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Old 08-04-2014, 06:21 AM   #327
Frost
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Shropshire, uk
Default Re: New Reality Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by (E) View Post
I can see aircraft having an earlier advantage without the machine gun to shoot them down.
I don't think that the lack of machineguns offers much of an advantage (or at least as much of an advantage as you suppose) to early aircraft.

The conditions specified still permit quick firing artillery on high angle mountings firing case shot i.e. early anti-aircraft guns and this is before we consider the potential for fighter craft.

Counter attacking with smaller armed aircraft remains perfectly viable. Even without machineguns there are a wide range of possible strategies for interception. Thrash has already mentioned a selection including attacks with grenades or darts, rockets and conventional rifle fire.

If anything the lack of machine guns will be felt more acutely upon the defending side. Aircraft are not ideal gunnery platforms for handheld weapons (or those on flexible mountings), particularly when you are firing at fast moving and fairly agile targets. Even with machineguns defensive fire from bombers was less effective than the offensive fire from the fixed guns on fighters. The same should hold true for rifles, bunches of rockets or small cannon (assuming that the aircraft can support a flexible mount for one at all).

On top of this faced with the threat from aircraft there is nothing to stop somebody from going back to weapons using a simple conical bullet trading off long range accuracy for ease of handling and employing some sort of fast cycling repeater mechanism.
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