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Old 04-22-2021, 07:17 AM   #3
Tomsdad
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
Default Re: French C19th mitrailleuse

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
This demo shows the discharge of all 25 barrels in five seconds, or occasionally a bit longer. So, for mechanical purposes, RoF 5.

That really depends the speed at which the gunner spins the crank, and he doesn't seem to be working that hard, so I'm sure you could push it up a bit. But obviously the gunner knows the GURPS rules well, and is satisfied to just reach the breakpoint of 5 for a +1 to hit and also qualifying for suppression fire. Getting all the way to 9 would mean spinning that crank twice as fast. Maybe not impossible, but it'd be a lot harder if there's any mechanical resistance. And purely from convenience, 5 is a nice value to use with a 25-round magazine.

Alas, that video doesn't show the reloading process. There are some other animations; basically, it's dropping a pre-loaded plate into the breech and securing it with a lever. So, it's like loading a magazine, a reload time of "N" for all rounds rather than "Ni" (individual rounds). If we take Wiki at its word, then 4 volleys per minute means 10 seconds to reload (15 seconds to reload and fire). The "urgent" rate of 5 volleys means 7 seconds to reload (12 to reload and fire). One cited advantage is the weight of the gun and carriage meaning no need to resight the weapon, so we can take that all as the time to get the new magazine plate into plate. So Reload 7-10, and I'd probably assume the 7 seconds includes successful Fast-Draw rolls, so the base value would be higher than 7.

Inserting 25 cartridges into a spare breech plate would be a lot like loading a revolver, probably a little easier than pushing cartridges into a spring-loaded box magazine. Just dropping cartridges into holes. 3i seems to be traditional there, maybe as high as 5i since it's so regular and easy access, for 5 seconds to refill a plate. That's as fast as the reload time between volleys, so one of the crew can keep a spare plate filled while the other is loading.

Crew of two is probably sufficient, but I didn't research the historical number. It'd also be interesting to know the French doctrine for number of magazine plates issued per gun, along with how many rounds, as well as the official crew size. (There might well be more men in the unit than strictly necessary just to fire the weapon for additional labor and replacements, as with conventional artillery.)
Cheers, excellent Edit: forgotten weapons I should have known to look there! (That dog's living life dangerously!)

I have to say I was assuming a crew of 3 or 4 (given the size of the thing, the nature of the reload, getting blocks ready prior to reloading the gun). I'd assume they'd have several spare blocks and at least one of them just filling them with cartridges.

anyway ROF 5 would mean 5 seconds to fire off a block 25


so for that continuous 100 a minute it would be 20 seconds to fire the total rounds, leaving 40 seconds to reload 4x, so 10 seconds a reload.

I can see a quick reload roll to shave a couple of seconds off each time, and maybe the crank is worked at a higher ROF rate (6-7) to allow the 5th reload and the extra block to get fired off quicker to get you to 125 in 60 seconds.
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Last edited by Tomsdad; 04-22-2021 at 07:50 AM.
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