IHMN Weapon modification

[copeab]

Sorry for the thread necromancy

A couple things to consider is that two advantages combination guns have over two individual guns don't exist in IHMN.

First, a combination gun allows a shooter to quickly pick the best weapon (depending on the combination) for his target, instead of having to change weapons. However, in IHMN (5.2.1, and other places), changing weapons is a free action.

A combination gun is also lighter than the weapons individually, but IHMN doesn't deal with encumbrance (beyond armor, in a general way).

So, combination guns really don't have any in-game benefits. Having the guns share a malfunction roll might be reasonable for some guns but not others, and I'm not sure if it should reduce total cost by more than 1-2 points.

An example of a badly designed combination gun ... the Italians in WWII had designed a grenade discharger that attached to the right side of their service rifle. Unlike rifle grenades, it didn't require special ammo to be loaded into the rifle or block the rifle barrel. However, it had a huge flaw -- the grenade discharger had to use the rifle's bolt to fire, which required removing it from the rifle. This left the rifle useless until the bolt was replaced. In battle, this worked poorly. Aside from the time switching the bolt (probably one Shooting phase), the bolt could be lost or damaged. The shared bolt seems reasonable to share the effects of a malfunction.

[abdul666lw]

As an aside, could a reduction of point cost be enough to balance the relative disadvantage of firelocks (slower rate of fire) against unchanged hand-to-hand performances, would someone try to play IHMN in, say, the 18th C.?

[copeab]

As an aside, could a reduction of point cost be enough to balance the relative disadvantage of firelocks (slower rate of fire) against unchanged hand-to-hand performances, would someone try to play IHMN in, say, the 18th C.?

Most Shooting weapons, if they still exist, would get a -1 for the reload time. Not certain about any other big changes.

Oh, clockwork, not steam

[copeab]

For example, I was attempting to build a LeMat pistol, and reasoned that the best option was to combine a basic pistol with the one-shot blunderbuss option from the rulebook – instant LeMat: a regular pistol that packs a surprise buckshot punch for 8pts.

I'd go with the shotgun (short) for the 16 gauge barrel. I saw a video with a (replica) stripped down, the pistol barrel and revolver cylinder removed; what was left was functionally a single-shot shotgun pistol, which fits the shotgun (short). Cost should drop from 5 to 4 because of taking a turn to liad (like the muzzle-loading musket).

I'd also assume the revolver was one that had been converted from caplock to cartridge. Otherwise, it would be faster to take the gun apart and replace the cylinder with a preloaded one than to load 9 cylinders.

[Skrapwelder]

There was a centerfire model made in Belgium in 11mm with a 20 gauge shotgun

http://milpas.cc/rifles/ZFiles/Pistols/LeMat%20Revolvers/Horst%20LeMat.html

[Franz_Josef]

A combination weapon that enjoyed some popularity in Germany and Austria in the late 19th to early 20th century was the Drilling (derived from the German word for 3).  This from the Wikipedia article:
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Combination_gun?o=2801&qsrc=999&ad=doubleDown&an=apn&ap=ask.com
Cape guns
A cape gun is a side-by-side version of a combination gun, and is typically European. German and Austrian cape guns have the rifle barrel on the right side and it is fired by the front trigger. The front trigger is usually a set trigger as well. British versions of this firearm position the rifle barrel on the left. These were at one time popular in southern Africa where a wide variety of game could be encountered. A combination such as the .450-577 British service cartridge and a 12-gauge shotgun was common.

The German and Austrian versions are commonly chambered in 9.3×72mmR and 16-gauge, although they were chambered in a wide variety of rifle and shotgun cartridges. They may be encountered in muzzleloading, pinfire, exposed hammer, and hammerless designs.

Drillings
Drillings, or "dreiling" (the German word "drei" means "three" so "Dreiling" means triplet—the form "Drilling" normally only used for triplet births and the drilling gun) normally consists of two matching shotgun barrels and a rifle barrel (German: Normaldrilling, common drilling), but may cover a much broader range of shapes and configurations:[2]

Two matching rifle barrels and one shotgun barrel
Two rifle barrels of different calibers (typically one rimfire and one centerfire) and one shotgun barrel
Three matching shotgun barrels
Three matching rifle barrels
Since drillings were generally made by small manufacturers, each maker would pick whichever layout they preferred, or whatever layout the customer ordered. The most common layout was a side-by-side shotgun with a centerfire rifle barrel centered on the bottom. A similar arrangement of a side-by-side shotgun with a rifle barrel centered on top, generally a .22 caliber rimfire or .22 Hornet, was also fairly common.

Rarer were the drillings that used two rifle barrels and a single shotgun barrel. These were harder to make, since, like a double rifle, the rifle barrels must be very carefully regulated, that is, aligned during manufacture to shoot to the same point of aim at a given distance. This requires more precision than regulation of double-barrelled shotgun barrels, which are used at shorter ranges with wide patterns of shot where a small misalignment won't be significant. If the rifle barrels were the same caliber, then the three barrels were generally arranged in a triangle, both rifle barrels on top, or one rifle and the shotgun barrel on top (this being known as a cross-eyed drilling). If the rifle barrels differed in caliber, generally the layout would be an over/under using the shotgun and a centerfire rifle barrel, with a rimfire rifle barrel mounted between and to one side. These configuration, with shotgun/centerfire/rimfire barrels, are the most desirable configuration for modern collectors.

The triple barrel shotgun is the rarest configuration, and arguably is an odd variant of a double-barrelled shotgun rather than a drilling, since it lacks the rifle/shotgun combination that all the other drillings have. The triple barrel shotgun is generally laid out like a side-by-side shotgun, with the third barrel centered and below the other two. The barrels are all the same gauge.

[copeab]

A combination weapon that enjoyed some popularity in Germany and Austria in the late 19th to early 20th century was the Drilling (derived from the German word for 3).  

Since IHMN doesn't really care about rate of fire (unless it's really slow, like the blunderbuss), it's probably easiest to just treat a drilling as a hunting rifle + shotgun and treat the actual number of barrels as color (or whatever the weapon the figure has is carrying).

I'd suggest ignoring drillings with different bore rifle barrels. All you get is paying extra points to have a less effective weapon on some turns (at least with the LeMat, or rifle with grenade launcher, each component has advantages and disadvantages; with a hunting rifle + carbine, what do you actually gain?).

Brandon

[Irishrover13]

Since IHMN doesn't really care about rate of fire (unless it's really slow, like the blunderbuss), it's probably easiest to just treat a drilling as a hunting rifle + shotgun and treat the actual number of barrels as color (or whatever the weapon the figure has is carrying).

I'd suggest ignoring drillings with different bore rifle barrels. All you get is paying extra points to have a less effective weapon on some turns (at least with the LeMat, or rifle with grenade launcher, each component has advantages and disadvantages; with a hunting rifle + carbine, what do you actually gain?).

Brandon

Brandon you do a great job of summing it up. A shotgun doesn't differ significantly in rule terms to really bother worrying about combo weapons. If you have to have the under barrel shotgun on your military rifle then you pay for both since it is the equivalent of having both. My LaMat has a heavy pistol with a blunderbuss and you pay full price for both. I even considered making it combined points +1 one because you don't have to switch out the weapons.  Just my two cents.

Irish