Stone dogs, p.59
Stone Dogs, page 59
strong>Air Transport:
Hot-air and hydrogen balloons were a product of the 1790s, with the experiments of the Montgolfier brothers in France. While there were some military applications (e.g., for artillery observation in siege operations) the lack of directional control limited their usefulness. Later development of hydrogen-inflated balloons lead to valuable experience in how to balance ballast and gas-valving, and in gasbag materials.
By the 1860s, the steam engine (especially the automotive types) was making some sort of powered balloon possible if not practical. Individual inventors tinkered with a number of models, usually with Domination-built autosteamer motors, but these remained one-off curiosities. Several Combines in the Domination experimented also, but while providing valuable experience these studies also indicated that a long and expensive process of trial-and-error would be necessary before anything useful resulted.
The first major impetus came during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Paris, which by this time had an autosteamer and compressor industry of some size, was surrounded by Prussian troops and under siege for several months. Powered semi-rigid diriuibles (craft with a fixed keel but a gasbag whose shape was maintained by internal pressure) were built to restore communication with the armies in the field and the national Government in Bordeaux; these were powered by automotive engines driving wooden propellors through air-turbine motors, and provided a power-to-weight ratio just sufficient for controlled flight in calm to moderate winds. The dirigibles were also used for counter-battery fire and artillery observation, and on a small scale for bombing Prussian positions. The Prussians retaliated with light cannon, firing upward and mounted on autosteamers; there were several dramatic chases cross-country. After the French government admitted defeat, the Paris Commune uprising saw the "Versailles" use the two surviving powered craft to bomb the communards.
The dramatic role of the dirigibles attracted military attention in many quarters. The new German Reich copied the French models, with improvements, regarding them as principally useful for scouting and artillery observation. Britain tended to regard them as "unsporting," and also a menace to sea power, and tried to have their use banned by international convention. Small pressure blimps became a curiosity in many parts of the world, but the high accident rate—particularly on landing—prevented any widespread civilian use. The early models were small, few being over 50-80 meters, and had very limited range and cargo-carrying capacity.
The Domination's researchers were galvanized by the news from France. They quickly realized that the problems of range, speed, and ability to stand adverse weather could only be solved by a vehicle much larger than the blimps or semirigids; a hull whose shape was dependent on internal pressures had sharp limits of size and weight-bearing capacity, and was also very vulnerable to bending stresses in the thunderstorms of the continental interiors. The solution they developed was an internal frame, covered with a cloth outer coating and with the gasbags within. The elongated teardrop shape of the new craft "airships" was based on that of whales and birds, a bit of inspired empiricism that later aerodynamic analysis proved right. The basic frame was made from two spirals of light, strong laminated tropical woods running in opposite directions from the nose of the dirigible to the tail; the spirals were glued together every time they crossed, with a reinforcing circle of wood on the joint; four to six internal circular braces and a keel strengthened the whole. The lower section of the interior was sealed off to form engine rooms, crew quarters, and cargo holds, while the interior of the hull was divided into cells for the gasbags, which were contained by a network of steel wire.
Power was provided by a steam turbine, a radical high-pressure design mostly manufactured from the new, and as yet very costly, aluminum alloys. This was coupled to a compressor, which supplied high-pressure air for six external pneumatic turbine pods driving large wooden propellors. The fuel was hydrogen from the gasbags, mixed with petroleum distillate, balanced so as to have a neutral effect on buoyancy. The compressor also powered pumps for compressing the gas into cylinders, and an electrical generator, which could, at need, crack extra hydrogen from the water in the ballast tanks along the keel. Steering was via large cruciform control fins at the rear of the vessel, and longitudinal control could also be achieved by pumping ballast water between different tanks. The gondola was entirely enclosed in the hull, and the bridge was a glassed-in section of the dirigible's lower nose section. The nose itself had extra bracing and a large metal eyebolt for fastening the craft to a mooring tower; permanant stowage and repair was done in huge hangars, and the deflated craft was hung from the rooftree of the hangar while undergoing construction or maintenance work.
The first craft were quite small, 200-400 feet in length, and served mainly for experiment and training; several were lost, in storms or to fire. Hydrogen proved inherently risky, but not impossibly so provided careful precautions were taken to prevent the buildup of an explosive air-hydrogen mixture inside the envelope of the dirigible. Maintaining a slight overpressure within the gondola, and keeping the outer fabric envelope permeable (so that any escaped hydrogen would quickly rise and diffuse into the atmosphere) sufficed to bring safety to acceptable levels. By the time of the Anglo-Russian War of 1879-1882, the Alexandria Institute's craft had reached the point where voyages of some hundreds of miles, carrying payloads of several tonnes, were routine.
The Northern War (as the Draka called the conflict) broke out in the spring of 1879; its basic cause was Russian pressure on Turkey, and the Czar's desire to push his frontiers farther south in Central Asia at the expense of Afghanistan, which was the last of the Muslim khanates between his dominions and British India. The Draka were involved first as members of the British Empire, and secondly because their possessions in the Mediterranean (Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, the Ionian Islands, and ultimately Egypt) would be menaced if the Russian Empire took Constantinople and the Straits.
The war went badly for the British in the first year, with Russian armies laying Constantinople under siege and advancing as far as Kabul in Afghanistan; the Russians were embarrassingly ahead of the hidebound British armed forces in their application of autosteamer transport to logistics. The Draka entered the war only when they were given ironclad assurance of overall command, whereupon 750,000 Janissary and Citizen troops were poured into the conflict. The war on land is outside the scope of this paper, but it was the conflict in the air that captured the imagination of the world.
The first massed attack was launched from Draka bases on Crete; ten 600-foot Lammermeyer-class dirigibles bombarded the Russian siege lines around Constantinople, in conjunction with the landings at Thessalonika. The Russians had balloons, and a few French-style semirigids, but nothing like these purpose-built aerial warships. Subsequent raids on both military and civilian targets disorganized the Russian rear echelon and played a substantial part in the eventual Draka victory. They also brought the dirigible well and truly into the public eye, and in the postwar period every major power rushed into dirigible research, often with catastrophic results.
The next major steps in dirigible design were the substitution of aluminum alloys for wood in the frame and of internal-combustion engines for steam turbines as the motive power. Both occurred in the mid-1880s, as the Alexandria Institute's research program pressed relentlessly for improved efficiency. The first transatlantic flight (1882) was made in a Northern War-style craft, crossing between Apollonaris and Recife, Brazil, where the South Atlantic is narrowest. This was a spectacular success, but not of much practical importance, as the fuel and ballast requirements left little cargo capacity.
Aluminum had been available for specialty use since the 1840s, refined by an offshoot of the cyanide-process gold-refining methods developed for the refractory ores of the Whiteridge. The early 1880s saw the electrolytic process perfected, and the Domination proved very rich both in bauxite and hydropower. Prices fell continuously, and a wide variety of aluminum alloys were developed. The first metal-frame dirigibles had duralumin skeletons and cloth coverings, with internal gasbags. By 1900, a new type with gas-tight aluminum-alloy shells, reinforced within by spiral bracing, had become predominant. With multiple turbo-compound engines, airships were capable of speeds in excess of 120 kph, and unrefueled flights of several thousand kilometers.
Excerpts from:
"A History of Weapons and Warfare"
by Colonel Carlos Fuete, U.S. Army (Ret,)
Defense Institute Press, Mexico City
Small Arms Development: The Draka Experience
[Note on terminology: until roughly the 1820s, the inhabitants of the Crown Colony of Drakia were commonly referred to as "Drakians"; after that, as "Draka." This article follows that usage. ]
The initial migrants to the Crown Colony of Drakia in 1781-1785 included a number of Loyalist and Hessian regiments; most of these were stood down when their members took up the land grants issued by the Crown, but they remained active in the Militia reserve forces.
The original armament of the newcomers was a mixture of breech-loading Ferguson rifles (25%), muzzle-loading rifles of both the "Kentucky" and "German/Jaeger" varieties (10%), and ordinary Brown Bess smoothbores (65%). All of these weapons were flintlocks, but their performance differed widely, as follows:
Brown Bess
Caliber: .75 inch c.
Weight: 11 lb.
Range: 75 yards effective, 150 maximum
Rate of Fire: 2-4 rounds per minute
Operation: Muzzle-loading
Kentucky Rifle
Caliber: .50 inch
Weight: 9 lb.
Range: 150-200 yards effective, 400 maximum
Rate of Fire: 1—2 rounds per minute
Operation: Muzzle-loading
Ferguson Rifle (with round ball)
Caliber: .45
Weight: 10 lb.
Range: 200-250 yards effective, 400 maximum
Rate of Fire: 6-8 rounds per minute
Operation: Lever-operated screw plug
The Ferguson rifle, invented by General Patrick Ferguson (b. 1741, Pitfours, Aberdeenshire, d. 1807, Cape Town, Crown Colony of Drakia), was obviously for and away the more efficient weapon. The breech was blocked by a vertical plug, coarsely threaded like a giant bolt. The lower end was attached to the front of the movable trigger guard of the weapon, which had a wooden handle affixed to the rear behind the hand-grip. A complete 360-degree turn lowered the plug and exposed the chamber of the rifle; a ball and paper cartridge of black powder were then loaded, the flintlock primed, and the action reversed to seal the breech. The weapon was then ready to fire.
The Ferguson rifle—"the gun that broke the tribes"—had all the advantages of Brown Bess and the Kentucky rifle, with features uniquely its own. Unlike the Kentucky rifle, it could carry a bayonet, a factor of some importance in the 18th century, and unlike Brown Bess the "sticker" did not interfere with loading. Not only was its rate of fire substantially better than the smoothbore, but it could be loaded comfortably while in the saddle or lying down behind cover. The threaded plug gave excellent gas sealage, and the lighter bullet meant that more ammunition could be carried. Unlike muzzle-loaders, it could not be multiply loaded by mistake in the confusion and noise of battle. Best of all, it could be manufactured with the rather primitive gunsmithing technology of the period; the plug had to be turned on a lathe, but this was the only unorthodox part.
In Europe and America, military conservatism kept the Ferguson rifle confined to specialist units; the British army was satisfied with its volley-and-bayonet tactics, the French enemies never showed any sign of initiating an arms race, and the Americans preferred smoothbores and the vastly inferior Hall breechloader for reasons of national pride and lack of competition.
The Drakians could not afford such luxuries. Faced by native opponents capable of fielding armies of tens of thousands of fanatically brave spearmen, they needed a weapon that could hit hard, fast, and far. Armories were established, using skilled gunsmiths from among the Loyalist population and later European immigrants, and enough breech-loaders were produced to reequip the entire militia. Drawing on the experience of the Dutch colonists before them, the new masters of the Cape rapidly formed units of mounted riflemen, supplemented by light fast-moving horse artillery. With Fergusons, a few dozen colonists were a match for regiments of black spearmen. Fighting from mobile wagon-forts, a few hundred could shoot down thousands without loss to themselves. By the mid 1780s, the Drakian soldier of the early conquest had taken on the characteristics that were to last for most of the next fifty years: mounted on a small hardy pony and leading a string of remounts, equipped with a Ferguson, two double-barreled pistols, knife, and saber. Regiments of black slave-soldiers filled garrison and infantry roles.
The Ferguson was a weapon of revolutionary importance, but it was not perfect; for example, the hot gases eventually eroded the seal between the threads of the plug and the drilled breech, requiring a new plug and remachining. It required careful maintenance to prevent a buildup of fouling in the chamber and barrel, and the plug had to be wiped and oiled after every use to prevent corrosion, which could ruin the gas seal. Prolonged heavy firing could heat the chamber and cause disastrous "cook off" detonation of the loose powder during loading. Like all flintlocks, it had a tendency to misfire, which required a lengthy and frustrating drill to clear the touchhole, and it was vulnerable to damp. Furthermore, the round ball used was very inefficient aerodynamically, limiting range and accuracy.
The first important improvement was the McGregor bullet. Captain Angus McGregor, a North Carolina loyalist of Scottish background, had been using an heirloom "stonebow" (crossbow adapted to throw small stones or lead bullets) to hunt duck on his estate near Virconium. It occurred to him that the same force threw a pointed quarrel much further and more accurately than a round stone; in 1792 he patented a "cylindroconic-conic" bullet, a short blunt-headed round with a hollow pointed head. McGregor had anticipated the effect of reduced air resistance, but not the even more important reduction of cross-sectional diameter in relation to total weight.
Range was increased to 500 yards against individual man-sized targets, and 1000 against massed formations; as an added bonus the hollowpoint round had much greater wounding power than the round ball. The colonial forces were rapidly converted, since the only modification necessary was a new type of bullet-mold. Performance was altered as follows:
Ferguson Rifle (with McGregor cylindrical bullet)
Caliber: .45
Weight: 10 lb.
Range: 500-600 yards effective, 1000 maximum
Rate of Fire: 6-8 rounds per minute
This was the rifle that the Drakian expeditionary force took north to Egypt in early 1800. Egypt, formally part of the Ottoman Empire, had been occupied by a French army of approximately 15,000 in 1798; the force was originally under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte, but he had returned to France in early 1800. At the Battle of the Nile Delta in March of 1800, 6,000 Drakians (mostly Janissary slave-soldiers) faced 9,000 French troops under the command of Jacques Menou in a flat, sandy area immediately east of the irrigated zone. The Drakian infantry were deployed in a single-line formation, flanked by mounted rifles, while the French attacked in company and battalion columns—relying on shock action, and preceded by skirmishers. The Drakians opened volley-fire at 400 yards, firing by tetrarchies [platoons]. None of the French formations came closer than 150 yards to the Drakian line, and only a few of the skirmishers were even able to open fire. The French columns broke and reformed for the charge several times, eventually suffering casualties of up 75%; the crews of the French field-artillery were practically annihilated before they discovered that the Ferguson rifles outranged their fieldpieces.
The battle had begun around dawn; by 1000 hours, the French were in full flight, pursued by the Drakian mounted infantry. Less than 200 of the French expeditionary force ever returned to Europe. Drakian casualties numbered less than 150, of whom only 30 were free citizens. Oddly, this shattering demonstration of the superiority of the breech-loading rifle over the muzzle-loading smoothbore had little impact on the course of the war in Europe. The Egyptian theater was remote, and little attention was paid to it; the details were simply not known. Furthermore, the contending powers in the Napoleonic Wars were stretched to the limits of their manufacturing and logistical capabilities, supporting armies larger than any Europe had known before. The British equipped some of their specialist light infantry regiments (the Royal Greenjackets, for example) with Drakian-made Fergusons; the French, towards the end, issued the superior brass-cartridge Pauly-type rifles to their equivalents. In the postwar cutbacks, innovation became even slower.
The final refinement of the Ferguson rifle was the adoption of percussion ignition in 1804; a copper cap containing fulminate of mercury was used. The inventor—a sporting Anglican clergyman by the name of Forsythe—had been bothered by the delay between pulling the trigger and ignition in flintlock weapons, which made wing-shooting birds difficult. Percussion caps proved useful in military applications because they were immune to damp (unlike the priming powder of flintlocks) and because they were much less likely to misfire—one in several hundred rounds rather than the one in twenty typical for flintlocks.
The war faction in the Drakian Legislative Assembly had succeeded in hanging on to Egypt, despite strong British efforts to return the territory to Turkey; the result was war between the British and Ottoman empires in 1807. Since all available British forces were engaged in Spain, the Drakians had free rein in the Mediterranean theater, and seized Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, the Ionian Isles, and Tunis. The Peace of Vienna in 1814 confirmed these transfers, and the Ottoman Empire renounced its territorial claims in North Africa in favor of Britain, in return for 1,000,000 British pounds in gold (paid by the Drakians) and a large loan.
