[ericthered]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I can't think of an example of a airborne MG or tank that is simpler than the equivalent either. Often they are more sophisticated, because they are advanced lighter models.

I have one: no tank at all. Tanks were not dropped from planes in wwii, which is the heyday of paratroopers.

No, he advocated training pikemen, with cavalry (not sure if he meant horse or armor) and sniper support in a scenario where bolt-action rifles and insurgent assault rifles were the available options for "crude firearms".

That has yet to be established. In fact, I believe most of the folks advocating the melee weapons are holding that advanced ammo will be pretty darn rare. Dan at least has specified that the "crude" firearms he's talking about are muzzle loaders.

They used guns. During the 30 years war? They made extensive use of guns too. Adolphus thought the cavalcade was stupid horse-circus foolery, he didn't think that guns were.

And they used pike. But that's the founding of the Swedish empire. the later empire faced mostly line infantry and trained their men to rely on the charge, defeating larger forces with bloody, intense, hand to hand contests.

Napoleonic Cavalry typically had pistols or carbines, and Marshal Ney discovered exactly how bad things can get when charging massed fire at Waterloo, besides.

But they were not the primary weapons. Napoleonic Cavalry used the lance and the saber as their primary weapons. the pistols fired one or two shots, and the cavalry faced off against superior numbers in most cases.

And any tool can be used wrong. And as stated, cavalry was used to great and decisive effect all over the eastern front of WWI. This wasn't just dragoon style fighting. It was charges. Not it every case, but it happened a lot. The weapon that stopped the charge as a tactic in WWI was the machine gun. And the machine gun requires excellent logistics. On the western front, everyone had lots of ammo and a dense front. On the eastern front and in the chaos at the end of the war, logistics were strained, bullets got scarce, and there were huge distances to cover. A situation very similar to the wasteland.

Also none of these cases describe anything like a massive TL difference, or suggest any good outcomes if you want to form up pike squares against Lord Humongous or the Boneyard Master.

If you want to see a two TL difference in tech where the low tech side has superior economics and numbers, that war does not exist. I can think of a few examples that might come close, but each one fails the economic requirement. In almost all high tech vs. low tech conflicts, High tech doesn't just have the tech advantage, they also have the economic advantage. There are small scale examples with small tech differences, but nothing like what you are looking for.

The question was "How does this warlord arm his guys? Bolt-action rifles or the TRW LMR?" Dan's answer was "pikes, cavalry and snipers" which seems like a non sequitur.

The implication being that the TRW and bolt action riffles are both not logistically sound weapons in the wasteland. But the OP has given us a factory capable of making the cartridges, so I suppose he's already hand-waved to biggest obstacle.

My personal armament would probably be 12 gauge shotguns. Don't bother to maintain them much. Just use a very common gun you can replace by scrounging. The hard part is the ammo train. certainly add a long sword or pole-arm that can be manufactured from old automobile sheet metal. This force will have its downsides, but that's what specialty troops are for.