Valcas Ten Vaul Rifled Cannon By Imperator-Zor Watch

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House Valcas is one of the Great Houses of the State of Valnothron, a powerful merchant house owning a large trade fleet as well as a significant section of the Valnothron's shipyards and numerous other enterprises either directly or through its various client houses and proxy organizations abroad (some even in human held territories). Over the last decade it's standing has received a boost by financing spies to infiltrate Infrastructure and return with blueprints, examples of machinery and in a few cases, kidnapped Engineers. Among the areas in which this had the most pronounced effect was in the matter of artillery. Though replication of the steel barreled breechloading cannons used by the Infrastructural Navy has faced numerous complications, they never the less have managed to devise and deploy a large number of substantially improved cannons.



Leaving aside a few test batches, the first guns of this type were made in 32 IA using a combination of cast iron and wrought iron to reinforce the weapon's breech, thus reducing the weight of a gun while still allowing it to use a considerable charge of black powder. Improvements in furnace design and steam driven mechanized bellows had improved productivity but the main breakthrough was in casting the central component as a single piece and then boring out the barrel. Similar machines were used to rifle the barrels, allowing for a greater degree of accuracy. The maximum effective range of the previous generation of Drow Cannons of this caliber (against large stationary targets) was about a kilometer, these improvements increased that to three kilometers. The common Ten Vaul (5.9kg) model pictured above weighs 0.8 tonnes and is used by both naval and ground forces.



These cannons also use an improved range of ordance. Among these are cylindro-concial cannon-'balls' which have superior areodynamic performance when compared to their earlier predecessors. Some of these have been outfitted with steel tips as anti-armor weapons. There is also experimentation going with using these cannons to fire explosive shells.



Initially orders for these new weapons were comparatively limited, while the guns were easier to build and there was interest there was some conservatism and skepticism on the subject of rifled artillery (more specifically fears that rifling would increase loading times under battlefield conditions) and the fact that there was already a surplus of older cannon in storage. Rifling existing guns (a process which had been going on since 28 IA on a small scale) and models was more profitable for the first two years of production. The first defeat against Infrastructure at the onset of the Escort War soon showed that there was a need for improved artillery and so the number of orders house Valcas received for new guns increased tenfold overnight, both to replace the guns on existing ships and as weapons for newer vessels. In addition orders in their home state, Valcas foundries also recieved orders from Janilonas, Hansoliath and Cendoliath. Orders were high enough that an expansion on House Valcas's colonial foundry begun to provide these new guns directly to shipbuilders in the Colonies. Other Drow states and houses have been scrambling to develop artillery of similar quality. While they have had some success the initial lead in development still means that for the moment House Valcas still has a disproportionately large share of that market.



Never the less while these new cannons are a considerable improvement over their predecessors they are still are outclassed by Infrastructural artillery in terms of firepower, range, rate of fire and accuracy. But regardless, House Valcas continues experimentation in it's attempts to match Infrastructural artillery on a gun to gun basis.

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