A industrial society that lags in military tech (RAR!)

[Formless]

(Ghetto edit) see also: Primary explosives and you can work out which ones are and aren't appropriate.

Actually I have no idea why I posted PENT when the only type of detonator that uses it and not a primary explosive are the bridgewire explosives used in nuclear bombs. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe I just like reminding people of the true point of no return. Maybe both. Who knows.

Edit (to a ghetto edit!): there is always good old fashioned TATP, A.K.A. "Mother of Satan". Easy enough to make, sensitive enough to ruin your day.

[Jub]

I was more asking Zor what they would have in this RAR rather than what existed IRL. That's research that can be done easily enough.

[Formless]

Yeah, but its a pointless question. Just assume its none of the compounds used in real fucking gun primers. Those happen to have pretty novel characteristics in terms of being just shock sensitive enough, without being too sensitive for the application that people would find it crazy to put them in a bullet. Any other answer would be derailing the RAR, which I'm sick of. Zor doesn't know the chemistry of explosives (AFAIK). He's just some guy on the internet that likes making intentionally unrealistic hypothetical scenarios. Its the latter we love about him.

[Jub]

Yeah, but to assume that all of them don't exist means that we have to make a some assumptions about chemistry in this society and the ability of their scientists to find new compounds with useful properties. Even assuming guns weren't the end goal people would want to find better ways to use explosives to clear rocks in safer easier fashion. Figuring out why things are the way they are will help us figure out what each side actually has to fight with and what new technology might be close to breaking out during the fighting.

If you want to know how peasants and farmers stack up against a napoleonic era style with trucks and radios that should be pretty easy to figure out. Fighting looks about the same, observation balloons aren't new, so the only thing that changes is the speed that information spreads at and the quality of hospital care assuming medical advances. Of course this assumes that field hospitals have advanced without a major war to highlight the need to improve them.

That's the issue with the scenario, we aren't given enough info to figure out what changes need to be made to get to the starting point in the OP. For example, if chemists are so bad that they can't figure out any of the primers needed to make guns what other chemical knowledge is this society lacking?

[Simon_Jester]

Hospitals will have improved; random disease outbreaks kill more people in a 19th century society than wars ever would. What really did the job there was germ theory (not hard), statistically literate medicine (very probably available), and disinfectants (which I think will be available chemically even if they are chemically primitive)

[Jub]

Alright, this won't go anywhere if I and others keep just focusing on weapons technology - though looking at the knock on effects of why things weren't invented or what else might have been missed is interesting - so instead I'll look at what we have.

The idea of using balloons to gather intelligence happened in 1794 in our timeline, but I'm pretty sure that survey balloons would be a thing even without a military need to use them for information gathering. So this war could see an army going from using cavalry and bushmen as the sole means of scouting, to having balloons with radios providing battlefield intelligence. That's a pretty huge leap and not long after it happens people are going to be looking for ways to shoot them down.

That leads to the conversation Formless and I had about using the rockets of the time to shoot them down and I'm doubtful that approach would work due to accuracy and collateral damage issues, not to mention the fact that the rebels likely wouldn't have the means to make such weapons and are less likely to have balloons for the army to shoot down. So what does a rebel who might know a bit about guns, rifles, cannons, and fireworks do to take out a balloon tethered over an army?

They might try to boost the range of a cannon by using rocket rounds or increasing the accuracy of a rocket by firing it from a long tube. Either might get a rocket where it needs to go, but there's no way they would hit anything without the sort of advances in stabilization that only comes from firing a ton of rockets. Still, without the rifled breech loading artillery we've come to expect on the battlefield this is exactly the sort of war where masses of rockets might be fired into enemy strongholds, so we might eventually get anti-balloon rockets that hit more often than 1-in-100 times. That is assuming that rockets/fireworks are common enough for both sides to use them. If they aren't you're left with trying to shoot down balloons with solid shot from a muzzle loaded cannon. Depending on where weapons technology stopped they might not even have mortars yet as they were invented less than 500 years before 1910. So the cannon might still be a heavy thing pulled by teams of horses and accurate enough to hit a fortification, but hardly enough to hit even a massed formation of men.

So I could see things looking much like they did when pike and shot were the tactics of the day, only with even less battles in the open and more and longer sieges. After all, a train can bring a lot of food into a city and cars full of soldiers should be enough to keep them safe from being taken by the enemy. Bridges could be blown up and battles might happen between the forces trying to fix them and the forces who blew them in the first place, but the kind of weapons and armor you could mount on a train would make that into a sort of siege as well.

Unless things change the ability to rapidly transport men and supplies where they are needed make it hard for a smaller force to gain a favorable battle against a larger one. Plus the force with balloons could see the enemy coming from a distance and either make ready to fight or retreat well before the enemy can close the distance or get a cannon to bear. Things would likely be done in either short confused skirmishes or long protracted sieges that cost the attacker dearly. In either case the rebels likely don't get too far unless they have rough parity in technology, weapons, and strongholds to fall back to.

[Formless]

Yeah, but to assume that all of them don't exist means that we have to make a some assumptions about chemistry in this society and the ability of their scientists to find new compounds with useful properties. Even assuming guns weren't the end goal people would want to find better ways to use explosives to clear rocks in safer easier fashion. Figuring out why things are the way they are will help us figure out what each side actually has to fight with and what new technology might be close to breaking out during the fighting.

Again, it is enough that they just don't have the resources to waste on mercury fulminate, and lack the incentive to research these other chemicals. Without these chemicals, they don't have striker primers for their guns. There is little other use for a chemical that is both explosive and toxic, as any chemical involving heavy metals like mercury and lead are, as are several other explosive compounds. If they have Ammonium Nitrate, which is based on the same chemicals as fertilizer, mining is no problem. ANFO can even be set off with pyrotechnic methods if I remember correctly. (Yes, I am more awake now than when I was proposing random shit like PENT. You are welcome)

But besides, you are asking Zor to give you detailed information about explosives and the history of chemistry. He doesn't have answers to those questions. The stipulations of the thread, however, imply them to those who do have some of that knowledge.

If you want to know how peasants and farmers stack up against a napoleonic era style with trucks and radios that should be pretty easy to figure out. Fighting looks about the same, observation balloons aren't new, so the only thing that changes is the speed that information spreads at and the quality of hospital care assuming medical advances. Of course this assumes that field hospitals have advanced without a major war to highlight the need to improve them.

No, not really. Just last page we were discussing insurgency/guerrilla warfare and riot gear. The change in social structures due to the Industrial revolution are also responsible for how wars are fought. I believe the saying goes that amateurs study strategy, experts study logistics. Well, the invention of trains alone changes the logistics massively... but at the same time, they have to support a very different class of soldier, so it can't be exactly the same.

That's the issue with the scenario, we aren't given enough info to figure out what changes need to be made to get to the starting point in the OP. For example, if chemists are so bad that they can't figure out any of the primers needed to make guns what other chemical knowledge is this society lacking?

Yes, actually, we are. LaCroix already explained as much. One crucial discovery or mineral resource makes all the difference between how the chemical industry interacts with the military. Incompetence isn't a necessary explanation at all, even if it were a working explanation.

We are given enough data to fill in details through abductive reasoning. This is the same type of reasoning investigators use. You are trying to deduce or infer, but those aren't really effective logical tools for this kind of situation because they go from premises to conclusion. We are trying to go from conclusion to premises, which requires some level of guesswork to get a probable explanation. Hence my irritation. If Zor tries to satisfy your questions, he will only tie himself into knots because he too lacks the knowledge to answer without creating unfortunate implications. He's an idea guy, not a chemist.

[Formless]

Okay, enough venting...

That leads to the conversation Formless and I had about using the rockets of the time to shoot them down and I'm doubtful that approach would work due to accuracy and collateral damage issues, not to mention the fact that the rebels likely wouldn't have the means to make such weapons and are less likely to have balloons for the army to shoot down. So what does a rebel who might know a bit about guns, rifles, cannons, and fireworks do to take out a balloon tethered over an army?

Actually, I bet they would have balloons. Ballooning on the surface seems like a harmless pastime, with other uses, like advertising, transportation, cropdusting (before that gets overtaken by airplanes, of course). Plus, balloons are relatively simple to create compared to planes.

And I've been thinking about it, and I realized that if nothing else works a blimp might be a good counter to another blimp. For one thing, it shouldn't have much problem carrying cannons, and if you need to defend against aerial bombing you can use barrage balloons as a sort of aerial obstacle or minefield analogue. And if you want something really steampunk, there is the possibility of boarding action.

High altitude kites tethered with razor wire or carrying explosives could also be a good means of screwing with balloons. Planes would be less vulnerable to these weaknesses, but would have less carrying capacity and higher fuel requirements overall. So there would be tradeoffs for preferring one type of aircraft to the other.

By the way, I've been wondering, do air bursting rockets, like the kind common in fireworks displays, have the same issues as other rockets? A direct impact against a balloon might not be necessary if you can set it on fire is what I'm thinking.

[Titan Uranus]

A Molotov only really requires gasoline, cotton rags, a glass bottle, and a lighter. Honestly, with the vast and broad base of support you would expect a revolution in a society like this to have it does not seem unreasonable that they could start ad hoc mass production of Molotovs.

Yes, but they will need a lot more than Molotovs to pull off a successful revolution of succession. Ditto dynamite. The powers that be already know how to suppress a "conventional" riot or demonstration, so they will need some serious strategists to arise or defect to their side. They need leaders-- their own Mao Zedong or Vo Nguyen Giap if you will.

I think we might be talking past one another a bit.
I was really only thinking about the use of Molotovs and dynamite as an abrupt and shocking jerk back to reality for the government, which would give the revolutionaries some breathing room to organize.

Honestly, considering how many social changes in the last 500 years or so were precipitated by rebellions and revolutions (I mean, 500 years ago the cities of the HRE for instance were slowly tearing a handful of rights for the new rich and middle classes and I believe that this was also happening all over the place in western and central Europe excepting maybe France.) I would kind of expect there to be a cadre of potential revolutionaries who would have been steadily growing in numbers, the militants of every popular movement since 1500 (besides the religious, which I am ignoring for now because we do not know the situation) would have good reason to be angry.


Actually, the dynamics between that cadre and the common, spontaneous revolutionaries could be quite interesting grounds for a fanfic.

The Cadre could have been planning the revolution for years, stockpiling ad hoc weaponry, designing new and innovative weapons, and training for the day when they reach the critical mass required to rise up.

But then, all of a sudden, a strike breaks out among the bricklayers in a minor city, The Cadre thinks nothing of it. Over a nation the size of theirs with so unjust a system bread riots happen all the time. This time however, something is different. When the coppers try to break the strike the workers fight back tenaciously with bricks, tire irons, and sledgehammers. The workers beat back the coppers through weight of numbers and the wild, reckless fury of desperate men. Still The Cadre thinks little of it, they send some medics with little knowledge of the organization to help the strikers, fully expecting them to be overrun.

But then, something completely unexpected happens, the meat-packers strike in solidarity with the bricklayers, and then so do the teamsters, and then the butchers, and then the longshoremen. The strike transcends profession and spreads rapidly until the entire city is in the streets. Most of the coppers barricade themselves in the central walls and keep with the rulers of the city, the rest having joined the strikers.

At this point the local chapter of The Cadre requests orders to come out in force and begin fighting.
The national leadership denies this request, they claim they are not ready, that they do not have nearly enough supplies stockpiled, that they do not have enough people trained and ready to fight, and that the army will quickly crush this rebellion.

The local branch of The Cadre decides that they cannot leave their fellow citizens to the army's tender mercies. They disobey their orders. They break out their weapons that they have trained with for years in secret, they open their warehouses of supplies and ammunition, and they take up positions. Their orators and leaders head out into the city to organize the people so that they can fight effectively and the city can remain livable.

They expend precious ammunition cracking open the ancient fortress and killing the occupants. They take light, but irreplaceable losses against the shocked coppers and palace guards. They find the ruler of the city cowering in wine cellar. After a show trial on the steps of his keep, he is thrown to the mercies of the citizens.

But they had waited too long to take command of the rebellion, leaders had already arisen from the populace of the city. These leaders, and the citizens themselves, are not going to defer to men and women who, from their point of view, only started fighting when the battle was won. The Cadre themselves are resentful of this, because the had been preparing for this day for years before these sheep had ever considered striking back at the oppressors. Because of this, along with ideological differences, the two factions nearly come to blows. (there are also dozens of subfactions pulling each side in every direction, though fewer and less strongly in The Cadre)

The battle for leadership is cut short, however, because the army has begun forming up outside the city at this point, using railroads to bring every available soldier for 100 miles in every direction to this city.

The army's plans are cut short by the fact that this city happens to have an extraordinarily tall monument and The Cadre in the city have begun broadcasting propaganda and the basics of making and using improvised weapons.

The army, assuming that the civilians will be scattered by their show of force, bring up their cannon and begin shelling the outer city. They are shocked when their fire is returned by a twentieth their number in mortars, which somehow fire much faster than their own and use ghastly explosive shells with bullets in the front. Try as they might, the army cannot hit these guns, which constantly reposition with preternatural speed. (They are on railroad flatbeds, moving between dozens of preplanned firing positions.) Rumors begin to spread throughout the army that these traitors have made deals with the dark gods, how else could they fire and move so fast?

The army's commanders ignore the artillery duel, after all, the city's walls had been torn down long ago. They begin moving into the city, they face little more than street urchins with rocks, who are quickly dispatched. The soldiers grow restless as they move into the city, finding the place dead except for the dogs fighting over the urchin's bodies. They find wide barricades low enough to walk of on at some of the entrances to the plazas, their commanders assume that the rebels simply abandoned these positions for better ones in the inner city. Their pikemen take up positions as mobile fortresses in the plazas and parks of the outer city, they guard and are guarded by musketeers and swordsmen. The streets themselves are held by swordsmen backed by a few musketeers. The lines of communication are kept open by light cavalry while the dragoons act as a mobile reserve and the heavy cavalry are kept ready for a decisive strike.

The soldiers are given strict orders not to enter any houses unless there is something suspicious or they are fired upon, mass rapes and looting would not look well given the unstable climate.

As the army organizes itself, the commanders send out scouts, which do not return. The army commanders are not overly perturbed, and send out stronger units. These do not return either. They have little time to ponder this, because The Cadre chooses that moment to attack.

First, explosives are lobed by slingshot and catapult into the pike blocks from concealed positions, turning wide swaths of the formations into hamburger. Then, firebombs are lobed onto the barricades, igniting them and turning most of the exits into rivers of flame, too wide to jump across.
To their credit, the soldiers' shock wears off in seconds, and they begin to fire at the catapult and slingshot positions. However, unfortunately for them, at this moment The Cadre's main forces attack. Breechloading riflemen, open fire upon the swordsmen who are attempting to enter the buildings where the slings and catapults are firing from. (The soldiers having been given orders to keep away from the buildings for ease of control.) Armored cars with mounted flamethrowers rumble into the pike blocks, their hatches too small for grenades to be of use and moving too fast for the broken formations to physically halt. And finally the braver civilians, having organized militias in the preceding weeks, pour out of the streets. The pike blocks finally shatter, dropping their weapons and running for their lives, they had signed on for high school, not this. The swordsmen and musketeers are carried along with them, panicking as their comrades bolt for the only exit not blocked by the fire or the militia.

They run headlong into the formations in the street, who, seeing their comrades mad with fear as well as the fire, screams, explosions, and rumbling death machines behind them, run as well. This chain reaction continues from two directions, as the revolutionaries attack either end of the line, staying just ahead of the rout. The dragoons are the only unit even attempting counterattacks at this point, spending their lives to allow the army to escape.

The army commander has already received word that his army was routing, he and the better elements of the army are formed in the center of the line, at the only exit to the city that is not blocked by fire or the enemy. There is one route into the city and one out of it.

He splits the remainder of his army, leaving half as a vanguard to cover the routing units so that they can escape. Their dogged defense allows the majority of the army to exit the city.

The remainder, the cavalry, he leads himself. Making the calculation that the rebels' main forces are at his flanks, and only militia are in front of him, he leads his cavalry in a mad dash through the city, toward the central plaza, in the hopes that the rebel's civilians and hospitals will be there. His attack succeeded in massacring one hospital and destroying their equipment. More importantly, his wild strike forces The Cadre to call off their pursuit in order to crush the cavalry.
The Cadre does, however continue to harry the retreating army with planes equipped with poison gas sprayers, bombs, and rockets. Some of which were shot down by the still somewhat organized dragoons.

The army continued to pull back until they crossed the Sydinase river, leaving a great deal of farmland as well as a handful of reasonable diverse mines, the city having become something more than a small town due to the confluence of materials needed for steel production and petroleum refinement.

This is the present situation: spontaneous riots and strikes are erupting in dozens of cities across the continent. The national leadership of The Cadre has decided to use the confusion begin a campaign of propaganda, assassinations, and bombings against the government in the hopes of stirring up and rallying discontent. They will not support an open revolt until they believe that they have a good chance of winning outright.

The local chapter of The Cadre has been thrown into a war that it was not at all prepared for. They have no ability to produce any of their purpose-built weapons and little ability to produce ammunition themselves. Their leadership is resentful of the fact that they are not the sole leaders of the revolution as they had expected. They have the technical skill required to create the weapons and their ammunition, but they have no factories tooled to produce them. They have the skill and morale to fight it out with the army of a even keel, but do not have the manpower to do so. They have a small number of very good soldiers meant to stiffen and train common revolutionaries.

They are desperately trying to set up factories, training camps, supply routes, and defensive positions all at once, before their supplies run out. They need the manpower an consent of the common revolutionaries to do all of these things. However, they also with to remain a major force in the revolution and not be rendered irrelevant.

The spontaneous revolutionaries are almost universally appreciative of The Cadre for their aid in freeing the city. However, they are still resentful of the amount of time that it took them to decide to get into the fight. Most are quietly disgusted by their barbaric weapons and tactics. Many are also disturbed by The Cadre's ideas of equal rights for women and certain out-groups, as well as their intense, seething hatred for nobility of all stripes, including women and children (as in: flaying them alive is too light a punishment). The Merchants especially concerned that The Cadre's hatred for the rich nobles will transfer over into them.

The army was stunned by the incredible success of the rebels in fighting the army. Martial law has been declared in a dozen cities across the Empire. Garrisons have been strengthened in nearly every city across the nation. The army has deployed every free body it can to the boarder with the rebels, and are preparing for a new offensive. They are also hiring or drafting every technician and inventor they can find to update their equipment while their commanders desperately try figure out a doctrine for fighting the rebels.

Formless, if you do want to make a fanfic about this, I would love to help you with it.

Strangely by my cursory glance there does not appear to be any rifles for man-sized targets or game
I think you may have a fair point for offensive or mobile defensive uses.

There are real life high caliber (re: .357 to .50 cal) air rifles intended for hunting out there, mostly from south Korea due to their gun laws, that you might look into. This would be an example. Quoted muzzle velocities were between 700 and 1000 FPS, and with a 145 grain bullet the video makers were getting 300 foot pounds of muzzle energy. Comparing to data on wikipedia, that's a little better ballistics than a .38 special revolver, but not by much. Of course, it may have to do with limited demand for such air rifles in real life.

Note by the way another limitation I forgot about that was mentioned in the video: consistency of shot pressure, which that particular gun solves using modern electronics to gauge for each shot.

Thank you, I will look into the smaller caliber ones, I could only really find good numbers for the large caliber weapons (for boar and larger game) which certainly seem like overkill against men.

The drop off in pressure was why I mentioned easily detachable canisters which could be used to mitigate that problem, you would still get some drop off, though.

By the way: Simon_Jester, you are a physicist correct? If so, do you know if turn of last century metallurgy would have been up to making a man-portable canister (say 15 cu ft volume at 3000 psi or equivalent) that would actually function? (That is probably a better question for an engineer, actually.)

[Formless]

I like it, but it does have some issues from my perspective. The main problem with your story is that the military has remained a useful tool for quelling mobs throughout history. The idea that it would have such a big morale problem like that is hard to believe. Morale doesn't require experience in the field, as long as the training prepares them for the violence of deployment and trust in their fellow soldiers. Real cops train for Molotov cocktails by getting out their equipment, going to a special field, and simulating riot conditions with real petrol bombs thrown at them. Seriously. That's why even though most riot police will not have to use that training often they don't normally break their lines either.

The part where the pikemen are attacked by breechloaders also has problems-- where did the breechloaders come from? If the rebels raided the city armory or captured a weapons factory they will tend to have the same weapons as the musketeers they are fighting. They would need engineers of their own working for a long time in secret to make them themselves. And lastly, we know from the OP that the military uses plate armor as protection against bladed and ballistic weapons.

The planes probably could easily fly above the range of the cavalry weapons, being that cavalry are primarily armed with pistols and sabers. They need at least one hand to steer the horse at all times. Aircraft are definitely one of the bigger technologies that will transform warfare.

I don't think it would be such a one sided battle, though the normal military won't necessarily win that battle against such an organized militia movement. Once they find that the streets are empty that's going to set off alarm bells (especially when their artillery outside is getting shelled from somewhere), and the military is probably going to make its way as fast as they can to major buildings like the armory, police station, government buildings, etc. and storm them with swords and close quarters weapons, and create a base of operations for themselves. They may also bring balloons for the purpose of landing troops on top of these same buildings and getting over the walls.

If we do this, my personal style would be to write the story from a more limited perspective, one or two main characters inside the revolution or maybe also the military, rather than from third person omniscient. It gives the action a more human element that connects you to the struggle. I was actually thinking that the story would be kind of in the style of a Heroic Bloodshed kung fu film, with a protagonist on the rebellion's side that is already proficient in hand to hand combat (again, take away the guns and conventional weapons and the people will still train themselves in martial arts that will work in a street fight or self defense). Familiarizing the audience to this fictional continent and its people works better from a small POV as well, because they want to know what everyday living looks like more so than large institutions and social movements. Those make more sense in the context of people living within them.

[Jub]

Again, it is enough that they just don't have the resources to waste on mercury fulminate, and lack the incentive to research these other chemicals. Without these chemicals, they don't have striker primers for their guns. There is little other use for a chemical that is both explosive and toxic, as any chemical involving heavy metals like mercury and lead are, as are several other explosive compounds. If they have Ammonium Nitrate, which is based on the same chemicals as fertilizer, mining is no problem. ANFO can even be set off with pyrotechnic methods if I remember correctly. (Yes, I am more awake now than when I was proposing random shit like PENT. You are welcome)

But besides, you are asking Zor to give you detailed information about explosives and the history of chemistry. He doesn't have answers to those questions. The stipulations of the thread, however, imply them to those who do have some of that knowledge.

IRL we didn't go looking for a blasting cap or primer for weapons, it was discovered by trying to understand the chemical properties of mercury. You might be able to handwave mercury fulminate away, but experiments with lead and silver azides and lead styphnate were done before the start of the 20th century. Either of these compounds could replace it as a primer and lead to proper guns.

No, not really. Just last page we were discussing insurgency/guerrilla warfare and riot gear. The change in social structures due to the Industrial revolution are also responsible for how wars are fought. I believe the saying goes that amateurs study strategy, experts study logistics. Well, the invention of trains alone changes the logistics massively... but at the same time, they have to support a very different class of soldier, so it can't be exactly the same.

You could note that I actually took a stab at this in a post below, but way to vent about nothing.

Yes, actually, we are. LaCroix already explained as much. One crucial discovery or mineral resource makes all the difference between how the chemical industry interacts with the military. Incompetence isn't a necessary explanation at all, even if it were a working explanation.

We are given enough data to fill in details through abductive reasoning. This is the same type of reasoning investigators use. You are trying to deduce or infer, but those aren't really effective logical tools for this kind of situation because they go from premises to conclusion. We are trying to go from conclusion to premises, which requires some level of guesswork to get a probable explanation. Hence my irritation. If Zor tries to satisfy your questions, he will only tie himself into knots because he too lacks the knowledge to answer without creating unfortunate implications. He's an idea guy, not a chemist.

Either way you look at it, the lack of certain chemical compounds already tells us that chemistry has not advanced in the same way that it did in our world and this leads us to question what else must have changed. Using abductive reasoning in place of a more concrete form of reasoning still doesn't answer the question; what else has changed?

Actually, I bet they would have balloons. Ballooning on the surface seems like a harmless pastime, with other uses, like advertising, transportation, cropdusting (before that gets overtaken by airplanes, of course). Plus, balloons are relatively simple to create compared to planes.

And I've been thinking about it, and I realized that if nothing else works a blimp might be a good counter to another blimp. For one thing, it shouldn't have much problem carrying cannons, and if you need to defend against aerial bombing you can use barrage balloons as a sort of aerial obstacle or minefield analogue. And if you want something really steampunk, there is the possibility of boarding action.

High altitude kites tethered with razor wire or carrying explosives could also be a good means of screwing with balloons. Planes would be less vulnerable to these weaknesses, but would have less carrying capacity and higher fuel requirements overall. So there would be tradeoffs for preferring one type of aircraft to the other.

By the way, I've been wondering, do air bursting rockets, like the kind common in fireworks displays, have the same issues as other rockets? A direct impact against a balloon might not be necessary if you can set it on fire is what I'm thinking.

Why would they have balloons? They've been around for hundreds of years in our world and still aren't common. This is with wars where they were extensively used as a matter of course and also with the rise of ballooning as a common barnstorming act after the civil war. Without there common use in war why would they be used often enough to create major advances that might allow them to be used as crop dusters of all things? Balloons would most likely be used for the things they were invented for, surveying and research, but I doubt they would see mass civilian use because that never happened IRL.

As for taking balloons down, I would assume one of the better ways to do so from the ground would be to send up fast rising balloons with timed bombs attached. You set the amount of ballast needed to get them to the right height, figure out how long that should take, and set the fuze accordingly. This has the advantage of speed when compared to the amount of time it would take to get a kite to the right height to be effective. You might also just set up screens of balloons hanging heavy barbed chains or ropes beneath them and make it hard for a balloon to overfly your position without becoming entangled.

Airbursting fireworks of the time used mercury fulminate to generate those large brilliant bursts. Without that you get smaller explosions releasing dull gold sparks because that's the best you can get with gunpowder. So rockets pretty much sputter and fail at being anti-aircraft weapons without a proper primer to get a better grade of explosive to go bang.

-----

A couple of notes about stuff said in later posts:

Why are we assuming planes as a useful weapon when they were barely accepted as a weapon in WWI by a military leadership far more used to changes brought about by technology? Heck while we're at it why assume blimps as an offensive weapon when we won't have effective bombs to arm them with? This is a society that might not have the mortar or field gun yet, assuming weapons technology stopped advancing at about early 1400's levels, and without advancing the gun or the shell we wouldn't get a modern bomb.

So guns are not of the type that you see on ships of the line, but massive things dragged by teams of horses and used to fire at entire cities and hand weapons are still of a type that makes you question why you aren't using a crossbow instead. Rockets are likely still just toys not having ever needed to be used in battle because you don't need to set your guns up too far away from an enemy city when their guns aren't likely to hit anything smaller than a city wall.

[Formless]

Why would they have balloons? They've been around for hundreds of years in our world and still aren't common. This is with wars where they were extensively used as a matter of course and also with the rise of ballooning as a common barnstorming act after the civil war. Without there common use in war why would they be used often enough to create major advances that might allow them to be used as crop dusters of all things? Balloons would most likely be used for the things they were invented for, surveying and research, but I doubt they would see mass civilian use because that never happened IRL.

But this is shortly after the invention of airplanes. Heavier than air flight technology was very important, but it took a while for it to displace the balloon. There was a while in real life where airships were a serious means of travel before the Hindenburg disaster, for instance. And here, once people start using blimps and balloons in warfare, the disadvantages of them compared to planes will be more muted by the lack of proper machineguns and air-to-air weapons. Its not necessarily a given, but its an interesting area of speculation that wouldn't go anywhere in a different scenario.

Airbursting fireworks of the time used mercury fulminate to generate those large brilliant bursts. Without that you get smaller explosions releasing dull gold sparks because that's the best you can get with gunpowder. So rockets pretty much sputter and fail at being anti-aircraft weapons without a proper primer to get a better grade of explosive to go bang.

Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. <-- is not a fireworks expert either.

Why are we assuming planes as a useful weapon when they were barely accepted as a weapon in WWI by a military leadership far more used to changes brought about by technology? Heck while we're at it why assume blimps as an offensive weapon when we won't have effective bombs to arm them with? This is a society that might not have the mortar or field gun yet, assuming weapons technology stopped advancing at about early 1400's levels, and without advancing the gun or the shell we wouldn't get a modern bomb.

Mostly I was thinking that if there are such cities that have major walls still, a blimp gives you a method of getting over those walls with relative impunity. Also, I think it was Titan Uranus who noted that balloons were used as recon in the 19'th century, which is a logical outgrowth of using them for land surveying and mapping.

Can't say anthing about mortars or explosive shells. That may indeed be an innovation yet to happen; I think he included it to be part of an overall "the rebels are innovators" theme throughout his post.

So guns are not of the type that you see on ships of the line, but massive things dragged by teams of horses and used to fire at entire cities and hand weapons are still of a type that makes you question why you aren't using a crossbow instead.

Well, probably not horses in this case but trucks. I think it is reasonable to assume that certain advances have been made between the 500 years as long as it is relevant to the job that the military has been doing in that time, and of course there are the industrial advances to take into account.

IRL we didn't go looking for a blasting cap or primer for weapons, it was discovered by trying to understand the chemical properties of mercury. You might be able to handwave mercury fulminate away, but experiments with lead and silver azides and lead styphnate were done before the start of the 20th century. Either of these compounds could replace it as a primer and lead to proper guns.

Whatever: the point of the thread is basically, "modern warfare without modern guns RAR". If no one is doing the experiments, we don't really need a reason why. There are a lot of chemical experiments that weren't done before the turn of the century, and probably a lot more besides that have yet to be done.

You could note that I actually took a stab at this in a post below, but way to vent about nothing.

I know. I decided against pointing out the contradictory behavior because I would rather talk about those things than further talk about this chemistry stuff that won't go anywhere.

[Jub]

But this is shortly after the invention of airplanes. Heavier than air flight technology was very important, but it took a while for it to displace the balloon. There was a while in real life where airships were a serious means of travel before the Hindenburg disaster, for instance. And here, once people start using blimps and balloons in warfare, the disadvantages of them compared to planes will be more muted by the lack of proper machineguns and air-to-air weapons. Its not necessarily a given, but its an interesting area of speculation that wouldn't go anywhere in a different scenario.

Balloons would exist and they would likely be used by the military for recon with air travel either just having started or being very near to starting. I take issue with the idea that the rebels will have enough of them to make any kind of difference because historically they were specialized equipment used for research, surveying, or by the military.

Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. <-- is not a fireworks expert either.

I had to look that up myself in trying to figure out what this society might have open to them.

Mostly I was thinking that if there are such cities that have major walls still, a blimp gives you a method of getting over those walls with relative impunity. Also, I think it was Titan Uranus who noted that balloons were used as recon in the 19'th century, which is a logical outgrowth of using them for land surveying and mapping.

Can't say anthing about mortars or explosive shells. That may indeed be an innovation yet to happen; I think he included it to be part of an overall "the rebels are innovators" theme throughout his post.

A blimp can get you over the walls, but then what? Parachutes won't be of much use given the weapons that you can jump with won't be ready to use immediately upon landing. If you tried it I expect that soldiers would land, and given the speed that blimps tend to move at and the distance at which they can be seen coming, soldiers would be there to surround the landing site to try to capture or kill the landed soldiers before they can make themselves ready to fight. That or you try jumping with a loaded arquebus and hope it's in firing condition when you hit the ground.

Given that soldiers have arquebuses perhaps we should assume that the tech has progressed right up to the renascence period in terms of weapons. That at least gives access to mortars and field guns which should logically be an outgrowth of better metalurgy and the fact that a light cannon that can fire some form of light shot would be great against a mob that refuses to disperse.

Well, probably not horses in this case but trucks. I think it is reasonable to assume that certain advances have been made between the 500 years as long as it is relevant to the job that the military has been doing in that time, and of course there are the industrial advances to take into account.

That kind of breaks the RAR though as one could argue for all kinds of weapon advances that get right close to a modern, for 1910, weapon that isn't quite what we actually had. Better small arms would be very useful for riot control, yet Zor said they have arquebuses and pikes are still a weapon of war. One would think that at the least muskets and bayonets would have become a thing even if just because a rifle length spear is easier to use in the close quarters of a city than a full sized pike. So where do we draw the line between what they should be able to have and what the RAR says they have?

[Formless]

Balloons would exist and they would likely be used by the military for recon with air travel either just having started or being very near to starting. I take issue with the idea that the rebels will have enough of them to make any kind of difference because historically they were specialized equipment used for research, surveying, or by the military.

Fair enough. I've been arguing against the Rebels being the sole innovators here myself.

I had to look that up myself in trying to figure out what this society might have open to them.

Of course, there might be alternative methods. If they have high explosives, they might for instance tether a rocket to a DET cord, launch it like a grappling hook, and set off the cord to "relay" the explosion to the target. That would probably be best for a ground-to-ground system, not an aerial weapon. From the air you would prefer to drop firebombs, fuse bombs, and impact detonators. To attack air targets... well, I think we've established that to be a damn hard trick.

A blimp can get you over the walls, but then what? Parachutes won't be of much use given the weapons that you can jump with won't be ready to use immediately upon landing.

Or, because a balloon can be made to hover relatively stationary, you can rappel down onto rooftops, like you would do with a helicopter. That gives you the ability to take major buildings from the top down.

If you tried it I expect that soldiers would land, and given the speed that blimps tend to move at and the distance at which they can be seen coming, soldiers would be there to surround the landing site to try to capture or kill the landed soldiers before they can make themselves ready to fight. That or you try jumping with a loaded arquebus and hope it's in firing condition when you hit the ground.

That's what grenades are for. Suppression tactics.

Given that soldiers have arquebuses perhaps we should assume that the tech has progressed right up to the renascence period in terms of weapons. That at least gives access to mortars and field guns which should logically be an outgrowth of better metalurgy and the fact that a light cannon that can fire some form of light shot would be great against a mob that refuses to disperse.

Agreed. I like what Jhon Clements said about this: if swords hadn't been obsoleted by guns we would still be looking to make better swords.

That kind of breaks the RAR though as one could argue for all kinds of weapon advances that get right close to a modern, for 1910, weapon that isn't quite what we actually had. Better small arms would be very useful for riot control, yet Zor said they have arquebuses and pikes are still a weapon of war. One would think that at the least muskets and bayonets would have become a thing even if just because a rifle length spear is easier to use in the close quarters of a city than a full sized pike. So where do we draw the line between what they should be able to have and what the RAR says they have?

Well, any variation of the spear is fair game IMO. They are one of the single most ancient weapons of all time, and very simple to modify to suit different purposes. The bayonet or similar combination weapon isn't that hard to figure out, like Simon described. All sorts of polearms combined two or more weapons at the business end; an axe, spear, and hammer is pretty common on halberds for example. Pistols too, as they're quite easy to understand; shorten a firearm until it can be used in one hand. Certain other pole weapons may also qualify as logical modifications: the Japanese style mancatchers I talked about earlier actually descends from a firefighting tool the chinese used on the open ocean, that just happened to be a handy way of repelling (Japanese) pirates and other boarding parties from their ships. Billhooks similarly were a tool first, used for trimming trees, and happened to be a neat way of taking a rider off his horse from the ground. There are probably other weapons that can be easily realized from tools used outside the military; bombs go back pretty far, almost to the beginning of the blackpowder era. The chinese even figured out how to make landmines with the stuff. Applying similar ideas to Ammonium Nitrate (remember, fertilizer) just makes bombs even scarier.

Renaissance weapons are a simple enough start, and from there most of these will probably come about on their own during the life of a campaign. Kind of like WWI.

[Titan Uranus]

I like it, but it does have some issues from my perspective. The main problem with your story is that the military has remained a useful tool for quelling mobs throughout history. The idea that it would have such a big morale problem like that is hard to believe. Morale doesn't require experience in the field, as long as the training prepares them for the violence of deployment and trust in their fellow soldiers. Real cops train for Molotov cocktails by getting out their equipment, going to a special field, and simulating riot conditions with real petrol bombs thrown at them. Seriously. That's why even though most riot police will not have to use that training often they don't normally break their lines either.

Well, what I was going for was that, while the army has dealt with some incendiaries and explosives, they have not faced organized resistance in centuries. They have not dealt with volleys of anything for centuries.

You should also not that the army did not break until they were charged by armored cars with infantry support. They held just fine against the explosives, fire bombs, and breachloaders. Indeed, they attacked despite surprise and a scale resistance that they have not faced in seven lifetimes.

The part where the pikemen are attacked by breechloaders also has problems-- where did the breechloaders come from? If the rebels raided the city armory or captured a weapons factory they will tend to have the same weapons as the musketeers they are fighting. They would need engineers of their own working for a long time in secret to make them themselves. And lastly, we know from the OP that the military uses plate armor as protection against bladed and ballistic weapons.

They were built by The Cadre, a major reason why The Cadre does not want to fight is that it has not put these weapons into anything like full production, they have one real factory for these things just now coming online. The majority of these were built by engineers and craftsmen prior to their being standardized for mass production.

I was going to incorporate the race to mass produce these weapons and the sacrifices necessary to produce them (accidents, perhaps the use of child labor (which The Cadre would consider one of the great sins of the nobles), low safety standards, ect.) into the drama of the piece.

I had discounted armories as a significant force because of the long period of peace. I assumed that there would be just enough weapons for coppers. With most of the weapons at armories in the relatively loyal countryside in order to prevent them falling into the hands or rioters. Perhaps I should alter that.

I had not seen that about the armor, though I am not sure that the armor would be massively relevant in this scenario.

The planes probably could easily fly above the range of the cavalry weapons, being that cavalry are primarily armed with pistols and sabers. They need at least one hand to steer the horse at all times. Aircraft are definitely one of the bigger technologies that will transform warfare.

Some of the planes were equipped with chemical sprayers, which necessitated a low altitude attack. (think crop-dusting a field that shoots back, and you are in a plane that maxes out at highway speed.)
Even the planes with bombs went for a very low-level attack in the hopes of greater accuracy.

I mainly wrote that line in order to convey that despite the apparent competence of The Cadre, they haven't tried these tactics in a real battle either. They are making this up as they go along to, they're just a bit more prepared than the Empire is.

I had pictured the dragoons dismounting to make those shots.

In hindsight I should probably use something else to demonstrate this.

I don't think it would be such a one sided battle, though the normal military won't necessarily win that battle against such an organized militia movement. Once they find that the streets are empty that's going to set off alarm bells (especially when their artillery outside is getting shelled from somewhere), and the military is probably going to make its way as fast as they can to major buildings like the armory, police station, government buildings, etc. and storm them with swords and close quarters weapons, and create a base of operations for themselves. They may also bring balloons for the purpose of landing troops on top of these same buildings and getting over the walls.

I was considering altering that line to something like "light, rapidly retreating resistance, making the Imperials assume that the rioters were running like cravens before the might of the state" (which would have to be cleaned up quite a bit) but I just liked the aesthetics of the street urchin line, because it demonstrates that the military acts the same way a European army would act near the tail end of the Wars of Religion, which was my mental template for their army.

The armory bit is a good point. I wrote this off the cuff as something like a rough draft.

I was mostly having them rush into the outer city in the hopes that the rebels would not bombard their own city and civilians. I had them pause in the plazas to reorganize their forces momentarily before continuing their advance into the city.

My idea was that they intended to place the city under siege and use artillery to level strong points in the outer city before advancing into it. They were unable to do this because their hand was forced by the rebel artillery.

I had imagined the city without walls, they having been torn down during the Long Peace in order to prevent rebels from using them to defend the city as well as for building materials.

If we do this, my personal style would be to write the story from a more limited perspective, one or two main characters inside the revolution or maybe also the military, rather than from third person omniscient. It gives the action a more human element that connects you to the struggle. I was actually thinking that the story would be kind of in the style of a Heroic Bloodshed kung fu film, with a protagonist on the rebellion's side that is already proficient in hand to hand combat (again, take away the guns and conventional weapons and the people will still train themselves in martial arts that will work in a street fight or self defense). Familiarizing the audience to this fictional continent and its people works better from a small POV as well, because they want to know what everyday living looks like more so than large institutions and social movements. Those make more sense in the context of people living within them.

A: I would never write a story in the format I used, that was just some world-building, the kind of stuff you would find in an author's bible.

My plan was to write from these points of view:

1. One of the leaders of the spontaneous revolutionaries, not the highest ranked, but privy to most of the upper-level meetings.

2. One of the junior officers of The Cadre, providing their political point of view and some action scenes. They or #3 would probably be the main character.

3. A low ranking soldier or civilian in the rebelling city, I'd use them to show some of the social effects of the revolution.

4. A private soldier in the Imperial army.

5. Someone in a city far from the front, whose only contact with the revolution is the propaganda, assassinations, and bombings that the national Cadre has started doing in lieu of open revolt. They would be used to show the social situation prior to the revolution. I'm honestly not entirely sure of what to do with this character beyond a few scenes showing the darkest side of the revolution.


B: Hmm, I had mostly intended the story to be about two sides unprepared for war and who don't exactly know how to fight desperately attempting to figure out how to survive.


Perhaps it could work as two interconnected stories, with yours being about kung-fu rebels in a city far from the reach of the majority of The Cadre, with only a handful of bombings, assassination and propaganda caused by them.

It could be a relatively loyal city, a city that was deemed by The Cadre to be strategically unimportant, or a city dominated by a minority religion and culture that was deemed by The Cadre to be especially difficult to find converts from.






The main reason I wrote the rebels as innovators was because without a whole lot of social reforms that I am assuming did not happen (because they involved major rebellions enabling them to happen) there are all kinds of groups that would typically be bulwarks against rebellions that now have deep interests in siding with the rebels.

Five hundred years ago in Europe merchants were at the mercy of the fickle whims of the nobility, giving some of the richest people in the Empire a major interest in siding with the rebels in the hopes that they will give them the power to not get fucked with by every two bit baron on their trade route. This should extend to the "Captains of Industry" as well.

Feudal systems in general tended to ignore the wishes of the city-dwellers, which is where I expect most of the engineers, scientists, and inventors would be.

You need only a small percentage of each of these to apply their knowledge to weaponry in order to come up with weapons that are better by leaps and bounds.

However, by the same token, these people are not professional weapons designers and do not know exactly what is most useful on the battlefield. And they have not had a massive amount of time to prepare in any case.

A faster-firing rifle or mortar is an obvious and important improvement in a way that a GI-proof armored car might not be. (I know that isn't the best example of something like this, but bear with me.)

That leaves the Imperials with the nobility, farmers, and military thoroughly in their camp.

[Simon_Jester]

I like Titan's idea, not least because it portrays a kind of revolution which was actually very credible in the industrial-age context: the general strike. This is exactly what every major European power feared, exactly what Marx thought would be the form his imagined revolution would take. One of the great changes the Industrial Revolution created was that the disorganized, highly localized rural peasantry was replaced with mass, organized 'industrial armies' of laborers, whose sense of ties to any one place were weaker, and who could be rallied on a national scale by ties of ethnicity or class.

By the way: Simon_Jester, you are a physicist correct? If so, do you know if turn of last century metallurgy would have been up to making a man-portable canister (say 15 cu ft volume at 3000 psi or equivalent) that would actually function? (That is probably a better question for an engineer, actually.)

It's hard for me to say. By 1900, steels that were at least worth something mechanically by modern standards were available, but steel quality has improved quite sharply over the intervening century.

The part where the pikemen are attacked by breechloaders also has problems-- where did the breechloaders come from? If the rebels raided the city armory or captured a weapons factory they will tend to have the same weapons as the musketeers they are fighting. They would need engineers of their own working for a long time in secret to make them themselves. And lastly, we know from the OP that the military uses plate armor as protection against bladed and ballistic weapons.

The idea of a tiny, elaborate stockpile of very clever weapons is entertaining, though I wonder how effectively they could be developed in secret. Does the "empire" even try to ferret out this revolutionary cadre?

Another point- it's worth bearing in mind that random citizens with barricades made of furniture and, at most, single-shot muskets were a credible threat to field armies in the revolutions of 1780-1850. The army might be trained to handle such barricades, but that won't make it easy for them, especially if (as is sensible) they are averse to taking massive casualties by trying to move too quickly in street fighting against a popular uprising in a major 1900-era city.

It might actually be more effective to keep the streets full and use strategically placed barricades to draw the attacking army troops into bunching up in places where they are vulnerable to being counterattacked by the revolutionists' weapons.

[Titan Uranus]

I like Titan's idea, not least because it portrays a kind of revolution which was actually very credible in the industrial-age context: the general strike. This is exactly what every major European power feared, exactly what Marx thought would be the form his imagined revolution would take. One of the great changes the Industrial Revolution created was that the disorganized, highly localized rural peasantry was replaced with mass, organized 'industrial armies' of laborers, whose sense of ties to any one place were weaker, and who could be rallied on a national scale by ties of ethnicity or class.

Marx also theorized a revolutionary cadre that would form the basis of and spread revolutionary sentiment. If I remember correctly, though that might also be Lenin.

By the way: Simon_Jester, you are a physicist correct? If so, do you know if turn of last century metallurgy would have been up to making a man-portable canister (say 15 cu ft volume at 3000 psi or equivalent) that would actually function? (That is probably a better question for an engineer, actually.)

It's hard for me to say. By 1900, steels that were at least worth something mechanically by modern standards were available, but steel quality has improved quite sharply over the intervening century.

Interesting, though with breechloaders airguns are far less relevant anyway.

The idea of a tiny, elaborate stockpile of very clever weapons is entertaining, though I wonder how effectively they could be developed in secret. Does the "empire" even try to ferret out this revolutionary cadre?

The empire has not faced a major rebellion in 500 years, so their intelligence services would have degenerated in that time. Not only that, but their intel assets are disproportionately placed in areas that were rebellious once upon a time, but are now sleepy and prosperous. Also, they could be focused on the nobility to prevent succession crises.

Another point- it's worth bearing in mind that random citizens with barricades made of furniture and, at most, single-shot muskets were a credible threat to field armies in the revolutions of 1780-1850. The army might be trained to handle such barricades, but that won't make it easy for them, especially if (as is sensible) they are averse to taking massive casualties by trying to move too quickly in street fighting against a popular uprising in a major 1900-era city.

I feel like a successful defense of ad-hoc barricades requires muskets, veterans (to stiffen the otherwise flighty civilians), and an army that is unprepared.
The muskets are almost nonexistent (except via captures and The Cadre) due to weapons laws. Which means that anything better than a spear/pike would require a new/captured factory, sympathetic craftsmen, or captures. The veterans can be prevented from showing up at the barricades by having a military caste, drawing recruits from loyal areas, or privileging soldiers in such a was that they are disassociated from the general population. An army that is prepared and watchful could crush a rebellion before any barricades could be thrown up.

It might actually be more effective to keep the streets full and use strategically placed barricades to draw the attacking army troops into bunching up in places where they are vulnerable to being counterattacked by the revolutionists' weapons.

A fair point.

I had the streets empty for a few reasons:

1. So that the army could be drawn in and shattered within the city itself. A massive victory via a chain rout would give The Cadre and the general revolutionaries some breathing room, which is especially necessary because of The Cadre's limited supplies and weak production capabilities.

2. This is early on in the revolution, so the common revolutionaries are still a bit soft. They are unwilling to let their families get caught in the vice. The Cadre would have the wherewithal to leave the civilians to die if it would aid the revolution, though they would not like being forced to do so.
However, they recognize that they need the manpower and support of the common people in order to survive.
More importantly, they wish to use the opportunity to strengthen their political position, which is exactly what a major victory spearheaded by The Cadre would do.

3. Also, resisting from the start would cause casualties amongst The Cadre, because I do not believe the barricades could be defended by civilians alone. Perhaps they could be incorporated into the story, though I like the complete surprise of the original version.