Low/High-Tech Military Air Guns

[Sindri]

Let us accept as a postulate that firearms are largely negated at TL 4 for reasons that don't really matter. One of the main competitors that emerges are airguns.

What should be kept in mind when expanding the airgun designs beyond the Renaissance Air Rifle and Girandoni? How about creating higher TL designs intended for military use? Can firearm stats be converted as a useful starting point? Has anyone stated up historical air guns or realistic possibilities?

How do airguns work when scaled up to artillery and how should they compare to alternatives like steam powered guns?

How readily does expertise in making firearms or air guns translate to making the other?

What changes militarily to take advantage of the strengths of air guns and minimize their weaknesses?

[jason taylor]

The Austrian army actually fiddled with something of the kind in the Napoleonic Wars but nothing came of it.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

The Austrian army actually fiddled with something of the kind in the Napoleonic Wars but nothing came of it.

The Girandoni. Which is a quite cool weapon and part of the inspiration for this. High-Tech has stats for it. I'm not sure I'd say nothing came of it, sure it wasn't hugely successful but it was issued and used.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Sindri

How do airguns work when scaled up to artillery and how should they compare to alternatives like steam powered guns?

Start here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite_gun

Note that hese are closer to be being mortars than any sort of direct fire gun.

The other sort of this sort of exotica that I know of are these.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holman_Projector

....which came in both compressed air and steam varieties. Again, more of an explosive weapon launcher than a direct fire gun.

[acrosome]

Imagine modern paintguns- without the velocity limits- firing chemical or gas loads?

[Ed the Coastie]

Well, there are already high power airguns suitable for hunting, so I see no reason why there could/would not be military variants if the situation so warranted it.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Sindri

How do airguns work when scaled up to artillery and how should they compare to alternatives like steam powered guns?

Without explosives artillery in general is going to be a lot less useful. Indirect fire of purely kinetic projectiles isn't going to be viable until late TL8 or so.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Indirect fire of purely kinetic projectiles isn't going to be viable until late TL8 or so.

Not true, indirect fire of purely kinetic projectiles has been useful since before gunpowder was invented. Archery, as used in combat, functions far more like artillery than direct fire weapons, and weapons such as the catapult are clearly artillery by any reasonable standard.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Not true, indirect fire of purely kinetic projectiles has been useful since before gunpowder was invented. Archery, as used in combat, functions far more like artillery than direct fire weapons, and weapons such as the catapult are clearly artillery by any reasonable standard.

Those are still direct fire, the firing element is directly laid in on the target. They are just high-angle of fire weapons in direct lay.Those applications require either purely static or relatively static area targets in clear view of the firing element. In modern maneuver warfare they'd be much less effective.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Those are still direct fire, the firing element is directly laid in on the target.

Exactly what distinction are you making between direct and indirect fire? Battlefield archery targets an area rather than an individual, and if you had high tech comms you could perfectly well use it with a spotter and archers who were unable to see their target. Kinetic artillery is relatively inefficient because the minimum effective size for a gravity-powered dart is much higher than the minimum effective size for an explosive-powered chunk of shrapnel, but it's still artillery.