Gunka no Baltzar

[Autismonaut]

Inaccurate/unrealistic depiction of geopolitics and the evolution of weapons and tactics. The difference between Weissen (Fictional Prussia) and Baselland (Fictional minor German Kingdom/Principality) makes no sense. One is an industrialized country, basically Prussia with WW2 tech and squad tactics, while the other is still using muskets with ball ammunition and centralized command structures. Baselland is literally somehow a century behind in Military technology and tactics despite being a neighbor of Weissen. There'd be no reason for Weissen to respect such a weak nation that ignores the military development of the rest of the continent. 2/10, Baselland should've been annexed.

 

[alexsilener]

Only typesetting is remaining on chapter 68. Need a typesetter for this.

 

[millenialboomer]

How have I never heard of this. Noice and comfy af

@Autismonaut I feel you. Fantasy or not, you expect a little more.

 

[alexsilener]

@millenialboomer Since no one else bothered to address the annexation thing below, I'll add to the argument from the opposite perspective I guess. While I can't speak to how realistic the progression of geopolitics and all that is, I'm not a big history buff, there seems to at least be sufficient justification for why Weißen couldn't so simply annex Baselland. It is mentioned early that Weißen had a civil war 50 years ago that split it up, there were ensuing wars (for unification presumably) and that Baselland was not involved in this. This would probably have kept Weißen preoccupied for quite a long time. Also, later on around 10 years ago should be when the Norden-trade campaign began and it was shown to finish on the first page.
Spoilers for later chapters:

Spoiler

The Queen of the Erzreich empire, a far larger power than Weißen, is an aunt to the princes of Baselland (related through their mother). I'm sure with all of Weißen's other troubles they wouldn't have wanted a further conflict with Erzreich (The Queen is also related to Weißen's king). Apart from which, the king of Basseland himself wanted an alliance with Weißen, and the king of Weißen doesn't necessarily want to annex Baselland and have Baselland maintain it's political neutrality. So with all that, I think the situation is a bit more nuanced than to simply say 'Baselland should've been annexed, 2/10'. That's a bit harsh. There is a little more to it all.

 

[Raskaro]

I actually dropped this at the start, like around the sixth chapter because everything felt wrong and forced—then boom it fucking blasts like a train-ride that you know will be crazy. It is great for political and military manga enthusiasts as well as the average historical fiction-horny men and women.

 

[Autismonaut]

@alexsilener
While there are plenty of cases of small countries remaining independent through diplomatic ties (like Liechtenstein or Luxembourg), there's still literally no excuse for Baselland to be 100 years behind in military and arms development. Even if we assume that no other army is as developed as Baselland, there's still tons of improvements to fire arms technology that any other neighbors might have over Baselland, such as breach-loading rifles, lever-actions, or early bolt-actions. Baselland would be annexed by any of their neighbors, if not Weissen. Furthermore, history is full of families working against each other, so having relatives in another empire doesn't really help. For example, Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II were cousins and were very close, but still prioritized the people they governed and advancement of their own national agendas over their familial ties in WW1.

 

[alexsilener]

@Autismonaut
Ok this got waay too long and I didn't expect to write such a long comment in argument of something that is not even my own creative work, but here we are. At least looking up all of this was fun I guess. Again, I'm not a military and history buff, so much of what I write below might be wrong. I just got my info through cursory research. I'm just gonna spoiler the following so that it's not a wall of text.

Spoiler

there's still literally no excuse for Baselland to be 100 years behind in military and arms development.

Where exactly are you getting your '100 years'. In your earlier comment you also say

basically Prussia with WW2 tech and squad tactics, while the other is still using muskets with ball ammunition

Or this ww2 tech and squad tactics. While the later part is true for Baselland, the first has no basis in relation to Weißen. There is sufficient reason to believe that the manga is set around the year 1867/1868. The year is almost explicitly stated in some places.
Muskets were still used till up to around the 1850s. Rifles only seemed to have come into mainstream use around the time of the Crimean war, and more prominently later during the american civil war (1861-1865).
Chapter 1 mentions the standard in Weißen is now bolt-action rifles. Bolt action rifles first saw widespread use in wars in mid 1860s. And he says 'many countries are presently making such arms upgrades'. So that is the current state of military technology in Weißen and neighbours. The rifles baltzar proposes to Baselland in the initial chapters are said to have a range around 450 m. Which lines up with the range of rifles around 1860s.

On Baselland's use of line infantry and cavalry. They were still relevant in warfare till the mid 19th century. It is towards the end of the 19th century that they started becoming obsolete.
In chapter 14, Baltzar talks of the redundance of cavalry but mentions he wrote it with a view of 20 to 30 years into the future. So late 19th early 20th century. Lines up. It is also mentioned that he doesn't publish the article in his own country's journal, implying that Weißen itself is not completely void of traditional cavalry ranks at this point.

Baselland doesn't have a proper railway system (author details the reasons for the state of baselland's railway network at the end of vol 3.). Weißen is shown to use railways for quick troop movement. Early usage of railways for military deployment seem to be around 1850 and again the american civil war seems to be when it's use in warfare became prominent. 23 years ago is when there are first proposals in Weißen for the military to first begin use of railways for deployment. Again lines up with real world history.

The battle between Holbeck, another neighbour to Weißen, and Baselland in vol 5 is distinctly 19th century tactics. And there are some other examples apart from all this. (Baltzar, not Weißen itself, is the first shown to use observational fire, land mines, yada yada). So no, Weißen is not basically 'Prussia with WW2 tech and squad tactics' and Baselland is not 'literally 100 years behind in military and arms development'. What I understand is that they are maybe around 20 years behind, yes. Their predominant flaw in tech seems to be not having the bolt action rifles which other nations have. At the same time, Weißen is shown to be sufficiently preoccupied with other issues like I said earlier (also more in Chapter 16) to not just straight up go and annex them. On the point of other neighbours, I don't know, we don't have enough detail. But they don't seem to be that advanced in comparison either to just walk over Baselland.

From what I can tell, the author/mangaka does his research really well. And he goes into extensive detail into all that in his extras at the end of each volume (pretty fun to read). I'm not saying the Baselland tech situation is well justified or something. He does take some liberties with it, and in other areas like the car in the latest chapter and etc. But this is not supposed to the same history as ours and it is a fantasy end of the day. And it definitely doesn't seem to be as inaccurate or as egregious as you seem to be suggesting.

 

[Autismonaut]

@alexsilener
Weissen makes use of bolt-action rifles with down-turned bolt handles, which wasn't done until around the 1930's. The stat of an effective range of 450 meters was achieved in the 1860's despite the use of smokeless powder with weapons of considerably greater caliber and length than a smokeless powder weapon would need to achieve the same effect. Regardless, most military muskets were shorter and had an effective range less than 450 meters. Baselland is using muskets with spherical ammunition, which puts their fire arms technology at somewhere prior to the 1850's. There's a lot of fire arms development in between those two points. It isn't a difference of 20 years. 20 years from muzzle loaders would still be blackpowder guns, not smokeless powder bolt-actions. The difference of firepower between units with single shot weapons and units with repeating fire arms is enough to walk over the poor suckers with muskets.

 

[alexsilener]

@Autismonaut

Weissen makes use of bolt-action rifles with down-turned bolt handles

The only place I've found in the entire manga that even briefly details the rifles used by Weißen is on chapter 3, page 19. I might have missed something, in which case please point it out to me, but I don't think there was ever anything that explicitly mentioned. Now I don't know if the art by the author in chapter 3 is accurate or not. I'm not knowledgeable about guns so I don't know if this is a down-turned bolt handle, what the caliber is etc. But the only thing that is explicitly mentioned in text is that a) rate of one bullet every 5 seconds. that's a rate of fire of 12 rounds per minute. b) effective range of fire of 400 m. This seems to be approximately the capabilities of bolt-action rifles around the 1860s-1880s from what I can find. So I don't see much wrong there except possibly the art. If the art is wrong, then it's a shame that the author made the mistake. But it certainly isn't damning and in my opinion is definitely excusable.
The rest of whatever you are saying seems to be in line with what I've said already so I don't see the issue. Baselland is said to use muskets, and their range is said to be far less than 450m, and it is implied the technology is from before the 1850s.

 

[Kend0]

@alexsilener @autismonaut

I just want to add my 2 cents to why both of you are sort of correct. Spoiler is to hide the wall of text.

Spoiler

Yes, the gap between Basseland and Wessien is quite a bit military gap. Yes, its not really happened before irl. But yes, wide military tech gaps are not unusual.

One of the biggest wars of the 1800's that included technological mismatch was the Austro-Prussian, where amongst other factors a decisive victory was won by the Prussians through use of the revolutionary von Dreyse Needle-Fire rifles, which offered better range, usability, reload speed and firing rate. The Austrians still fielded standard musket rifles and got demolished. The same thing basically happened in ww1 to a slightly lesser degree, with the Austrians fielding the awkward Mannlicher rifle which was both straight pull (as opposed to having a rotating bolt rifle other great powers used, which are easier to maintain and has less jamming) and could only be loaded in bloc clips (no single bullet reloads possible which is just a bit awkward to be fair). I am specifically using the Austro-Hungarian empire as my example here, because to me it was sort of clear that this was the nation Bassland was supposed to represent (a nation surrounded by stronger contemporaries, in a state of civil war on the verge of being knocked out of the world stage by foreign powers. Its classic 1800's Austrian Empire stuff). I'm also focusing on the infantry rifles, because to be honest its all I know about (sorry )

But the fact that Bassland is basically 1840's Austria, yet Weissen is pretty much 1900's Prussia is undeniably a noticeable gap. I specifically was urked when Basseland was said to use "muskets", because on the theoretical tech tree of war the muskets are more than a few steps down from bolt action. The world didn't just go from muzzle loading musket to ww1 rifles, there was evolution and variation. In a super realistic story, Weissen's bolt actions would be less advanced than they are now (since they seem to be more 1910 than 1890, maybe they would be straight pull or have other issues differentiation them from being ww1 ready bolt actions), and Basseland's rifles would be needlefire firing paper-cased rounds or be single chamber breachloaders firing brass-cased bullets, bringing their tech to around 1860-1870 depending on where the story needs them to sit. This would be a more historically based gap.

So is the manga historically accurate? I'm actually going to go with no. But it isn't complete fiction. The author clearly wants to explore pre-ww1 developments with the clear intention to lead into more ww1 tactics and almost certainly a full blown ww1 style war in his story, but maybe when laying the groundwork he overestimated how far behind he wanted Basselands tech to be. Is having a major nation be complete outclassed technologically a believable possibility? Yes. But the author did push the gap a bit too far.

 

[alexsilener]

@Kend0
I agree with most of what you're saying. All I want to know is where are these conclusions being drawn from:

Weissen is pretty much 1900's Prussia

Weissen's bolt actions ... seem to be more 1910 than 1890...

Spoiler

I went through all the initial three volumes again, looking out for any and all information mentioned on the rifles (only the first three volumes because this rifle matter becomes largely irrelevant after just vol 2 even and I don't want to re-read the entire thing right now). And the only information ever textually stated in regards to possibly identifying the rifles are the points I've already mentioned. And we can pretty much take 1867/68 to be the year the author intends the world to be set in (see chapter 64, page 6 for one example. There are a few others that support this). And I've also already mentioned that the described rifle capabilities, wherein there isn't much description in the first place, seem to match those of this era from what I could find, but you guys are probably better able than me to identify accurate models.
Apart from this, the only other thing I can think of that might support your conclusions about the rifles is the art shown for said rifles. But it is plausible that the author might have just used an incorrect reference image or something and mistakenly picked a more advanced bolt action than appropriate for the time period. I wouldn't crucify the author for that. If I'm missing something else here, please point that out.
So apart from this one potential issue with the rifle, details of which are seemingly kept sufficiently vague, there are a number of other examples like the concrete pot, the volley cannon (see Volume 6 extras, author says it's based off the French Mitrailleuse and gives it's development year as 1868), the barbs, woodburrytype etc. that are mentioned to have been developed 'recently', which squarely places the technological level of Weißen around the 1860s. And if this is indeed the technological level of Weißen, then the military tech gap isn't that wide since, as you say, Baselland is apparently supposed to be 1840's Austria.
And I mostly agree with your last paragraph Kend0. At the same time, I'm not seeing enough here to support autismonaut's initial point that Baselland is 100 years behind and should have simply been annexed. The technological gap isn't that exaggerated, the author is usually quite consistent, and the political climate being shown in-universe is not as simple.

 

[Autismonaut]

@alexsilener and @ Kend0
I state a lot of things and kind of assume people will understand, forgetting that not everyone cares to know about firearms. Allow me to elaborate.
First off: the rifle. The rifle Weissen uses looks a lot like the bolt action rifles used by militaries in WW2 (so designs from 1930's). It features an internal fixed magazine, and a down-turned bolt handle, and is of carbine length. I state that the weapon uses smokeless ammunition because black powder is suboptimal when designing bolt-action systems due to fouling. Most bolt action/breech loading weapons prior to smokeless powder ammo (prior to 1888) were single shot.
Second: The statistics the author made for the rifle are likely referring to practical battlefield stats. 1 shot in 5 seconds is likely the practical fire rate (rate at which users are actually able to sustain fire in combat) rather than the cyclic fire rate (theoretical fire rate based on the mechanics of a weapon). It would make sense for the practical fire rate to be low (12 rpm) due to having to actually aim and pick a target rather than just rapidly firing and rechambering (between 45-70 rpm based on user ability and if the bolt is clean).
Third: I have no idea what the author intends to convey with the 450 meter range. That's far too short for any full powered rifle cartridge (for reference, WW1/2 rifles had iron sight zeros up to 800 meters), but far too long range for practical range (most soldiers can't reliably hit targets further than 100 meters)

I hope some of this helps you guys understand where I'm coming from.
Edit: I know that the political climate in the story is shaky, but Baselland seems to have nothing going for it other than some familial ties (which have proven unreliable political assets in history). It has a pre-industrial economy, and a weak military. I argue that it's a century behind based on the difference in rifles, but a smaller gap doesn't really change much. The reason Prussia/Germany didn't take over Austria in the real world was because they hated the non-German parts of Austria (slavs like Poles, Czechs, etc.) but also didn't want to give slavs their own country.

 

[alexsilener]

@Autismonaut
I feel like I've repeated myself multiple times already so I'd rather not do that again. And yes I do not care about firearms. But you've still yet to give an indication on how you're basing this: 'rifle Weissen uses looks a lot like the bolt action rifles used by militaries in WW2 (so designs from 1930's)'

Spoiler

You can detail the inner mechanics and technical workings of all the firearms from the post 1900s in however excruciating detail that you want, but that still wouldn't be relevant to argument here. The manga never goes into all that. As far as I can tell, it provides very limited information that can be corroborated with real world rifles from the period. As an example, @Kend0 mentions the Dreyse Needle-Fire rifles, which is apparently classified as a bolt action rifle (unless you tell me this is wrong.) The manga makes no indication, again textually, whether the rifles Weißen uses are breechloaded, smokeless or whatever have you. The few capabilities it describes of these rifles are seemingly in alignment, for example, with those of the Dreyse rifle. While the manga mentions a range of 400 m, Baltzar acknowledges in a later chapter that's far too long for practical range, as you yourself say. All that said, the Dreyse rifle was apparently designed in 1836. Rate of fire of 6–12 rounds per minute. Effective range of 200 m, maximum range of 527 m (as per Wikipedia. If you have issues with the source, that's another argument.) Manga details Weißen rifles capabilites as Rate of fire 12 per minute, effective range of 400m, potentially lower. This for rifles used around 1868. If you ask me, that lines up pretty darn well. I'm sure there are actual real world rifles used in this period that probably line up even better. Now, the art it provides for said rifles might be wrong, but I've already covered that. If there is some part I'm missing here that actually gives more details about these rifles, mention it.
The manga gives copious other examples for saying that Weißen is around the 1860s in terms of technology. I've already detailed all this. If they are using tech from the 1930s as you seem to say they are, surely the other technology Weißen uses must match up with that timeline. And not just the rifles. The development between pre-1850s muskets to 1930s rifles can't happen in a vacuum independent of all other technology being used. While this is obviously not directly related to firearms, and not the best example to support my argument either, take the Woodburytype used in chapter 11. By the early 1900s woodburrytype was phased out by halftone printing. There are other examples like this. Gattling guns are still not a thing in-universe. Volley gun's have yet to see standard field use. All such decidedly puts the techonological level not post 1900s.
If you're just going to ignore all that, and say because Weißen seemingly uses rifles from the 1930s (which I still don't see an actual justified basis for) or WW2 (when even WW1's trench warfare isn't a thing yet in-universe, so idk how you're jumping so far ahead), and because of this there is a techonological gap of almost a 100 years between Baselland and Weißen or neighbours, there is no argument to be had there. The only issue I can see here is the rifle. Which is possibly just the author mistakenly using a wrong reference art.
Equally, if we then establish that okay, Weißen is around the 1860s, and Baselland is around the 1840s, and such a gap is still too egregious and Baselland should have been long since annexed, despite the fact that I've already mentioned Weißen's other military campaigns occupying it's attention and Baselland itself wanting an alliance with Weißen, then I'm not going to argue that.

 

[Autismonaut]

@alexsilener
I've already thoroughly explained what features the rifle has that make it very much like a WW2 bolt action. All of my points come from the arena scenes in chapter 5, which displays all of these characteristics and allows someone familiar with guns to infer other traits.

Spoiler

1. Down-turned bolt handle
2. Repeating bolt-action
3. fixed internal magazine
4. carbine length
5. aside from the iron sights, looks identical to a Karabiner '98 kurz (The updated version of the Gewehr 1898 used in WW1 adopted in 1935)
The Dreyse is a single shot rifle, it's rate of fire is not even comparable to a repeating bolt-action, and we know that the rifle Weissen uses is a repeater because the protagonist doesn't need to reload after every shot, he just cycles the action. You focus too much on the text, rather than events that occur which completely contradict the stats the author makes for the rifle. Berndt fights off several ranks of men with muskets pretty much by himself by rapidly firing his rifle to the point that it overheats. Overheating isn't a realistic concern for single shot rifle using black powder, which is far less potent than smokeless powder. It is not a matter of using the wrong art, the Author has brought very advanced bolt-actions onto the stage.

On the topic of the rest of technology and annexation...
I simply state that someone would surely have annexed Baselland, which has a weak military and weak economy, and pretty poor leadership. If not, then the country would be a puppet regime. It doesn't need to be Weissen, it could be anyone who had weapons technology between muzzle-loaders and repeating bolt-actions. Prussia in our world was able to easily beat the Austrians with the only major difference being a slightly faster rifle. Imagine how the predicament of Austria might have been if Prussia had repeating weapons? The rest of technology is pretty much irrelevant at that point.

All of this is just to say, it ruins the suspension of disbelief when the premise and technological gap is presented in such a silly way. As I've stated before, Baselland has a weak military and a weak economy, thus having nothing to preserve itself in a world where one of it's neighbors is several generations ahead in rifle technology.

 

[alexsilener]

@Autismonaut

Spoiler

I am not going to pursue the line of seeing whether the representation of Weißen rifles is accurate or not. There seem to be a fair amount of stretches being made in what you say, but there are others better suited to judge if what you're saying is right or wrong. However, there are far simpler, albeit similarly stretchy, ways to address this issue. Bernd faces a platoon of 50 with 5 other men. Page 11, he reasons if they can get off, as a limiting rate, one bullet every 10 seconds they fire a total of 96 bullets (idk why he says only four of them, but if all 6 do it, then it's 144 shots). Obviously accuracy is a thing, blah blah, there's any number of ways to break this down further but that's not my point. The point here is that it seems sufficiently plausible, for fiction crucially, that Bernd and his group can deal enough damage to their enemies provided they are armed with an armament that can fire off one shot every 10 seconds. Now I've not looked extensively into this, but all that I can find seem to suggest such bolt-action 'rifles' (whatever type they may be) seem to exist for the time period. Rifles that can, at minimum, fire a shot every 10 seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the extent to which the author considered it too (more on this later). The author never even properly names the rifle being used. You make a bunch of inferences from the art and mention your WW2 rifles and what not, but surely their capabilities are much beyond what the author depicts as limiting and yet even that is largely irrelevant. Now if you explicity tell me, that 'no, there exist no rifles in the year 1868 that can fire a shot every 10 seconds, for a rough total of 24 shots per rifle over a period of 3 to 4 minutes when put in the arms of a soldier in a battle. period', then fine. Otherwise, the rest of the depiction is pretty much a non-factor as all this is not relevant to the rest of the manga. And there do seem to be rifles with such capabilities.

Now, when you say the rest of the technology is pretty much irrelevant. No, it is not. I have already detailed my reasoning for this, twice, and I will not go into it again. Same for the annexation thing. There seem to be sufficient examples of real world wars where the two sides had a technological mismatch of around 20 or so years, your own example of the Austro-Prussian war included. I will also add here that Weißen is currently trying, or a faction of it is, to annex Baselland. In case you missed this.

This is a Japanese author trying to write a story based on mid 19th century European conditions. Who knows what sorts of sources he's using for this and how many filters he's going through. He probably doesn't even know English. This is not to justify his mistake, if he has indeed made such, but to say that it's more than likly for him to make mistakes. At the same time, he has maintained a surprisingly high level of period accuracy that I seem to discover the more I look up the technology he references. For this rifle case in particular, it is possible, much like I did, that the author did some wikipedia or some such searches to ensure at least some 'grounding' for the arena scene in chapter 5. There may be innacurracies with the overheating, bolt-handles, and whatever other technical implementational details. It doesn't matter. I don't expect exacting period accurate representations of armaments from fiction. Nor would I damn said fiction for it. I'd read a textbook for that. What matters here is that the relevant capabilities still seem to align and not negatively impact the rest of his world-building which is pretty sound. This one thing ignoring everything else is not enough justification to put down the rest of the manga to the extent you suggest with how you're framing it.
That is also the extent to which I am willing to argue for this as there is no further point to be made here.

 

[Darth_Noox]

So I just discovered that there were two German socialists called Wilhelm and Karl Liebknecht, father and son

Just putting that out there

 

[Yeh]

It's quite interesting so far. Definitely deserves an 8, and I tend to be a lot more strict with grading than 90% of MangaDex. I'd give it a 9 or even a 10 if the story was actually engaging and emotional. I can't relate to the MCs much, and the author doesn't do a good job at making us like them as individuals.

 

[millenialboomer]

The manga is great, but the historical discussion regarding the Manga is fantastic as well. I love 'earth, but not earth' fiction set ups like these precisely because of the different history, but despite that, everyone agrees it should make sense using our own analogues as much as possible.

 

[0am]

Have the scans dropped this series? There hasn't been any updates in a while. According to baka updates, this manga is right now in the 15th volume while the scans are up to the 12th.

 

[Kleine_Ekhazim]

@alexsilener
I've already thoroughly explained what features the rifle has that make it very much like a WW2 bolt action. All of my points come from the arena scenes in chapter 5, which displays all of these characteristics and allows someone familiar with guns to infer other traits.

Spoiler

1. Down-turned bolt handle
2. Repeating bolt-action
3. fixed internal magazine
4. carbine length
5. aside from the iron sights, looks identical to a Karabiner '98 kurz (The updated version of the Gewehr 1898 used in WW1 adopted in 1935)
The Dreyse is a single shot rifle, it's rate of fire is not even comparable to a repeating bolt-action, and we know that the rifle Weissen uses is a repeater because the protagonist doesn't need to reload after every shot, he just cycles the action. You focus too much on the text, rather than events that occur which completely contradict the stats the author makes for the rifle. Berndt fights off several ranks of men with muskets pretty much by himself by rapidly firing his rifle to the point that it overheats. Overheating isn't a realistic concern for single shot rifle using black powder, which is far less potent than smokeless powder. It is not a matter of using the wrong art, the Author has brought very advanced bolt-actions onto the stage.

On the topic of the rest of technology and annexation...
I simply state that someone would surely have annexed Baselland, which has a weak military and weak economy, and pretty poor leadership. If not, then the country would be a puppet regime. It doesn't need to be Weissen, it could be anyone who had weapons technology between muzzle-loaders and repeating bolt-actions. Prussia in our world was able to easily beat the Austrians with the only major difference being a slightly faster rifle. Imagine how the predicament of Austria might have been if Prussia had repeating weapons? The rest of technology is pretty much irrelevant at that point.

All of this is just to say, it ruins the suspension of disbelief when the premise and technological gap is presented in such a silly way. As I've stated before, Baselland has a weak military and a weak economy, thus having nothing to preserve itself in a world where one of it's neighbors is several generations ahead in rifle technology.

To contradict your points, look up cavalry carbine during the inerim period between adoption of black powder cartridge, side note spitzer bullet comes before smokeless, and smokelesspowder (downturn bolt handle says nothing of their time periodm) also 98k mauser design have some quirks from blackpowder cartridge days, the whole family of which looks no different from the latest one if one doesn't knows what to look for(eg Mauser Model 1871). They exist contemporaneous to rifled muskets, breechloader conversions of said muskets, and winschester lever action style carbine. Of another note, you seems to think that smokeless powder comes together with self contained cartridge but that is not correct. Brass cartridge(with black powder propellant and mercury fulminate primer) was in used and adopted by militaries long before the french invented Poudre B. Carbine length issue is more of military hold up with tradition and cavalry usage, the english gave their officer short two bands enfield musket a lot earlier before conversion into single shot breechloading snider-enfields as temporary fix before adopting the martini henry(both of which uses self contained brass cartridge although out of brass foil and iron base since the tech was not there yet for drawn brass). The most glaring mistake and technology error I could notice was during the musket loading where Baltzar loaded the round ball before the paper wadding and the use of smoothbore when they clearly have capability to make rifling on their cannons. P.S. forgot to add that not only fixed unternal magazine like the mauser and mannlicher bloc type but detachable external magazine (prime example lee-metford) exists pre-smokeless powder.