Firearms in Fantasy Campaigns II - Technology by era

  As I pointed out in an earlier post, when I build lists I group and stratify the elements in order to impose order on the individual list entries.  I use the same approach in analyzing  firearms in order to reduce the variables I'll need to treat in building home rules.

Era	Approximate Time Period	Ignition	Rifling	Method of Manufacture	Gunpowder formula	Gunpowder milling
Primitive	1200-1450	External source and vent	None	Hand made	High variable	Poor
Matchlock/Wheellock	1450-1720	Slow match/Flint, pan and vent	Very Rare	Made to pattern	Consistent	Fair to Good
Flintlock	1610-1862	Flint, pan and vent	Rare	Made to pattern	Good quality	Good to very good
Cap and Cartridge	1810-present	Percussion cap and centerfire cartridge	Common	Factory made	Optimal, smokeless	Excellent

Going across the top Era and Approximate Time Period are simply labels to help the reader put the technologies into context.  Note that the eras overlap in time periods.  This represents the gradual proliferation of the technologies over the period.

Ignition is the method by which the gun is fired.  A vent is a hole in the barrel through which the flash travels to set off the main charge.  It also allows propellant gasses to escape, lowering the range of the weapon and making misfires potentially more serious.  A pan was a small chamber which held the priming charge of powder, sparks from a flint or the lit end of the slow match were applied to the priming powder, which sent a flash of fire down the vent to the main charge.  Pan's were more exposed to the weather and made firing the weapon problematic in windy and rainy or otherwise wet (at sea) conditions.Percussion caps and their descendants, center and rim fire cartridges enabled the priming charge to be combined with the propellent charge, eliminating the vent thus making the weapon longer ranged, more rugged and less prone to misfires.

Rifling is the cutting of lands and grooves inside the barrel of the weapons, which impart  spin on the bullet.  Spinning bullets have a more stable trajectory, thus flying further and more accurately.  The downside of early rifling was the extreme expense of doing the cutting before high quality machine tools.  And more importantly, rifling requires a tight fit between the bullet and the barrel.  With muzzle loaders, the tight fit made for longer load times as the weapon was used between cleanings.

Method of manufacture - this controlled not only the design but also proliferation.  Primitive firearms were tubes on a stick, each one individually built, repairing one meant building a new one.  With the rise of mass armies armed with gunpowder weapons, the firearms began to be made to set patterns which decreased logistical issues.  However just because the parts were made to the same pattern didn't mean that they were interchangeable between weapons.  Repairing a patterned weapon required filing to fit and bashing the replacement part into place.  True factory made weapons have interchangeable parts and are therefore easier and cheaper to maintain - if you have a parts supply.

Gunpowder formula - Classically gunpowder is a ratio of saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur of 15:3:2. However many formulas have been used with varying effectiveness.  The earliest Chinese formulas weren't explosive, although quite flammable.  On top of that local sources of materials and the processes used to purify them led batches of gunpowder which were less effective than they could have been.  This reduced the range of weapons charged with it and increased the chance of hang-fires and misfires.  Often catastrophically.

Gunpowder milling refers to the size and uniformity of the grains.  Initially, gunpowder was mixed by hand resulting uneven grain sizes and reducing effectiveness by up to 2/3rds.  Again this speaks to range and the possibility of misfires.

Previous posts on Firearms
Firearms in a Fantasy Setting I