Guns, weapons, and technology

[magycmyste]

Hi everyone!

I'm trying to figure out weaponry for one of my stories. The setting is based in Victorian-esque time period. There is magical energy in this world, called evthene, which is divided into two categories: revtha (physical) and kethna (spiritual/mental and so far, is greatly unexplored). The civilized cultures have learned to harness the power of revtha waves as a general energy source (At the beginning of the story is the first tranport run, which would probably be equivalent to the first train/railroad in the US, and the tranport is powered by revtha waves/energy). Kethna waves are pretty much unexplored, except by a few people. Evthene is a somewhat limited natural resource, probably along the lines of.... coal? Lumber? I don't remember what the figures are at for those, but something that there happens to be a lot of right now, but they are using it up. There is another source for it, but they haven't discovered it yet.

So. weaponry. Bladed and crushing weapons are commonly used everywhere. What I'm trying to figure out are ranged weapons.

I've got a former pirate (MC) who, as a boy, ends up making friends with an aristocratic boy(A) on a ship he's supposed to be helping raid, making friends with him, and saving his life by getting him and his servant away from the ship before the pirates attack, and ends up going with them and abandoning his ship (This is that short story prequel I'd been having trouble with earlier). Fast forward about eight to ten years (main story), and MC has been living with the aristocratic family, gets engaged to an aristocrat from another country(F), and meets up with his former crew and captain, who wants him back on the ship, and is willing to use force to get him there.

So we have aristocrats vs. pirates. The aristocrats(MC, A, and F) are all pretty good fighters with a sword, at least (fencing is popular), though other than MC, none of the others have been in a real blood fight before. A's sister (S) isn't a fighter, but she's smart (she's the "science" geek and oohs and aahs and tinkers with mechanical and evthene related things. Personality-wise, she reminds me a little of Gadget from Chip'n'Dale's Rescue Rangers). But the pirates have new weapons, developed in the realm of organized crime.

My first thought was that these new weapons were guns - revolvers or pistols, maybe. But, quite frankly, I'm pretty sure those would have been available for a long while, and MC, at least knows how to use them. The other aristocrats ought to know them, too, even if they aren't favored weaponry. So, my next thought is: technologically advanced guns.

I know. My imagination is failing me.

These guns would probably use evthene/revtha somehow, and would give the pirates an unfair advantage over the aristocrats. They would also be something that could be dropped, so that S could find it, start tinkering with it, reverse engineering it, improving on it, and possibly bringing an advantage back over to the aristocrats.

So, my questions:
1. What kinds of ranged weaponry, specifically guns, were commonly in use in the Victorian period?
2. Do you have any ideas for what these weapons could do/be other than "Ooh! We have ranged weapons that explode and you don't!" ("Nyah, nya, nya, nyah, nyah")

Sorry if that wasn't very coherent. If you have questions, I'll try to explain further.

Comments

[feuervogel]

Are you looking for types/models of guns, or all sorts of artillery? They had rifles (the English used them during the Regency-era Napoleonic wars), cannons, mortar launchers (that have a name, but I can't think of it now). Catapults and the like went out of style around the same time castles did, but cannons replaced those nicely.

Which part of the Victorian period you're basing your world on will greatly influence your weaponry options. (Victoria was Queen from 1835-1901. There's a huge range of technological development in there.) Look into the Wars of German Unification (1866-71), because Wilhelm I of Prussia (Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany) was keen on technological advances. (Also railroads. So he could move his troops around efficiently.)

[magycmyste]

I'm looking for more portable/handheld weapons than cannons and catapults. Not necessarily guns, but that and bows and arrows are all I can think of that's portable enough for an individual to carry around (I should mention that my small group of aristocrats are by themselves, and not always together, either.) The pirates can probably have heavier stuff on their ship, but I was still looking for something more mobile for them to carry around. I wouldn't mind inventing a new type of weapon, period.

Ooh, thanks for the war reference! Now I've got something to get me started, at least.

ETA: I do believe I was thinking of the late Victorian period, so the German Unification War would fit perfectly, as far as timing.

[feuervogel]

Pistols were around in that period, too, and as the fellow suggests below, repeating guns (that magically don't jam!) would be good.

If you're looking for ships' weapons for the pirates, check out the English Navy. (The German Navy was rather small, until Wilhelm II decided he wanted to have a dick-waving contest with Uncle Edward.) Perhaps magic cannonballs or mortars that are never duds, or something?

[nicki]

If Evthene is energy, maybe some kind of guided energy weapon?

[magycmyste]

Hmmm..... sort of like an evthene missile? (I'm hearing "Magic Missile!" over and over again in my head. ^_^)

I could work with that....

Thanks!

[paganpaul]

How about a bit of a retro-mix, like portable tubes (like gun-barrels) from which arrows are shot using evthene? Or pellets/bullets?

Come to think of it, someone could strap a set of those tubes around the forearm and use that as a repetition weapon ("six-shooter"?). (Although reloading might be a bit cumbersome unless that's done using evthene also.)

Or a Y-shaped thingy like a slingshot, but using evthene to direct projectiles with great accuracy from between the tips of the Y instead of an actual sling. A "'thene-shot": toss a pellet into it, aim and fire. Fast and accurate. And lethal.

[magycmyste]

This is getting good. From the responses and what I've read, it seems that the repeating option probably ought to be the next step in the evolution of weaponry. I'm also considering the idea of heat weapons (not heat-seeking, but weapons that burn or freeze).

Revtha pellets would probably work very well there. Thank you!

[davidklecha]

The obvious advantage one might imagine over US Civil War era weaponry would be automatic cyclic action--that is, the automatic feeding of fresh ammunition into the chamber after firing. There was, in the 1860, such a thing as a "repeater" or repeating carbine (that is, short-barrel rifle), but it had a relatively small magazine compared to modern weapons.

So, think of the difference between a weapon that has to be reloaded after every shot with one, like an M-16, that can fire thirty before it needs to be reloaded, and in which reloading is a relatively fast and simple procedure. Someone with such a weapon would be able to produce a much higher volume of fire than even a large number of folks armed with period-appropriate arms.

One could also posit a boost in range and lethality. The difference, for instance, of lead slugs versus modern, jacketed rounds. Any modern Marine should be capable of regularly hitting a man-sized target at 500 yards, a feat reserved for specialist marksmen in earlier days. And our specialists (snipers) these days can nail targets upwards of a mile away.

If you have any questions or want any clarifications, just ask. I'm a former Marine machine gunner and I wrote the capstone paper for my history degree on the gunpowder revolution.

[feuervogel]

Ooh. I'm not the OP, but I'm working with a military setting, so would you mind me asking you stuff if I get stuck? Wikipedia only knows so much.

[davidklecha]

It would be my pleasure--though with the caveat that I know the Marines the best, and the other services (and service cultures) less well.

[magycmyste]

I believe I may need to take you up on that. ^_^

Now, I've never really studied that period of history very hard before, but I had always thought (possibly a result of too many movies) that six-shooters were available at the time, so you didn't have to reload after every shot, and that weapons like the M-16 were an expansion of the repeater ability.

[davidklecha]

An expansion, but in many ways a revolutionary one; a repeating carbine still had to be manually cocked (like a pump action shotgun), and so the rate of fire from a true automatic is, was, and always will be much greater. Likewise with the revolver over the automatic handgun; prior to the invention of speed loaders, revolvers had to be clumsily reloaded one round at a time once the cylinder was empty. An automatic, like modern military handguns, could have preloaded magazines aplenty which take a second or two to change out.

The advanced cyclic rate of fire is really the critical thing when it comes to comparing standard firearms of the 1860s with those of, say, the 1960s. The transition can best be seen, I think, in the trenches of WWI, where the generals who had been trained by the veterans of the 1860s wars still lined their troops up like they needed to rely on volley fire in order to provided sufficient firepower. But they were going up against the first true automatic weapons, machine guns that used the gas discharge of the round firing (or the recoil of the bolt) to reload and recock the weapon in the blink of an eye. As a result, we got trenches, and the hellish no man's land in between.

Quick reloads and advanced cyclic rates give light infantry (like the Marines and Army Rangers and Airborne) the bedrock foundation of their tactics, which is called "fire and maneuver." If you ever watch the second episode of "Band of Brothers," there's an example in which the men of Easy Company take and destroy a German artillery position (that is apparently still taught at West Point as the textbook example). They laid down what's called a base of fire, using their machine guns to blanket the enemy positions and force them to keep their heads down; meanwhile, the company's maneuver elements flanked the position and took the first artillery piece. Once that was done, portions of the maneuver element could themselves lay down a base of fire, allowing the machine gun teams to move up and continue the process.

This kind of thing is very nearly impossible with 1860s-era firearms, which is why you saw a very different kind of warfare, with big wheeling lines of infantry, firing volleys into the opposing lines, hoping to wear them down through superior numbers and speed of reloading. But in those days, you were talking about an extremely proficient individual being able to reload a muzzle-loading rifle or musket three or four times a minute, whereas an M-16 can theoretically fire 700 rounds a minute. That's a frankly epic leap forward in the volume of fire available on the battlefield.

Now, the secondary consideration there is that high cyclic rates and automatic reloads are only an advantage if you have the ammunition stores to back them up. If you burn through thirty rounds in two seconds, and that's all you have, then the advantage is back to the guys with the older weapons, because all you have is a fancy club.

[pd_singer]

Wow, after that I'm a little embarassed to mention Gatling guns, which came out in time to be used in the American Civil War. You could look here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun

[davidklecha]

Of course, the Gatling gun of the 1860s wasn't exactly what we would call man-portable. It was, in effect, a light artillery piece such that needed to be hauled around on a big wheeled contraption; not exactly something the MC would find casually discarded and be able to quickly make off with.

[magycmyste]

Ooh, thank you! I hadn't thought of those at all!

While, as davidklecha said, they're not so portable,

1) they would probably work pretty well as wepons on the pirates' ship once I get that far, and

2) this is fantasy, so I see no reason why the pirates couldn't have come up wit h a miniaturized version of it that would be handheld. Oh, the possibilities!

Thank you!