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[Sensei]

Arstotzka, Arstotzka, of shining snow
Arstotzka, Arstotzka, of biting cold
Arstotzka, the wonderful
Arstotzka, the powerful
Arstotzka, Arstotzka, with soul of gold!

Welcome, comrade, to the Arms Race! We, the People's Democratic Government of Arstotzka and our Firing Squad, are glad you have chosen to design weapons for our glorious nation. We are at war with our long-standing enemy, Moskurg, and our armory is a mixture of outdated weapons, and new ones which our factories are having trouble producing.

The OOC thread for this game is here, and you should probably read it. However, the basic rules are that each year you get to design a weapon (or piece of equipment), revise that design (or revise a different existing one) and then everything goes into production, and you get to find out if our weapons are doing better than the Moskurg ones.

Here is the current state of our army, in 1910:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Weapons:
-Nosin-Magant: Officer weapon. A Russian Mosin-Nagant rifle, brand new ones roll off the assembly lines, and then a highly skilled team changes the letters with chisels. A bolt-action rifle with a five-round clip which fires 7.62mm rounds. Good accuracy, but with iron sights which have a post adjustable up to one kilometer, designed for long-range but inaccurate barrages. Good stopping power against infantry. It is Expensive, which means only enough have been made to supply Officers. Detachable bayonet.
-AS-1891: General infantry weapon. The first weapon manufactured in Arstotzka. This is a muzzle-loading rifle: it is loaded by disassembling a 7.62mm round for the mosin, pouring the gunpowder down the barrel, dropping the bullet down the barrel, and placing the primer. Stopping power and accuracy are poor. Unfortunately, most infantry are forced to use these.
-AS-1909: General infantry sidearm. An Arstotzka-made semi-automatic pistol, firing 9mm. It has a 10-round magazine and can fire quickly with moderate accuracy, at short range. Moderate stopping power. Unfortunately, if fired quickly, it jams about once a magazine (Shoddy, -1 Expense).

Technology:
-Metric system. Meters, kilograms, liters!
-Breech-loading
-Muzzle-loading
-Bolt action
-Clips and Magazines [Expensive]
-Cold Weather Engineering. Arstotzka-made equipment is designed and tested in the cold tundra, and does not become unreliable due to cold climates and snow.
-7.62mm Rifle rounds. Largish round for small arms with good stopping power.
-9mm Pistol rounds. Small rounds with moderate stopping power and not great range.

Soldiers:
-Patient: Moskurg soldiers excel at waiting in ambush, and carefully shooting from afar, giving them and advantage in long-range engagements.
-Uniform: Scarlet-dyed wool, with a golden star on the breast. Warm. Glorious. Doesn't stop bullets.

Transportation:
-Horses: Soldiers ride sometimes horses to battle, but prefer to fight on foot in cover.
-AS-51 Steam Engine: The heart of the south! Built in Arstotzka, this engine pulls trains of food, ammo, and resources.
-Some civilians have automobiles, but they are little use on snowy roads outside of cities.

Resources:
1 Research facility. You may initiate 1 new project each year.
2 Ore. Vehicles or carriage-mounted weapons are Expensive.
1 Oil. Products which use more fuel than a motorcycle are Expensive.

Remember: We only have enough staff to draft one new design this year. Then, we get one chance to revise that design (or a different one) before going into production.

What shall we design, People's Engineers?

[Andres]

A machine gun. The cold of Arstotzka will cool it for us!

Glory to Arstotzka.

[10ebbor10]

I have 2 proposals.

In Europe, the machine gun seems to be all the rage. Perhaps we should see what the fuzz is about.

Spoiler: AS-1910 Machine gun (click to show/hide)

A recoil operated machine gun, chambered in our standard 7.62mm Rifle rounds, belt fed.  Water-cooled to allow sustained operations Operated by 3 or 4 people.

The railway leads straight into the heart of Mosburg. It's a perfect opportunity to attack their positions.

Spoiler: AS-1910 80 mm Railway Gun (click to show/hide)

A large 80 mm gun, designed to be placed on a railway car, though not used exclusively there. Design priorities are affordability (try to aim for expensive rather than very expensive) and fire rate. Range and accuracy are considered less important, due to the Mosburg tradition of charging the enemy at the earliest opportunity.

Utilizes explosive shrapnel or canister shells.

[Andres]

(I think we can do only one project at a time.)

[10ebbor10]

Which is why there are two proposals, with others being able to support whichever they like.

[Sheb]

I support Citizen 10ebbor10 machine gun proposal. The Mosburger are known for charging in close combat, a machinegun would let us create effective fields of fire to prevent just that.

[Knave]

+1 to the AS-1910 MG proposal

[Aseaheru]

I also support the creation of a machine gun.

[Sensei]

It looks like the most popular plan by far is the creation of a machinegun, with three supporting votes.

You set to work on the drawing board right away. This will be a large undertaking, requiring the entirely new design of a belt-fed, gas-operated loading system. After a several weeks, the first prototype is manufactured and ready for testing.

AS-1910 Machine Gun: Arstotzka's first belt-fed machinegun, firing the same 7.62mm rifle rounds already produced for the Nosin-Magant. The belt-feed mechanism is robust, making it heavy but very reliable. Each round has good stopping power. The machinegun is operated with two handles due to its recoil, making it incapable of aim as precise as a rifle, but when the barrel is cool, bullets generally fly straight. It is air-cooled, and the barrel tends to overheat somewhat quickly. Your engineers have compensated for this by giving each crew two detachable barrels- when one overheats, it can be removed and thrown in the snow. It is heavy- it must be in place on a tripod or other mount to fire, and requires three men to move. It also requires three men to operate continuously. Due to the complexity of the feed mechanism, it is Expensive.

I made a couple d6 die rolls: You got a 6 for the mechanism, and a 4 for cooling and ease of use of the gun.

You have gained the following technologies: Belt-fed loading [Expensive], Changeable Barrels

Overall this is a great achievement for your engineers, and stands to change the face of battle as we know it. Because it is expensive, each officer must choose between a Nosin-Magant rifle and an AS-1910 MG crew in his squad. The majority of your troops are still using the lousy AS-1891.

It is now the Revision Phase. You may choose one improvement to make to an existing design.

[Sheb]

Great achievement!

For the revision phase, I think we should take a look at our infantry rifle. The AS-1891 is a piece of crap, little better than a musket. It's muzzle-loaded for christ's sake! I don't think it could be salvaged.

The Mosin-Nagant however is a perfectly good rifle. If we could simplify its design a bit to make it less expensive to produce, it would make for a great standard infantry rifle.

As such, I propose that we try to make the Mosin-Nagant cheaper.

[Aseaheru]

I also support this. Honestly, I dont know how our military survived this long, unless we have pikemen everywhere.

[10ebbor10]

The problem is, the thing making the Nagant expensive is the clip and Magazine system. Let's try improving that.

[Knave]

The only problem I foresee making the Nagant less expensive is I believe we are importing them from Russia and just changing the letters, thus not producing them ourselves. Are we allowed to revise this design?

EDIT: But if I've read that wrong, I definitely agree that we should try to revise the clip and magazine system to be less expensive.

[Sensei]

Improving the Nosin in that way would automatically update the technology in your list, for the Nosing and for future use.

Also, you are manufacturing them yourselves, using "borrowed" machines.

For now, you can't research technologies on their own.

[3man75]

Tactical vests.

Worn underneat to stop bullets that our glorious uniforms cannot. Light weight and able to stop small arms fire and small pieces of shrapnel.