Disclaimer – Everything either does belong to Joss or it should. I’m just borrowing his shiny ‘verse for a while.

The 21st Lancers belong to the British Army so I’m borrowing them too. I hope they don’t mind.

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“Several commentators on the war have asked how something as seemingly trivial as a new rifle could have such a supposed effect on the strategic level and it is often claimed to be nothing more than hyperbole at best. They really shouldn’t be so dismissive or surprised, it’s not like it’s the first time it’s happened.

In the War of 1866 the Austrians were defeated in only six weeks, their Army devastated in the field by their Prussian opponents. Much like the Campaigns of 2522 and 2523 it was a mere rifle that accomplished much of this victory. Whilst the Austrian Infantry went to war carrying muzzle-loading rifles their victorious Prussian foe was equipped with breechloaders which could be both easily fired from a prone position and with a far greater rate of fire. The rifle changed the way battles were fought tactically and the Austrians couldn’t adjust to the new situation fast enough to develop an effective response.

Where it was the Dreyse Zündnadelgewehr or “Needle-Gun” that was the technological innovation that defeated the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1866, so it was the Ryder Gauss-Rifle which humbled the Infantry of the Anglo-Sino Alliance in 2522. By the time the Federals developed an effective tactical response to counter the GR-21, based upon massed suppressive fire rather than finesse, the Independents ‘New Model Army’ was already perfecting its combined arms doctrine and another form of mass-driver based weaponry, the railgun armed Hovertanks of the Independent Heavy Armour Brigades, was making a serious impact on the battlefield both figuratively and of course quite literally.’

Ryder’s Rifles – The GR-21 and the Second War of Independence (Hera Free Press 2030)

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Gallic Plains – Toulouse – 2522AD

The harsh cracks of Gauss-Rifl