Right now, the Samara outranges the Victoria by about 50 meters. This means we always get the first volley, which is very important. If we start with a hundred men each, and we shoot first and drop fifteen, only eighty-five rifles are ever fired back at us. Let's say we put another fifty to one hundred meters range on the thing. They have to run a hundred and fifty meters before they can even start to shoot at us. We probably get another volley off in the time it takes them to run into range and form up. Now we are well within our range and can expect more rifles to hit, so let's say we hit twenty this time. suddenly we outnumber them three to two, and they haven't even started shooting. If they start shooting here, we have an advantage again as they are at the limit of their range while we are well within ours, so we'll be more accurate. If they don't they have to keep running and take yet another volley to get into their optimal range.
Keep in mind we also have the Victoria, so we can revise that as well if that interests anyone. It would basically get us to parity with the Confeds on land. Something that I notice is that if the Victoria II air rifle is complex, the Samara really shouldn't be, as the Samara has far fewer moving parts and is overall a much simpler weapon.
I think that navally, the best thing we can do is design a twelve-pounder cannon next turn, which will help both on land and at sea, where it will be able to easily outshoot the Loyalists' six-pounders. Something kind of funny is that the entire reason we lost to the Loyalists at sea was because they had superior range, something I think is a testament to the power of outranging your opponent.
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Topic: Arms Race - 1784: Atterton Monarchy Design Phase (Read 16733 times)