[Icelander]

Originally Posted by adm

Since this is one of the rougher parts of London, would the police stations have any firearms?

I've been trying to find what police stations there are within the affected area and it seems that only a few smaller satellite stations are there. They'll have a few pocket revolvers available to policemen on night patrol upon request, but no other weapons. Edit: The number of revolvers at each station is somewhere between six and twelve, with twelve being more likely for large stations near where the Ripper scare is taking place in 1888.

Anyone who has precise information on the police stations in Whitechapel in 1888 would be a wonderful help. I'm sure this information can be found among copious Ripperology files online, but I still haven't found a one-stop resource.

Edit: I've done better now and can confidently state that the Leman Street station, HQ for Division H, is within the affected area. It is likely that the Spitalfield station on Commercial Street and the Arbour Square and Shadwell stations are within the area too, but there are no reliable news of those areas, so it is unclear what their status is. Division H consists in its entirety of almost 700 constables, detectives, sergeants and officers, and it has been reinforced with extra uniformed constables and civilians sworn in to aid in keeping the peace. The Bishopsgate station of the City of London Police is also most probably within the affected area and very close to the St. Botolph's church where the PCs have set up with other survivors, but so far, only a few policemen who were out on patrol have been seen and no one the PCs spoke with has made contact with any police station.

I cannot find any source for it, but I would expect that Leman Street Station and maybe the Bishopsgate station of the City of London Police might have a supply of extra cudgels and perhaps even other Victorian Metropolitan Police weapons, such as swords and Webley M.P. revolvers. I don't know about rifles with bayonets, however. Sir Charles Warren, the Commissioner, had been accused of militarising the police and responding excessively to riots, and it is true that newspaper accounts of the time described and pictured the government response to riots on Pall Mall and at Trafalgar Square with policemen driving the crowd at bayonet point, but I just don't know if the Met really had access to such military weapons.

The Bishopsgate station of the City of London Police is located next to the City of London Police Hospital, so it would be very useful to send an expedition up Houndsditch and two blocks up Bishopsgate Street, to establish contact. There might be anywhere from 15-60 cops there, but any able bodied man who doesn't shy away from conflict is a help.

Originally Posted by adm

Perhaps you could have some improvised tower shields/pavises that some of the stronger guys can shove with, a second rank can use spears/polearms, and a third rank can use firearms/bows/crossbows to shoot the primary threats.

The lack of training in such methods would be a serious drawback. Even military veterans or rough-and-ready characters who have sought their fortunes on the various frontiers of the Empire will have no training and little experience with shield wall tactics.

Seasoned street-fighers might be familiar with the concept, but I should think that ordered ranks and shoving with shields would be much rarer than two packs of men with bludgeons coming at one another along a street.

Originally Posted by adm

You should be able to improvise molotovs and such with common items, if nothing else you should find lamp oil.

Oil, strong spirits and other flammable items are not hard to find.

I've been wondering if explosives could be obtained. Some dynamite would be welcomed by the PCs. They've made common cause with a Fenian revolutionary since drifted into a criminal lifestyle, still in possession of five sticks of dynamite, and are eager for more.