Weaponry
The standard rifle of the Spanish is the .43 calibre Remington Rolling Block Rifle which was purchased from the American company of E. Remington and Sons of Ilion, New York or produced, under license, by the Spanish Company of Fabrica de Armas de Oviedo. It is a breech-loading rifle that was first produced from the mid-1860s and was adopted by Spain in 1871. This has been issued to all regular Spanish troops and to the Tercio de Extranjeros but not to any Martians.
Before the introduction of the breech loader the Spanish had used a series of percussion rifles that were nearly exact copies of the English Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle. The Spanish Modelo 1857 Rifle Musket, as it is called, fires a .58 calibre round and is a rifled muzzle loader. Some of these surplus rifles have been transported to Mars for issue to local colonial troops but they have not widely issued yet due to concerns over the quality and reliability of Villa Real’s local soldiers. The Tropas Nómadas de Marte are one of the rare units to use them.
The standard Spanish pistol is the Orbea Nº7 Revolver which was a direct copy of the Smith & Wesson Model 3 pistol. It was a single action, 6 round revolver and fired a .44 calibre round. This is very common, especially with sky sailors.
The standard artillery piece is the Modelo 1878 field gun which is a Spanish version of the Krupp 9cm Kanone C/73 which is a breech loaded cannon firing 3.5 inch rounds. They are in service with the three artillery batteries deployed to Villa real and on several of the sky ships. This design is quite common being used by Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Spain and other smallernations.
Hotchkiss revolving cannon is a rotating multi-barrel weapon that in varying sizes from 1-pounder (37mm), 3-pounder (47mm) up to (6-pounder) 57mm. They were designed as naval guns to defend large ships against smaller attack craft like torpedo boats but were found to be excellent for aerial combat as well. The Spanish authorities on Mars have purchased as many of these weapons as were available on the open market and have fitted them to their sky ships with impressive results.
The Nordenfelt gun was a multiple barrel organ gun that had a row of up to twelve barrels. It was fired by pulling a lever back and forth and ammunition was gravity fed through chutes for each barrel. It was produced in a number of different calibres from rifle up to 25 mm (1 inch). Developed by a Swedish inventor and produced in England the gun was adopted by the Royal Navy, amongst others, and is again used by Spanish sky ships on Mars with great success. The five barrelled version is the most common with Aerial flyers.
The Gatling gun is a hand-driven machine gun that consists of multiple barrels revolving around a central axis and is capable of being fired at a rapid rate. It was invented in 1861 and was used in the American Civil War and has been in service since. Spanish versions fire the .43 round and but the ones at Villa Real were purchased independently and are the heavier 1-inch naval versions which, while they are very effective, make ammunition re-supply an issue. Their effectiveness with the sky ships has made them popular weapons.
