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Originally Posted by Phantasm
IIRC, it was the high chance of multiple firing barrels going off (a low Malf score) that prevented matchlock and even TL4 wheellock and snaphance/flintlock pepperbox pistols from seeing greater widespread use.
I think you covered most of the factors involved, though.
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Thanks. My thoughts on pepperbox/turnover guns is if multiple barrels go off at once then they're still all pointing at an enemy - so I'd still think of it as an upgrade from just having one shot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding
I think you are discounting the extent to which cost and availability of skilled labor were factors while overestimating the utility of multishot matchlock weapons for typical users.
If it was cheaper, as I suspect it was, to increase fire rate by just adding more muskets than by equipping a smaller number of men with revolving drum weapons, then you would simply do that. Note also that five men with single shot weapons are five times better at sustaining casualties and have four more swords or bayonets than does one man with five chambers.
Remember too that the locks of the time either involved a live smoldering match or were comparatively unreliable, so having multiple preloaded chambers isn't a favorable risk/benefit ratio.
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How much more skilled labour would be required for a turnover gun compared to an ordinary gun? That is what I mean by the circular situation of "rare because it's expensive and expensive because it's rare." I'd certainly see it as more expensive, but I wasn't planning on making them the luxury pricing equipment that they probably were in history.
I certainly think it was cheaper back in the era of line infantry to simply have more men shooting - although I see that as partly due to the states of the time having such a massive surplus in expendable manpower that they invest less in the individual soldier. I'm not sure if those conditions would apply the same way to the setting though.
A revolving drum certainly seems more risky than a turnover gun though (since if a turnover gun discharges all barrels at once at least they're all pointing at the enemy). I don't really understand the mechanisms like snaphance, doglock, snaplock or miquelet locks well enough to know what could protect against the risk of a chainfire.