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[Sensei]

You can make the 12 gauge ones for now, but only enough to supply your officers.

[tryrar]

I generally agree with that production order. So, for the next design phase I have a couple ideas.

AS-1913 105mm mountain gun. Basically, a breech-loading short-barreled pack-howitzer placed on a light wooden carriage. It is designed to be quickly disassembled and reassembled with minimal tooling needed and be transported by donkey, or in the worst case humped by a squad of troopers; as well, the carriage is designed that it can be manhandled into proper firing position by only a couple of grunts. Not only will this aid in fighting in rough terrain, but it would be the perfect heavier piece to complement our smaller-barreled 80mm artillery.

Reliable field radios! If we have reliable communications, we can vastly improve our response times and coordination to enemy movements, and scouts can call in precise artillery barrages on enemy emplacements and troops.

[Andres]

Considering we have artillery in the forms of our 1911 and our 1912, I don't think it's wise to design further pieces of artillery.

Radios are a good idea, but combining our glorious Arstotzkan brand of Patience with a sniper rifle would also be very useful. Taking out artillery and machine gun crews would be easy in that case.
Personally, I think we should make the sniper rifle first so we can play to our strengths better.

I think we should change how we name our new armaments so I have come up with a new naming scheme below.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A. Artillery
F. Firearm
G. Grenade
M. Mortar

Instead of AS-19XX [weapon], it should be AS-[letter]XX

So for our new artillery, it would be AS-A12.

Glory to Arstotzka.

EDIT: (The description of the mortar on the thread still says it's unreliable, even though we fixed that problem.)

[Aseaheru]

All we really need for snipers is optics... So perhaps next turn we work on getting better optical equipment for our officers, thus getting our tech, and then using that tech to revise the mosin to include a scope?

[Andres]

All we really need for snipers is optics... So perhaps next turn we work on getting better optical equipment for our officers, thus getting our tech, and then using that tech to revise the mosin to include a scope?

(GM said that creating a scope is a Design project, but after we do we could probably apply it to binoculars and trench periscopes too, now that I think about it.)

[Aseaheru]

 I think that what Sensei meant was that creating the optics in general was a design project that then could be applied to, well, whatever.

[Sheb]

"Nah, we don't need artillery" they said.

[Andres]

Choosing a mortar over the artillery was a good idea overall. In the east we lost ground because of it, in the mountains we gained ground because of it, and in the west we forced a stalemate where we were previously losing ground.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Andres]

This is important. I just realised that with our making magazines non-Expensive, combined with our pistols being Shoddy and thus having -1 Expense, our pistols are double non-Expensive. We can make twice the amount of pistols so that every soldier is armed with two pistols. If they fire each individual gun more slowly than they fire one, they'll jam less (if at all) and the normal rate of fire will be sustained.

Produce double the amount of AS-1909s so all our soldiers are equipped with two.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[10ebbor10]

I think we need to come up with a longer term plan, instead of acting solely reactionary.

Are we going to try and win in the mountains? Are we going to try and overpower the enemy on the plains? Or maybe the Jungle? When are we going to improve our resource gathering capability?

[Sheb]

We should also centralize our intelligence/sabotage/stuff. Weve been doing good so far.

I think our goal should be to stalemate in the plains and the swamps while pushing in the mountains, to try to improve our ore ressources. So heavy defensive armament and lighter offensive one.

Edit: Just read the battle roll. It all seems good, and I dont think theyll manage to stop our advances in the mountains and jungles any time soon. So we need to take back the plains. We should be able to stalemate them if we improve our gun in the revision phase. Going for something mechanized will be hard due to our lack of oil...

Why dont we design some kind of gunboat with our gun and steam engine? Were fighting on a continent after all, by having a ship we will open two whole new fronts and be able to strike their rear with impunity.

[Andres]

Why dont we design some kind of gunboat with our gun and steam engine? Were fighting on a continent after all, by having a ship we will open two whole new fronts and be able to strike their rear with impunity.

The sea all around is prone to sudden and treacherous storms that make naval excursions risky, and threaten any ship not in a bay (there is one on the north, south, and west sides of Forenia each).

Not only that, but we'll first need to revise our artillery if we're to mount any decent weapons on them.

Edit: Just read the battle roll. It all seems good, and I dont think theyll manage to stop our advances in the mountains and jungles any time soon. So we need to take back the plains. We should be able to stalemate them if we improve our gun in the revision phase. Going for something mechanized will be hard due to our lack of oil...

Just remember that our soldiers were gifted with unusually high morale this time around. We shouldn't rest on our laurals just yet, though I agree that we've cleared enough room for ourselves that we have some free space to focus on the plains for a while.

I think we need to come up with a longer term plan, instead of acting solely reactionary.

Are we going to try and win in the mountains? Are we going to try and overpower the enemy on the plains? Or maybe the Jungle? When are we going to improve our resource gathering capability?

We probably don't need to improve our resource gathering if our war in the mountains continues to go as good as it has. We've reached the point where we can hit their trains, meaning we'll soon take the places the trains are shipping the Ore from.

Design scope that can be fitted on our Nosin-Magants.
In the mountains, this will let us pick off enemies from further away and let us make more gains. In the plains, we'll be able to target their artillery crews and their officers. Snipers make for good ambushers so it'll be decently effective in the jungles where ambushes are common, even if line of sight is limited. Finally, we might be able to apply the scope technology to other things such as binoculars or periscopes. Combining a sniper with someone using a periscope to spot enemies will be very useful in the trenches.

I think we should revise our artillery to be useful in warmer environments. Losing the artillery war is the primary reason why we're being pushed back on the plains. Our pistol isn't as relevant as it was before, so revising it now wouldn't be the best thing we could do.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[10ebbor10]

Why dont we design some kind of gunboat with our gun and steam engine? Were fighting on a continent after all, by having a ship we will open two whole new fronts and be able to strike their rear with impunity.

The sea all around is prone to sudden and treacherous storms that make naval excursions risky, and threaten any ship not in a bay (there is one on the north, south, and west sides of Forenia each).

Not only that, but we'll first need to revise our artillery if we're to mount any decent weapons on them.

Yeah, that's not going to happen soon. We can barely afford river gunboats as it is, so...

I think we need to come up with a longer term plan, instead of acting solely reactionary.

Are we going to try and win in the mountains? Are we going to try and overpower the enemy on the plains? Or maybe the Jungle? When are we going to improve our resource gathering capability?

We probably don't need to improve our resource gathering if our war in the mountains continues to go as good as it has. We've reached the point where we can hit their trains, meaning we'll soon take the places the trains are shipping the Ore from.

We don't need ore though it would be nice. Not having any oil will be problematic once the enemy interferes.

Design scope that can be fitted on our Nosin-Magants.
In the mountains, this will let us pick off enemies from further away and let us make more gains. In the plains, we'll be able to target their artillery crews and their officers. Snipers make for good ambushers so it'll be decently effective in the jungles where ambushes are common, even if line of sight is limited. Finally, we might be able to apply the scope technology to other things such as binoculars or periscopes. Combining a sniper with someone using a periscope to spot enemies will be very useful in the trenches.

I don't think a scope will be very relevant. I mean, our men are already very accurate, and already have good rifles. Besides, their artillery is quite long ranged, I don't think we can simply snipe them all away. Which is why I'm going in a completely different direction.

Spoiler: AS-1913 Observation balloon (click to show/hide)

A hydrogen filled balloon, attached to a steel tether which can raise it to 1500 meter, and containing numerous optical instruments. This will allow us superior battlefield knowledge, let us direct artillery beyond visual range and stuff like that.

It also develops optics, letting us add those to our guns using merely revisions, hopefully.

[Andres]

I don't think a scope will be very relevant. I mean, our men are already very accurate, and already have good rifles. Besides, their artillery is quite long ranged, I don't think we can simply snipe them all away. Which is why I'm going in a completely different direction.

Spoiler: AS-1913 Observation balloon (click to show/hide)

A hydrogen filled balloon, attached to a steel tether which can raise it to 1500 meter, and containing numerous optical instruments. This will allow us superior battlefield knowledge, let us direct artillery beyond visual range and stuff like that.

It also develops optics, letting us add those to our guns using merely revisions, hopefully.

This too is a good idea, but part of the description states that it has numerous optical instruments - something we'll have to design first. Yet more reason to go with a scope.

We don't need ore though it would be nice. Not having any oil will be problematic once the enemy interferes.

Our artillery is only Expensive because of its size, not because of its complexity. Getting more Ore will fix that for us, allowing us to field much more of them. More importantly, capturing the Mountains entirely will cut off the Moskurg's from Ore, driving their Stallions and Bombardiers past Very Expensive. This could win us the war. EDIT: (Read GM's latest post.)

Now that I think about it more, having our soldiers have two pistols is better even if they don't use them akimbo. When one jams, they can just whip out the other.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[10ebbor10]

This too is a good idea, but part of the description states that it has numerous optical instruments - something we'll have to design first. Yet more reason to go with a scope.

The idea is to develop the optics as part of the project, so that we can later add them to everything with revisions. 

Our artillery is only Expensive because of its size, not because of its complexity. Getting more Ore will fix that for us, allowing us to field much more of them. More importantly, capturing the Mountains entirely will cut off the Moskurg's from Ore, driving their Stallions and Bombardiers past Very Expensive. This could win us the war.

Moskurg has domestic ore reserves in their home desert. In addition, without train upgrades we get no additional resources, as we simply can't transport them.