Sengoku Komachi Kuroutan: Noukou Giga - Vol. 14 Ch. 67 - Innovation

[Midoriha]

Now watch the Oda Faction job anyway just like they do every single other time Shizuko puts out some futuretech to use for warfare.

b-but this one is more significant than all the other times!

So were all those other previous attempts when compared to the previous previous one.

 

[Scrabbleman]

It's easy to forget that Shizuko came from a wealthy family of enthusiasts and researchers. For Shizuko, it was farming and her sister was military tactics and weaponry. Every single member of her family was highly educated and incredibly specialised.

The gun, in this case, came from her uncle. That's because of the buttload of books Shizuko's family estate had. Honestly, I want to delve deeper into Shizuko's family because her family sounds wack as heck, and she's technically part of a highly influential and powerful family. Yet, she acts like she's an average teenager when first introduced.

 

[KerNes]

"To this day, historians still puzzle over the incredible mystery that is the sudden and rapid advancement of firearms and other technologies in the Sengoku Era."

Seriously, this is absolutely nuts. I wish a little more of the experimentation side was shown to demonstrate that Shizuko is not some Mary Sue super genius, but whatever.

Ehhh, I'm a bit torn. On one hand, yes, that would be nice. On the other, the manga already gives some signs that the author is far from an expert on the matter, and nothing is worse than the a story trying to push some bullshit research that's just outright wrong. If that was to be the case, better to just skip it with "the character did that on the background and know how to", instead of trying to push bullshit.

 

[cryum]

....This girl is seriously a jack of all trades. It explained all her farming innovations with how she grew up, but how does she know so much about steel crafting that she recognized what I would have thought was a hockey puck, as Bio coke?

Farmers would be a bit more familiar with fuels between charcoal, wood smoking, biofuel crops, and processing all of those.

As Ashimitsu said, the hardest technical part was pressure and temperature control. The chemistry is well within agriculture's field.

 

[Northern]

i'd like to see Victorians mfs trying to justify how Japanese are an "inferior race" when their technology will be better than theirs

The Victorians didn't do that though. Like the French (Who were the original Weeaboos) they were utterly enamored with the Japanese and Japanese culture and never thought that they were "inferior".
And why would they? Everyone was behind British technology at the time so the Japanese weren't exceptionally backwards compared to most everyone else.

 

[Nunally]

Then few years later, Commodore Perry is in for a nasty surprise.

"Greetings, savages. We have come to tra- what in tarnation is that giant ship?!"

"Moshi moshi, gaijin. We are the immigration officers, and welcome to Japan! Now, are you here for business, or for leisure?"

Tbf if they dilligently continue the research, at the time of black ship arrive, Japan can already found Minovsky particle and build a Gundam XD

 

[Grimmycoffee]

With

They would be able to win enormous victories over Korean and Chinese armies, but to establish control over the territories would be a fatal mistake. Even in the 21st century with our advanced weaponry and communications, military empires tend to overreach and sputter out after a few centuries.

Expect the following problems:

-Too much of the budget directed towards maintaining a standing army, not enough spent on domestic growth
-To keep the core citizens and the deployed foreign militaries fed and paid, they must extract more territory and resources from the conquered territories. This will result in rebellions and unproductive labor, loss of trading partners, and loss of regional reputation. Blowback.
-The superior military technology will eventually leak, levelling the playing field. This will require arms escalation, which means too much budget directed towards military growth.
-Eventually the ruling government won't have the ability to pay its bills and lose the credibility to guarantee currency. Hyperinflation results.
-Once the homeland takes a downturn, regional governors in the conquered territories will act as independent fiefdoms and the empire collapses.

It's a pattern that has repeated in every historical empire. Macedonia, Rome, The Mongols, The Holy Roman Empire, The Byzantine, The Colonial Europeans, Meiji Japan, the USSR, and is currently happening to the USA.

With this kind of tech at this period, they probably won't need a professional standing army. Even a small skirmisher made out of few picked men would be enough to plan fear to the enemy.

This rifle can easily assassinate enemy leaders from far away, whether it's during open field battle or from the castle, and without command chain the enemy would have a hard time doing anything.

And it's not like ShizukOda need to direct everything by themselves. Making tributary states, whether by force submission or assisting the weaker sides in a conflict, is always a choice.

Also, I think the "leveling the playing field" only really come to play as an issue later if we assume that the enemy doesn't stretch themselves thin, fighting against strong, numerous, and experienced invaders, and also trying to conduct experiments to figure how steel and this new gun work all at the same time.

 

[SilverSour]

Massacre incoming

 

[ForTheJerusalem]

And you know what comes after unifying? COLONIZATION!

 

[Ebbelille]

....This girl is seriously a jack of all trades. It explained all her farming innovations with how she grew up, but how does she know so much about steel crafting that she recognized what I would have thought was a hockey puck, as Bio coke?

They've clearly strayed far afield from the beginning of the manga and her roots in agricultural schooling by this point. I've suspended my disbelief permanently for this manga, the alternate history is just too interesting and fun to bother about the incredulity of it all.

 

[Ebbelille]

im no gun expert. but that gun seem wrong to me, can we have a expert opinon?

- if it use a precusion cap(or tape) primer. should the gun powder be expose in the chamber using the muzzle-load system. And the paper cartridge only use as a container to store the round and power

- if it a separate paper cartridge and later the full metal cartridge use for breach loading. it need a intergated primer in the bullet (needle gun, chaspol) and needle (firing pin) to fire

- if it not have a intergated primer cartridge. can the precusion cap ignite the powder inside the paper fast enough?

- this could be a trapdor type gun where they cut up the back of the gun and place a breach block in. the prime cap replace with a piston and keep the cocking hammer. using a chaspol cartridge.

It could be solved with the cartridges constructed in such a manner that the breech closing rips the back end of the paper cartridge open. I'm still irked that they didn't show Shizuko placing a percussion cap on the nipple (which would be needed). I feel they are playing a little fast and loose with firearms technology.

 

[Ebbelille]

I do wonder how much of an advantage it would actually be if you don't have standardized, machined parts. Sure the design is superior to the guns the enemy has, but that hardly matters if you weapon (and ammo) production is bottlenecked by the handful of gunsmiths who have to make everything by hand. And god forbid if something breaks and those same smiths have to tailor made the parts by themselves.

This, 100%.
It would have been MUCH more sensible to create muzzle-loading rifled muskets (percussion-fired).
That's comparatively easy to make since you have basically 1 moving part and 1 spring and you basically don't have to worry about tolerances .
You still get a significant advantage in fire power. The manga claims that you can get 2 shots a minute with a matchlock, but IMO it's closer to 1.5 unless you want to run the risk of blowing yourself up. In battlefield conditions you'd be happy to get 1 shot a minute off. With a rifle-musket in the style of an american civil war-era Enfield or Springfield you can pretty reliably get 2-3 shots off a minute even while under high stress such as on the battlefield.
You still get a significant increase in range.
Also, In shizukos gun the breech is a moving part and that adds a level of complexity that severely limits production capacity. Had they gone with rifle-muskets they could be churning out 13 thousand rifles a year instead of 13 hundred. Now that would be era-changing.

 

[UnluckyGrape]

Steel!? this is like 3 tier tech skip

We SKIPPED A TECH, LUCKILY WE CAN RUSH IT FOR LIKE THREE TURNS

 

[gundulgondrong]

ware wa kangun waga teki wa

 

[outinthegardener]

I think the US invasion of afghanistan is a good example to refute your claims. Afghanistan was the culmination of decades of US efforts to control oil and gas reserves around the Caspian Sea, and get the ability to transport them without passing through Russia, Iran, or Turkey.

With this kind of tech at this period, they probably won't need a professional standing army. Even a small skirmisher made out of few picked men would be enough to plan fear to the enemy.

Behind a small group of skirmishers is a massive supply chain, a police force to resist blowback, the establishment of bases to house and defend everyone. While the US had troops on the ground, we also trained Afghans to police the territory on our behalf, and maintained expensive bases in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Bosnia. We deployed an equal force of contractors to fight, staff bases, and feed the troops.

Putting fear in the enemy also incites guerilla resistance. The taliban were once proxy soldiers armed to fight the USSR. Then we switched to arming the northern warlords, which turned on us. Many ended up joining the Taliban.

This rifle can easily assassinate enemy leaders from far away, whether it's during open field battle or from the castle, and without command chain the enemy would have a hard time doing anything.

In Afghanistan, instead of rifles, the US used Aerial Bombings. The Taliban organized into guerilla bands that even if we killed their leaders they still could launch attacks. Even after 20 years, once we withdrew the Taliban had the capacity to easily retake the country. Political blowback occurred as well; Afghanis did not like a foreign army dropping bombs on them (We killed more civilians than Taliban fighters to a large degree) nor did they like the mercenary contractors who acted like lawless thugs.

And it's not like ShizukOda need to direct everything by themselves. Making tributary states, whether by force submission or assisting the weaker sides in a conflict, is always a choice.

Like mentioned before, those tributary states are only loyal so far as we keep them fed. The Taliban turned on us, and the northern Afghan Warlords turned on us. The US provided billions in support to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and spend billions to maintain bases in the region. It's expensive as hell to make tributary states and it causes expensive blowback.

Also, I think the "leveling the playing field" only really come to play as an issue later if we assume that the enemy doesn't stretch themselves thin, fighting against strong, numerous, and experienced invaders, and also trying to conduct experiments to figure how steel and this new gun work all at the same time.

But it always becomes an issue later, because it's easier to decode enemy tech than to invent your own. There's also the likelihood that tributary militaries will turn. The US trained and armed the taliban in the 80's, they became disagreeable in the 90s, and became the enemy in 2003. Then the US trained and armed the northern warlords, who were immediately disloyal to the US empire.

 

[MangaRockRefugee]

 

[MangaRockRefugee]

And just like that, our cute little war criminal acquired a blank check. Just like how much Uncle Sam might give to Ukraine and Israel.

Let's be real, if 1960's USA could clown USSR this hard for this cheap, they'd sign away half their defence budget faster than you can say "Better dead than red"

 

[Grimmycoffee]

Behind a small group of skirmishers is a massive supply chain...........

Not necessarily, the Ancient Greeks for example manage to wage war without proper supply chains for a long time. Very little to no quartermaster or supply officers, etc. They make do by living off the land and buying stuffs from market that followed the army around.

Keep in mind, this was ancient warfare with pretty big number made out of militias from a small city state (compared to bigger kingdoms and empires). If an army this big can feed themselves with very little laid out logistic, then the small, picked gunners from the assumed unified Japan under ShizukOda should be able to do better.

The only thing these troops need are logistic for bullets, which is not much for the small number of troops I'm thinking of.

Also, I'm not just talking about assassinating enemy states' leaders. Officers in the field is also easy target for the gun, and ragtag group of mercenaries and militias with no clear hierarchy can't really do much.

The closest thing to policing back then can be done by the kingdoms or nobles they're backing, same with establishment of bases. An off-hand approach. Quite a lot of tributary states seem to be like this.

China-Japan is even more hands-off, the former having very little direct control over Japan despite the latter paying tributes for titles and economic benefits.

And no, I don't think Muhajidin is a tributary state under US, because (1)They got funds from many other nations , including China, Britan, and Pakistan. (2) I don't they ever really pay tributes to the US, at least not as direct submission as vassals or something along that line.

 

[totallytotally]

Super misleading chapter, as Japan already had steel, and that Tanegashima was made of it. Just poor sources and in low quantities.
Coke (cooked coal) is used in blast furnaces (the real actual tech upgrade) to make pure iron (and then steel) quickly, and in large (you could say industrial) quantities. Thus skipping the wasteful and slow iron sand Tatara smelting process.
Sengoku Bio-coke is a joke though, we are implementing this now and it has been hardly a decade since its adoption. Steel refinement continues to be a massive energy hog at all levels. How much of Japan are they deforesting to get the energy to mass produce essentially HQ charcoal DX? The bio in bio-coke means it comes from plant matter, not that it's eco to make it.
In a plausible reality, Shizuko would be another Brunel, a genius ahead of their time, but whose vision was thwarted by the harsh realities of her time's material science.

Dropped, for real this time.

 

[Nihmandra]

Shortly after Shizuko was banned from /feudaljapan for breaking RP