ARA "draco" trench gun:
The draco is 80 centimeters from tip of the barrel to the end of the wooden stock, and is designed to launch shrapnel round out of the end similar to a blunderbuss. like the blunderbuss of the age of the Pirate, the draco is designed to be used in tighter, cramp enviroments and close quarters, were tight turn and heavy cover ensures the ability to get close.
The draco is designed to be semi-automatic, The gas expelled from the firing of a shell will clear out the shells remains before loading the next shell from the internal storage . The rounds are placed into the shotgun individually, because of the size of a shotgun shell invalidating the use of a stripper clip. The inserted shells (5 in total) are stored in a small compartment long compartment along the bottom, inside the trechgun itself.
The spray of small bullets the draco lets out can be compared to shrapnel from an explosion, ensuring that without cover the enemy in a general direction of, that way is dead.
The barrel of the draco is designed quite thick and has been attached as well to the body of the gun as our engineers can. this is to take advantage of the Pick. The pick is a spike that comes out of the bottom of the stock and is used like a warpick, via the barrel as a shaft. this ensures that our troops have a close ranged weapon even in the event of running out of ammunition.
Heres a trench gun, should be useful at close range and clearing out the fortress that we need to take. I will probably vote for the "pinscher" as our rifle right now.
The wickerman grenade is a 15-centimeter long grenade that has been designed to explode 8 seconds after the pin is pulled, flinging burning white phosphorus all around the area around its detonation. If set off inside an enclosed space it will quickly fill with deadly smoke, literally smoking the enemy out of their hiding places or risk being burned alive or suffocated. if the enemy does not quickly contain the fires that this grenade can cause, their fortifications will quite literally burn down around them, provided the wickermen are deployed in force.
Fuck it, soft science arms race. Time to let the pyromaniac out, I want to have armored soldiers with wrist-mounted flamethrowers, I want to burn everything down.
I don't like the volley, a rifle fired grenade is only good for range. We should have an actual hand grenade first, solely because its more versatile and can actually be used in tight combat.
Helium? really, any special resource (and possibly some not of this world because GM didn't clarify and this is soft science) in the world and you choose helium. if you want flying shit choose aluminum at least, because we can use it for anything that will fly and need metal. Helium is highly specialized (as in good for one thing and one thing only) for our one starting special resource.
EDIT: if we are going for super mateirels for airships, their a material in a game called airships conquer the skies called suspendium. basically, you feed it electricity and it produces a localized antigravity effect, allowing them to fly.
We really need man of paper to clarify what we can do for our resource.