Tag: firearms

[Commander Melody Sawyer] meanwhile was scanning the body readings on the infrared, memorising where they were inside the buildings. She took [the Captain’s] as-yet-unfired laser rifle from him without resistance.

“Time we put a stop to this!” she declared, bolting the stairs to the tower with eight generations of Alabama marksmen behind her.

Laser rifles make very little sound. Melody picked off three of Racher’s [terrorist] dozen before they knew what hit them. One was the lieutenant who had pleaded for retreat. He fell inches from his leader, who never turned to look. The others, recognising futility at last, wheeled and ran….

— Strangers From The Sky, Chapter 9

It is noticeable that the introduction of firearms through the Portuguese made it easier to get some sort of an army of comparatively untrained farmers, though the matchlock did not prove such a great asset as they may have hoped, since it was not very convenient to use when the weather was wet, as it often is in Japan, and its range was possibly not greater, and its accuracy not as great, as the bow and arrow. It is here that there is some difference between conditions in Japan and Europe, for in Japan the samurai was an archer, either horse or foot, and did not trust so much to his armor as the European knights did, neither did he advance in the massed charging formation that would be more vulnerable to gun fire.

— Shogun, Chapter 4

…[The first Texas Rangers only] had three shots: they had a Kentucky long rifle…and two single-shot pistols.

Lo and behold, this inventor named Samuel Colt had come up with a prototype…it was a five-shot pistol. They had five shots here, one interchangable cylinder: now ten. Ten shots in each pistol….

— How the Texas Rangers Changed the Course of Modern Warfare – YouTube

The speaker describes an interchangeable revolving cylinder. With that first revolver, changing cylinders requires partially disassembling the pistol. So the reloading time is a couple of minutes.

The Remington Company manufactured revolvers with truly removable cylinders in the 1850s. The 1985 film Pale Rider shows this reloading process done leisurely for dramatic effect in the final scene. (Warning: spoiler video.)

In the prior blogpost, I looked at increasing reload time to slow down rate-of-fire. Now to look at reducing the number of shots per load. Returning to the flintlock as starting point, the lowest number of shots before needing to reload is one. What if we retain the modern, fast reload time?

This is actually very applicable to ray-guns. Energy weapons require power cells which are more analogous to magazines than individual cartridges. Modern ergonomics has the bullet magazine in the pistol grip. A convenient button press plus gravity removes the empty magazine, and your off-hand has the new one ready to insert. My change here is to have a magazine-shaped power cell which is empty after a single shot. Reloading only take a couple of seconds, but has to be done frequently. No dual-wielding here, either.

The third “dial” suddenly becomes the limiting factor: sustained fire depends upon the number of power cells readily available—that you can carry. The return of bandoliers!

Still a problematic rate of fire, but the total amount of shots someone has available is lower than speed-loaded revolvers. Also unlike revolvers, this design cannot fire in a rapid burst at need.

This latter design fits Xenograg’s sonic disrupter weapons. It also answers why the Drachen Walde revolver is still his everyday sidearm: much lower ammunition encumbrance.

While the flintlock and revolver pistols mentioned in the prior blogpost have been fully articulated for roleplay by me, the disrupters never have been. Specifically, the number of shots possible before needing to reload the weapon. This is important for the following reason:

The massive impact that guns bring to roleplaying games (and real life, but nevermind that now) comes from the high rates of fire possible in modern firearms.

Thanks to modern bullets, magazines, and speed-loaders, even a semi-automatic or revolver gun generates a sustained rate of fire far in excess of any other missile weapon. This results in high lethality in gun combat. Unless your game milieu is explicitly about that, it is disruptive to roleplaying. To reduce that lethality, rates of fire need to be drastically reduced.

Sustained rate of fire (SROF) comes from the combination of three factors:

1. Number of shots before needing to reload
2. Time required to reload
3. Number of reloads readily available

Adjusting any one of these “dials” will change SROF. For simplicity, I will confine the remaining discussion to pistols. For my first adjustment, I will draw upon the historical evolution of gun development for inspiration. The focus is on reload time.

For 200 years, the best gun technology was the flintlock. At best, it could maybe fire four times a minute. This was due to it being laborious to load and that for only a single shot. I cannot imagine a high-tech weapon being that difficult/slow to reload, though.

The invention of the revolving cylinder in 1836, C.E., predates the invention of the pre-assembled bullet cartridge. A revolver gave its owner 5 (later 6) shots before needing to reload, but the reload process was nearly identical and just as laborious as with the flintlock—now multiplied by that same 5 or 6 count of bullets. The new combatant type called pistoleers carried two or more revolvers because reloading an empty one would take several minutes; better to holster the empty gun and draw another loaded one. Pistoleers frequently held a revolver in each hand. Revolvers with replacable cylinders were developed to speed up reload time (some), but at the cost of dual-wielding.

Even at this point in history, such a rate of fire is going to be problematic to roleplaying. Less sustainable, at least; knowing you have a fixed amount of loaded ammunition does make one more deliberate in their use. That is only a soft constraint.

The next blogpost will look at focusing upon the first dial.

As prologue for a future post, a summary of existing lore:

Xenograg comes from an Iron Age civilization, but has been in Rhydin for over thirty years. He has had plenty of time to become accustomed to higher technologies—including guns. His marriage to Amaltea first introduced them to him as her homeland of Barsi has a tech level equivalent to our Napoleonic Era. Xenograg’s first gun was a flintlock pistol.

Later exposure to Stars End Spaceport and its “spacer” denizens eventually led to an upgrade. Lady Azjah’s family business, Drachen Walde Industries, includes an armaments division. She repaid a service rendered by Xenograg with the gift of a “modern-yet-retro” pistol: a six-shot 12mm revolver (slug-thrower). It has been Xenograg’s sidearm for over twenty years.

Seeing that the quest to avenge Llewys Greymantle’s death would constitute a small war, Xenograg ordered a cache of guns from Drachen Walde Industries: six crates, each containing a sonic disrupter carbine and pistol. Alas, they did not arrive in time for those battles. Only one pair has ever been taken from their crate, and solely for handling practice. Xenograg has never carried either.

The next blogpost will look at the problem of adding guns to a roleplay milieu.

Firearms upset the balance between offense and defense. More mobile versions of the cannon that had proven their worth in France in the mid-1400s entered Italy with a bang in 1494 [C.E.]. Charles VIII of France swept down the length of the peninsula to Naples in a matter of weeks with an army of 18,000 and a horse-drawn siege train of 40 or more cannon. Fortresses that were expected to resist for months were taken in a matter of days. Strategic planning changed overnight. Everything now depended on stopping the enemy in battle before he reached the walls of the city.

— Firearms: A Global History to 1700, p. 62

Seventeenth century muskets typically had a misfire rate of one round in six, and one in four in foul weather.

— Al Nofi’s CIC #88 – Strategy Page

The great limitation on the equipment of the Army of Flanders in the sixteenth century [C.E.] was financial: a pike and body-armour (the corselete) cost 30 florins in the 1590s, a musket cost 10 florins, a 24-pounder cannon cost 1,000 florins. With prices like this, there was never enough money to arm all of the soldiers all of the time. There was only limited concern about this: sixteenth-century strategists believed that wars should be fought with men, not material…and faced with a choice between feeding their men or equipping them, they always chose food. Eight hundred men could be fed for a month with the money required to cast one cannon; a pike-man could be given bread for two years with the price of his corselet.

Only gradually did the Army systematize the supply of weapons to its men, deducting the cost of arms, powder and shot by [installments] from their future wages….

Arms and armour were…provided on credit to the troops by contractors engaged by the government. This was essential since few men could afford to purchase their own firearms (a musket cost 10 florins in the 1590s, more than a musketeer’s wage for a month), but it was perhaps shortsighted to charge the powder and shot used by each man against his account—it was hardly an encouragement for a marksman to use his weapon! In their defence the government argued that the musketeers and arquebusiers already drew a slightly higher wage to cover the cost of using their guns, but of course this was only effective when wages were actually paid….

— The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567-1659, pp. 48-49, 165

Apart from the changes that took place in the method of ignition, the evolution of portable firearms may also be understood from another point of view. Given a certain level of development, the power of any technological device is a function of its weight and size. In the case of the arms in question, too, what mattered was finding an acceptable balance between weight and size, a balance which determined tactics, and was in turn determined by them. Early firearms were very small but, in order to add power, increased steadily in size. This development meant that, whereas the sixteenth-century arquebus could still be couched in a soldier’s arms while it was fired, the early seventeenth-century musket no longer could. The weapon, weighing 12 to 14 pounds, had to be supported by a forked rest. This impeded mobility and made muskets difficult to use on the offense—an unwelcome development. The bayonet, invented around 1660, would have been useless unless the musket was lightened to the point that the rest could be discarded and the weapon swung in the arms of an average soldier. This was duly done, even at the cost of some loss of power. Not everybody liked the change, and the Marechal de Saxe during the middle of the eighteenth century was calling for the introduction of an amusette, an even heavier musket which would have to be pivoted on a wall or attached to a cart. Thus the different qualities demanded of the weapon clashed and interacted, pushing development along.

— Technology and War, Chapter 6

Emphasis mine.

[Glover] Johns…showed marksmanship for what it ought to be. This full colonel would stroll along the [rifle] range for a while giving encouragement and instruction, then stop by a soldier.

“You got a quarter, son?” he’d ask.

“Yes, sir.”

“Give me your rifle there.” The trooper would hand over his weapon. After taking a good hard look at it, Johns would turn to the kid. “Now you just throw that quarter up in the air. High as you like.”

The trooper would toss up the coin, and before he had a chance to blink, Johns would put a bullet—sometimes two—right through the middle of it. He’d hand back the kid’s rifle as the quarter ricocheted to the ground, and continue down the firing line until he got the urge to display his prowess once again.

The “Johns Quarter,” as it was called, was a sought-after prize. More than that, though, was the pleasure of watching him “produce” one. The troops loved it. Johns was a showman in the truest sense of the word (and he was also the first to admit it)—for him it was a basic principle of leadership.

— About Face, Chapter 12

Sonny Crockett:

The Rojeros Gang. Is that right?

Jake Pierson (retired Texas Ranger):

Yeah, me and my partner wiped them out. They was bringing guns up from Juarez. We were just waiting for them. Me and my partner stood toe-to-toe with seven of those boys. All we had were our Peacemakers. Load and fire, load and fire. Rojeros had one of them Tommy guns; he and his boys were trying to pepper us with.

Suddenly, Roy yelled “Jake, look out!” and he stood up, and he took the bullet that would’ve killed me. I spent the rest of my life trying to make that up to him. Took care of his wife. Raised his son like he was my own.

But part of me died with Roy.

— “El Viejo” – Miami Vice, Season 3 (1986)

…[The Native American] self bow and the seventeenth-century musket had comparable effective ranges (50 yards optimum, 100 to 150 yards at the outside)….

…For Amerindians, because the bow or the musket had to serve in both war and the hunt, something in the technology had to satisfy the needs of both pursuits…. A musket ball was less likely than an arrow to be deflected by vegetation, and it also had a greater kinetic impact on the target. A deer hit with an arrow receives a very deep wound…, which, though eventually lethal, might require the hunter to pursue the bleeding deer for some distance. In contrast, a musket penetrates flesh, shatters bone, and creates a larger wound cavity. It “smacks,” whereas an arrow “slices….” A military musketball at 50 yards hits a target with 706 foot pounds of kinetic energy. An arrow from a typical modern bow hits at 50 yards with 50 to 80 foot pounds of energy. This is more than enough to penetrate flesh and tissue and produce a killing wound, but it is much less likely to drop an animal in its tracks.

The musket has similar advantages against humans. Much of a human target is limbs, especially when walls or trees are used to cover the trunk of the body. An arrow wound to the leg or arm is rarely lethal, although it can be debilitating. But a musketball strike to the arm or leg may shatter the bone and is more likely to carry debris into the wound, lead to infection, sepsis, and death.… In the immediate term, a man with a shattered leg or arm, flung to the ground by the weight of a musket shot, also makes a better target for being taken prisoner…. Unable to flee, he becomes vulnerable and may hold up his fellows trying to carry him away from the field…. More obviously, bullets cannot be dodged, whereas arrows in flight over any distance (especially on an arcing trajectory) can be seen and dodged. Modern film footage of the Dani people’s arrow and javelin battles in New Guinea shows this process clearly, and numerous European witnesses commented on the Amerindians’ ability to dodge arrows.

— Empires and Indigenes, pp. 56-58

Emphases mine.

Players of fantasy RPGs should note the quoted effective range for bows. Many games have much longer distances, but those are derived from battlefields where archers are loosing volleys at large enemy formations. Gamers should further note the ease of dodging an arrow at anything beyond short range.

J.B. Books:

It isn’t always being fast or even accurate that counts. It’s being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren’t willing. They blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull the trigger. I won’t.

— “The Shootist” (1976)

The sword had been quite sufficient for its gory tasks, but over the course of the eighteenth century [C.E.] the dueling pistol began to replace it, a switch that romantics like [Sir Richard] Burton lamented as “an ugly exchange of dull lead for polished steel.” During the transition, people sometimes used both at once. In 1690, in Ireland, the high sheriff of Country Down had an argument with a neighbor over dinner, and they fought with sword and pistol: One was run through with a sword and the other was shot. Both died. Sometimes, if the pistols misfired, the combatants threw them away and whipped out their reliable swords.

Slashing and killing a man with a sword offered visceral pleasures not found in guns. It was a physical experience. You held the sword in your hand and felt the flesh of your enemy give way under its point…. Your arm quivered to the crunch of bone and cartilage, and knew the spongy resistance of lung or bowel. His blood, probably mixed with yours, splashed your shoes. His face was close; you could see his eyes.

Another advantage of sword over pistol was that the damage done was directly related to the gravity of the occasion. In a casual matter, you could swoop in with the upward-cutting manchette blow that disabled his sword arm, ending the encounter and leaving him with nothing but a bruised elbow. Swords did what they were told to do. You could defend yourself with a sword and parry a thrust; the only way to parry a gun is to shoot the man who’s shooting it. A sword was always a sword, but pistols often misbehaved or misfired. The skillful swordsman could inflict as much or as little damage as he wanted, but pistol duels were fraught with accident and surprise. You could kill an old friend who’d laughed at the wrong moment, instead of merely flicking a drop of blood from his arm and then taking him out for a drink. Or you could hit the wrong target, which never happened with swords: In one duel in France, both parties fired simultaneously and simultaneously killed each other’s seconds.

When you’d killed a man with your personal sword and not by some proxy impersonal bullet, your soul had killed his. When the victor claimed the sword of the fallen as his right and broke it over his knee, killing him in effigy, generations quivered. When [Robert E.] Lee handed his sword to [Ulysses S.] Grant at Appomattox, strong men wept. Some say Grant wept.

With guns, the satisfaction was remote. You stood well separated by the agreed-on paces. Shoot your man and he crumples and falls, his weapon drops from his hand, but as far as your own hand knows he might have been struck by lightning. You didn’t press the bullet into his chest; it flew there by itself, mechanically. You were distanced from the action, like the pilot of a high-altitude bomber.

— Gentlemen’s Blood, pp. 72-75

Emphasis mine.

The gun was ravaging the soul of the warrior. To many among them, virtually the whole purpose of battle was to demonstrate courage. Custom dictated that an international corps of heralds hung like scavengers about the battlefield, ascertaining brave deeds to be recorded by chroniclers. Bullets were making the whole process ridiculous; the standards of courage were becoming the standards of idiocy. Insistence on close-in fighting, elaborate rituals of identification, and pairing off were not just inappropriate on a battlefield full of guns; they helped reveal the impotence of the ruling classes.

The bullet-riddled environment of the sixteenth century [C.E.] demanded a basic redefinition of what constituted courage. This would take time; but an incident near Brussels in 1582, during the Dutch rebellion, foreshadowed the direction it took. It was an early-spring afternoon and Alexandro Farnese, the Duke of Parma, Philip II of Spain’s most famous general, decided to dine with his staff outdoors, near the trench works. No sooner had they sat down when a cannonball took off the head of a young Walloon officer, and a skull fragment also struck out the eye of another gentleman. The table was cleared only to have a second ball kill two more of the guests. Their blood and brains strewn over the previously festive board, the remaining diners lost all appetite and got up to leave. Yet Parma calmly insisted his guests resume their places, ordering his servants to take away the bodies and bring a clean tablecloth.

A traditional hero might have charged the cannon…not Parma. His response was passive disdain. If flesh and bone were unequal to flying lead and iron, the spirit was. Parma’s defiant hospitality was a prototype. One day men of courage would be inclined to stand fast and take it. Other than ferocious aggressiveness, not flinching became the sine qua non of the warrior class.

— Soul of the Sword, p. 124

The arquebusiers, belonging to the same unit as the pikemen, did not operate completely independently…. In the absence of obstructed terrain, the square of pikemen provided the only place of safety where the light infantry might take refuge from the enemy’s heavy cavalry. They could take a position on the flank of or behind the square, or, should the cavalry attack in flank or rear, many could find safety in the front ranks where the wall of pikes would protect them. In turn, the arquebusiers’ fire could support the pikemen’s defense, and the masses of the enemy’s heavy infantry or the horses and men of the attacking heavy cavalry would provide fine targets for arquebus balls. The Spaniards gradually increased the proportion of arquebusiers to pikemen until, by the end of the 16th century [C.E.], their regiments approached equal numbers of light and heavy infantry.

— The Art of War in the Western World, p. 191