Teillard-Pauly Rifle (T-1):
Caliber: .45
Weight: 9 lb.
Range: 800-1000 yards effective, 1500 maximum
Rate of Fire: 8-10 rounds per minute
Operation: Turn-bolt with obturator ring
Field trials in 1820 produced strong demands from the commanders in North Africa for more of the new rifles. The design was not perfect; the cartridges required moderately careful handling, very rapid fire could produce "cook-off," and the machining required for mass production of the weapon stretched the limits of available technology. After a time the brass cup became brittle and inelastic; the tube then had to be unscrewed (with a special wrench kept in a compartment beneath the buttplate of the rifle) and replaced. The advantages were so overwhelming, however, that by the mid-1820s the Draka armed forces were completely reeqnipped with the new weapon.
Teillard himself was granted a commendation, 50,000 aurics prize-money, and a 4,000-acre plantation in the Cap Bon area of Tunisia. After a further productive decade (during which he developed the world's first practical revolver and was instrumental in organizing the Diskarapur Technological Institute), he retired to his estate to breed horses and experiment with viticulture. (1) After the adoption of the Teillard-Pauly rifle, only minor improvements were made for the next thirty years. The next breakthrough was the development in the 1840s of techniques for cheap mass-production of seamless brass tubing; this was the result of improvements in automotive steam engines, but had a military application. West and Central Africa were being conquered, and the hot wet climate was having unfortunate effects on the permeable cartridge of the T-1; also, repeated attempts to design a workable repeating rifle had broken down on the fragility of the T-1's ammunition. A drawn-brass cartridge was perfected in 1847, and the opportunity was taken to further reduce the caliber of the weapon. The feed mechanism was a steel box beneath the bolt, holding eight rounds and with a Z-shaped spring attached to a riser plate beneath the ammunition. Moving forward, the bolt "stripped" a round out of the lips of the magazine and chambered it. After firing, the bolt was turned, grasping the cartridge with a wedge-shaped extractor on the bolt face and withdrawn. As the bolt withdrew, so did the empty cartridge case, striking a milled "shoulder" and being flung out of the rifle. With the bolt left back, the magazine was exposed and could be reloaded, initially with individual rounds and later with clips of four rounds in a beveled zinc strip holder.
Footnote 1.
His son, William Teillard, was the author of Ravens in A Morning Sky, the first notable Draka novel, as well as other works, and his granddaughter Cynthia Teillard played an instrumental part in the campaign forewomen's suffrage.
Performance was as follows:
T-2 Rifle
Caliber: .40
Weight: 9.5 lb.
Range: 1000 yards effective, 1800 maximum
Rate of Fire: 10-12 rounds per minute
Feed System: Fixed box, 8 rounds
Operation: Turn-bolt
With the T-2, the black-powder rifle had reached its ultimate refinement. The disposable cartridge helped to reduce the heating problems endemic to earlier models, and also removed fouling from the chamber of the rifle; it was also virtually unaffected by water. The only remaining serious problems were those inherent in the black-powder propellant: fouling of the barrel, requiring frequent cleaning (difficult in the heat of battle), and the large output of smoke, which disclosed the firer's position and could blanket an entire battlefield.
The T-2 proved its worth in the final conquest of the interior of Africa, and in the two major overseas expeditions of the 1850s, the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. In the first, Draka infantry equipped with T-2's repeatedly savaged far larger Russian forces armed with a mixture of muzzle-loading and single-shot breech-loading rifles. In India, the prompt intervention of 20,000 Draka troops saved the British position. (These conflicts also taught the Draka valuable tactical lessons, particularly concerning the necessity for dispersed formations and the obsolescence of cavalry shock action.)
Machine-Guns:
The Gatling Gun
Richard Gatling (born 1818, Maney's Neck, North Carolina; died 1905, Archona, Archona Province) was a Southern-born inventor. His first career was in the field of agricultural machinery (his seed-drills were ingenious and widely used). His second began in the late 1840s, when he developed the first version of the ten-barreled crank-operated machine-gun that later made his name famous. Gatling failed to interest the American government in his invention, and went to London in the spring of 1850 to test the European waters. He found little interest, but happened to meet (in a City chop-house) a junior member of the staff of the unofficial Draka embassy, Marius de Witt, who had worked in the Naysmith Machine Tool Combine's design section in Diskarapur.
De Witt interested his superiors in Gatling's designs, and he was encouraged to move to Diskarapur. There, in cooperation with engineers from the Naysmith and Ferrous Metals Combines, he quickly perfected his designs. The new metallic cartridge proved ideal for this use, and a reliable weapon with a rate of fire in excess of 600 rounds per minute was quickly produced. General issue to the Draka armed forces began in 1855, and Gatling guns were used with devastating effect in the Indian Mutiny.
The T-2 in the American Civil War
The next major test of the T-2 came, oddly enough, in the American Civil War. While relations with the US had always been rather chilly, many Draka had family ties with the Southern states; in addition there were ideological links, strengthened in the 1830-1860 period as both the South and the proto-Domination became conscious of their isolation in an increasingly bourgeois world. Accordingly, when the war broke out, Draka sympathy was overwhelmingly pro-Confederate. Direct intervention was impossible; the Domination was still formally part of the British Empire, and had only recently acquired "Dominion" status, with full control of the Executive branch of government. Furthermore, the Draka had no navy to speak of; however, they did have shipyards capable of turning out very modern steel-hulled steamships. Draka yards built commerce-raiders for the Confederate government, and Draka and miscellaneous European volunteers and mercenaries manned them. Draka blockade runners funneled huge amounts of aid into the Confederate ports.
The American armed forces had started the war with the Hall-Springfield rifle, a percussion-cap, single-shot breechloader with a lever action sealed by a Teillard-style brass obturator. Cheap, simple, rugged and easy to maintain, this was an excellent weapon of its type, and both sides used it as the predominant infantry arm. The Confederacy also received substantial numbers of T-2's, enough to arm all its cavalry and many of its elite infantry formations (e.g., the Stonewall Brigade). These— together with the thousands of Gatling guns and hundreds of Meercat armored steam warcars, cast-steel artillery pieces from the forges of Diskarapur, tinned food from the Cape, and cloth from the mills of Alexandria—were instrumental in prolonging the Confederacy's doomed struggle against the superior numbers and industrial resources of the North. Not until 1866 did Richmond fall, and the North lost more than 700,000 dead in the process.
Smokeless Powder and the T-3/T-4
Mining had always been an important part of the Draka economy, and when the Swede Alfred Huskqvist (b. 1820, Uppsala, d. 1890, Kenia province) (2) perfected his method of stabilizing nitroglycerin by absorption, it was quickly adapted as the main explosive in the Domination's mines. Dynamite (as the new compound was called) exploded far too readily to be used as a propellant, but proved to be very suitable as a bursting-charge in shells. After settling in the Domination, Huskqvist developed a mixture of nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose that could be extruded into various shapes, and which gave a much more controlled "burn" than black powder. The new compound was patented in 1872, and known variously as "cordite" (from the string-shaped pieces initially used), 'white powder' (from its color) and, usually, "smokeless" powder. The War Directorate immediately noted the superiority of the new propellant (less foulin
g to build up in the chamber and barrel, no smoke to give away the rifleman's position, higher velocity, and flatter trajectory). The first attempt at use was the T-3, in which double-base smokeless powder was substituted for the original 250-grain load of compressed black powder.
Footnote 2. Huskqvist settled on a coffee plantation in Kenia province, and the Huskqvist family have remained as Landholders on the estate ever since. Huskqvist's daughter, Karen Huskqvist, was the author of the noted Into Africa.
Performance was as follows:
T-3 Rifle
Ciliber: .40
Weight: 9.8 lb.
Range: 1500 yards effective, 2200 maximum
Rate of Fire: 10-12 rounds per minute
Feed System: Fixed box, 8 rounds
Operation: Turn-bolt
However, there were serious problems, and the T-3 was withdrawn from service within four years. Recoil was excessive, and the velocity so high that the bullet tended to melt in the barrel, lining it with smears of lead. The rifling also tended to "strip" the exterior of the bullet.
Design studies were undertaken, and the opportunity used to redesign the service rifle from the ground up. A smaller-caliber weapon was used, since it was obvious that the higher velocity reduced the need for a large bullet to achieve severe wounds. The shape of the bullet was redesigned (a "boat-tail" to reduce drag), the round itself was made of lead swagged into a jacket of harder alloy (except for the nose, left bare to expand inside the target), and the feed mechanism was altered to a detachable clip with 10 rounds, which made reloading easier under battle conditions.
T-4 Rifle
Calibre: 7.5 mm x 60 mm
Weight: 9 lb.
Range: 2000 yards effective, 2500 maximum
Rate of Fire: 10-12 rounds per minute
Feed System: Detachable box, 10 rounds
Operation: Turn-bolt
The T-4 was the weapon used by the Draka armed forces during the Anglo-Russian War of 1879-1882, and proved to be a war-winner; simple, light, rugged, and very hard-hitting. Widely copied in Europe (e.g., the German Mausers of 1888 and 1898), it remained standard issue until 1906.
Automatic and Self-Loading Weapons
While the Gatling gave excellent service, it was inevitably large, bulky, and heavy, and usually mounted on a modified field-gun carriage or steel tripod. In vehicle mounts with an exterior power source its very high rate of fire and reliability made it nearly ideal, but for infantry service it had severe limitations.
After the adoption of smokeless powder, the Draka Gatlings were modified to fire the new round, but it was obvious that new possibilities were opened by the new propellant—especially by its reduced waste residue and the more efficient "long push" that its slower burn gave as compared to black powder.
The first application was in a heavier weapon, a 25 mm automatic cannon designed for armored-vehicle use and as an antiairship defense. Developed by Charles Manson of the Army Technical Section in 1882-86, it used a form of blowback operation, combined with advanced primer ignition. The breechblock was flanked by two metal arms, themselves attached to a strong coil spring in a sheath around the lower barrel of the weapon. When released, the block was pulled forward by the spring, stripping a shell out of the metal-link feed belt and firing it slightly before reaching the full-forward position. The recoil force thus had to stop the forward intertia of the breech, then move it backward against the mass of the breechblock, the two flanking arms, and the force of the coil spring.
While efficient, the mechanism was not directly transferable to small arms. It did inspire a good deal of experimentation, and in 1890 Dr. Alexandra Tolgren, of the Shahnapur Technological Institute, made the first serious application of the gas-delayed blowback principle which was to be the foundation of Draka small-arms design for two generations.
The Tolgren automatic pistol used a rimless modification of the standard 10 x 15 mm smokeless-powder pistol round adopted in 1881. The feed device was a 12-round staggered box clip in the grip. Operation was as follows: the bolt, which was machined to wrap around the barrel on three sides, ran forward, chambered a round and fired when the trigger was pulled. Above the barrel was a short cylinder, the rear end of which was sealed. A gas port was drilled through to the barrel, and a piston-head and rod were inserted in the tube forward of the port. The operating rod ran forward through a further, slotted portion of the tube which contained a coil-spring, and at the forward end was fastened to two steel pins that ran in grooves back along the outside of the gas tube and attached to the bolt.
At rest, the spring held the breech sealed. When fired, the recoil of the weapon began to blow the bolt backward, against the force of the coil spring and the inertia of the bolt and operating rods. These alone would not have sufficed to keep the breech sealed, but as the bullet fired, high-pressure gas filled the tube above the barrel and prevented the piston-head from recoiling. Once the bullet had left the muzzle, the pressure in the cylinder dropped and the piston traveled backwards, forcing the remaining gas into the barrel. The bolt recoiled, then moved forward again as the coil spring expanded, stripping another round from the clip and repeating the cycle.
Tolgren Automatic Pistol, model 1890:
Caliber: 10 mm x 15 mm
Weight: 2.6 lb.
Range: 50 yards effective, 100 maximum
Rate of Fire: 60 rounds per minute, theoretical
Feed System: Detachable box in grip, 12 rounds
Operation: Gas-delayed blowback, semi-automatic.
The gas-delayed blowback system proved to give a reliable operation, particularly after it became possible to chrome-plate internal parts subject to gas-wash.
In 1891, a design team from the Technical Section decided that the Tolgren action could be scaled-up to produce a "machine pistol"—a portable, automatic short-range weapon suitable for police and close-quarter military use.
Machine Pistol Mk. I, model 1891:
Caliber: 10 mm x 15 mm
Weight: 7.5 lb. (with collapsible steel stock)
Range: 150 yards effective, 200 maximum
Rate of Fire: 600 rounds per minute, theoretical
Feed System: Detachable box in grip, 35 rounds (75-round snail drum for special roles)
Operation: Gas-delayed blowback, selective fire.
This proved a great success—although somewhat over-elaborate, as European experience in the Great War showed that a simple blowback weapon with a heavier bolt would do quite satisfactorily. It should be noted that the Draka armed forces initially found little role for the machine-pistol/ submachine-gun, since current tactical doctrine envisaged infantry combat at greater ranges. The Draka War Directorate issued it fairly extensively to personnel for whom a full-sized rifle was inconvenient: armored vehicle crews, gunners, and the women's auxiliary branch. The Security Directorate found it much more useful, and equipped about one third of their Order Police with it. No European power showed any interest until after the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.
In 1900 it was decided to develop a full-power semiautomatic rifle. The Tolgren action was adopted; there was initially some doubt that a system without positive mechanical locking of the bolt could operate using a powerful full-bore rifle cartridge, but experiments proved the contrary. A notable feature was the semi-closed bolt; at rest, the bolt was set slightly back from the closed position. When the trigger was pulled, the firing pin struck the primer and the bolt was simultaneously freed to complete its run forward; this absorbed a considerable share of the recoil and made it possible to build a very light action. The resulting weapon, adopted for general service in 1906 and standard issue until 1936, was the T-5.
T-5 Rifle
Caliber: 7.5 mm x 60 mm
Weight: 9.7 lb.
Range: 2000 yards effective, 2500 maximum
Rate of Fire: 25 rounds per minute, theoretical
Feed System: Detachable box, 15 rounds
Operation: Gas-delayed blowback, semi-automatic.
 
; The T-5 was produced in enormous quantity, over 11,000,000 being turned out during its period of general issue; no substantial modifications were made, apart from minor alterations to simplify manufacture. The action worked very smoothly, and the advanced primer ignition and semi-elastic "gas cushion" effect of the delayed blowback gave minimal recoil. The result was a rifle that was very pleasant to fire, nearly as accurate as its bolt-action predecessor, and had twice the firepower. In fact, the T-5 proved to be another classic weapon, its only drawback being the extensive machining necessary for manufacture. In the field, it gave the Draka infantry a density of firepower none of their opponents could match, particularly in combination with its companion-piece, the SAW-1.
The Technical Section team that designed the T-5 also saw an opportunity to develop the first really portable machine-gun. Simply modifying the trigger-mechanism of the T-5 gave an automatic weapon, but magazine capacity was too small, the barrel tended to catastrophic overheating (and attendant cook-off), and the weapon was violently unstable in full automatic mode.
Modifications followed. A heavy barrel was fitted, with a carrying handle and quick-change facility, the forestock of the rifle being replaced with a slotted metal guard and grip. A bipod was attached to the gas-regulator, a straight-line butt and pistol grip was fitted, and the operating mechanism was made more robust. In addition, a pawl-and-ratchet belt-drive device was installed, with provision for quick conversion to magazine feed. The "Squad Automatic Weapon, Mark I" could then take the standard disintegrating link belt feed (usually in 75-round belts packed in a box that clipped beneath the weapon), or 15 or 30-round box magazines inserted from the top. Specifications were as follows: