First off, could I have like a huge chunk of the south? I can rewrite some of the geography stuff. Seriously, huge chunk. This is Russia we're talking about.
I was going to say the same thing. For their muzzle-loadering rifles (which were standard issue at this point), the British had been using paper cartridges with the ball lubed in (I believe) a mixture of pork and beef grease to lessen the reload time even decades before. Even if we were doing the 1840s you had weapons like the Dreyse needle gun, which, although very rare and expensive, were bolt-action breach-loaders. We're hardly any time away from the widespread advent of bolt-action guns anyway.Hell, I believe the first officially-adopted bolt-action rifle that fired more than one round before a reload was a modification of the existing French bolt-action rifle, the Chassepot, in 1874. It was also standard-issue I believe. They gave it an integrated magazine, which meant there was no reloading in between shots. You just had to work the bolt, which for a very experienced and very rushed soldat could take right around one second.
The Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) demonstrated how obsolete line infantry was at this point, in part because of the advent of bolt-action rifles. Line infantry was becoming obsolete as far back as the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the American Civil War (1861-1865) in which line infantry tactics were used only for the death count to be astounding. The advent of indirect fire artillery also played a huge part in the rapdily-changing face of warfare, which is in part why my nation is going to be focusing a whoooole lot on artillery. Massive guns (at least eventually), and with the Bureau of Chemical Science I mentioned in my description, more reliable and powerful propellants. Erste Weltkrieg wasn't called the chemist's war just because of gas. That's not to say you guys shouldn't play with obsolete tactics, because a lot of people had a very hard time growing out of the Napoleonic mindset in the 19th century. At the same time, we're closer to the Boer Wars than to the Crimean War is all I'm saying.
Commodore Robot said
Just to weigh in on the musket rifle thing, am I wrong in assuming our time period here? I've been assuming that breechloading cartridge rifles would be the go-to for modern militaries as opposed to muzzle-loaders of any type. Is this 1870s steampunk or like 1840s steampunk I guess is what I'm asking.
I was going to say the same thing. For their muzzle-loadering rifles (which were standard issue at this point), the British had been using paper cartridges with the ball lubed in (I believe) a mixture of pork and beef grease to lessen the reload time even decades before. Even if we were doing the 1840s you had weapons like the Dreyse needle gun, which, although very rare and expensive, were bolt-action breach-loaders. We're hardly any time away from the widespread advent of bolt-action guns anyway.Hell, I believe the first officially-adopted bolt-action rifle that fired more than one round before a reload was a modification of the existing French bolt-action rifle, the Chassepot, in 1874. It was also standard-issue I believe. They gave it an integrated magazine, which meant there was no reloading in between shots. You just had to work the bolt, which for a very experienced and very rushed soldat could take right around one second.
The Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) demonstrated how obsolete line infantry was at this point, in part because of the advent of bolt-action rifles. Line infantry was becoming obsolete as far back as the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the American Civil War (1861-1865) in which line infantry tactics were used only for the death count to be astounding. The advent of indirect fire artillery also played a huge part in the rapdily-changing face of warfare, which is in part why my nation is going to be focusing a whoooole lot on artillery. Massive guns (at least eventually), and with the Bureau of Chemical Science I mentioned in my description, more reliable and powerful propellants. Erste Weltkrieg wasn't called the chemist's war just because of gas. That's not to say you guys shouldn't play with obsolete tactics, because a lot of people had a very hard time growing out of the Napoleonic mindset in the 19th century. At the same time, we're closer to the Boer Wars than to the Crimean War is all I'm saying.