Scourge of War Boards

I am thinking of altering the specs on these weapons via rifles-dot-csv.

I am well experienced with black powder shooting and owned high quality reproductions of these three weapons. Why would I want to alter the values?

IMO, the range and rof seem somewhat off.

Sharps 1851 rifle and carbine used a paper cartridge. The receiver had a cutter placed so that when the round was inserted,the end would be cut from the cartridge and expose the powder to the channel for the "top hat" primer. Now this worked well enough but after a very few rounds (perhaps 3 to 5), fouling from burned powder would begin to accumulate. This negatively affected the proper insertion and seating of the cartridges. Just as importantly, accuracy was very much degraded as the bullets did not have any wadding and the rifling grooves would fill..... not good.

Anyway, the cartridges were quite heavy and I seriously doubt that a trooper would carry enough to fire continuously for the length of a "scenerio". It would be necessary to periodically run something through the breech to the muzzle to clear the grooves. The Sharps could be fired without the cartridge by pouring powder into the breech after having seated the bullet.... this I never did but it was plain that under combat conditions, it would not be a desireable circumstance.

The Gallagher carbine was designed expressly for the cavalry and was not free of problems.... first, the Gallagher used a brass, reusable cartridge which resembled a modern cartridge with the primer removed. Except the brass was much thicker than a modern cartridge. The cartridge (IIRC) took about 50 grains of powder and the gun was a "punkin slinger" in that it was low velocity and because of that, quite inaccurate at range.... this has implications for training since something that has troubled armies for many years is need to train a trooper to judge distance. I never fired my Gallagher at anything larger than a deer but imagine I could have hit a regiment at 160 yards.... ROF is what I question. The brass was expensive, ammo was heavy and once again, I question being able to fire consistently for 60 rounds without doing maintenance periodically to clear the crud from the chamber. I wish I had fired the old Gallagher under more extended conditions to see about ROF but I did not.

Anyway, I very interested any ideas about these weapons and what I have said or anything related.... I am questioning the ranges/ROF of the Sharps Carbine and Gallaher. And the ROF of the Sharps rifle in sustained firing mode. My intent is to use this in Sand Box mode only. Presumably the Sergeants and officers could call out the sight setting ranges before ordering the troops to fire but Officers had a lot of trouble judging distance as well. Range is an extremely important factor in accuracy of black powder weapons.

The Sharps Rifle is the 1859 model and was only used by the 1st and 2nd USSS. They were used for advanced skirmishing and sniping and rarely used their weapons at max ROF.

-Jim

I think Cruiser has a point. As they exist in game, the 1st & 2nd Sharpshooters are way over powered. Played as the game allows, which is a very, very high sustained and long range ROF and keeping the ammo cart nearby, those two units can have a huge impact on any scenario they play in. I just played Sickles Stays Home again the other day, and those two units came out with combined score of 1700+, with a total of 2 casualties.

AFAIK, as Cruiser points out, any black powder rifle of the time, muzzle loader or no, would get 8-10 shots before running into fouling, which necessitated taking the time to run a cleaning patch through the bore or grabbing a weapon from a wounded comrade and hoping his wasn't so fouled.

You of course could say the same concepts should apply to all sustained fire in the game, but since everyone but the cav units and the sharpshooters have basically similar weapons, it cancels out. But as they are now, with their long range and ability to fire a couple hundred rounds through their weapons with no failures or fouling at max game ROF, the sharpshooters are complete monsters with a power and impact on engagements out of all proportion from what we know of their historical impact.

Excellent thread with keen observations and historic realities. Agreed, the repeaters are monsters on the field and make for very unbalanced and ahistorical play. In my scenario designs I have countered with only allotting 10 rounds or so to these units. Unless I script in reload they are through for the day, which, is the downside, for I can't script in downsized reload amounts.

So, a band-aid solution. If this could be coded to accommodate reload amounts for these units, would this help this issue? Or, what do you guys suggest, besides downsizing the accuracy and ROF as mentioned. The design team is already looking at these issues, so, throw in some ideas folks.

It never ceases to amaze me how much I can learn just by reading the posts on the Forum.

I do have a question though; That the Carbines of the ACW required that kind of thorough cleaning, with that amount of frequency, is this something Bufords men had to deal with on Day 1, at G-burg?

From what I understand (I'm knowledgeable, but by no means an expert) is that fouling with these black powder weapons would set in around shot 8-10, and would get progressively worse with each successive shot. This was particularly bad for the muzzle-loaders, as the fouling made reloading difficult, until eventually you couldn't ram the next round down the barrel. In infantry engagements there were usually enough guys going down that a soldier could grab the weapon of a wounded guy if his became irretrievably fouled.

The reloading problem would obviously less of an issue for the breech-loaders, but accuracy at least would begin to significantly suffer as the fouling would interfere with the rifling. And you definitely wouldn't get through 100 rounds (which these units can do in game a few times over) without having to stop and run some cleaning patches through the barrel.

In game, the 1st and 2nd Sharpshooters are like invincible bug-zappers; as mentioned, last engagement I had with them they caused 1700+ casualties (an entire brigade's worth) while taking a total of two casualties, and it's not even hard to do. Want to have some real fun, run them around to the Confederate rear, and have them chew through the artillery batteries, like feeding a hungry dog some steak. Just keep them between 200-300 yards so they don't get canister. I definitely think their performance is unrealistic and something should be done to tone them down.

Its my opinion that at least the Sharps is preforming in game every bit as well historically as any other weapon in SOW. There is nothing wrong with it. The problem I see is the way the 1st and 2nd Sharpshooters are used. To the best of my knowledge they were used only twice during the course of the war ( cant remember the battles at the moment but will dig that out if need be) as formed regiments the rest of the time they were used as individuals, skirmishers and recon in company sized elements assigned as needed to various corps.

The best solution that I can see at the moment is to reduce there unit size from regiments to company sized elements if possible. The problem ain't with the weapon its how people are using the regiments in game its the old Realism versus gaming thing coming to the surface once again.

The Gallagers' ROF is probably much too high. They had the problem of the brass cartridge becoming jammed in the receiver. It had to be pried out with a special tool. If the tool was lost, the gun was no better than a club.

It's unlikely any of these guns could be fired at their maximum rate for long periods of time due to overheating the barrels. Warping and splitting would have been the result. Of course the gamey technique of parking an ammo wagon behind one of these regiments never occured in battle.