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How advance could Sigmarite Empire firearms technology be?
do they really goes beyond Flintlock system? a.k.a. have access to percussion caps?

and about multibarreld harquebus used by certain harquebusiers. is it volley gun just like Nock gun or it is really an early repeating firearms?

how fast can Empire harquebusiers reload? it is pretty clear that they're all using muzzleloading harquebus.

and for you. Which word fits the definition of the Empire small arms best?
- Harquebus
- Musket

L.

Erm, what is a Harquebas? Is it Handgun in English?

Regardless, they are muskets, but they have rifles, so must be moving towards percussion caps i believe..

Arquebus is the English equivalent.

I think for modelling purposes, most rifles are flintlocks. Most cannons are lit with wicks.

Then you have goofy stuff stuff like Helblaster, which has to be some kind of...I don't know, magic percussion gattling gun cannon that never needs refilling.

Rockets are obviously rockets.


Empire history != Earth history when it comes to firearms (or anything). They span anywhere from 1200 to 1900 give or take.

I don't really understand GW's localization of 'Handgunners' units. in France this unit is called Harquebusier. so in this sense yes. (sih! historically Handgun (or Handgonne) has no 'firing mechanism' except a few using serpentine matchlock. which appeared much later. but if the earliest harquebus has cannon barrel then i'm not sure if the earliest matchlock harquebus is called Handgun?)

Empire have rifled firearms yes. but who have access to one? do those rank and files really own any of these advanced weapons?
personally I don't think so. handgunners are more or less having access to smoothbore firearms... but then again. several handgunners have wheel lock firearms (which it is very expensive) so handgunners using rifled firearms may be plausible.
but since those weapons are all muzzle loaders. muzzle loading rifles are likely to have slower ROF compared to smoothbore muskets. rifle bullets are needed to be wrapped (with leather/cloths and grease) so the riflings can be fully exploited.

You're thinking too hard.

No one can load a muzzleloader of ANY type in 2-3 seconds including aiming and shooting, which is the time the enemy is swinging a sword or knocking an arrow and firing.

It's a game. It's not historically accurate whatsoever. It's not even physically realistic.

Duke has the right of it, its not realistic (and isnt really meant to be)

And apologies for being so lazy i couldn't even Google ( )....

Only the Hochland Longrifle appears to be "rifled" out of all of the Empire guns. Dwarven Handguns are rifled(hence them being more accurate)



Empire handguns appear to be more like an Arquebus then a Musket. They are heavy weapons, but not so heavy as to require the support stand that the Arquebus needed.

The apparently large bore of the models suggests that they fire a very large projectile.

So empire Handguns could be considered a threesome mix between Arquebuss, Muskets, and Handcannons. the weight of the gun would dampen the recoil, but it would still be managable to not require a stand.


and, AFAIK, rifled muskets didn't require a cloth around the bullet to take advantage of the rifleing(the lead bullet would expand on firing to fill the grooves)

^ Then are you saying that the Empire or Dwarves has Minie' ball? (Civil War stuff) or normal round lead ball can still expand that way?
1. Harquebus evolved from Handcannon i think. the earliest' harquebus might be just like an iron tube placed on crossbow frame with serpentine firing mechanism added
2. Hellblaster is a percussion lock weapon. but percussion caps being magical is untrue. even an imperial alchemist should be able to prepare mercury II fulminate with ease. but since an alchemist found no usefulness on the fulminate (in pursuing their goals) he ignored this substance. but how can a gunsmith hear about this alchemy works?

We really can't say for certain.

all we know is that Dwarf Handguns, and Hochland Longrifles, are rifled.

Okay, understand you're asking an impossible question. Understood? Good. Okay let's figure it out.

Let's start by comparing the handgun with the bow. The longbow was a popular Renaissance era weapon, and had an effective range of 300-400 meters. In-game, it has a range of 24", which is the same as the Handgun's! Now all we have to do is find a firearm with a similar effective range. Napoleonic era muskets had a maximum range of about 1km, but a effective range of about 200m. That's too short. Clearly the musket and its predecessors (Arquebus included) isn't up to snuff, but what about rifles? The Springfield 1861, massively used during the American Civil War has an effective range up to 370 meters. Good enough! The Springfield 1861 had a long barrel (this is supported by the guns having the "more or fire" rule), and fired a muzzle loaded spinning bullet with a percussion cap.

Let's look at this in game terms now. Based on model size, I'm assuming an inch is representative of about 2 meters. Handguns have a range of 24", which translates to 48 meters by my logic. But wait, 48 meters is more than eight times shorter than the approximate 400 meter range of the rifles and bows we were looking at. What does this mean? It means the Fantasy world doesn't believe in UMPH in their missile weapons. It means low tension drawstrings and, low tensile bows, and it means low black powder content in the firing caps.

Conclusion

Popcorn. Popcorn is what an Empire gunline would sound like. Not a deafening thunder, comforting pops. The rifles would have comically long barrels, and everything else would be under-sized, due to small percussion caps, and small ammunition. Also, popcorn.

There's an easy way. Nip over to the Tower of London and have a look in the White Tower's arsenal. Walk past the ranks and ranks of weapons (there's at least ten centuries worth of english weapons stored there). Just keep on walking through the rooms and centuries until you find what you're looking for. Your jaw will drop when you see it; an entire floor filled with the weapons of the Empire.

Handguns, repeater handguns, the weird hand grenade launcher the outrider champion has, the even have a Helblaster volley gun. What's made even more awesome is that these are the real deal. The original designers at GW must of been history buffs, and made a deliberate choice to style the Empire's gunpowder weapons after real life examples when first creating the game.

The hand foot troops / calvary are more german landsknecht, but the missile troops are all English Civil War c1650.

Squash wrote:1KM, 400m, other crazy stuff

None of those guns had ranges anywhere remotely near that. Effective range means 1 guy firing and with a chance to kill a target. In most cases, with a 33%-50% chance of hitting. For the accuracy to be that high, the range would have to be indeed like <50ft. Sure, when you get a gigantic gunline you throw a lot of lead at a lot of targets. But the stats don't change when 1 gunner is shooting at 1 goblin. He'd have to be right up on him to have any chance whatsoever of hitting, let alone a 33% chance of hitting and further 50% chance of killing.

So the very short ranges make sense in that regards. Though really, it's just a balance issue

Squash wrote:Let's look at this in game terms now. Based on model size, I'm assuming an inch is representative of about 2 meters. Handguns have a range of 24", which translates to 48 meters by my logic. But wait, 48 meters is more than eight times shorter than the approximate 400 meter range of the rifles and bows we were looking at. What does this mean? It means the Fantasy world doesn't believe in UMPH in their missile weapons. It means low tension drawstrings and, low tensile bows, and it means low black powder content in the firing caps.

Game models are not in scale with weapon ranges and that should not be considered for trying to figure out other scales.

ph34r wrote:Game models are not in scale with weapon ranges and that should not be considered for trying to figure out other scales.

But it's the best way of attempting to "calculate" it. Even if we had a completely accurate scale, then they still wouldn't work. But then again, neither would giant monsters that flew around expelling fire from their lungs.

No, its not the best way of attempting to calculate it.

Go and find out what the maximum effective range of a 16th century handgun was.

That will give you the starting point for measuring ranges.

Grey Templar wrote:
Go and find out what the maximum effective range of a 16th century handgun was.

ranged attacks in this game miss a lot anyway

I wouldnt think too hard about the warhammer guns

I mean they somehow made handheld machine guns before artillery sized ones

I'll agree that the normal handguns appear to have qualities of all sorts of black power guns put into one

They arn't machine guns. they are simply multi-barreled guns, which is something that has indeed existed.

You just add a couple of barrels and an additional firing mechanisim.

It isn't like they have invented casings yet.

DukeRustfield wrote:You're thinking too hard.

No one can load a muzzleloader of ANY type in 2-3 seconds including aiming and shooting, which is the time the enemy is swinging a sword or knocking an arrow and firing.

It's a game. It's not historically accurate whatsoever. It's not even physically realistic.

In this case it's more that the movement of time is deliberately abstracted, and that a single roll to hit is not indicative of firing a single round.

There is no reason for us to assume that one batch of rolled dice from handguns represents the same number of shots loaded and fired as it would from a group of bowmen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Squash wrote:Let's look at this in game terms now. Based on model size, I'm assuming an inch is representative of about 2 meters.

You've drawn that assumption based it on the model sizes, multiplied it out and reached the conclusion that guns and bows in WHFB have an effective range of under 50 metres.

Rather than consider the idea that models aren't modelled to scale with the battlefield they're placed on, you decided that a gunline is full of comically underpowered weapons, and that we shouldn't question that mental image at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:But it's the best way of attempting to "calculate" it. Even if we had a completely accurate scale, then they still wouldn't work. But then again, neither would giant monsters that flew around expelling fire from their lungs.

But it isn't, when it produces a ridiculous result. Models are bigger than they ought to be. Else we're looking at a battlefield where hostilities only begin when the two armies are about 48 metres apart. Which is silly.

sebster wrote:
There is no reason for us to assume that one batch of rolled dice from handguns represents the same number of shots loaded and fired as it would from a group of bowmen.

Sure there is a reason. Because they take place in exactly the same period of time. But that's only if you're trying to make this game literal and logical, which it simply doesn't stand up to such scrutiny.

We can make any kind of abstraction we want, which is what I'm arguing. A model is the size that it is because it's easier to handle, paint and mold. Not because it is a scale representation of anything. Likewise, armies aren't standing around on giant plastic trays when they march into combat (I think!). And indeed each "round" of combat could be 50 different shots fired over minutes. With each CC "swing" being likewise a much longer period of melee fighting.

But really...it doesn't matter.

In real world rifles were invented in mid-15 century, so it wouldn't be goofy for Empire to have ones.
And what's goofy in the helblaster? Organ guns made from many barrels did exist.
In Russian Handgunners were translated as мушкетёры which means musketeers. So I tink they use muskets or something like that.

DukeRustfield wrote:Sure there is a reason. Because they take place in exactly the same period of time.

You just pointed out that firearms take much longer to fire a volley than bows... So it becomes entirely sensible to presume that over the same length of time a unit of bowmen fires three or even more volleys to the one fired by the handgunners, but that each is represented by a single roll of dice (presumably the handguns are three or more times as accurate, or something).

But really...it doesn't matter.

Which is the point you'll see I was making if you'd go back to read your post, then read mine again.

What matters is that a general is manouvering a unit from this place to that, attempting a flanking action, while the oppsing general is holding his line still, knowing that in the time that redeployment takes, his missile troops will likely have killed another dozen or thereabouts of the enemy. The game is a simulation of the decisions made by a general, not a simulation of every little element of warfare.

kenshin620 wrote:I wouldnt think too hard about the warhammer guns

I mean they somehow made handheld machine guns before artillery sized ones

I'll agree that the normal handguns appear to have qualities of all sorts of black power guns put into one

are you refer 'machine guns' to 'multi barreled harquebus?' handgunners was using?

nah. it isn't a machine gun. in fact it's either Nock gun or a big pepperbox gun


^ Nock Gun. not really a repeater weapon. but it is a volley gun and designed to have psycho factor over the opponents.


^ Double-action percussion caps pepperbox pistol.

Empires don't have MGs yet. but i believe they do have repeating firearms and if the earliest revolvers appeared in 16th century. then. empires noblemen might have ones.

But i'm not sure if Empire handgunners really uses percussion caps? maybe they should because it's really the first waterproof weapons (or isn't it?)

About Empire artillery thing. do you think that they use percussion explosive shells?

They certaintly don't have explosive shells for their cannons, but they do for the Mortars.

Mortars are much easier to have explosive shells for because they have much larger projectiles, which can be made hollow(but thick enough to withstand the force of getting shot) and be filled with explosives that have a fuse attached. The length of the fuse is changed depending on the distance to the enemy(and the time spent in the air) so that the explosive will, hopefully, go off right before impact.

Not an exact science to be sure due to the unreliability of Fuses.

sebster wrote:
You just pointed out that firearms take much longer to fire a volley than bows... So it becomes entirely sensible to presume that over the same length of time a unit of bowmen fires three or even more volleys to the one fired by the handgunners, but that each is represented by a single roll of dice (presumably the handguns are three or more times as accurate, or something).

Except that's not realistic in terms of the efficiency of longbows and early firearms. Which is what this whole thread is about: realism. Which is why everyone is saying it's not realistic so don't worry about it.

And Lone Cat, all those guns come hundreds of years after the Empire time line.

DukeRustfield wrote:

sebster wrote:
You just pointed out that firearms take much longer to fire a volley than bows... So it becomes entirely sensible to presume that over the same length of time a unit of bowmen fires three or even more volleys to the one fired by the handgunners, but that each is represented by a single roll of dice (presumably the handguns are three or more times as accurate, or something).

Except that's not realistic in terms of the efficiency of longbows and early firearms. Which is what this whole thread is about: realism. Which is why everyone is saying it's not realistic so don't worry about it.

And Lone Cat, all those guns come hundreds of years after the Empire time line.

Except the technology and capability to make those guns existed at the time that "Empire" weaponry would have been used.

all that is needed to do something is the potential and the desire to do it, and desire isn't a hard fast requirement.

Firearm technology really hasn't changed much on a fundamental level for the last hundred or so years. the last major invention was the encased round, which in and of itself is a very simple concept. you take your bullet and your explosive charge and insert them into a nice convienient package with the charge on one end and the bullet on the other. you then insert the package, charge end first, into the barrel of the gun and then fire in the same way as a normal muzzle loader. The "casing" doesn't even have to be metal. it can be made out of thin cloth to cut down on weight, although this does mean you are still in trouble if the casing gets wet.

Magazines are really just a container holding more bullets and some sort of spring mechanisim or bolt action to force them into the firing chamber. Springs have existed for thousands of years so the technology was just waiting for firearms to be invented so it could help them. Bolt action is just the wielder mechanically operating the loading mechanisim.


Cased bullets could have been invented the exact second that firearms were, but they weren't because humanity has this tendency to only upgrade the stuff thats is obsolete. When Powder and Ball firearms were invented they were the top of the line weapons. the mechanisim for loading them wasn't improved upon because they didn't see a need for it. they did see a need to make the guns lighter, more accurate, and longer ranged, but they didn't see a problem with the loading method. that is until the accuracy, range, and weight had basically been reduced as much as they could. then they really started thinking about how to make them fire faster.

DukeRustfield wrote:Except that's not realistic in terms of the efficiency of longbows and early firearms. Which is what this whole thread is about: realism. Which is why everyone is saying it's not realistic so don't worry about it.

Only if you presume the same levels of accuracy for blackpowder weapons in history must be the limit of the same in the Empire. Why you'd assume that I don't know.

I agree with you that WHFB has chosen gameplay and the rule of cool over historical simulation (it should be noted that handgunners used to fire every other turn in 3rd ed, this made them terrible and so the rule was removed). But you go too far in claiming that it is therefore impossible to put any level of realism over the game, if you look at it with the right mindset there is a 'world' going on in the game that one can intuit, far more easily than is the case with 40K, for instance.

And Lone Cat, all those guns come hundreds of years after the Empire time line.

Except there isn't a time line for the Empire. It's a fantasy kingdom with an entirely seperate line of technological progress from the modern world. They have steam tanks that would require a level of manufacturing capability that would make breah loading weapons relatively simple. And once you can safely rife a rifle loading from the breach, everything else is pretty straight forward.

Grey Templar wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:

sebster wrote:
You just pointed out that firearms take much longer to fire a volley than bows... So it becomes entirely sensible to presume that over the same length of time a unit of bowmen fires three or even more volleys to the one fired by the handgunners, but that each is represented by a single roll of dice (presumably the handguns are three or more times as accurate, or something).

Except that's not realistic in terms of the efficiency of longbows and early firearms. Which is what this whole thread is about: realism. Which is why everyone is saying it's not realistic so don't worry about it.

And Lone Cat, all those guns come hundreds of years after the Empire time line.

Except the technology and capability to make those guns existed at the time that "Empire" weaponry would have been used.

all that is needed to do something is the potential and the desire to do it, and desire isn't a hard fast requirement.

Firearm technology really hasn't changed much on a fundamental level for the last hundred or so years. the last major invention was the encased round, which in and of itself is a very simple concept. you take your bullet and your explosive charge and insert them into a nice convienient package with the charge on one end and the bullet on the other. you then insert the package, charge end first, into the barrel of the gun and then fire in the same way as a normal muzzle loader. The "casing" doesn't even have to be metal. it can be made out of thin cloth to cut down on weight, although this does mean you are still in trouble if the casing gets wet.

Magazines are really just a container holding more bullets and some sort of spring mechanisim or bolt action to force them into the firing chamber. Springs have existed for thousands of years so the technology was just waiting for firearms to be invented so it could help them. Bolt action is just the wielder mechanically operating the loading mechanisim.


Cased bullets could have been invented the exact second that firearms were, but they weren't because humanity has this tendency to only upgrade the stuff thats is obsolete. When Powder and Ball firearms were invented they were the top of the line weapons. the mechanisim for loading them wasn't improved upon because they didn't see a need for it. they did see a need to make the guns lighter, more accurate, and longer ranged, but they didn't see a problem with the loading method. that is until the accuracy, range, and weight had basically been reduced as much as they could. then they really started thinking about how to make them fire faster.

do you refer 'cased bullets' to 'cartridge'?
if so then you refer to Paper cartridge, which the Poles introduced it to speed up loadin' time (but i'm not sure if a procedure to use the propelling powder as a primer was trained by then? but i've heard that in order to fire a muzzleloading firearms using paper cartridge there's some procedures
1. tear open the cartridge, at the payload end (usually using one's teeth), hold the bullet ball by teeth (or an other's hand if one afraids of choking hazard )
2. half c o c k the weapon, prime the flashpan using a pinch of propelling powder contained there. once done, close the pan hatch (or frizzen, in case of flintlock or snaphance weapons)*
3. pour the rest of the propelling powder into the barrel muzzle but don't insert the paper casings YET
4. insert the bullet itself (usually spit it of one holds it by teeth), then insert the paper casing into the barrell, the paper itself serves as wadding
5. draw a ramrod out of the underslung and ram the whole thing (usually three strokes for smoothbore, but it may be more if you load a muzzleloading rifle), then return ramrod into the underslung housing.. MAKE SURE to place it there first!
6. c o c k the hammer/doghead/serpentine at a full lenght.
7. READY!, AIM, FIRE!!!!!

*in case of percussion firearms, the priming process is to plug the touchhole with a percussion cap, the process usually done AFTER loading the whole paper cartridges into a barrel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho-QCmnNMl8&feature=related
^ This is how a reenactor demonstrates how to fire a muzzleloading weapon.

but the reusable metal cartridge needs two more technology to work. a realiable breech loading mechanism (to block the gas leakage), and.... applications of Mercury II Fulminate as primer.
i'd say that Mercury II Fulminate exists long ago but no one noticed how can it be used until just before Napoleonic wars (but even so everyone still fights with flintlock weapons, the percussion firearms became poppular in 1830s).

Vampirate of Sartosa wrote:

ph34r wrote:Game models are not in scale with weapon ranges and that should not be considered for trying to figure out other scales.

But it's the best way of attempting to "calculate" it. Even if we had a completely accurate scale, then they still wouldn't work. But then again, neither would giant monsters that flew around expelling fire from their lungs.

There was a quote from Nigel Stillman (the original creator of Warhammer) a few years back about this very topic. My google-fu couldn't find it but from memory it was something along the line of "The scale of missile weapons is different to the scale of the miniatures. This is deliberate in order to play on a table top. Otherwise we'd have to play all games of warhammer in a car park".

Lone Cat wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:

sebster wrote:
You just pointed out that firearms take much longer to fire a volley than bows... So it becomes entirely sensible to presume that over the same length of time a unit of bowmen fires three or even more volleys to the one fired by the handgunners, but that each is represented by a single roll of dice (presumably the handguns are three or more times as accurate, or something).

Except that's not realistic in terms of the efficiency of longbows and early firearms. Which is what this whole thread is about: realism. Which is why everyone is saying it's not realistic so don't worry about it.

And Lone Cat, all those guns come hundreds of years after the Empire time line.

Except the technology and capability to make those guns existed at the time that "Empire" weaponry would have been used.

all that is needed to do something is the potential and the desire to do it, and desire isn't a hard fast requirement.

Firearm technology really hasn't changed much on a fundamental level for the last hundred or so years. the last major invention was the encased round, which in and of itself is a very simple concept. you take your bullet and your explosive charge and insert them into a nice convienient package with the charge on one end and the bullet on the other. you then insert the package, charge end first, into the barrel of the gun and then fire in the same way as a normal muzzle loader. The "casing" doesn't even have to be metal. it can be made out of thin cloth to cut down on weight, although this does mean you are still in trouble if the casing gets wet.

Magazines are really just a container holding more bullets and some sort of spring mechanisim or bolt action to force them into the firing chamber. Springs have existed for thousands of years so the technology was just waiting for firearms to be invented so it could help them. Bolt action is just the wielder mechanically operating the loading mechanisim.


Cased bullets could have been invented the exact second that firearms were, but they weren't because humanity has this tendency to only upgrade the stuff thats is obsolete. When Powder and Ball firearms were invented they were the top of the line weapons. the mechanisim for loading them wasn't improved upon because they didn't see a need for it. they did see a need to make the guns lighter, more accurate, and longer ranged, but they didn't see a problem with the loading method. that is until the accuracy, range, and weight had basically been reduced as much as they could. then they really started thinking about how to make them fire faster.

do you refer 'cased bullets' to 'cartridge'?
if so then you refer to Paper cartridge, which the Poles introduced it to speed up loadin' time (but i'm not sure if a procedure to use the propelling powder as a primer was trained by then? but i've heard that in order to fire a muzzleloading firearms using paper cartridge there's some procedures
1. tear open the cartridge, at the payload end (usually using one's teeth), hold the bullet ball by teeth (or an other's hand if one afraids of choking hazard )
2. half c o c k the weapon, prime the flashpan using a pinch of propelling powder contained there. once done, close the pan hatch (or frizzen, in case of flintlock or snaphance weapons)*
3. pour the rest of the propelling powder into the barrel muzzle but don't insert the paper casings YET
4. insert the bullet itself (usually spit it of one holds it by teeth), then insert the paper casing into the barrell, the paper itself serves as wadding
5. draw a ramrod out of the underslung and ram the whole thing (usually three strokes for smoothbore, but it may be more if you load a muzzleloading rifle), then return ramrod into the underslung housing.. MAKE SURE to place it there first!
6. c o c k the hammer/doghead/serpentine at a full lenght.
7. READY!, AIM, FIRE!!!!!

*in case of percussion firearms, the priming process is to plug the touchhole with a percussion cap, the process usually done AFTER loading the whole paper cartridges into a barrel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho-QCmnNMl8&feature=related
^ This is how a reenactor demonstrates how to fire a muzzleloading weapon.

but the reusable metal cartridge needs two more technology to work. a realiable breech loading mechanism (to block the gas leakage), and.... applications of Mercury II Fulminate as primer.
i'd say that Mercury II Fulminate exists long ago but no one noticed how can it be used until just before Napoleonic wars (but even so everyone still fights with flintlock weapons, the percussion firearms became poppular in 1830s).

Again, a "reliable breech loading mechanisim" and Mercury II Fulminate could easily have been created if someone had had the thought.

the potential is ALWAYS there, but Necessity is the Mother of Invention and as such it didn't happen earlier. If they had wanted these things in the late middle ages they could have had it. Clockmakers had the ability to create sophisticated mechanics, indeed many of the first gunsmiths were clockmakers.