fiction? They seem to get skipped over a heap.

Which is a pity, I do love the look of those weapons.

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>>56839943
>How silly would it be for my character to carry an Arquebus and like, five or six pistols that he could fire and toss aside before resorting to his sabre?
Not silly at all but this style of combat was reserved for the cavalry. With arquebus and saber attached to the saddle, you can even fire two pistols at once.

>>56839943
I think Billy the Kid and Blackbeard carried like 5 or 6 pistols.

>>56839859
Is it possible in any way, shape, or form to develop something even resembling Gun Kata?
Something which turns the use of firearms into a (martial) art form?

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>>56839967
I know that during the American civil war casualties by bullets were greater than casualties by cannon, but cannons at that time were still deadly enough to decide the field and outcome of a battle.

Compare the first day of the Battle of Shiloh, which was essentially a infantry slog in the middle of some of the roughest terrain encountered during the war (and relatively few artillery casualties were sustained by either side), to the Battle of Gaines Mill, where up to 70% of the confederate casualties were caused by attacking across open fields against the entrenched artillery of the entire Army of the Potomac.

The terrain and strategic deployment of the guns ultimately decide the deadliness of artillery (and we see this lesson played out throughout the 19th century, from the Crimean war to the Russo-Japanese war).

>>56848489
>Gaines Mill
Fuck, I meant the Battle of Malvern Hill

How much damage should a rifle do relative to a pistol? GURPS has it about double. I have seen a lot of systems do 2d6 (average 7) versus 2d8 (average 9) for a pistol. I'm a game where humans have 3 to 9 hit points how much damage do you think guns should do? And sinces it's meant to be a highly lethal zombie apocalypse system where firefights are rare anyway, should I just do a location- based injury system with % incapacitation?

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Has anyone considered how various tactics in warfare could affect how guns are used. One of the things that bothers me is in fantasy settings the fighting is always between humans or humaniods so it's just bog standard combat.

I'm no soldier or tacticians but I imagine if there were things that could bum-rush an entrenched position and tear people to shreds with claws or whatever that would make you reconsider your tactics.

An idea of mine was something like a ranger type dude who uses up-armored war dogs (just enough armor to cover their chest area) and then sic them on people and come up behind them to shoot/stab anyone that was pinned or mauled enough to not be able to fight back.

Alternatively, something like pic-related or even just thralls who come running in packs of 5 or more to claw and bite at any opponets in their way and are smart enough to move on to a next target and flank as well.

>>56839967
Related; when did it switch to people dying from being shot as opposed to infected bullet wounds?

>>56850084
I think in the first example you gave, you would actually see an increase in fortifications. If they can bum rush and likely win against trenches with emplaced machine guns and artillery, they can without a doubt ambush and overwhelm patrols. My guess is that raised fortifications would be a major part of tactics, as well as armored vehicles built for area denial (think Malcador Defender as opposed to most other tanks) and an emphasis on SMGs and MMG/HMG emplacements.

>>56851916
Blind guess here, but probably when penicillin became cheap and available.

>>56851921

I would imagine if you could shell an area the melee wave isn't going to work. In my mind it's areas where you can't get weapons like that to bare either because you can't or you don't want to damage the area with overwhelming firepower so maybe you have a dense forest or city area where you unleashe dogs/whatever that attacks in a pack and forms the initial charge of an assault or something like that.

>>56844806
This video may cover it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiV-CUPTc2I

Essentially the fusil was the firing mechanism of the more modern musket. After a while all muskets had them and the term was no longer needed (although fusiliers get their name from it - being the units who got the newer muskets with fusils first)

>>56847621
They call it "Drill"
Firing in ranks, reloading drills, stripping and cleaning drills, blind-stripping, firing exercises etc.

When you go into the jungle you use all the "katas" you learned in training to kill other people before they kill you.

>>56848728
Depends on the caliber and power of the specific rifle and pistol. A .22 rifle will be less powerful than a .50 cal pistol (although it will have a longer range).

Pistols generally have a limited range due to not having a scope or a longer barrel.

If we're talking about a standard 9mm pistol vs a 7.62mm or .308 Rifle the difference is really where you get shot.
Getting shot in the head with either could kill you, same with getting it in a vital organ.
Getting shot in the foot or arm with a pistol probably wont kill you, although it could get an artery which would kill you from blood loss unless you got decent medical attention.

If the .308 had a hollow point like most hunting rifles, it wouldn't matter where you got shot - the bullet would cause so much damage the muscles around the wound would start to die and you would get complications that would end up being fatal without serious medical attention.
Even getting shot in the foot with a hollow point .308 could well mean death without immediate medical attention.

So with your system, where humans have 3 to 9 HP, I would do the location based injury system and % incapacitation.
Make a 9mm pistol do D6 damage and a .308 rifle to 2D6

>>56848728
Watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXwPtP-KDNk

>>56852027
Bringing that up, a tactic could be to have a curtain of fire around the trenches when an attack is spotted, and then to have marksmen pick off survivors. Granted, given larger numbers, that job would probably fall to machine guns.

>>56852228
Something to note as well, apart from the caliber of the round and weapon it is fired from, something you touched on being the different types of round. A hollow point will cause soft tissue damage, same as any other round (granted, much worse damage) but it is entirely possible to have rounds of any type go clean through and cause comparatively less damage. For example, if I had somebody in front of me at 5m, a round from a 9mm pistol will likely do more damage than a 5.56mm round from a rifle, but at 50m, the rifle will start to do more harm, causing fragmentation, whereas the pistol round will loose enough speed and accuracy that it likely won't hit, and then won't do as much harm. Anything beyond 50m mind as well be 50AU for a pistol, and that's where rifles and shotgun slugs (to some extent) start to take over.

>>56839859
What are some plausible firearms related fuckups that a competent character could make?

>>56853345
Not OP.

With an unfamiliar firearm it's possible to mix up your controls & hit the magazine release instead of the safety or something.

>>56853345
You could load the gun with a type of ammo that gun doesn't particularly like.
As an example, I have a Turkish Mauser rifle that will shoot just about any 8mm ammo you throw at it, while I have another, Yugoslav, Mauser of very similar design that refuses to feed soft-point rounds. For someone that doesn't know that particular rifle very well, it wouldn't be a stretch to load it with the wrong type of ammo unknowingly and have to unload it in the middle of a rather hairy situation.

>>56853345
Well, are they immune to panic and fear, like typical heroes?

>>56853914
>handle an AR for the first time and accidentally drop the magazine when trying to keep finger away from trigger, scaring the bejeezus out of me hearing it suddenly clack against the counter

>handle an M1 carbine for the first time and accidentally click on the safety instead of releasing magazine for a quick examination due to it having the earlier push button safety instead of the later rotary
Not my finest day all those years ago and explains my preference for paddle releases

>>56839859
How did the main rifles of WW2 compare to each other? Do you think the US could have done as well as it did supposing they kept the Springfield on as their standard issue firearm?

>>56839943
>or would you be better off firing it and then drawing your melee weapon?
This, in fact it was basically standard procedure.

>>56839973
Not very, but they still kind of work.

>>56841888
The "gun itself isn't hard. The bullet would be a challenge but doable. The powder is a bitch but black powder is easy enough, the igniter is where it gets tricky.

>>56845594
>in fiction
Ignorant writers?

>>56850084
You are correct in your reasoning, different scenarios call for different tactics, sometime far outside the norm. During the gulf war at some point during the battle of a city I forget the order went out for allied troops to fix bayonets due to the close fighting, this was a problem as some nations had dropped bayonets entirely and thus their rifles had no lugs and they had to settle for taping combat knives to their rifles.

>>56857567
The only real standouts are the semi autos, however the enfeild had a large magazine capacity and a smooth action and design that allowed for a interesting and useful shooting technique, the mauser was more finely designed, the Mosin is as simple as it gets, and the french rifles were actually rather well designed.

>>56853345
Thinking that the handloads that were acquired from your friends or that one guy at a gunshow or in a shady as hell alleyway won't either cause excessive wear on the parts with some breakage after a while, explode because they were some stupidly hot loads the rifle or pistol was never meant to take or they were underloaded with the bullet never exiting the barrel and then possibly bursting the barrel or cause the whole thing to explode on the next round (or two, there's some pretty nutty pictures of barrels completely filled with bullets) because you weren't paying attention and only heard it go "pop!" instead of "BANG".

>>56857567
A bolt action to semi automatic switch is a good one but it's not really a war winner, especially with total war on this scale. The US dominated due to strategy, logistics, numbers of men, air superiority, industrial superiority, etc. Not small unit tactics.

As to comparing bolt actions- there's a lot to say about each but the actual difference isn't that big. This is often the case between weapons of the same category from the same time. Trying to realistically differentiate between them wouldn't yield anything in all but the crunchiest of RPGs. How does "Increase daily chance of malfunction by 1% after 1000 rounds without cleaning" or "Increase accuracy by 1% beyond 500 meters" sound?

>>56858150
>How does "Increase daily chance of malfunction by 1% after 1000 rounds without cleaning" or "Increase accuracy by 1% beyond 500 meters" sound?

I think the difference is bigger than you might think; Mosins are clunky as fuck with their big rimmed casings, and can be a pain in the ass to load. The difference in quality between sights (M44 made in a tent vs. pre-war armory k98) could also definitely qualify for at least a +/-1 to hit in a d20 system as well.

>>56839859
That's a nice picture, thanks. %%Also%% I need to %test% spoilers, sorry.

>>56858220
The fuck. [s]spoiler[/s]

>>56858225
>>56858220
Anon, tough your flopping around is kinda of cute, I can only suffer it for a brief time. Press CTRL + s to spoiler, alos you can highlight and press ctrl+s to spoiler the highlight.
Like this hope it helps.

>>56858225
Control s ,dude.

>>56839859
Had a question about canons. Ahenever I used them in games, I generally integrste them into my lime infantry, but I always hear about artillery being it's own groups. Seems effective when I use it how I do, was wondering if it was ever used in real life how I've used it in games.

>>56839943
>and toss aside
This is the only part that's even a little silly - you put them on a cord and keep them on your person for after-action reloading, but otherwise having multiple single-shot pistols was a common tactic

>>56859037
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_Adolphus_of_Sweden#Military_innovator

Third paragraph,
>His artillery were themselves different—in addition to the usual complements of heavy cannon he introduced light mobile guns for the first time into the Renaissance battlefield. These were grouped in batteries supporting his more linearly deployed formations

Really, it depends on the army, time, situation and type of cannon. Both, really.

bummmb

>>56859037

Like most things it varies a lot by time period, people and technology like most things. Cannons have been used in basically every single way by some group at some point.

>>56839859

Any thoughts on the various iconic fantasy races and firearms of various sorts? As firearms are almost always done, even in fiction, with the basis of 'These were made by humans'. But fictional races don't always line up with that. Dwarves have a low centre of mass, toughness and stability beyond what a human can manage while elves have incredible coordination and fantastic eyesight (Doubly so in low light). I'm curious about how that would play with adoption/usage of firearms.

>>56854208

Interesting, not really a /k/ person but how do the guns differ to cause those sorts of differences?

>>56845594
Revolver rifles were in Arcanum! In reality they're just revolvers with a long barrel and stock though, meaning they keep most of the revolver's downsides. Clumsier reloads, you're probably still firing a smaller cartridge, you don't have that good seal for velocity, etc.

Lever actions had a similar situation - feeding your ammo into a tube means you're limited to using rimfire cartridges, which were usually pistol rounds and often burn their propellant incompletely due to the nature of the rimfire design. Once you've emptied the tube you're forced into a slower reload cycle before you can continue firing, but you could fit more rounds.

Both revolver rifles and lever actions are very well suited to cavalry operations because you can share your ammo between your rifle and pistol, and the limitations of the weaker rounds and slow reloads can be overcome with a get in close and get out fast doctrine. They're not suited to infantry fighting on the field or in trenches though, and so as cavalry became obsolete so too did the lever action.

>>56861117
Dwarves don't like firearms because ventilation underground sucks and you'll just suffocate on the gases. If they used ranged weapons it'd probably be a crossbow for the flatter firing arc due to low ceilings. Whether they'd have many crossbows is a good question since tunnels would limit how many troops can effectively participate. I'm guessing more shield wall type tactics since you can rely on the tunnel walls to prevent yourself from being flanked, but short spears or swords/axes instead of the long spears of a phalanx.

Elves won't like firearms because they're loud and visible, with muzzle flash and smoke ('smokeless' powder is only smokeless relative to the early black powder). Most of the advantages of firearms (faster to produce, easier to train in usage, effectiveness for siege operations) are less relevant for a species characterized as being long-lived, stealthy, and reclusive.

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>>56839859
I have a question on the properties of the magnesium pellets in Dragonsbreath shotgun rounds.

Do the ignited pellets do a similar amount of tissue damage as regular buckshot pellets?
I ask cause I'm trying to figure out how badly they'd injure a WoD vampire.

Playing a Thinblood Caitiff that I'm playing as a vampire Macguyver who needs to use every dirty trick in the book to not get roflstomped.

>>56855839
Acting in fear/panic is another angle, so sure. Could be a good way to represent those “don’t do anything useful this round” fear results.

>>56853914
>>56854208
>>56858111

Thanks!

>>56839859
Is that a female tank?

>>56861130
Usually it comes down to machining and design, but even mass produced models have a type or brand of ammo they "like", chalk it up to the machine spirit.

>>56862117
>means you're limited to using rimfire cartridges
This is a myth related to the superstition that center fire cartridges would set each other off, several rifles were made that used tubular magazines (Vetterli, Krag, Lebel) the real reason lever actions were snubbed is their action by its nature introduces a greater chance for outside elements to foul the gun.

>>56862677
>Do the ignited pellets do a similar amount of tissue damage as regular buckshot pellets?
And then some, magnesium keeps burning, so long as there is oxygen.

>>56862696
Then there's accidentally ejecting the magazine, dropping the magazine while reloading, not inserting the magazine hard enough so that it soon falls out, not racking the slide/charging handle enough, tangling your sling in your gear, having to concentrate so hard on your gun that you lose all vision of the fight.

All these I've seen in soldiers under duress.

>>56862745
Hard to tell, it seems to have regular cannons rather than machineguns, unless it's the lewis with the massive opening, but I doubt it since it was the light machinegun, and why bother with that on a tank, so I think it's a male.

>>56843832
I'd also like to add that in general this order also applies to how likely each malfunction is. E.g., failure to feed is quite common and typically results from rounds improperly seated in the magazine, while weapon explosion seldom ever happens.

>>56862745
It's female, the male sponsons were larger and more obtuse to accommodate the 6-pounder and ammunition.
>>56868449
>and why bother with that on a tank
A number of reasons, the lewis is reliableand easy to work, and you don't need anything greater for a man. However, Lewis guns (to my knowledge) mere not issued to the landships excepting the Mark III which was intended for training.

>>56850084
I'd suggest that even in those circumstances trenches would be useful in that they still provide some level of protection and concealment, while still being considerably easier to set-up compared to a concrete bunker. Assuming that static fortification is what you're going for. Also, I should point out that trenches are typically accompanied by barbed-wire and other forms of entanglements/barriers designed largely to filter enemies into kill-zones. Although in your examples a mobile/elastic defence may be more effective.

>>56859278
Truly an innovator.

>>56862677
Magnesium is far less dense than lead, so it would not have anywhere close to the same penetrating power as lead shot.

OTOH, Uranium is denser than lead and pyrophoric (as well as a potent source of heavy metals toxicity if ingested), so if your character has the skill needed to work depleted uranium, you could make DU buckshot with a magnesium or similar initiator that would cost about $600 per shot and really fuck shit up.

Or you can make phosphorus filled tungsten shot or slugs, those would be much cheaper and nearly as effective (and leave less poisonous uranium oxide powder all over the scene).

>>56840220
Can you meaningfully distinguish bullets from canister rounds?

>>56850084

They would probably cause the enemy to reconsider their tactics. Look at Romes experience with armies that used war elephants. First time it's catastrophic, then they start improvising ways of dealing with them, and eventually they develop tactics that neutralize them completely.

Which might be an interesting idea for a series of ideas on a campaign. The war dogs and ranger chew through a couple of patrols. Then the enemy starts showing up wearing tougher armor and carrying maces or other armor piercing weapons. Maybe the dogs still slow them down enough for the kill, so the enemy starts making sure that units always have one unit forward and one unit covering, so that a ranger trying to move to the flank or rear has to either fight another unit that isn't encumbered by dogs, or be flanked himself.

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>>56873892

Depends on your definitions.

>>56874411

Shit, I screwed the name up 1 & 1/8th canister would be Forty Six and a Half Aught Buckshot if following the progression of the 0 buckshot series.

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>>56873892
Grapeshot tends to be much larger.

>>56874449
I think it should be one twelve POUND shotgun as well.

>>56874449
Nah mate, you mean shot. Buckshot is a specific type of shot. Shot goes in shells. and can easily be distinguished from rifle cartridges. Slug shells are a measure more difficult but usually have an open front end.

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>>56874327
>not pic related

>>56874493
Grapeshot was different from canister, which used musket sized balls. Wasn't grape a rarity outside of the navy anyway?

>>56874542
Nope, it was standard issue for artillery, particularly light artillery near the front for use against charging infantry, during Pickett's charge US batteries fired double and even triple canister.

>>56874493

I was being cheeky.

IIRC gauge is "the diameter of a lead sphere such that N lead spheres make one pound of lead" So 12 gauge means 12 spheres the diameter of the barrel = 1 pound of lead.

I think the biggest actual shotguns were punt guns which could be 1 gauge.

That's a 12 pound cannon, so in shotgun terms, one twelfth gauge.

>>56874639
>That's a 12 pound cannon, so in shotgun terms, one twelfth gauge.

Ah. I read the one in "one twelfth" as being the number of shotguns present. So instead of 1/12 gauge shotgun it was, a single 12 gauge shotgun.

>>56843023
Don't you need some very high concentration nitric and sulfuric acid to make smokeless powder?

>>56862117
Revolver rifles also have the issue of blasting the support forearm with gases from the cylinder gap, which doesn't happen with handguns because both your hands are behind the cylinder.

>>56874915

You might be able to make a revolver rifle with a Nagant action, that would deal with the gas problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh1mojMaEtM

>>56875060
Sure, but the hand nugget has problems of its own, like the loading gate and 20 pound trigger pull.

>>56875157

Yeah, you'd really need to redesign the action so it had a top break or swing out. Though I don't know how easy it would be to get the rotating/reciprocating cylinder then.

>>56869356

Could be a hermaphrodite, we only see one sponson. Though I cant recall if they had mark IV hemaphrodite tanks.

Really I just love the term "Hermaphrodite Tank"

>>56875268
I'd think it'd be pretty simple; the real problems would be giving it a better trigger pull and getting people to think the bit of extra velocity would be worth the switch over to a completely new cartridge.

>>56875331

For a fantasy scenario where they just have black powder cartridges it might be worth it.

Having a rifle that can fire six rounds before reloading would be nice for your cavalry and your skirmishers, and also nice for an adventurer who wants to be able to give some beastie six rounds rapid before reloading.

>>56875268
>/d/ tank
Oh god

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>>56875477

>>56875420
Perhaps I can interest you in this wondrous creation known as the Puckle gun? It's a crew-served, tripod-mounted flintlock revolver.

It may also fire square bullets to convince the Turks of the benefits of Christian civilization.

>>56876662
>to convince the Turks of the benefits of Christian civilization
My favorite reason for a stupid feature to exist.

This thread is amazing.
My main question is this: What's the general progression of firearm technology from the first firearms to modern day ones?

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can a old fashioned cannon/Bombard destroy a tank?

>>56877035
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cannon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchlock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheellock (and it's similar mechanisms such as snaplock, etc)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flintlock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_weapon#Firearms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_gun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_rifle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_firearm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

A very rough chronology of the evolution of firearms. Machine gun is either before, during or after repeating firearms depending on how you define machine guns.

>>56877600
Also, this is in no way perfect and in roughly the order they became popular and widespread- not necessarily the order they were invented.

>>56839859
Is there ever a reason to not go for maximum penetration when firing at armor?

>>56877615
A bullet that has more penetration than it needs will generally do less damage. A bullet that overpenetrates can leave a clean wound channel through the target, a non-over penetrating bullet such as a hollow point can deform and transfer larger amounts of energy, creating a larger wound channel.

The ideal is to have a bullet that penetrates the armour and into the body, then transfers force just inside the body without going through it.

>>56877615
>>56877674
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8hbkXPdlks

>>56877044
There's a lot of different ways to hurt a tank, it's not just about destroying it completely. Will it penetrate and completely destroy a tank? Not a chance in the world. It might destroy the barrel, perhaps achieve a mobility kill, smash a viewport, etc.

Probably a retard question, but did flintlock and wheellock guns still expel a lot of soot white firing? If so, did it obstruct visibility substantially?

>>56877862
Yes, so much so that at close range the target would be perforated with burning powder. Visibility would not be too obscured if the shooter was moving and not firing too often.

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>>56841491
>Webley-Fosberry
The most aesthetic gun

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>>56877862
I've fired antiques quite a lot and I've never had a problem with soot- old gunpowder, before it was made smokeless, produced a lot of smoke however. This does indeed reduce visibility. The most I've seen fired at once is about 20 muskets with old blackpowder and it produced quite the cloud, I can't imagine what thousands of muskets discharging over and over again looks like. This is what a contemporary to the battle of breitenfeld etched it like.

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>>56845594
Did someone say revolving rifle

A thought that occured to me. I appreciate the amount of discussion and information in this thread but can it be said that, ultimately, a pc adventuring party regardless of the setting isn't obligated to act like or use what would be common sense for the military of it's age?

What I mean is, even in an age of fairly advanced weapons not everyone the PCs encounter are going to be spec ops level operators and not everyone is going to be using military grade weapons and armor so the idea of someone using a bow (lets say your out in the boonies or some shit where hunting is common and you happen to find a bow and some arrows as a way of fighting back) or having a big knife on you and hacking someone to death with it. Not every conflict is going to take place in the optimal ranges for long arms and really what you doing walking around in a city in military style kit and weapons anyways?

Yes, I know I'm letting my autism spill out of a little but felt that needed to be said.

>>56839859
was flintlock weapons cheap back then? i mean in movies practically everyone had a flintlock by there side

>>56877697
>>56877674
I mostly meant against actual armor, i.e. tanks.

>>56878108
Cheap enough, about a month's pay for a mercenary if I remember right. Black powder is slow-burning (relative to other explosives) so your metal bits don't deal with as high of pressures, and your barrels are oversized to accommodate the fouling from repeated shots. Doesn't take a master smith to craft one with the tolerances so low. Wheellocks are expensive because of the wheel mechanism, but a flintlock or matchlock is pretty simple stuff.

>>56878309
>actual armor
That isn't what people commonly assume when speaking or writing in English, especially in a discussion mostly revolving around personal firearms.

But to answer your original question; yes, for the exact same reason as with handheld firearms. Over penetrations means that there'll be a somewhat clean hole through the armoured vehicle, with some spalling. The crew might not be taken out of action and even if they are, the vehicle might be quite easily repaired to fighting condition. If you penetrate one side and then deliver an explosion, the crew is much less likely to survive and the damage is going to be much more extensive.

>>56842965
>black-powder Luty

>black powder automatic anything

You're gonna have a bad time. The fouling will be immense.

If you want a fast-firing black powder weapon, get a levergun. Anything gas- or recoil-operated is going to stop working when you least want it to.

>>56843146

>My players are in a crime/ mafia campaign and I want to give them access to firearms, but not good guns yet. I want there to be a progression between "you guys need to save every bullet and use all of your surroundings" to "so you need to go downtown to pick up a package, do you take your tank or that aircraft carrier you put wheels on?"

Limit them by ammo then. If you steal some assholes gun, he's got a .32 ACP pistol and a handful of .32 ACP because that's the most common bullet in America, AKA the second-most laughable bullet to put in a weapon.

You can knock over a police officer and take his service pistol but that shit is going to be *radioactive,* ain't NOBODY want to be found with a stolen police gun - and also, it'll be harder to get ammo for until you find a real supplier.

Also, you would be surprised how many idiots use the wrong bullet for the wrong gun because they don't know more about guns than they see on TV.

Is your small-time crook character going to know better?

Cleetus gave him a pistol from WW2 in return for forgiveness on a $200 meth debt, Jamal sold him some bullets that he got out of the purse he stole off that old lady (he didn't stick around, she pulled a revolver on him!) do the bullets match the gun? How the fuck is your character going to know? Is he some kind of autist who spends all his time on the internet reading gun facts? Because he sure didn't learn from anybody IRL.

>Also, are there any "names" for weapons that you know? The guns are sold out of a hardware store that's been wire tapped. Id like there to be key words that can be used to mean specific types of guns, without outright saying "please supply firearm"

Iron

Piece

Write "I want to purchase a firearm" on a piece of paper and show it to the teller.

Make finger guns at him.

>>56845594
>Do you have any idea why Revolving Rifles and Lever Actions are never really seen in fiction? They seem to get skipped over a heap.

Lever guns are seen in fiction all the damn time. They're in every cowboy movie and Arnie used a lever shotgun in Terminator.

Revolver rifles are probably rare because they were rare IRL - they're not very good rifles because of the cylinder gap which is manageably dangerous on a short gun and pretty damn dangerous on a long gun. You can design around this but that introduces other troubles.

>>56857567
>How did the main rifles of WW2 compare to each other? Do you think the US could have done as well as it did supposing they kept the Springfield on as their standard issue firearm?

Wars are not won with rifles.

Individual small skirmishes might be won or lost on the quality of a rifle, but it will be far more relevant who remembered to bring a guy that can radio for artillery or air support.

So how did the main rifles of WW2 compare?

In order:
>American M1 Garand>American M1 Carbine>>>>>>>>>British SMLE>German K98k>>Russian Mosin Nagant

>>56839973
>3D printer guns, even just one-shot variety - how viable they are with present day technology?

One-shot are super viable

Multi-shot much less so - the mechanisms need to be very fine, so they either need to be made of metal or they'll be too weak to work well.

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>>56878385
Keep in mind also that many of these guns were manufactured to varying tolerances, so that the size of the shot varied as well – many soldiers had to hand cast or hand make their own bullets to fit their own gun.

>>56877615
>Is there ever a reason to not go for maximum penetration when firing at armor?

When targeting a ship, you want to explode after you've punched through the armor because otherwise the hole won't be big enough to matter unless you hit *exactly* right.

So it's better to go through two or three decks and then have a big explosion, rather than going through five decks and out the other side or four decks + small explosion-

>>56878003
>What I mean is, even in an age of fairly advanced weapons not everyone the PCs encounter are going to be spec ops level operators and not everyone is going to be using military grade weapons and armor

It's actually the other way around. Private individuals tend to have much better equipment than the average soldier in the military.

The military doesn't buy latest-and-greatest, they buy whatever manages to come through the procurement process. Now *sometimes* that means the military has the best thing, but in five years they'll have more of the *same* thing and rich private individuals will have the benefits of five years of extra development.

>>56862677
Interesting thought, would getting hit with dragonbreath shot cause a vampire to frenzy?
Seeing them fired off might, but what about getting hit and having something burning inside their bodies? Hmmm...

>>56877985
Why does this rifle have a breaching shotguns notches on it's barrel?

The people here seem to know their shit, so I'll ask a question: What was the effective range and accuracy of early firearms?

>>56881494
For smoothbore stuff?
Moderate and bad. It's part of the reason for firing line tactics.

Why were bows and crossbows supplanted by firearms anyways?

>>56881494
That's a very broad question, and while relative to modern firearms you could easily say they were all atrocious (up until about the mid-19th century, when they upgraded to just bad), the effectiveness of firearms was actually constantly growing over the early centuries of their existence. The small arms of the 16th and 18th centuries are almost incomparable. They didn't just become more accurate, but more wieldy and more reliable too. 18th century muskets reached the point where they were not only useful for massed lines of fire, but also for hunting and sharpshooting.

>>56878309
Basically the same answer desu. Pop off an explosion inside the vehicle and you have a much greater chance of destroying something (if not near-everything) vital, whereas going out the other side can leave signficant parts of it intact. It may apply to tanks even more than people since there's no bleeding out or writhing in pain to consider, busted treads and a liquefied driver isn't going to stop the main cannon.

>>56881695
It's difficult to pin down specific answers, but generally, firearms are more accurate, have greater force and penetration, and require less training for a common soldier to use.

>>56881494
About 30 meters. This was compensated for by volley fire, line deployment and rigid discipline.

>>56881494
>What was the effective range and accuracy of early firearms?
All over the place, because every shot you fire fouls the gun and you never get consistent results. Sometimes you would have a set of shot that decreased in size to make it easier to ram it down the barrel. Powder might not burn completely or even at all if it's damp or rainy. When massed fire occurs the entire battlefield is covered in smoke and you can't see for shit - this is why big fancy hats became popular, so you can recognize people in the smoke.

>>56881695
In addition to what >>56881884 mentions, firearms have a huge shock value and can break morale much more effectively. I suspect the logistics of supplying an army is also simpler when you already have supplies of powder for your cannons - much easier to increase the amount of powder you're purchasing than sourcing arrows/bolts, possibly cheaper as well as powder production kicks into high gear thanks to demand.

>>56839859
Lets keep this alive with a NEW point of discussion in this topic. Non-Human enemies.

I'm talking shit like dragons, zombies, golums, giants, ect.

I'm playing in an 'anything goes' setting leading a settlement trying to survive and thrive. I mainly have access to firearms available prior to 1900 so when arming my guards I've thus far gone with a large mount of .45-70 winchesters, some with period scopes. And a handful of the mighty .50-110 reasoning that for a defensive force these things seem like the practical main long arm since the former CAN kill even big game like bison and the latter is MEANT for maximum size game.

I also figure that such powerful rounds would be able to defeat or at least deal significant damage even against a human wearing modern body armor. So I guess I'd like opinions on all of these things, but especially on this: do you guys think .45-70 or .50-110 could deal significant damage even through full on class iii hard body armor?

>>56882110
A related thought. When calculating damage soak for modern body armors, how would you adjust damage after soak for padding or trauma plates under the main armor?

>>56850084
Depends on the level of technology. But probably the same way you deal with tanks.

>>56880577
>Make finger guns at him.
im still laughing

>>56880972

I get that but depending upon the game obviously you walk into a resturant and everyone in there isn't a battle hardened sniper ready to 360 no scop

>>56883420
>I get that but depending upon the game obviously you walk into a resturant and everyone in there isn't a battle hardened sniper ready to 360 no scop

Right, I didn't mean to imply that your average person has better equipment than the military.

It's more that, player characters being player characters, once you're buying your own gear instead of relying on a supply chain, as soon as you can afford it you'll own the best of the best because your life depends on it and you're a person who's likely to get into situations where it matters.

A normal person probably just has whatever pistol was on sale the day they decided they wanted to carry a gun.

>>56839859
How likely would a weapon with a rolled-lead barrel be to explode, assuming the lead is about half an inch thick, and set in a wooden enclosure?

I wanted to have goblins make utter garbage matchlocks and Im looking for a design that will fail about 30% of the time, and be assembled by what are essentially malevolent children.

Let me know if you can come up with anything else that fits that description.

>>56881695
Logistics, manpower, and average effectiveness in the field.

A bow is only as powerful as the man drawing it. Besides the training and conditioning needed to draw a war bow in the first place, your archers will get weaker with each volley. And fatigue from long marches, illness, and malnutrition will hurt their performance even more. A crossbow is more efficient at converting muscle power to projectile energy, but suffers the same issues. But as long as a man can stand upright and load his gun, the firearm will have the same range and power regardless of how strong or rested he is.

Arrows and bolts have to be hand crafted individually, are bulky and fragile to transport, and are easily ruined by exposure to the elements, being stacked wrong, etc. Powder and lead can be produced in bulk and transported in very rough conditions. As long as the powder is decently sealed in casks or whatever, you can throw it into the bottom of a boat, sit on it, pile it up, leave it in the rain, and crack it open right before a battle to top everyone up. Lead can be melted and recast into balls by individual soldiers around a campfire, and it doesn't even matter if Hans and Franz have different bore calibers, as long as each of them has a bullet mold that fits his gun.

>>56885388
I'm prepared to be corrected, but wouldn't the force and heat distort the interior of the barrel as to be useless almost immediately? Not to mention that a 1/2" thick lead tube would be stupidly heavy and expensive.

There are 3 main failure points with blackpowder guns, the lock, the barrel and the powder. Matchlocks are very simple so that is not a major factor, but poor quality barrels could certainly rupture or explode while the powder could either cause an explosion if the mix is too strong or be a dud if it's too weak or spoiled due to mishandling.

If your goblins are not good metalworkers or haphazard in mixing and storing powder then unreliable guns are easy without resorting to completely impractical designs.

>How big is the difference between modern carbines and PDWs?
>What disadvantages do bullpup designs have?
>If someone got hit with with three 7,62x39mm rounds to the chest, would he survive? We'll assume that the first round hits a lung, the second the stomach, and the third the liver.
Also, I've got a very dumb, very strange one.
>What speed would a 30mm round from a GAU-8 reach if it fired while outside a barrel?
>Could it be used as a dildo?
>Would one notice the difference in weight between a normal round, one with half propellant, and one with no propellant?
>If one were to detonate while between a target's legs, would it cause grave wounds?

>>56887100
Carbines generally pack a longer range over a PDW.

Trigger pull is a big one.

Pretty damn unlikely without a hefty dose of luck and immediate medical attention.

Cooked off rounds tend to fling the casing about rather than the bullet. The exact speed would be tricky to get as it's fairly random but it would be significantly reduced. Having one go off between your legs could kill you easily.

Propellant makes up a significant amount of weight so you can tell.

>>56882045
>this is why big fancy hats became popular, so you can recognize people in the smoke.
I never liked this explanation; it sounds a lot like a quick explanation the educated officers would tell the soldiers to shut them up. It makes so much more sense to say that distinctive uniforms were necessary so that commanders, especially generals, could easily look out on the battlefield and see where the allied soldiers were and what state they were in. It would be disastrous, after all, if a sergeant couldn't see where exactly the companies to their flanks were, or what they were doing. My belief is that is why colorful uniforms phased out not alongside the invention of accurate, smoleless firearms, but alongside the development of telephone and radio communications.

>>56888062
You realise your explanation is exactly the same thing, just scaled up, right? Wearing a fancy hat as a seargent so your men can identify you in the heat of battle and wearing a fancy uniform as a frenchman so your general can identify you in the heat of battle is exactly the same principle.

>>56888062
Check again when fancy uniforms were dropped in favour of khaki and other drab colours. Colonial wars in Africa or Asia in the second half of the 1800s such as the Mahdist War were not exactly known for extensive use of radio and field telephones on a tactical level.

>>56859037
According to a historian, the former concept of attaching artillery to infantry was extremely popular in armies which were underequipped for guns or had low average caliber (e.g. Prussia, Britain), and even remained the generally preferred strategy in armies with high average calibers (e.g. France, Austria) until the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War, when the military education in these countries quite rapidly shifted to the philosophy of the unattached artillery battery. The War of the First Coalition was the first major conflict in which batteries were the generally accepted method of artillery deployment among the whole of Europe.

>>56863165
>superstition
I don't know, the only reason that the Lebel
and Kropatschek wouldn't really be prone to chain fires is because of how stupidly tapered the cases were. That rim also increased the angle too.
And the tube fed Vetterli was pure rimfire until they went with a box magazine.

I wouldn't dare put a non-tapered or a very small tapered cartridge like a .308 or .30-06 into a tube fed levergun and shoot it because then it literally will be tip to primer. It wouldn't be superstition if Winchester went with a box magazine on the 1985.
Hell, I don't think I'd even trust putting Hornady's Levereveolution bullets in one, despite it being polymer tipped and have been shot with no problems.

I would suspect that the Henry would be pretty susceptible to slamfires when it comes to the newer centerfire replicas if you just let the follower slam down on the cartridges instead of controlling it's speed, regardless if the bullets are flat nosed. But I'm sure that the open magazine tube would vent out the gasses.
Just watch your hand.

Also did you mean Kropatchek? I don't think the Krag was ever a tube loader.

>>56888213
That is true. The adoption of khaki uniforms in the colonial forces of some European nations does align rather well with the development of smokeless powder. However, one could make the case that the nature of colonial warfare simply made it more feasible for that adoption. In general, European colonial forces were on an extremely small scale when compared to their continental counterparts, and the theory of engagement often involved colonial soldiers being formed into tight formations of a small area, which vastly reduces the tactical complexity of the situation, and also creates a precedent for a commander to know where exactly all his soldiers are, or at least should be, at any given time, without necessarily having to see them. Additionally, the Sudan, or at least the area where the Mahdist War was fought, lacks as much vegetation or as many structures as Europe has, so there already isn't much to obstruct your view of a wide area aside from hills.

The first conflict on a European scale which involved bland uniforms is the Second Boer War, in which field telephones and telegram stations were actually used to quite a larger extent. Even at that point, the British army was the only one to make complete use of subtle uniforms. German and Austrian colonial soldiers continued to use white or blue during the Boxer Rebellion. A significant part of the American army was still wearing blue during the Spanish-American War. The Japanese and, to a lesser extent, the Russians continued to use colored uniforms through the Russo-Japanese War, and part of the French army was still wearing bright blue and red well into the first stages of World War 1.

>>56881695
Because bows and crossbow were both less accurate, had less effective range, were weaker and only really meant to harass the enemy, and they couldn't be used for cover.

There's plenty of period sources during the transition from bows and xbows to guns that back that claim up. It goes against what is pop knowledge.

The ease of training that people bring up wasn't really a factor in some periods. In Tudor era England there was still a pool of skilled archers and English regulations kept longbows in the cheap side. English longbowmen getting trashed when fighting French harquebusiers generally led to a military revolution in England.

>>56881407
Not a rifle, it's a relatively new shotgun called the Crye Six12. Also, I'm fairly sure the notches aren't designed as breaching standoffs due to the geometry, but I might be wrong.

OP, working with historical firearms sounds a bit like a dream job, how'd you get into the field?

>>56878108
The same way a gun is cheap. It's not but it's doable for the average individual.

>>56881494
>What was the effective range and accuracy of early firearms?
How early are we talking? Firelance/handgonne is ten yards, matchlock is thirty, a flintlock is fifty and percussion cap is one hundred. At least for the average shooter.

>>56882110
>.45-70 or .50-110 could deal significant damage even through full on class iii hard body armor?
Even if it stops the bullet, they still got hit by a fuckoff big shot. They're done.

>>56887100
>What speed would a 30mm round from a GAU-8 reach if it fired while outside a barrel?
It would explode.
Would one notice the difference in weight between a normal round, one with half propellant, and one with no propellant?
Possibly, if they regularly handle ammunition.

>>56888062
It was to differentiate units, keep them warm, look smart, and intimidating.

>>56889213
>wouldn't really be prone to chain fires is because
Because they have never happened in the field and only during testing under extreme conditions.
>Hell, I don't think I'd even trust putting Hornady's Levereveolution bullets in one
Then you're superstitious.
>I don't think the Krag was ever a tube loader.
It was.

>>56889726
I am of the opinion we should still use colorful uniforms, the average infantryman gains no advantages from camoflauge and in some cases it's getting ridiculous, looking at you USN.

>>56894103
That is simply not true. Do you have any military experience? I do and I can tell you that every bit of blending with the environment gives a small edge. Someone sitting still might be passed over in a hurry, that one guy creeping up around cover might be seen a split second later.

>>56894116
>Do you have any military experience? I do
Clearly not from the Gulf War, when we invaded a desert country with forest patter uniforms.
The infantry exists to destroy the enemy in close combat, if they're far enough away to be passed over they aren't being used effectively.

>>56894280
You didn't answer my question. Do you have any applicable military experience pertaining to combat in camouflage uniforms? What are you basing your experience on?

If you're in forests, foliage, rocky areas, any type of broken terrain, camouflage helps immensely at all ranges, even in the actual combat. It might not make you invisible but it might give you that little extra. That's not even to mention ambushes, hiding from recon troops or such times when you actively try to hide.

And what does the gulf war have to do with it? Camouflage helps in avoiding detection and in firefights, but it doesn't change the outcome of a war with a nation so technologically, economically and industrially inferior to you that they have no chance of winning whatsoever.

>>56894372
>but it doesn't change the outcome of a war with a nation so technologically, economically and industrially inferior to you that they have no chance of winning whatsoever.
Forgot how we won Vietnam.

>>56887100
>If someone got hit with with three 7,62x39mm rounds to the chest, would he survive? We'll assume that the first round hits a lung, the second the stomach, and the third the liver.
If he gets immediate medical attention and is very lucky, maybe. The rest of his life isn't going to be a pleasant experience either way, though.

>What speed would a 30mm round from a GAU-8 reach if it fired while outside a barrel?
Not far. It'd just blow up.

>Could it be used as a dildo?
Yes. It would be stupid and dangerous, but that's never stopped people from using things as dildos before.

>Would one notice the difference in weight between a normal round, one with half propellant, and one with no propellant?
If they regularly used it as a dildo, probably yes. This is a creative assassination technique though.

>If one were to detonate while between a target's legs, would it cause grave wounds?
Not 100% sure, but with a round that big it's hard to see how it wouldn't. It doesn't have to travel far to fuck up your internal organs, and you need your guts to live.

>>56894384
Are you comparing a limited, conventional land war in a desert with a mixed conventional/guerilla war in a jungle?

>>56888062
You ever walk around in a fog? Now imagine that same fog but with constant shouting, screaming from the dead and dying, stray bullets flying and artillery blasts. There's fifty thousand soldiers on this battlefield and you are only vaguely aware of which direction the enemy is in assuming you didn't get turned by the terrain when the order to advance was issued after the first volley. You start seeing shapes from an unexpected direction and immediately form a line and they do the same and nobody knows what the fuck is going on but nobody wants to blithely march into someone else's readied volley.

Misidentification and friendly fire is not unusual under these circumstances. Given a choice between a big hat and getting shot, you take the big hat even though it doesn't guarantee you don't get shot.

>>56895161
I do believe he is.

>>56889726
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought it was the experience of getting their asses handed to them in the first boer war by loose-order sharpshooters that led the Brits directly to adopting khaki

>>56851916
The first war with more death due to enemy fire than to hygiene condition was WWI.

However, there is a tremendous jump into wound survival rate in the mid 19th century, when doctors started washing their tools.

>>56886896
Thats kindof the point. They literally carry a dozen of them loaded up on warbeasts and just fire them and leave them to be picked up later if they win the battle.

The potential for catastrophic failure is intentional: its to keep my players from using them.

>>56896190
These things would warp after only a shot or two if they fired at all. It's frankly insane to use something so heavy and expensive as a completely disposable weapon. Lead is one of the worst materials you could possibly choose and not even Goblins would use something so useless. Save the lead for casting bullets.

Wooden barrels would be much better, cheap and easy to make so they can be cranked out en masse but vulnerable to misfiring or exploding and good for only a few shots. You could go even more primitive and use a cannonlock where the match is manually applied rather than an actual matchlock mechanism (which is a waste of time and effort on a disposable weapon), meaning the gonne is literally a tube with a touch-hole mounted on a stock or a stick. Unreliable and with horrible accuracy, but a quick and dirty means of equipping the green horde with firearms nobody would want to scavenge. Wooden firelances would be even simpler.

>>56882408
>im still laughing

glad to be of service

>>56880511
Technically the first Maxims were blackpowder loaded.

>>56896190
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooden_cannon