[OT] [I mean totally OT] Re: What can you "new"

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Don wrote:
>>
>> With the Persian longbow, experts were quick enough to fire 6 arrows 
>> before the first hit the ground. I don't think firearms reached a 
>> similar firing rate for a long time (for what that's worth -- I'd 
>> think I'd rather be hit by several arrows than by one cannonball <g>).
> 
> The Winchester repeating rifle was definitely a game-changer, but that 
> was relatively recent (~1875, I believe).  Before repeaters, the only 
> thing that guns really seemed to have going for them was penetration 
> power and a comparative lack of skill for use compared to the longbow. 
> I've seen demos of skilled marksmen with old repeaters that were simply 
> astounding as far as rate of fire and accuracy are concerned.

Oh, I forgot to emphasize one detail: when thinking of the minimal 
amount of firepower, *effective* rate must be taken into account. That's 
why I mentioned the Vickers - it had such an effective cooling 
mechanism, it could essentially be fired relentlessly for a long time. 
And then it had interchangeable barrels that could be swapped pronto! 
That works great with the human wave (well, orcs wave) attack in the 
LoTR movie. Today's machine guns need pauses in between series so as to 
cool the barrel. That's not a problem if there's plenty of them machine 
guns AND if the enemy is not attacking openly. So paradoxically I tend 
to believe that a couple of Vickers would have been doing better with 
the Orcs than many of today's machine guns.

One that I do think would be more lethal is the mounted Gatling M134 
(that Terminator made famous), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minigun. 
That fires up to 6000 rounds/minute which is pretty crazy. I think a 
salvo of that would have made a trench through the Orcs, the same bullet 
killing or maiming several of them.

But then M134 requires electricity... so heck, Vickers rules :o).


Andrei