Black Smoke system?

[Topaz]

Regarding the Black Smoke weapon:

Wells is pretty thin on the description of the actual hardware used for the Black Smoke.

The gun/launcher is described only, as I recall, as a "thick black tube." He describes the projectile itself as "clumsy" and "whirling over the trees." It "smashes upon impact; it did not explode."

I'm thinking that this all describes an unrifled gun/launcher of some sort, since the description of a "whirling" projectile sounds like it's tumbling. Useful for short-range only, and not very accurate, but then again, look at the payload! I envision something drum-like and simple, rather than shaped like a traditional bullet or artillery shell.

The gun has a loud report upon launching the projectile, so I'm guessing it's not a railgun or somesuch. Compressed air? Light gas gun? This is all speculation, of course, but it makes me curious.

What do you think?

[malfunkshun]

i don't remember the exact text, but i'm pretty sure that wells described the black smoke as being propelled by a rocket powered canister

so, i always invisioned the black smoke launchers as something like bazookas

[Topaz]

Hmmmm. I checked back in the book and don't see the part that suggests they're rocket-powered.

Would you post up the relevant quote? Perhaps I'm missing something.

[Gerkinman]

i thought it might have been like when you turn on a hose without holding it....the tube goes everywhere spraying water in all directions, just the martians one was alot shorter and moved a decent amount slower then a hose...

[lanceradvanced]

Topaz said:

Would you post up the relevant quote? Perhaps I'm missing something.

"The Martians are able to discharge enormous clouds of a black and poisonous vapour by means of rockets. They have smothered our batteries, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbledon, and are advancing slowly towards London, destroying everything on the way. It is impossible to stop them. There is no safety from the Black Smoke but in instant flight."

If you look at my avatar, you can see the design I settled on for the smoke launcher, a thick tube with a spiked muzzle, with a coil magizine for the black smoke canisters at the end.

Since the book describes the canisters being launched with a loud report, but no smoke or flame, I took them to be somewhat of a gauss rifle/railgun/mass driver type projectile launcher, the loud report, coming from either air preceding the projectile out of the tube, or the shot itself breaking the sound barrier.

[malfunkshun]

well, the quote you just posted says thay they are discharged by means of rockets. flame is implied... when one imagines a rocket, one would naturally assume that there would be flame. no need to mention flame specifically when the word 'rocket' has already been used as a description. seems pretty cut and dried to me that these black smoke canisters had rocket motors attached to them, like rocket propelled grenades or missiles.

[lanceradvanced]

malfunkshun said:

well, the quote you just posted says thay they are discharged by means of rockets. flame is implied... when one imagines a rocket, one would naturally assume that there would be flame. no need to mention flame specifically when the word 'rocket' has already been used as a description. seems pretty cut and dried to me that these black smoke canisters had rocket motors attached to them, like rocket propelled grenades or missiles.

But that's the news dispatch to the general public, that implies they're rockets, it's hearsay at best... I provided it because it's the one place in the book where the smoke launcher is refered to as a "rocket"

In the next chapter the Narrator directly observes the launch, it's a diffrent story...

Then, after an interminable time, as it seemed to us, crouching and peering through the hedge, came a sound like the distant concussion of a gun. Another nearer, and then another. And then the Martian beside us raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy report that made the ground heave. The one towards Staines answered him. There was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation.

I was so excited by these heavy minute-guns following one another that I so far forgot my personal safety and my scalded hands as to clamber up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury. As I did so a second report followed, and a big projectile hurtled overhead towards Hounslow. I expected at least to see smoke or fire, or some such evidence of its work. But all I saw was the deep blue sky above, with one solitary star, and the white mist spreading wide and low beneath. And there had been no crash, no answering explosion. The silence was restored; the minute lengthened to three.

[malfunkshun]

ok, maybe you have a point there

[Gerkinman]

lets not forget when someone says Rocket you have to think Rocket in a victorian way, rocket is a term like projectile and missile. it can be almost any launching object.

[malfunkshun]

Gerkinman said:

lets not forget when someone says Rocket you have to think Rocket in a victorian way, rocket is a term like projectile and missile. it can be almost any launching object.

well, i don't exactly agree with you there... there was a such thing as rockets back then, there have been for thousands of years. i think you were right though about the article in the paper though, it was probably 2nd hand info and not entirely accurate

oops i thought i was talking to lanceradvanced. nevermind gerkin

[Gerkinman]

a case of the old chinese whispers

[Topaz]

Malf is right about rockets. Most of the armies of the major world powers used artillery rockets in one form or another as far back as the eighteenth century. The Chinese, of course, can recount their use for over a thousand years.

lanceradvanced said:

If you look at my avatar, you can see the design I settled on for the smoke launcher, a thick tube with a spiked muzzle, with a coil magizine for the black smoke canisters at the end.

That's a really interesting point. How do you do the magazine? I believe Wells describes one of the FMs as launching "as many as six at that time." I've always had a conflict with the idea that the 'gun,' for want of a better term, is described as a 'thick black tube,' and so really doesn't allow for much of a magazine, unless either the caliber of the round is much less than the diameter of the tube, or there's some kind of end-mounted magazine near the breach, as you've drawn.

I suppose it wouldn't violate the story to have the magazine in the body of the FM somewhere, then auto-load between shots by 'plugging' the gun into the body to accept the round.

The Black Smoke cannister (projectile) always struck me as a big, cylindrical, flat-ended drum. Nothing fancy, easy to store and they didn't care about accuracy because it was a short-range area weapon. Modern chemical warfare practice would have the projectile divided into two compartments, one for each of two chemicals that mix upon impact to create the Black Smoke. Keeping them separate is a safety feature in case one end of the projectile is breached by accident.

[Topaz]

Oh, lookie! I just made "Senior Member!"

[EvilNerfherder]

Slightly OT.. but sorta relevant..
Does anybody else find the Martian launching a black smoke canister at the Thunder Child at sea a little odd?
Could this have been a knee-jerk, panicked reaction from the machine's operator on seeing the ship bearing down on it?

[lanceradvanced]

EvilNerfherder said:

Slightly OT.. but sorta relevant..
Does anybody else find the Martian launching a black smoke canister at the Thunder Child at sea a little odd?
Could this have been a knee-jerk, panicked reaction from the machine's operator on seeing the ship bearing down on it?

Hrm.. Well, the most logical answer that I could think of is that because of the andle, perhaps he couldn't hit anything vital with his shot, even with the heat-ray the ThunderChild gave them some trouble (my inital read was that they use the heatray to cause a steam explosion that holed the ship) another answer might be that they wanted to take the ship intact for some reason.

It also just sprang to my mind when you asked why they didn't just bombard the floatilla with Smoke to keep them hemmed in the bay, the shots would probably have been near isntantly neutralized by the splash when the canisters hit the water...

[lanceradvanced]

Topaz said:

That's a really interesting point. How do you do the magazine? I believe Wells describes one of the FMs as launching "as many as six at that time." I've always had a conflict with the idea that the 'gun,' for want of a better term, is described as a 'thick black tube,' and so really doesn't allow for much of a magazine, unless either the caliber of the round is much less than the diameter of the tube, or there's some kind of end-mounted magazine near the breach, as you've drawn.

There are a couple of other possibilities, the rounds could be stacked in the tube roman candle style, which was used in a number of early multi-shot rifles, or the tube itself could consist of multiple parallel barrels, like some modern rocket launchers.

[Lensman]

I've assumed the tube works sort of like a mortar; light portable artillery, with the cannister/shell having its own explosive charge to propel it. The lack of any suggestion of loading it does suggest a magazine of some kind. Wells rarely describes any of the Martians' machines in great detail; it's entirely possible the tube had a magazine which wasn't mentioned.

I envision the cannister as a giant tear-gas cannister, operating in very much the same fashion, with rather more deadly effect.