Delta Force
Banned
Joseph Whitworth was a British inventor who made his fortune by developing techniques for producing high precision surfaces. He also developed hexagonal barrels and ammunition for rifles and artillery (even testing an 80 pounder cannon), but they were not adopted by the British military because Enfield rifles cost for times less and Armstrong artillery was favored. His weapons did have significantly greater accuracy and range compared to their contemporaries (comparable to rifles and artillery decades later), and a few rifles and artillery pieces saw service in the American Civil War.
My question is what kind of impact there could have been on the war if Whitworth's armaments had been more widely adopted by the CSA, such as the CSA purchasing the machinery for the Whitworth rifles and 12 pounder cannons (no one else was buying the weapons so it is not like the British military would have any grounds to protest) and financing the development of larger cannons for their forces. Perhaps they could also purchase machine tools from his machinery business to allow for hexagonal rifling to be applied to other designs being produced?
As for getting the machinery itself through the blockade, that can be handwaved for the purposes of this.
Here is a link to some contemporary reporting on tests of his artillery weapons:
http://www.nytimes.com/1860/03/21/n...hitworth-s-newly-invented-breach-loading.html
My question is what kind of impact there could have been on the war if Whitworth's armaments had been more widely adopted by the CSA, such as the CSA purchasing the machinery for the Whitworth rifles and 12 pounder cannons (no one else was buying the weapons so it is not like the British military would have any grounds to protest) and financing the development of larger cannons for their forces. Perhaps they could also purchase machine tools from his machinery business to allow for hexagonal rifling to be applied to other designs being produced?
As for getting the machinery itself through the blockade, that can be handwaved for the purposes of this.
Here is a link to some contemporary reporting on tests of his artillery weapons:
http://www.nytimes.com/1860/03/21/n...hitworth-s-newly-invented-breach-loading.html