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[m1895]

L'Arsenal De Sa Majesté Modèle 1913 "Fleurs Rouges" Heavy Machinegun
The Fleurs Rouges is a modern belt-fed machine gun firing a powerful 15mm cartridge at a serviceable 450rpm, with a watercooled barrel allowing it to maintain fire for a remarkable amount of time. The 15mm rounds are effective out to 2km, or 3.5km in plunging fire, but it's trump card is a simplified derivative of Pęcknięcie, made economical enough to mix into standard belts and providing a devastating punch to an already hard-hitting weapon and making it easier to correct fire onto target at the end of its range. The tripod has sufficient vertical traverse (to facilitate plunging fire) that it also could shoot down aircraft, should aviation prove to have military value. The Fleurs has its limitations though; it's a heavy beast, and needs to be broken down and carried by three men (two in a pinch for real short distances,) and it guzzles ammo and water, but these problems are minor in comparison to the sheer firepower it offers.
You people write too fast

[Kashyyk]

I object to the French name, but the Fleurs Rouges is pretty much exactly what I was going to propose

[Maxim_inc]

I object to the French name, but the Fleurs Rouges is pretty much exactly what I was going to propose

I considered something similar too but I only had enough brainpower to write one thing last night.

[TricMagic]

L'Arsenal De Sa Majesté Modèle 1913 "Fleurs Rouges" Heavy Machinegun: (1) TricMagic

Technology Trees follow the shortest path down. (That's about all I have to say.)

[m1895]

I object to the French name, but the Fleurs Rouges is pretty much exactly what I was going to propose

I'm sorry Kash but the not!french speaking enclave centered around mining towns in the east mountains is 100% canon.

[force200]

I wrote this at 1 am so its gonna be a little rough but it gets the idea across. If the roll turns out super well the slugs are large enough that we could make a less complex version of the Pęknięcie rounds given a larger round means we're not working on such a small scale.

Piorun Automatic Fowling Piece: Legally identified as an “Automatic Fowling Piece” instead of a machine gun in the gun laws of the Kingdom the Piorun (Thunderbolt) is a marvel of heavy automatic fire. Weighing in at 14 kg and a total of 43 kg with its all metal wheeled mount the Piorun is a heavy beast but the amount of firepower it’s able to send downrange is hoped to alleviate that concern. The key piece of the Piorun’s operation, and its legal troubles, is the 16.5x95mm shell it chambers. In the simplest terms an overcharged 16 Gauge shotgun shell the standard cardboard case of most shotgun shells is done away with in favor of a straight walled brass shell coming in two standard color coded loads.
Orange painted shells holding twenty-six .28 caliber lead balls designed to deny as much area as possible when used, and green painted shells with a special cast lead slug in the shape of a hexagon with a pointed tip and boat tail base for accuracy at long range.

The hexagonal shape of the slugs allow for a large degree of accuracy when fired from the correspondingly hexagonal rifled barrel of the Piorun, the soft nature of the unjacketed lead slug and progressive twist on the rifling from chamber to muzzle allowing the slugs to be loaded and fired without worry of misalignment as they find their grip in the barrel easily. The lack of hard cut grooves in the barrel as well allowing for the buckshot to be fired safely from the same barrel without fear of damaging precious rifling of a normal barrel. The hexagonal rifling giving stability to the slug allowing for accurate long range fire.

Instead of using a complex system of gas operation the designers of the Piorun instead sought to use the vast recoil energies of the shell in its operation. When fired the recoil of the weapon causes the bolt to move backwards ejecting the spent casing and feeding a new one in from the belt fed system. To make use of the ammunition options of the Piorun a metallic belt in segments of 10 are used, the 10th round being used to link the segment to another length of 10 and so on. This allows gunners to keep belts of one or another type of ammo and if need be in a hurry instead of going through a lengthy reloading process either adding on slug or buckshot segments into the already loaded belt or simply quickly delinking the segment closest to the breech and linking in a pre-linked belt of a few dozen segments of slug or buckshot.

I like this one, but I also have a small suggestion. If I'm reading this correctly, this is supposed to be some sort of blowback action. Could you specify it to a an Advanced Primer Ignition (API) Blowback (A system where the cartrige is fired before it is fully chambered while the bolt is still moving and thereby using the forward momentum of the bolt as the delaying mechanism. It's often used in Autocannons, like the Oerlikon)? It would let us shave off a couple of pounds by needing a much lighter bolt and potentially also allow a higher rate of fire.

[Maxim_inc]

The problem is this is our standard machinegun for the next few turns and I'd rather not complicate it with more complex versions of its action. Furthermore this is an upscaled shotgun not a autocannon, we're talking comparatively lower pressures here where API isn't needed to counter the extreme pressure exerted by the recoil spring on autocannon ammunition like the Oerlikons.

Also, anyone think we can get explosive shots in the design or would it be safer to wait for a revision? I don't want to make the roll more difficult than it has to be for a workhorse design.

[force200]

It was more about the weight reduction and potentialy higher rate of fire, but good point about not overcomplicating the design.

[m1895]

L'Arsenal De Sa Majesté Modèle 1913 "Fleurs Rouges" Heavy Machinegun: (2) TricMagic, m1895

[TricMagic]

It's experience towards it, and what revisions are for.

I really want to salt on about our first design locking us out of designs that aren't standard guns. (Without a difficulty spike.) Mortars can come during the ranged phase, I think. When we have more of a handle on exploding shells. If that is even useful for them.

Idea for revision, exploding bayonets. Stab a foe, press the trigger, it explodes in said foe and pushes you back, insert new blade.

[Man of Paper]

Tric you aren’t locked out of anything and there isn’t some “difficulty spike” if you try to do something new. You’re confusing everything being equally difficult to break into and exclusive development. If you guys decide to make the laser blaster 9000 now it’ll be just as difficult as if it was done for your first rifle.

Now if you’re implying that the reduction of difficulty from experience = everything else is harder then that’s a negative mindset. Look at it more like there aren’t downsides, there’s just an upside to starting work earlier because of the experience it provides.

And besides, look at it this way: difficulty modifiers are the only determining factor in who gets more effective starting equipment. Don’t be too sad about it.

[FallacyofUrist]

It's not really a 'lockout', it's just inefficiency. Really, doing something totally new is always going to be inefficient in some way, but it can be well worth it for the technological branching it creates.

1 - 'Glass Cannon' Glass-Firing Mortar - Fallacy
0 - Piorun Automatic Fowling Piece -
2 - L'Arsenal De Sa Majesté Modèle 1913 "Fleurs Rouges" Heavy Machinegun - TricMagic, m1895

I just want to do things that are interesting, inefficient or not. The Glass Cannon is intended to let us branch into glass-materials technology, which may not sound that impressive, but even now revolutionary materials like glass-DNA composites are still being invented, in reality. It's entirely feasible to get glass armor that would be lighter-weight and more durable than steel, glass projectiles that fracture explosively into shards and machinery-clogging breathing-killing dust, glass monomolecular-edged swords that will make the Northern spear-rifles look like trash.

[TricMagic]

K.

Wild ideas. Going back to the wind gun, use compressed air to fire a lot of bullets very quickly. Just a continuous stream as bullets are sucked into the barrel from differential pressure and ejected out. Low impact means the guns can be carried by hand, only needing new canisters as the old one is used up. Each one is good for 30 seconds of fire.

Alternatively, a coil cannon that fires shards downrange but is fairly inaccurate. Or an actual cannon that focuses on range and exploding cannonballs. (Which would be a mortar.)

Last idea would be...

Plysta Water Cannon
The Plysta Cannon is a mobilized artillery comprised of a water tank, compressor tanks, and cannon/truck setup. Over half a minute water is compressed into the launch chamber behind the ammunition, in this case a fulminated mercury round the size of cannonballs, with a sturdy iron shell. On release it is fired downrange, hitting the ground and going off, creating an explosion of shrapnel from the impact. Designed with ease of operation in mind, it comes equipped with deployable walls to shield the loaders from sight. Just open the case, load the cannon and close it, direct the lift to adjust the range if nessaceery, and press the big red button once launch chamber is full. The largest advantage of the Plysta Water Cannon is it's mobility and ease of use, able to accept any ammo developed for it.

It's not really a 'lockout', it's just inefficiency. Really, doing something totally new is always going to be inefficient in some way, but it can be well worth it for the technological branching it creates.

+1

[FallacyofUrist]

Unfortunately we do have to design either a machine gun or a mortar this round. While that can be stretched, as seen by the Northern rifle-spear, I don't think artillery counts as a mortar.

The good news though, is that round 4 is 'indirect fire support', which works out to artillery - or airplanes, I think. So the Water Cannon would be a good design for then.

[Maxim_inc]

1 - 'Glass Cannon' Glass-Firing Mortar - Fallacy
1 - Piorun Automatic Fowling Piece - Maxim
2 - L'Arsenal De Sa Majesté Modèle 1913 "Fleurs Rouges" Heavy Machinegun - TricMagic, m1895