Gunsmith Katsumi - Akitsukuni Arms Design Quest

[Eukie]

Tachibana Katsumi

Stress: 5/10

Accomplishments
Mechanical Engineering degree
Got a job in your field
Type 37 Special Purpose Rifle
Type 38 Self-Loading Pistol

Friends
Maeda Rumi: Your roommate.
Sanders Clara Rose: A colleague who works for Naylor, Sons & Daughters.

Coworkers
Mr. Watanabe: Your superior.
Mr. Akutagawa: The boss of the company.

Workshop 3
Ms. Ikeda Nioh: Chemist. She also seems to be Mr Watanabe's personal secretary, but you're not sure if that's an official position.
Mr. Yakade Yasuo: Physicist, specialized in ballistics. A living, breathing Technical Appendix C.
Mx. Kusonoki Mayumi: Has a degree in materials science. Gets a look on their face when they say they know more about wood than anyone.
Mr. Shiragiku Hideyoshi: Metalworker. Having met him, you've learned why metalworking is a craft and the meaning of the phrase "thinks himself heaven's gift to women".
Mr. Kashiwa Ichiro: An apprentice gunsmith with a background in carpentry and actually using guns on people.

Technologies

Spoiler: Technologies

Rifles (Familiar)
Shotguns (Familiar)
Pistols (Familiar)

Rotate-and-pull bolts (Practical)
Straight-pull bolts (Practical)
Aperture sights (Practical)
Stripper clips (Practical)
Lever-delayed blowback operation (Practical)
Double-stack magazines (Practical)
Single-action handguns (Practical)
En bloc clips (Conceptual)
Simple blowback operation (Conceptual)
Short recoil operation (Conceptual)
Toggle-delayed blowback operation (Conceptual)
Blow forward operation (Conceptual)
Simple blowback operation (Conceptual)
Double-action pistols (Conceptual)
Automatic revolvers (Conceptual)

 

[7734]

[x] Colonel Ito, Mr. Watanabe's contact in Army Procurement."

Right let's see what they really want, now. Also, I was kidding when I said an elephant round holy shit guys. 11mm is going to be a damn chonker that would be almost impossible to develop a decent magazine around. I want to go down to absolute minimum caliber- 6.5mm- and with whatever room we've got budgeted for an 11mm round magazine can let us cram in twice as many bullets.

It could be something like a Mannlicher M1895 or Lee-Navy M1895 style rifle. They both used an en bloc system and had holes at the bottom of their internal magazines. Both also happen to be straight pulls, and of 8mm calibre for the former and 6mm for the latter. Not really aware of any problems with the magazines but then again, I don't know much about guns.

Click to shrink...

The Manlicher was fine because it had a plug for that hole, which was mostly used for adjusting the internal spring; I honestly can't say much about the Lee-Navy since it was in use for such a small period of time.

Since when was the Mauser a clunky tube-loader?

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I was more talking about the bolt- two forward one or two back locking lugs, cock on close, rotating bolt, fixed bridge design. Since our extent magazine wasn't specified, I was assuming we were copying literally anything not the Lebel. If we do have a tube mag, then I guess we can be hailed as the inventor of the box mag then.

En bloc clips are fine until you have no undamaged clips. It's impossible to load the magazine with individual rounds, so if all of your clips are lost or bent you've now got a single-shot weapon.

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You're making a problem to solve with unneeded gadgetry. Aside from the fact your rounds are issued in packets, if you actually do need to load loose rounds you can just rack in an empty or semi-empty packet and hold that in the gun to serve as your feed lips. Works on every packet loaded gun model I've ever used.

Considering the 8-round magazine is referred to as being a Gallian invention, I think the Type 15 is based on the Lebel action, not the Mauser.

Click to shrink...

The Lebel isn't inherently bad as a pure bolt, but the extra crap tacked on will be problematic. I'm gonna still advocate a box or spindle magazine design.

 

[Psyentific]

Stripper clips are better than enbloc clips and detachable magazines reign supreme. You cannot prove me wrong because, deep in your heart, you know I am right.

 

[Rat King]

Mannlicher packet system or bust. It was good enough for the Carcano, it's good enough for us.

 

[LucidProp]

[X] Lieutenant Koda Eijiro, an Army Air Observer who I met at a party."

 

[Artificial Girl]

I believe this would be what our character refers to as the Type 10.

EDIT: And this would be the Type 15.

 

[open_sketch]

I was more talking about the bolt- two forward one or two back locking lugs, cock on close, rotating bolt, fixed bridge design. Since our extent magazine wasn't specified, I was assuming we were copying literally anything not the Lebel. If we do have a tube mag, then I guess we can be hailed as the inventor of the box mag then.

Click to shrink...

Um... literally none of this was specified in the story posts so far, what the hell are you talking about?

 

[Parzival95]

[X] Mr. Duchamp, a visiting Alleghenian scientist who is studying the new and exciting field of Terminal Ballistics."

 

[Psyentific]

I believe this would be what our character refers to as the Type 10.

EDIT: And this would be the Type 15.

Click to shrink...

So we're basically designing a replacement for a Mosin-Nagant equivalent, then. Cool, cool.

 

[7734]

Um... literally none of this was specified in the story posts so far, what the hell are you talking about?

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It's an educated guess, becuse there needs to be some sort of starting assumption when the OP of a technical things quest is as nondescriptive as this one was.

 

[open_sketch]

It's an educated guess, becuse there needs to be some sort of starting assumption when the OP of a technical things quest is as nondescriptive as this one was.

Click to shrink...

Then maybe don't speak so authoritatively about your guesses? It's just getting started, I'm sure we'll get more information soon.

 

[7734]

Then maybe don't speak so authoritatively about your guesses? It's just getting started, I'm sure we'll get more information soon.

Click to shrink...

I'm not going to inflate my word count with weasel words and conditionals that everyone is banding about. If I'm wrong, though, then that's the breaks. With the rather uncertain technical nature of the setting as it has been elided to in this Quest, I took what I felt to be a fair stab in the dark. A miss in that sort of thing is just as useful as a hit, in some regards.

 

[Eukie]

I'm not going to inflate my word count with weasel words and conditionals that everyone is banding about. If I'm wrong, though, then that's the breaks. With the rather uncertain technical nature of the setting as it has been elided to in this Quest, I took what I felt to be a fair stab in the dark. A miss in that sort of thing is just as useful as a hit, in some regards.

Click to shrink...

You'll get more technical details eventually, but please don't make unfounded assumptions, it confuses things.

 

[Night_stalker]

[X] Handa Ken, an Army Corporal of my acquaintance, about his experiences."

 

[Davin Valkri]

[x] Colonel Ito, Mr. Watanabe's contact in Army Procurement.

Right now we're just getting started, right? But it seems to me like quite a few of these requirements are, ah, unreasonable, to say the least. If not outright contradictory. Let's see if we can talk to our man in Procurement and see what their priorities are, which of these reqs is most important and which are...flexible, shall we say. I'd bet the corporal's input would be most valuable once we've got a prototype to hand him, less, otherwise. Talking to the scientist will likely prove fruitful, but more on the side of actual design, cartridge choice, perhaps a few finicky tricks, and so on; he ought to be our second or third step, not the first.

Click to shrink...

This isn't bad logic! Colonel Ito's my second choice, but the thing is...

I don't know exactly how it goes, but there's a (probably apocryphal) expression that's something like "if I ask someone what car they want, they'll ask for a faster horse". Since Ito's already in army procurement, he's probably got a good idea of what they're picturing--and what they're picturing is probably a Type 15A or a Type 15 Mark II. Perfectly serviceable, but still probably with a bunch of the Type 15's issues.

Jeez, come to think of it ALL these choices are not great. I guess that's part of the fun of CYOA.

 

[Rat King]

I imagine all the choices have their upsides and their downsides - and we get to figure out which one we want to try and deal with!

 

[Sir_Travelsalot]

This isn't bad logic! Colonel Ito's my second choice, but the thing is...

I don't know exactly how it goes, but there's a (probably apocryphal) expression that's something like "if I ask someone what car they want, they'll ask for a faster horse". Since Ito's already in army procurement, he's probably got a good idea of what they're picturing--and what they're picturing is probably a Type 15A or a Type 15 Mark II. Perfectly serviceable, but still probably with a bunch of the Type 15's issues.

Jeez, come to think of it ALL these choices are not great. I guess that's part of the fun of CYOA.

Click to shrink...

The fact that our company is only expected to provide an entry for the sake of appearances is unlikely to help, either.

 

[Psyentific]

This isn't bad logic! Colonel Ito's my second choice, but the thing is...

I don't know exactly how it goes, but there's a (probably apocryphal) expression that's something like "if I ask someone what car they want, they'll ask for a faster horse". Since Ito's already in army procurement, he's probably got a good idea of what they're picturing--and what they're picturing is probably a Type 15A or a Type 15 Mark II. Perfectly serviceable, but still probably with a bunch of the Type 15's issues.

Jeez, come to think of it ALL these choices are not great. I guess that's part of the fun of CYOA.

Click to shrink...

I agree that the main thrust of our efforts is going to be innovating new things rather than iterating older ones, and that a substantial part of this project is going to be, shall we say, making a "horse" that is actually a car. I'm thinking that the time to attack requirements is now, before we even commit resources to anything substantial. If we can get even one of these silly things knocked off the list (albeit informally) that will make designing a satisfactory product that much easier. If our so-called horse need not have four legs and eat grass, to continue the analogy.

The fact that our company is only expected to provide an entry for the sake of appearances is unlikely to help, either.

Click to shrink...

That's another reason i went with procurement; ultimately, the people with institutional power in that department are the ones making the decision. Establishing a good working relationship with them out the gate will pay off later, methinks.

 

[sunrise]

[x] Colonel Ito, Mr. Watanabe's contact in Army Procurement."

 

[thepsyborg]

[X] Colonel Ito, Mr. Watanabe's contact in Army Procurement.

 

[hcvquizibo]

[X] Handa Ken, an Army Corporal of my acquaintance, about his experiences."

 

[Eukie]

TYPE 10 MARUYAMA RIFLE
The Type 10 was the final development of the Year Miwa 19 Maruyama single-shot rifle, which began as a single shot blackpowder weapon clearly inspired by the Gallian Maigre rifle. It is a single-shot bolt-action rifle chambered for the 11x60 mm Maruyama cartridge and is capable of fitting a bayonet. You have extensive experience with the Type 10. The Army sold off their surplus at a profit and many ended up in the hands of hunters and sport shooters, often converted to shotguns. The Army entered the Caspian-Akitusukuni War with stocks of this rifle, but single-shot blackpowder rifles have been obsolete for over 20 years.

TYPE 15 MARUYAMA RIFLE
The Type 15 was a development of the Type 10, but on a technical level it's a completely new rifle. It is a bolt-action repeating rifle based on the revolutionary Gallian Lapirenne rifle, the first of the smokeless powder rifles and the first successful repeater. Compared to the Type 10 the 8x53 mm Maruyama cartridge has vastly superior ballistics at range, the smokeless powder is less of a hassle, and the Type 15's internal tube magazine allows rapid fire. Your experience with the Type 15 is that it shoots well, but the repeating mechanism requires force to work, and reloading the magazine takes time. It was also long enough that you felt like a furniture mover trying to get one through a doorway. With the bayonet fitted you feel like a warring states-era samurai's wife defending your home with a naginata.

FRAUENGEWEHR 87
The Frauengewehr 87 is a shortened variant of the Gewehr 87, a Dysklandic bolt-action repeating rifle designed in response to the Gallian Lapirenne rifle. It uses an 8 mm smokeless round similar to the one in the Type 15 but the magazine is very different: A block of rounds are held together with a small metal clip and fed all at once into a space beneath the bolt. When all five rounds in the magazine have been fired, the clip drops out the bottom of the rifle. Your first hands-on experience with the Frauengewehr 87 was when the Army asked Imperial Matchlocks to explore a conversion to 8 mm Maruyama. That never went anywhere: designing a new clip would have gone over budget, and the rimmed Maruyama cartridges tended to catch on one another when closing the bolt. You were impressed by the overall mechanism and the rimless cartridges though, it's probably the best rifle you've worked with when it's not full of dirt.

 

[Hadanelith]

[X] Colonel Ito, Mr. Watanabe's contact in Army Procurement

If we're going to be part of things, we've got to know priorities. That list of requirements is asking for the freaking moon, and we've gotta know what they *really* want.

All that said, we're wildly unlikely to take the general infantry rifle contract, which means that we get to do blue-sky, clean sheet design. We get to do fundamental firearms research, with an eye towards making cool shit for the 'special forces', such as they are. And if that's what we're doing...boy howdy, do I have some designs in mind.

We are currently in the equivalent of the time post Russo-Japanese War, pre WWI, right? That means we've got technical access to a whole bunch of the weird and wild firearms designs of the ~WWI era. Ideally, we duplicate the Enfield Pattern 14 rifle in basic handling. Slap on a proper top eject en-bloc clip magazine system (Mannlicher, but without the dirty great hole in the floorplate), chamber for a rimless round (so technically copying the Springfield 1917 more than the P14, but who's counting?), and we are in *business*. Best in class handling, best in class speed. What's not to love?

If we get to be even *more* esoteric, let's talk about ball-bearing locking. But in all likelihood, that's a bridge too far on the weird firearms scale. Still, we've got some interesting options here, and I'm very interested to see the firearms design system proper.

 

[A Faithful Echo]

[X] Colonel Ito, Mr. Watanabe's contact in Army Procurement."

Lets find out more about what the client actually wants!

We might not be able to win the trails, but having our design place well will do some good for our career if nothing else.

 

[Artificial Girl]

[X] Colonel Ito, Mr. Watanabe's contact in Army Procurement

If we're going to be part of things, we've got to know priorities. That list of requirements is asking for the freaking moon, and we've gotta know what they *really* want.

All that said, we're wildly unlikely to take the general infantry rifle contract, which means that we get to do blue-sky, clean sheet design. We get to do fundamental firearms research, with an eye towards making cool shit for the 'special forces', such as they are. And if that's what we're doing...boy howdy, do I have some designs in mind.

We are currently in the equivalent of the time post Russo-Japanese War, pre WWI, right? That means we've got technical access to a whole bunch of the weird and wild firearms designs of the ~WWI era. Ideally, we duplicate the Enfield Pattern 14 rifle in basic handling. Slap on a proper top eject en-bloc clip magazine system (Mannlicher, but without the dirty great hole in the floorplate), chamber for a rimless round (so technically copying the Springfield 1917 more than the P14, but who's counting?), and we are in *business*. Best in class handling, best in class speed. What's not to love?

If we get to be even *more* esoteric, let's talk about ball-bearing locking. But in all likelihood, that's a bridge too far on the weird firearms scale. Still, we've got some interesting options here, and I'm very interested to see the firearms design system proper.

Click to shrink...

Ball-bearing locks seem pretty awesome but wouldn't mass-producing ball-bearings be kind of a strain on our extant industrial capacity? Especially since we have to import a lot of our iron and steel (either from other countries or for the mainland Lydian mines Akitsukuni is going to be getting out of this war?)

 

[xthetenth]

[X] Mr. Duchamp, a visiting Alleghenian scientist who is studying the new and exciting field of Terminal Ballistics."

And the why is involved because there's other good options, so let's start from the top:

Ms. Ikeda Nioh: Chemist. She also seems to be Mr Tachibana's personal secretary, but you're not sure if that's an official position.
Mr. Yakade Yasuo: Physicist, specialized in ballistics. A living, breathing Technical Appendix C.
Mx. Kusonoki Mayumi: Has a degree in materials science. Gets a look on their face when they say they know more about wood than anyone.
Mr. Shiragiku Hideyoshi: Metalworker. Having met him, you've learned why metalworking is a craft and the meaning of the phrase "thinks himself heaven's gift to women".
Mr. Kashiwa Ichiro: An apprentice gunsmith with a background in carpentry and actually using guns on people.

Click to shrink...

So we have a chemist and a ballistician. Given the requirements, one thing that could absolutely set us apart is the round. The rifle itself probably wants to be simple and cost-effective.

Also we have someone who's got experience of using guns on people. The infantryman is compelling because we might be able to make a pitch based on his experience if it's contrary to what the requirements show, but we at least have someone who can tell us about ergonomics. The logistician could genuinely be a compelling pick for the idea I've got bouncing around in the back of my head for taking this in a smaller lighter round direction, but with the requirements as they are, someone specialized in terminal ballistics could be a huge asset. Sure, the field is nascent and full of contradictory theories, but that's fine, in fact it's an asset! I'd also love to talk with someone in procurement and get a feel for what compromises could be made, but I figure the other companies are doing that and if we make something outstanding, we can steal a march on them.

One, having a drop of no more than one point six meters at a range of 800 meters

Click to shrink...

Okay, this gives us one bound of the solution space. This is going to be a function of both ballistic shaping and muzzle velocity of the round. Fortunately, every other requirement pushes in this direction!

Two, reliably stopping a charging horse at 800 meters

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Hoo boy! What does this requirement even mean? This is why I want the Terminal Ballistician. The first, foremost thing we need to be able to do to satisfy the requirement is tell the brass with a straight face that we've met it and have a case made for why. Significant bonus points for it being true, but, well, have you ever tried shooting a statistically valid sample set of horses with a consistent test suite of gunshots? Neither have I, that'd cost more than the entire project's budget. So we need to know what we're maximizing, be it momentum, energy, or even heavens forbid calibre (and in that last horrifying case, whether we have any bullet construction tricks that could let us avoid it). Actually, just in general any phenomena we can utilize to let us hit the goals with a lower velocity, the better. Retaining sufficient velocity out to 2400 meters is going to be a challenge, and the more leeway the better.

Three, being able to reliably kill a man at 2400 meters

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Ditto, but depending on what variable we're maximizing this could go in different directions. If we get told that calibre is all, and nothing else matters, this is going to be very hard to get right. Best case is momentum, we'll probably have a heavy bullet just to hold velocity out that far anyway. This and the previous requirement make me think that the cartridge is where the competition can be won by us. A competent design with a significantly better round might just do it.

Four, having sights accurate up to at least 2400 meters

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Yeah, whatever. You can calibrate a sight to whatever drop your round has. This can be safely ignored as trivial for any rifle adequate to the other requirements. Any fire delivered at this range will be against company or larger targets, even from exceptionally accurate examples of exceptionally accurate guns. Plus, I'm certain Mr. Yakade mentioned something about any bullet becoming unstable once it gets slow enough. Maybe we can make a sales pitch on the round that hits the range requirements letting us use a less fragile sight?

Five, repeating fire from a fixed magazine of at least five rounds capacity which can be reloaded rapidly

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So not a tube. It's been done, there's plenty of prior art, and is largely independent of cartridge design (once it isn't a tube and we can use spitzers).

Six, having a weight of no more than four kilograms

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Sigh. I'd really rather do better than that. You have no idea how badly I want to drop the argument that the Frauengewehr is a woman's weapon designed to repel enemies through sheer firepower, being larger and heavier than optimal for a man whose size and strength can be utilized while closing with the enemy, just to see if I can break brains and cause a realignment towards a lighter candidate that we happen to be offering. At least it's congruent with the other requirements. On the downside, that congruence might make it harder to set ourselves apart with an innovative choice of which requirements to meet.

Seven, having a calibre of at least six point five milimeters and preferentially using a calibre already in Imperial service

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Sure, this isn't too limiting. 6.5 mm is an entirely reasonable rifle calibre if you want to make an incredibly long, slick bullet. Also we can go bigger if needed. What are existing Imperial calibres?

Eight, mounting a bayonet capable of being used by an Imperial soldier of average height to pierce the abdomen of a mounted Europan cavalryman

Click to shrink...

Splendid. So any weight savings from a carbine get offset by a sword bayonet, so we might as well benefit from a long barrel. Now if we can get the ballistics right and still end up with a handy weapon, a sword bayonet isn't the worst thing.

Nine, having no higher a unit cost than the Type 15 assuming an order of one hundred and fifty thousand rifles

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This indicates we probably don't get to slap on endless gubbins and might have to make some compromises. Fortunately it's a big order to amortize tooling across. Unfortunately, we'd have to buy the tooling. We might want to make a design that can leverage parts that tooling already exists for, if it isn't too tired.