Necroing the thread again to come back to dynamite guns, I think I finally found enough information to stat out three dynamite guns, using the DP for dynamite (even though they used various early high explosives, it should be close enough) and the Demolitions rules from page 221 of v2.2 to convert to concussion damage. Their shells are generally too light for effective shrapnel, but if fired into something that could produce appropriate fragments (brick walls, etc), they follow the rules from Demolitions for that (primary burst equal to HE concussion radius, secondary burst double HE concussion radius).
The SS-1 Holland, the first submarine commissioned by the Navy, had either 1 or 2 (sources vary, but I suspect 1 is correct) dynamite guns of roughly 8" caliber. The ship carried seven rounds for the gun (referred to as "aerial torpedoes"), along with three Whitehead torpedoes that fired from a tube under the gun. A June 1897 article from
The Princeton Union states her projectiles were 180 pounds with 100 pounds of high explosive as the payload. This would be C:50 and Pen 25C in T2K terms, with a range of approximately 1 mile. As a compromise between the 0 add for a set explosive and the 2d6 of a standard shell, I'd add 1d6 to Pen for the lighter dynamite shell.
The 2.5" Dudley-Sims would be roughly C:11 and Pen 6C with its 5-pound charge, and I'd either add 1/2d6 (1d3) if I wanted a variable Pen or just stick with the constant given that it's a low-velocity semi-mortar. The semi-accurate range is 900 yards. For a 1000 pound 1890s artillery piece, it's decent. With each shell weighing only ten pounds and a half-pound smokeless powder charge as propellant, ammo transportation shouldn't be too difficult.
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Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
I think most people here have no problem with thread-necro if it's to add or correct something.
The info you provided was quite interesting.
I'm left with the impression that although pneumatic guns were not uncommon from 1880 till 1900, there isn't enough information about them.
So then we get the confusion about their capabilities such as the notion that the Vesuvius' guns were limited to only 1000 yards when, as you mentioned, they actually were capable of ranges out to 1760 yards with a 250kg (550lb) projectile and ranges out to 4000 yards with a 100kg (200lb) projectile.
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The weights provided (on a lot of websites that seem to be copying from someone that misinterpreted data) are the amount of explosive in the shells. The 1,760 yard range was with a 980 or 1,150 pound shell (different sources provide different weights), of which 550 pounds was explosive, or C:117 and Pen 59C. The lighter shell with 200 pounds of explosive and a 4,000 yard range would be C:71, Pen 35C. Vesuvius only carried a total of 30 shells, 10 for each gun.