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Erock Proud Canadian from Toronto Since: Jul, 2009
Proud Canadian
#6776: Aug 13th 2011 at 8:44:38 PM

[up]The French leadership after 1870 was quite stupid.

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SabresEdge Show an affirming flame from a defense-in-depth Since: Oct, 2010
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#6777: Aug 13th 2011 at 8:50:27 PM

The 75 was a great weapon for field fighting. The problems start when everyone gets Genre Savvy about it and start digging trenches, and the 75mm cannon just didn't have the power needed in that situation.

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Erock Proud Canadian from Toronto Since: Jul, 2009
Proud Canadian
#6778: Aug 13th 2011 at 8:52:07 PM

Too bad they didn't use them effectively before that anyways.

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PulpoOscuro from a heavy wooden chair Since: Jan, 2011
#6779: Aug 13th 2011 at 8:56:05 PM

Also, a second question about radio designations. What would the radio designation for a single USAF squadron of aircraft be?

SabresEdge Show an affirming flame from a defense-in-depth Since: Oct, 2010
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#6780: Aug 13th 2011 at 9:02:00 PM

I think callsigns are for flights of aircraft, and they change in-theatre day by day. Since squadrons are more permanent administrative fixtures, I don't think they have radio designations.

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TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#6781: Aug 13th 2011 at 9:03:51 PM

I can understand the French but what about the Brits, the Turks, The Russians and everyone else?

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PulpoOscuro from a heavy wooden chair Since: Jan, 2011
#6782: Aug 13th 2011 at 9:04:20 PM

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks, I think that's the last question.

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#6783: Aug 13th 2011 at 9:30:59 PM

A squadron would be split down into flights, so different pilots on, say, Papa flight, would have Papa and a number designator.

TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#6784: Aug 13th 2011 at 11:14:31 PM

The Earliest Caseless ammo weapon Fucking Awesome.

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Erock Proud Canadian from Toronto Since: Jul, 2009
Proud Canadian
#6785: Aug 13th 2011 at 11:20:51 PM

I find the idea of giving a musket age army Barret .50 cals amusing.

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TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#6786: Aug 14th 2011 at 12:15:18 AM

Average musket ball calibers ranged from .40-.60 nasty business.

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Nohbody "In distress", my ass. from Somewhere in Dixie Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Mu
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#6787: Aug 14th 2011 at 4:05:59 AM

Yeah, but their powder was seven degrees of shit. You needed big rounds to have the mass to do actual damage at more than a couple dozen yards away because their propulsion sucked.

(Well, okay, maybe "seven degrees of shit" is hyperbole, but not by all that much. tongue )

edited 14th Aug '11 4:06:36 AM by Nohbody

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PulpoOscuro from a heavy wooden chair Since: Jan, 2011
#6788: Aug 14th 2011 at 6:57:44 AM

Yeah–muskets were also really inaccurate, and the Rocket Ball didn't look like it could hit anything more than a couple yards away, or even travel very far, because it had so little powder. Interesting concept, though–kind of like that steam engine thing that was invented in Ancient Greece.

edited 14th Aug '11 7:00:38 AM by PulpoOscuro

TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#6789: Aug 14th 2011 at 9:32:28 AM

Then you get fun things like rifled muskets. We throw in the mini-ball and there are records of shots being able to strike out to 1000 yds.

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Erock Proud Canadian from Toronto Since: Jul, 2009
Proud Canadian
#6790: Aug 14th 2011 at 10:56:11 AM

I could see a .50 cal bullet going throguh several men in columns...

Isn't rifled musket a little paradoxical?

edited 14th Aug '11 10:57:17 AM by Erock

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MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#6791: Aug 14th 2011 at 10:59:45 AM

^ Nope. The first couple of generations of rifles were rifled muskets.

Erock Proud Canadian from Toronto Since: Jul, 2009
Proud Canadian
#6792: Aug 14th 2011 at 11:01:48 AM

But smoothbores by definition aren't rifled. Very confusing.

edited 14th Aug '11 11:01:53 AM by Erock

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pagad Sneering Imperialist from perfidious Albion Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
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#6793: Aug 14th 2011 at 2:17:04 PM

If I remember correctly, rifled muskets were just converted smoothbores. I think it was only when breechloaders came about that the difference in terms emerged, I could be wrong though.

edited 14th Aug '11 2:17:53 PM by pagad

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TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
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#6794: Aug 14th 2011 at 2:37:59 PM

The only clear distincion is design of the weapon. A rifle was purposefully designed to take advantage of the rifling. The earliest rifling was not intended for accuracy that was a happy side effect.

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pagad Sneering Imperialist from perfidious Albion Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Sneering Imperialist
#6795: Aug 14th 2011 at 3:06:59 PM

What was the original intention of rifling the barrels, if not accuracy? Better muzzle velocity?

edited 14th Aug '11 3:09:41 PM by pagad

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TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
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#6796: Aug 14th 2011 at 3:10:48 PM

I keep hearing it was to keep the weapon cleaner/easier to maintain. You still had to clean the fouling out of the weapon on a regular basis especially with the lower grade powders.

edited 14th Aug '11 3:17:19 PM by TuefelHundenIV

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Erock Proud Canadian from Toronto Since: Jul, 2009
Proud Canadian
#6797: Aug 14th 2011 at 5:22:08 PM

Early rifles took longer to reload because of the carbon buildup was greater.

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TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#6798: Aug 14th 2011 at 5:39:52 PM

Ok some quick reading. The early rifling was for the purpose of trapping soot and fouling meaning the weapon could be fired more before needing cleaning of the various parts. As for when it was noticed that the grooves enhanced accuracy that is apparently not entirely known.

Yes the fouling did slow down the load times because the cartridge has to be jammed down into the barrel and push against all that grime and build up. This would be solved by using a slightly smaller mini ball style bullet which made it easier to load. What really helped was switching over to breach loading weapons and cased ammo.

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pvtnum11 OMG NO NOSECONES from Kerbin low orbit Since: Nov, 2009 Relationship Status: We finish each other's sandwiches
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#6799: Aug 15th 2011 at 2:25:37 PM

As Tuefel said, rifling was originally inteded to aid in reducing the fouling from clogging the bore up so much that you had to stop firing and clean out the whole thing, way back in the muzzle-loading days.

Breech-loaders were recognized as being the ideal solution to this problem, but the problem then presented itself of not having a good gas seal at the breech-end.

Rifling was cut straight. Some nut-job in Germany probably decided that it was easier to cut them at a spiral pattern and bam, we get rifling in the form we recognize it today, way back in the late 1500's. However, in order to form a nice gas seal and to actually engage in the rifling to impart spin, the musket ball would have to be a real tight fit - look at how hard it is to get a Kentuky Rifle loaded up, and you'll appreciate the military decision to rely instead on smoothbore muskets instead - volume of massed fire out of a block of troops, all timed to reload and fire at a regular interval, as opposed to designated marksmen that had a reload time half that (or worse) of a typical line infantryman. If you got four lines of men, staggered so that the first two rows kneel and are off set, and the last two ranks are staggered and standing, you can get a nice constant rate of lead being tossed downrange by having the ranks firing in staggered intervals.

I forget the name of the guy, but there's some old videos of a West Point instructor shooting a Brown Bess at a cluster of 100-meter targets. Not very accurate at all, for the individual infantryman...

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pagad Sneering Imperialist from perfidious Albion Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Sneering Imperialist
#6800: Aug 15th 2011 at 2:54:49 PM

I've previously wondered why balls were used rather than buckshot back when large-scale rifling was impractical. Modern shotguns are smoothbore and as noted on Short-Range Shotgun are not as inaccurate or short-ranged as videogames would have you believe, plus you get a large damage radius that a single ball doesn't provide, so why wasn't buckshot preferred? I'm sure I'm missing something...

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