The tank? The plane? The machine gun?
In any case it is likely we need that weapon for the rebel side to have a chance at winning this right?
The sort of person who isn’t turned into a serf by the reactionary nobles, if we need a horrific death-machine for that well…
Apparently nice guys finish last, again.
I posted a video of it up about thirty posts ago. Everyone was too busy talking about Spain to notice, I think.
So I might as well do it again.
I’m not going to tell you what you need to have in order to win. That would take the fun out of it.
Pfft. Gatlings are overrated. What you need are Maxims. And more artillery. Can’t have enough artillery.
Well, if you want to wait a further twenty years for anything resembling a maxim, by all means.
More artillery it is then! And since the early machine guns are immensely heavy and there was a massive debate on which service they were supposed to be in (their own service, infantry, or artillery)… 
I will find it, I shall become the Golden Eagle specialist. And that gun just sealed the deal for my character to go to the New World.
Well, if you want artillery, there’s always the mitrailleuse. But it has more of an Imperial feel to it, so it won’t be found in the New World.
But I don’t appreciate you bringing the stink of an artillery man into this thread. As an anti-tank man myself, I can tolerate anti-tank artillery, but the rest of it… yuck.
Well you’re well on your way to becoming the resident expert on all my stories then.
Except Best of Us. We don’t talk about Best of Us.
Well, there’s always rockets. Though if you are serious about the artillery, I could always stop talking about it no problem.
“Dr. Gatling, I presume?”
Well, when you get down to it, Gatlings, mitrallieuese, and anything similar are not properly machine guns due to their mechanisms of operation. The machine gun comes along and carves its own niche along the same time that artillery expands beyond line of sight, (Thanks, France, for the French 75!) so I mean, sure you can argue the above… but the argument begins to go away.
Is that path gennder lock the males? Or all gender can charm beautiful young mind?
It would do well to define what exactly is a machine gun though.
I define a machine gun as a gun that can fire a rapid amount of rifle calibre rounds (therefore autocannons cannot be machine guns but when do you draw the line between rifle and cannon calibres anyway. I draw the line at 15mm 'cause WarThunder) while a mechanism is operated, which would mean that pre-Maxim “automatic” guns would be considered machine guns with this definition.
Funny you say that since most armies considered the Gatling a form of artillery, and, being on a gun carriage, it basically had to be treated as such both logistically and tactically…
I’d also be interested to see how you depict the devastation it wrecks among native armies compares to a true combined arms force back in to old country. IRL it never saw much use outside colonial wars before the maxim took its place.
Right, but the very definition of a machine gun is that it is fully automatic. It is machine powered, versus crank powered, etc. Caliber breakdowns notwithstanding, a machine gun is a direct fire weapon used to employ continuous fire upon the enemy for the purposes of suppression and elimination of the enemy. That which differentiates the machine gun from earlier devices is that it reloads and fires continuously through mechanical action.
Now, that which differentiates the machine gun from other automatic weapons is twofold: volume of fire, and caliber. A submachinegun, for instance, is a pistol caliber. You may be able to carry magazines with capacities comperable to an issued belt of ammuniton, but the effect on target is vastly different, and there was a difference in portability at the inception of the submachinegun. An automatic rifle, such as the Browning Automatic Rifle, provides an infantry section with suppressive fire capability without the size or the ammunition capacity of a machine gun. While they are both firing common rifle cartridges, the capacity for sustained fires is radically different. Different weapons for doctrinally different roles.
Anyway, we can go 'round and 'round on this as long as you like. I’m happy to discuss, as a former machine gunner.
Right now it’s gender-locked to males. I’m thinking about expanding it to universal, but then I’ll have to rethink the way the relationship grows throughout the chapter. I don’t want to make it too easy to get.
You can relax, I’m not being serious.
The presence of the Gatling gun on battlefields that followed the European style of engagements was few and far between, yes. Along with other rapid-fire guns and volley guns, it was an oddity and often a weapon brought in by a General who bought it for their army instead of being supplied in any way by the government or the military.
The same case will be here. Rapid-fire weapons will be introduced to the battlefield, and they will be toys for the high-ranking officers, and the MC as well. It’ll be mostly the same kind of engagements it had in the American Civil War, and won’t be some huge revolution in the way war is conducted in the Old World.
Honestly that’s too bad from my perspective. I’d like to see how the MC might develop the concept as an infantry officer by trade rather than artillery. Beating all those nasty artillerymen away from his regimental “pocket arty.” If sufficiently influential in doctrinal and procurement circles maybe even get a heavy division outfitted before the mass murder begins…
Aye, but remember that this is a period where the Empire still uses muzzleloaders for the most part because that’s how things are done and it’s only proper, and even the countries adopting breechloaders refuse to invest in repeating rifles because the soldiers will just end up “wasting ammunition”.
Even so, I’m planning on allowing some mobility and influence for the MC if they do introduce the gatling into the Empire. Even if the general staff don’t agree, it doesn’t mean that certain military commanders (such as Duc de Montignerac) won’t have more foresight and thus be more open for a weapon like the gatling.
“General, the enemy are storming forward! We are outnumbered 10 to 1! Surely we can’t hold!”
“Messrs. Boudreaux & Thibodeaux bring up the rotary guns if you please. Our esteemed adversaries require a lesson in the advantages of fire superiority…”
What about chemical warfare? I don’t care weapons and that… I am a political party people. Who sees in military the only way to jumping into court being poor. So why not chemical weapons? Cheap and easy to sell a havoc that could be very lucrative. My character gives a damn about casualties.
Mara jumping right into the nastiest bits of WWI, frankly I prefer to avoid those gas attacks, even evil regressive nobles don’t quite deserve that.