Alternate History...

[Joshua M. Smith]

How do you feel history would have been affect if the Foster slug had been introduced when the smooth bore musket was in widespread use among the infantry?

The muskets in use by, say, the English were around the same bore diameter as a 12 gauge shotgun.

While a round ball shot from a military musket quickly veered off course, the Foster slug, rainbow-like trajectory notwithstanding, could hold an 8" (on the outside) group at 100 yards, giving it almost the accuracy of a rifle. Volley fire would not have been necessary to hit enemy targets, but rather, the individual soldier could have picked out his own target rather than relying on chance to do it for him.

Modern smooth bore slug guns can be effective on deer out to 200 yards with Foster slugs, though they are generally held to within 100 to 150 yards due to their trajectories.

Given that most modern battles (among infantry at least) are fought within 200 yards and our assault rifles are designed around this number, it would seem that the development of the rifle would have been affected in some way.

How do you view this? Do you believe the rifle would have remained a curiosity, or do you think it would have developed in the same manner regardless of an early Foster-type slug introduction? If you believe the development of the rifle would have been retarded, in what ways do you see the evolution of the individual weapon, both military and non-military, to have changed in this hypothetical scenario? On the other hand, if you believe we would be using rifled arms today, do you imagine there would be any fundamental differences between what we have now and what would have been had in the hypothetical time line?

I'm going somewhere with this... really.

Josh <><

 

[BattleChimp Potemkin]

This Foster stuff would have just extended the range of combat slightly. The powder of the day was inconsistent at best, not to mention inconsistencies of the individual's bullets and mold type.

Not sure if it would affect round development today. Its an advanced design for the time period (remember, folks were usually casting their own boolits in fires). A complex mold (for the time period) like the Foster would have been an industrial advancement for the time (one, complex mold, not impossible though, but also, engineering for mass production of this new round).

Maybe an advancement in bullet design. Rifling would be introduced anyways (due to fouling of the powder at the time), however, potentially SABOT would be in more demand now. Shotgunners would have had sabot as an option far earlier in my opinion. History accepting smoothbores for a longer period before "obselecence" would have definitely affected sabot production and development. Guns today would probably be more like the modern tank gun than our trust rifles.

 

[ARKIESTEEL]

This might have slowed down the main stream use of rifles but the idea of a grooved barrel didnt come about to make a bullet spin it first cam out to give a place for the fouled powedr to go. The spinning of the bullet came from non perfect grooved barrels so I think that we would have seen rifles over take smooth bore about at the same pace. I could be wrong on this but I think that I am right