After reaching an agreement with our American counterparts, we have purchased surplus equipment from them in order to test out these weapons to see their effectiveness. The balance of technology has been quite intriguing, and while our main rifles were cutting edge technology several years ago, we fear that it might not be any longer. From the United States we have obtained the following:

1. Naval mine
2. Henry rifle
   
3. Spencer repeating rifle
4. Burnside carbine
5. Gatling Gun

Naval Mines

Prussia lacks a true blue water navy, and there is very little ambition to have one. Our navy mostly operates as a coastal fleet as it is. However, even then, our fleet is quite small. Instead of putting the treasury toward ships, these naval mines could be the trick. We will conduct tests with these mines to ensure their viability with concentrated deployments along the coastline. Prussian Navy and our citizens will be made aware of the minefields in order to prevent our citizens from accidentally triggering them.

Weapons

The rifles that we have obtained are quite different than the ones that we are used to. The main difference is the fact that they are repeating rifles compared to the single shot weapons we are used to.

The Henry rifle is a lever-action tubular magazine rifle capable of firing from a 15-round tubular magazine 1 round in the chamber. It will be studied by our military experts to understand the technology, while we have ordered enough at the moment for two regiments to begin testing them out and training with these rifles. With the understanding that they are extremely advantageous in rapid fire close range engagements, we will outfit one Cavalry Regiment with the Henry Rifle and one Infantry Regiment with the Henry Rifle. They will begin training immediately to see how the soldiers like the weapon and how effective they are in combat.

The Spencer repeating rifle is another lever-action rifle that we would like to attempt with the infantry. We have an additional version which is the carbine which will be issued to the cavalry for testing. It will be studied by our military experts to understand the technology, while we have ordered enough at the moment for two regiments to begin testing them out and training with these rifles. We will outfit one Cavalry Regiment with the Spencer Carbine and one Infantry Regiment with the Spencer Rifle. They will begin training immediately to see how the soldiers like the weapon and how effective they are in combat.

The last weapon is the Burnside carbine. A breech-loading carbine, we have just enough to outfit one Cavalry Regiment. Though we know they were eventually replaced by the Spencer Carbine, we would like to give the weapon an opportunity and see what our soldiers say.

Gatling Gun

The biggest addition to the arsenal has to be the Gatling Gun. A hand-cranked mechanism with six barrels revolving around a central shaft (some of ours have ten), the sheer amount of rounds it outputs is astonishing. The testing of this weapon was so shocking that many were shocked to hear it opening fire. The Kaiser William I even made a visit to the testing ground to see the effectiveness of this weapon. In our arsenal we had used artillery cannons, but this sort of weapon was a first. With this Gatling Gun, it was a much closer range weapon that could devastate the enemy. Prussia would like to immediately add more of these to our arsenal in order to bring about a new weapon to the battlefield. While the copies we have will be studied by our military experts to understand the technology and make a domestic version, we hope to gain more from the Americans in the mean time.