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[andrea]

Spoiler: Fast Action Rifle Mk1 (click to show/hide)

 The "Fast Action" Rifle mark one is, simply put, a brown bess musket with the breach removed and replaced with a section that, when a side-mounted knob on the breachblock is rotated the rearmost section of the barrel pops out, allowing the loading of its paper cartridge. The barrel section is then pushed down and the block is rotated back to its inital position.

 The weapon is also rifled, and the munitions use soft lead so they can expand and fill the rifleing, aided by the shape of the cast rounds(which include a dimple in the base and a slightly pointed nose).

+1

edit: by th way, I sort of like that we can direct our military efforts. Allows us to tailor our designs to our needs. In fact, in the future we should likely discuss and accept focus before anything else, and only then propose designs. then, if designs go bad, focus cn be revised in the proper focus phase.

[tryrar]

Spoiler: Fast Action Rifle Mk1 (click to show/hide)

 The "Fast Action" Rifle mark one is, simply put, a brown bess musket with the breach removed and replaced with a section that, when a side-mounted knob on the breachblock is rotated the rearmost section of the barrel pops out, allowing the loading of its paper cartridge. The barrel section is then pushed down and the block is rotated back to its inital position.

 The weapon is also rifled, and the munitions use soft lead so they can expand and fill the rifleing, aided by the shape of the cast rounds(which include a dimple in the base and a slightly pointed nose).

+1

+1. The reason minies made rifling more practical was due to the fouling blackpowder causes to the gun, and since these bullets are sesigned to engage the rifling they can also break loose any fouling. Next step would to invent a smokeless powder about 100 years early

[andrea]

nah, smoke is fine. allows our charging infantry to charge unnoticed. In fact, we should aim for extra smoky gunpowder! ( kidding here, of course).

as for the revision, any idea? perhaps we could expad the railway network, as I think it only connects few locations right now. Plus, it has some issues. Although I think we wouldn't benefit immediately from an extra resource.

A better idea perhaps would be to redìvise the howitzer to use our manufacturing techniques, gaining a gun to outrange all the guns. ( which would make for devastating bombardment after we design a bomb ship, but would als be great in the field.)

as for espionage, the dunwich canister shot is amazing. I would consider stealing it.

[Aseaheru]

 Getting better field howitzers via using casting is an idea, though we could also look into ironing out the bugs with the wagonways. Perhaps comeup with better bakes?

 Also, for the blue-sky project of steam locomotives, I think this is the sorta thing we should aim for.

[Happerry]

Considering that the peninsula is one of my stated priorities for this war, I agree. However, I suggest the peninsula itself as target, so that we can have our ships guard the sides. I am not sure if they can navigate the rivers to provide us support, and the support of our ships could prove essential, especially during the first phases of the fight, when our ground troops aren't properly deployed.

I wasn't thinking of the ships going up the rivers so much as that any attack over the rivers will be an artillery duel, and we have better artillery then our targets at this point. Whether it's the peninsula or the area between the rivers, the advantage I desire is that of only having to fight and advance in one direction, instead of in every direction.

Once we've seized land we can then change that, but for the actual seizing of land being able to only care about one axis of advance is a good thing.

If we capture the peninsula, we get a good staging ground for any future operations.

This is true. But I think the area between rivers would be just as good if not better.

Spoiler: Fast Action Rifle Mk1 (click to show/hide)

 The "Fast Action" Rifle mark one is, simply put, a brown bess musket with the breach removed and replaced with a section that, when a side-mounted knob on the breachblock is rotated the rearmost section of the barrel pops out, allowing the loading of its paper cartridge. The barrel section is then pushed down and the block is rotated back to its inital position.

 The weapon is also rifled, and the munitions use soft lead so they can expand and fill the rifleing, aided by the shape of the cast rounds(which include a dimple in the base and a slightly pointed nose).

+1

+1. The reason minies made rifling more practical was due to the fouling blackpowder causes to the gun, and since these bullets are sesigned to engage the rifling they can also break loose any fouling. Next step would to invent a smokeless powder about 100 years early

+1 from me as well. The design looks good and is just what we need to go advance on the shore this turn.

[andrea]

the peninsula is significantly more narrow, meaning that our initially small expeditionary force will have an easier time defending their positions while reinforcements arrive. Plus, they have better support from our extensive fleet. Keep in mind that our transport ships will still be very limited, so lower travel time and easier defensibility of the area with the few troops we can land at the same time might turn out to be crucial.
in the rivers, diverting artillery to the sides would weaken our middle. In the peninsula, we have the artillery on the sides in the form of our ships.

[10ebbor10]

While the cannon is great, I don't think it'll make a decent upgrade for our ship. It weights a whole ton. In addition, howitzer oft used an angled flight patg, which us troubling against naval targets. Thrn again, this seems to be a gun howitzer.

Maybe as a bomb ketch, but not for ship-to-ship warfare.

Anyway, for the invasion, we outrange the Confederate forces. We can simply bomb their cities into submission.

[andrea]

of course, the only naval use would be bomb ketches.
But the role of bomb ketches can't be underestimated. they might have limited utility in naval combat, but for land assaults they are valuable, especially if they outrange everyone vastly. 
Lets not also forget that aval use is not the only use, and field howitzers will also be useful.

As for simply bombing the cities into submission... we can pehaps destroy them, but we can't capture them.As son as we  land, we get stormed by their armies. if we start this savage destroying, I bet both factions will rapidly switch focus to fleet building. I think embargo, support, mobility are better uses of our fleet, as they have a better chance to go unchallenged. That is, unless we have something which we really need to destroy, such as for example a new shipyard for a ship that could be troublesome if deployed.

What do you think of the design proposals anyway?

[Happerry]

Nah, we can only barrage their shores. If we get close enough to shoot the whole city, we'll be in range for them to shoot back.

...But if we want to put off taking over the seas entirely, I would fully support using an action to do a sail by shooting of any coastal settlements they have.

Also, does anyone think we should design a shotgun next turn? Having one would make any boarding operations we do... well, we'd have the advantage and anyone without one wouldn't. Even if it is of the 'flip open and insert more ammo' type.

[andrea]

personally, I think final domination of the sea is more important than any kind of damage we could do by dedicated shore bombardment on their cities.

we can cannonball them when making our landing on the island.

[10ebbor10]

On a side note, here's another interesting thing. Cheap mass manufacturing of round shot can perhaps help us.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_tower

On the other hand, we're going for rifling and our guns are already cheap, so there's no real point.

[andrea]

maybe if we could build one big enough for cannonballs but I think it is a bit early for space elevators.

[3_14159]

I definitely agree that - now that we have better ammo for our cannons - we need some infantry armament, ideally rifled. Right now, we have a breach-loaded rifled bess variant (Fast Action Rifle Mk. I) and a percussion-based one (Imperial Rifle Mk. I).
My concern with both is that they are fairly ambitious designs, and we risk failure either due to explosive breach-complication or failure of the percussion caps.

Therefore, here's my alternative design:

Spoiler: Long-Range Rifle Mk. I (click to show/hide)

The Long-Range Rifle is, in essence, what will be known as the Baker Rifle. It consists of a 760mm, 16mm-calibre rifled barrel in which seven grooves are cut. Contrary to the Baker Rifle, and expanding on ammo observed to be used in the Samara rifle, it uses a cast soft-lead bullet which will expand on being fired, grip the grooves and clean them of blackpowder residue. This takes away with the necessity of wrapping the ammo in cloth, therefore increasing the reload speed to that of a contemporary musket. Powder is issued - as usual - in paper cartridges to be ripped open and poured into the rifle; riflemen are additionally issued a powder horn for more accurate shots.
In the end, the rifle will be able to accurately hit a man-sized target with 90% of its shots at 300m, and marksmen will be to fire accurately up to 500m.

The idea is to primarily issue these rifles to skirmishers (once we have enough, everyone gets one), but I expect them to be expensive. These skirmishers primarily fire on Victoria-carriers and  officers during battles, but might also be used to suppress cannons.
Contrary to the Samara, the range will be significantly higher because we are not modifying a Brown Bess, and we're not using a shorter barrel. This means the enemy cannot attack us by sprinting Victoria-carriers through the firing range (as done with the Samara), and we will probably have more people armed with the Long-Range Rifle than they have with the Victoria.

And, for comparison, the other two rifle designs:

Spoiler: Imperial Mk. I Rifle (click to show/hide)

A breechloading rifle using a specially shaped round designed to engage the grooves when the pressure of the gunpowder pushes on the conical base. it is primed using a new percussion cap consisting of a stabilized mercury fulminatecoating, that when dtriggered directs a blast of hot gas and flame down a nipple igniting the powder charge.

Spoiler: Fast Action Rifle Mk1 (click to show/hide)

 The "Fast Action" Rifle mark one is, simply put, a brown bess musket with the breach removed and replaced with a section that, when a side-mounted knob on the breachblock is rotated the rearmost section of the barrel pops out, allowing the loading of its paper cartridge. The barrel section is then pushed down and the block is rotated back to its inital position.

 The weapon is also rifled, and the munitions use soft lead so they can expand and fill the rifleing, aided by the shape of the cast rounds(which include a dimple in the base and a slightly pointed nose).

[tryrar]

Hrm, yours is certainly a bit less ambitious, and that actually has me in a conundrum. Asa's design would give us the maximum amount of new tech if it works, but has a good chance of failure. Yours only really has practical rifling and is still a muzzlelaoder, but has a good chance of success.

*Flips coin*

Welp, coin say yours is the better choice, so switching my vote to yours(please add a Mk. 1 to your rifle name )

[Happerry]

Yah, it's probably better to have something with a better chance of working then something that'll give us shiny tech right now, if we're going to make a landing this turn.

I'll switch my vote to the Long-Range Rifle Mk. 1 unless someone has a good reason not to.

It'd still probably be good to get the fast action rifle later on, as it looks better as a main line of battle rifle, but for now the range advantage verses the enemy's air rifles should be key.