In a setting where humans are on the tech level of producing Snider-Enfield like rifles what military tech level should...

ehh, I can see elves having the technological edge in the middle age type setting, but as the world becomes more industrial I would think human's would start overtaking the elves. More men means more inventors making more products for more factories staffed by more laborers financed by more bankers. The elves low birthing rate would start working against them so much that even their stereotypical intelligence and length of experience wouldn't be able to compensate.

Here's my idea.
Tech levels are similar, but the way each manufacture their weapons is different.

Elves make their guns as handwork and they like to add shit like carvings on stocks and small talismans and such.

The dwarves prefer their guns more mass produced and function before form, still make comparatively masterfully guns.
Of course dwarven nobles have enough money to have custom built guns that have shit like gold and/or precious stones on them as well as carvings.

Elves never really struck me as the type to construct guns themselves, at least not as their primary weapon. At this point they would more likely put their stock on compound bows and use magic in order to enhance their properties, such as allowing non-crossbows to hold their arrows indefinitely. You'll probably get some like who make guns as a specialty, but they're still the minority as elven culture is extremely rigid and would take a while to respond to the transition of weapon types slowly as the majority of their marksmen have trained with their weapons of choice for longer than the gun has existed: it would seem counterproductive for them to ditch their weapons and have to relearn to fight. Expect them to toy with bows for decades after all other races have discarded them, constructing things like this:

youtube.com/watch?v=QS4RKoRyTik

Dwarves have probably done so much tech exchange with humanity that the majority of their proprietary technology is related to subterranian construction. They'd be investing more stock in automated boring machines and power tools, but their guns would be similar to what humanity is using, a bit modified to suit their stature.

Low birthrate barely matters when they can live centuries.

>dwarves
>mass production
I don't know where this is supposed to be coming from. While they are master craftsmen in many setting, it's never really a thing of cheap mass production. Their shit is so good because it's handmade, which takes time, care and a lot of individual skill.

Also I have no idea why the low birth rate in this kind of discussion only matters for elves when dwarves have the same problem.

living for centuries doesn't matter in the age of industrialized warfare.

If elves live an average of 400 years (low for many settings) that's still 10 times more than humans in mid XIX century.

That means humans would need to breed 10x faster for the same population level.

youtu.be/S1pcfn_KMnA?t=56s

It's not like war was less deadly in older times. Look at mongol empire kill count compared to earth population of that time.

It beats WW2.

no, war was decidedly less deadly in older times. The vast amount of casulties the mongols inflicted was due to their treatment of the populates post-battle.
Besides that, the point is that an artillery shell don't pay no mind to how old or how skilled you are.

Elves would be absolute monsters at operating artillery though because of superior eyesight and coordination.

but humans would have more of it staffed by more people.
Look to WWII and compare German artillery to American Artillery for a good comparison.

The real answer is that Elves would just be an army of Simo Hayhas

Elves would be germans.

That's bullshit comparison actually because US artillery had higher quality shells and proximity fuses.

The same, unless they're subjugated peoples. Seriously, drop "le elven bowman" and "le drunk axe dwarf" memes and think about the whole affair logically: if your neighbors have a technological edge, you adapt or die. Physique may play a role in certain tactics (the elves and their keen eyesight may emphasize snipers more than most, the strong orcs would utilize [properly timed] bayonet charges more frequently while the shorter dwarves may want to avoid them) but you don't just copypaste (misinterpretations of) Tolkien into vastly different settings. You start with environmental/biological factors and derive a culture from that, not vice versa.

I think the question that would first come to my mind is whether elves and dwarves remain in their traditional environments predominantly. If you had giant magic forests and tunnel networks (respectively) then both would likely be adept at small military engagements in 3D environments but worse at large scale engagements. They would also have to take care not to use technology that would damage trees or cause cave-ins (except when specifically desired).

Extended lifespan and low birth rates are also generally typical of both species, so every soldier is likely to be a heavily-armed elite with very few disposable troops other than mystic summons or constructs. Each soldier would have a long period where they are at peak combat performance physically, but would be difficult to replace. Since other races would probably be the reverse, they'd probably all come equipped with weapons that have a high rate of fire, range, and/or radius of effect (the conflict with not damaging environment would probably be one of the big challenges to overcome for them.

I could see Orks preferring to make use of their strength to carry heavier guns and more ammo. Like they may end up with a light machine gun as their standard weapon once that becomes viable.

Until then, they may still want to go for things that are easier to load and fire a lot of shots easily since ammo is easier to lug around. Hand cannons and blunderbusses that have large or numerous bullets would be likely

I mostly meant in regards to spotters and how the shells get sent on target.
Germans used designated spotters and the fire leader would do the math for each individual target and make fine tuned adjustments. American artillary could be called in by any man with a radio and they had charts they issued to fire leaders with all the math pre-done for rapid shelling.

Orcs also have small eyes and mediocre eyesight so they would be more into charging at the enemy with powerful shorter range guns.

That's assuming they can even get the industry necessary for mass produced guns running.

Doctrines are derived from institutional inertia, the needs of the military, and political pressure from the ruling government. Hence how 'blitzkrieg' was just schwerpunkt with extra speed and breakthrough in order to take out the Soviets before they could be drowned in men, or how the Pentomic Army was based around the belief that a small conventional force could use nuclear power to supplement all it's needs, or how the British Set Piece Battle was intended as a method of delivering decisive victories without attriting the already limited manpower reserves they had to prevent another WW1, or how Air-Land Battle was based on airpower as the method with which the US could remain capable of sufficiently slowing a Soviet attack while maintaining a limited presence in Europe due to political concerns preventing them from remaining at full mobilization and I'm kinda rambling but you get the point.

Physique doesn't matter for shit, unless you think that Japan and Britain's fondness for bayonets was due to their mighty physiques.

>Physique doesn't matter for shit, unless you think that Japan and Britain's fondness for bayonets was due to their mighty physiques.
We're talking about orcs and elves here though, not Japs and Bongs. The strength gap between the two could very well be significant enough. Of course it always depends on the setting, but in some settings the differences could be as extreme as comparing a frail skellington to a powerlifter.

If we assume racial differences in strength are less pronounced, then you're right about physique not mattering as much.

You mean Eldar?

>The elves low birthing rate would start working against them

Europe gained a lot from inventing spectacles allowing their smartest to keep reading and writing for longer.
Elves don't even age. An Elven scholar would be an absolute master of a field and make any given human look like a retard.
Since Elves don't really die off from old age you'd end up with a massively increasing population too.

Depends on so many factors that literally any answer can be equally valid if the author so chooses.
I could make up a setting that fits your description, but has dwarves and elves on different planets that don't interact with humans, making the tech level of humans irrelevant, and you can't say that's wrong.

You know the myth of the American Sniper? The Kentucky Long Rifle?

For the Elves, it isn't a myth. They really can kill you from outside of a mile. They really can shoot the wings off a fly at a hundred paces and leave it alive. Most military powerhouses DREAM of having an elite line infantry squadron like the Elves' skirmishers.

>Elves don't even age. An Elven scholar would be an absolute master of a field and make any given human look like a retard.
Since Elves don't really die off from old age you'd end up with a massively increasing population too.
that is until they encounter their first experience with Total War. Thats what I am trying to say is that their first experience with industrial age war will put them into a demographic spiral that would put Japan to shame and inevitably lead to many of the deaths of those Elven scholars when they have to start scraping the barrel with their conscription.

hell it took the soviet union decades to really recover from WWII. now imagine that your people are capable of having maybe one child every ten years.

Inevitably any conflict with an elven nation that leads to attrition would end in favor of Humans and if allowed to continue too long would lead to the complete destruction or at least balkanization of the elven nation.

Dwarves will stubbornly advance their traditional craft, moving in a separate design direction from humans at the same pace. When humans make rifles, dwarves will craft shields that can stand up to them. When humans build tanks, dwarves will craft hammers that can punch a hole through them. When humans build mechs, dwarves will craft power armour that lets them make strikes. Just take whatever fantasy dwarf equipment you can think of and raise the power level on it instead of getting creative.

Elves delve further into the past while other races advance technology. They might borrow the better ideas from humans now and then when it doesn't hurt their sensibilities, but if they need more power for war, they won't do it through technology. They'd open up ancient vaults, dig through old forbidden tomes and weaponize ancient magics from times before any living elf has seen. If that's not enough, they'll engineer more powerful magic from the research in their books.

I almost feel like as soon as total war becomes a thing, Elves will seek to be more like Switzerland or otherwise broker for peace if things don't go their way right away.

Granted, that depends a lot on what sort of enemy they're fighting, but if its a small territorial dispute, the elves could afford to simply give it up. Then they wait a few decades or even a century, slowly working to undermine that nation and waiting for a chance to annex it back with little issue.

Nuclear power plants are literally steam engines.

>technologically superior to even modern humans
>tech based on steam
Pick one, steampunk scrunt kid.

>ACTUALLY THINKING a small enough form factor can be achieved for a conventional nuclear reactor for application to everyday tasks
>ACTUALLY THINKING that thermal energy conversion is this efficient at producing usable power

Wherever you want them to be. I mean you could argue in favor of basically any direction. Elves having longer lives resulting in better tech due to higher education or lower tech due to resisting change. Dwarves developing better technology due to obsession with being the best, or avoiding firearms and sticking with crossbows due to smoke not dissipating effectively underground, or developing smokeless powder first due to the same issue.

Orcs are ripe for colonization, I think. That's how they'd get their guns.

like Africa!

>Mention of Snider-Enfields in Veeky Forums

Neat, I recently just purchased one.

Dwarves should have schizophrenic technology relative to the humans. Some things the dwarves are miles ahead of humans, but they refuse to abandon som unusual, obsolete technologies as well.
Elves into magitek

What about carrying machineguns around as if they were rifles?

Orcs are supermutants.

Arcanum.

That was my thought as well, though it is pretty reliant on either them inventing heavier rapid-fire weapons like that, or copying/stealing it from someone else.

As soon as someone invents a gatling gun one way or another though, Orcs are gonna be all over that.

Most artillery fire is indirect and not in line of site.

Dwarves would have superior artillery skills and probably use something like the Mosin Nagant but handmade and probably chambered in something like .50 calibre just because they're meatier and can do it. It'd be pretty ridiculous, but at the same time it's a very versatile rifle. Either that or the time and tested SMLE.

Humans would need to breed at least 20 times faster than elves to compensate for the difference in lifespan.

>In Unspecified Setting if X, then what about N and k?

Kill yourself

>Implying micro-reactors aren't a thing
>Implying they weren't tested extensively in early 60s
>Implying you need to worry about costs in a game world

Most of techniques for producing large amounts of electric energy known to humans are based on steam turbines, so what's your problem? Twisted panties?

I feel that for dwarves, the quip about how if all scientists were engineers we'd have perfect steam engines but no electricity would apply. Dwarves are expert craftmen and take great care in honing their designs to be as perfect as possible, but they're also staunchly traditionalist and unlikely to abandon proven designs and well calibrated empirical formulae for new and unproven ideas that might in theory work better if you spent a lot of time working on them.
If somebody else developed it and it was proven to be clearly superior to the way dwarves did it, they'd begrudgingly adopt the new technology, but expect to see a lot of technology that humans would consider outdated but still works well enough and is in some ways even superior to more modern methods (such as more reliable even if more time-consuming to produce).

Dwarves: like this, but bigger.
Elves: Dunno, they could go full "this is my rifle" with every soldier having their own unique weapon.

Over-all similar with different styles of firearms.

Humans, like everything they do, will be the base-line, the straight-man in their rifle designs. Human rifles are, for all intents and purposes, the same rifle that it was in our world.

Elves make weapons that look similar but are much different. Elves borrowed the design and mechanism of the rifle but have instead made, essentially, long-barreled wand-cannons. Elven rifles bullet shaped pieces of wood and rock enchanted for a single-use effect such as lightening, fire, love, sleep, etc. Different guns fire difference schools of magic. The guns are grown in molds from magic trees, making elven guns essentially very accurate wooden gun replicas. Only races, or members of races, containing a bit of arcane magic spark can use these guns.

Dwarven guns are mechanical masterpieces. While not more advances than human guns, dwarven guns succeed where historical ideas failed. Things like the turret rifle (pic related), explosive bullets, shrapnel guns, and other unrealistic mechanization are possible with dwarven engineering. There will be a bit more unrelatibility and more physical demand as the dwarven weapons are much more bulky and kick much harder. Also, while dwarves have long-range guns, they're very rare as they have little use of them on the whole.

Elves should still be "primitive" and use the same magic as always, magic should just no longer be overpowered as shit since physical weapons have kinda caught up.

>X develops new technology that nobody else has
>Y and Z don't bother trying to borrow, beg, or steal it, don't reverse-engineer it, don't utilise the new principles to innovate, etc
If it were anything like real technology, you wouldn't be able to keep it to yourself (especially vs an aggressive rival faction)

There's real-life cultures that don't have guns or have only gotten as far as using cheap shitty guns. Not that those are comparable to advanced civilisations like elves and dorfs.

Pretty much.

Elves don't use gunpowder weapons in some settings but that's limited to the earliest gunpowder weapons where it kind of makes sense since why would elves want shit accurate to 30m and only really useful for massed line infantry?

This brings to mind an unrelated question.

Archers and especially elven archers in a lot of settings use bows made of fucking metal rods and are capable of piercing armour with their arrows (which would, indeed, make early guns completely worthless, especially when you bring magic into the mix). So why are they usually portrayed as weak? It probably takes hundreds of pounds of draw strength to do that, if they went 1 on 1 with a regular run of the mill barbarian melee fighter they could definitely just grab him and pull his limbs off. Obviously that would take a bit of time so they would still be better off shooting against groups, but damn.

>So why are they usually portrayed as weak?
They aren't, usually. I can't think of many settings in which elves actually have less STR, they most of the time have less CON.

Maybe it's just the aesthetic representation that bothers me, they're always drawn as beanpoles when they would be fucking RIPPED

silmarils

>Humans would need to breed at least 20 times faster than elves to compensate for the difference in lifespan.
What in the fuck kinda math did you use to come to that conclusion? Why would humans need to breed faster to make up for shorter life spans? Actually, how in the fuck do life spans play into this at all? Just because elves live longer doesn't mean they'll innately have a greater population than humans. Hell, because elves have slower breeding rate than humans, elves would innately have LESS of a population than humans.

Lrn 2 common sense faggot

They're dwarves, bud. That absolutely beautiful trinket you have was pumped out by an artisen in a few minutes with a few thousand others that day to be sell fodder.

I don't know of any setting that does this.

I like the idea of each elven soldier having their own handcrafted masterwork rifle, made by folding steel over 9000 times and decorated with intricate filigree and enamel pictures. They're depicted as master craftsmen after all, and live long enough to perfect all the trades.

youtu.be/rFOArspOoHo?t=68

Do you think Elves would be fine with using railguns/magnetic propulsion?

They're quiet, clean and can resemble magic to a degree.

I'd assume they would also be using guns at this point, but they'd prefer air rifles to black powder ones because their hearing is sensitive and it suits their style of warfare.

Remember, elves' chief disadvantage in war is that there simply aren't that many of them, and they cannot replace losses easily. Their chief advantages are mastery of terrain, a high level of individual aptitude, and officers who may have centuries of experience.

Thus, for elves, the only real way to engage any enemy capable of fielding artillery and foot in the tens of thousands is to fight them logistically through the cutting of supply lines and defense in depth. Elvish infantry tactics would resemble the Finnish Motti--the idea being that the ideal time to attack the enemy is while they are advancing in column through your territory--ideally when they are broken up by terrain. Chopping them into isolated, surrounded chunks with a rapid attack, and then besieging them until they starve, run out of ammunition, or surrender, is a good way to compensate for a lack of numbers and heavy artillery.

Silent air rifles like the Giradoni would be excellent for this. It also makes sense that elves would like hand-made artisan weapons more than factory produced guns, this lets them get the best of both worlds.

>railguns
>quiet
where the fuck did you get that idea? "clean" can mean a lot of things so at least that's more ambiguous, but you're talking about something that accelerates a piece of hot metal to several times the speed of sound and unless it's made to military grade has a tendency to knock pieces of itself off every time it fires that have to be reattached, not having a powder charge does not make a railgun quiet