Guns after the fall of civerlisation

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Frost

Everything that I have found sugests that its only real value was proving that it could be done.

Wikipedia disagrees firmly, as apparently did the French government at the time. But if you've done better research you could be right.

Originally Posted by Frost

While the chemistry isn't complex the actual processes for producing nitrocellulose and collodion are (as far as I know) demanding and probably impossible to automate on a small scale. If you add in the time needed to process the resources this means that it will require more effort to produce than black powder where the raw materials are compartively simple to process and much of the production can be automated.

So while it is better than gunpowder, it isn't so much better that a society organised on a village or town type basis is likely to invest in its production.

What's automation got to do with it? You don't want or need some clumsy mechanical system handling your explosives. Black powder would be made by hand too...

As far as I can tell nitrating cotton with nitric/sulfuric acid mix is really easy. Processing from there is just washing with water, and some work with easily-obtained organic solvents. Making the acids doesn't seem to be so easy. Particularly, I don't think there's a good way to make concentrated sulfuric acid on a small scale.

So the heavy chemistry will probably be done in cities. Perhaps the ammo-making as well. There have only been cities since, what, a couple thousand years BCE? Any apocalypse with a 'post' to speak of isn't going to keep cities from coming back onto the scene pretty soon.

Without post-industrial all-pervasive trade networks, some people probably would opt for black powder rather than smokeless. But I'm not convinced anyone would fight a war with it.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

What's automation got to do with it? You don't want or need some clumsy mechanical system handling your explosives. Black powder would be made by hand too...

If you are trying to produce good quality black powder fairly quickly and in any quantity you are going to want to run your incorporation process using a roller type mill driven by water or maybe a big electric motor a good long distence away. This will produce a more consistent product with a lower manpower requirement and less risk of explosion than cooking it up with a mortar and pestle. Nitrocellulose production is a fairly long process, it requires careful monitoring of the ingredients and regular repetition with no such mechanical shortcuts. And that is before we consider the fact that you are working with some seriously unlpeasent stuff.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

So the heavy chemistry will probably be done in cities. Perhaps the ammo-making as well. There have only been cities since, what, a couple thousand years BCE? Any apocalypse with a 'post' to speak of isn't going to keep cities from coming back onto the scene pretty soon.

City is however something of a relitive concept, there have been cities for a long time and as you say they would reappear fairly quickly after the event. But I used the word town for a fairly good reason, without modern infrastructure these cities will be fairly small and fairly rural. Think tens of thousands, perhaps just thousands, of people living in something resembling and english market town more than say New York City.

It is not likely that even most cities will realy have the manpower for really big chemical works. So you are probably still looking at kitchen sink opperations producing very small lots by labour intensive methods leaving you no further forward.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Without post-industrial all-pervasive trade networks, some people probably would opt for black powder rather than smokeless. But I'm not convinced anyone would fight a war with it.

Given a much reduced and largely agrarian population I am not sure anybody would realy have a choice. Black powder is fairly easy to produce in quantity from common materials, there are cases of one man outfits producing hundreds of pounds with basic equipment in periods of at most a few weeks. Once the pre-event stuff is gone for a couple of generations at least it will be the only propellant availible in militarly useful quantities even if you can get widespread trade networks restablished.

[Jerron]

A few things I've thought about and researched on this topic.

1) If you have a machine shop, with all of the tools and measuring devices, and someone who knows how to use it, guns are simple to make. A tool maker at work used to make them on his breaks. Powering this would not be too horrible, either, as you could convert it to run directly from mechanical power, it wouldn't too hard. (Most of the good machines, that aren't computer-controlled, were designed in the 1940's.)
2) Making simple propellents such as black powder and fulminate primers is fairly easy. Getting the ingredients is tougher, but still quite doable if someone knows how / where.
3) While swaging is always an option (and I've seen it done with lead bullets, to put them into copper jackets), the heat requied to melt lead is somewhere in the range of an oven, I've done it myself on a stovetop.
4) People will do what is simple and available first. There might be some technilogical advantage to going through all the trouble, but in that setting it would almost have to be state-sponsored somehow. It simply wouldn't be worth the trouble of all the requirements, to make bullets for hunting or simple self-defense.
5) It's hard work, from start to finish. It's even harder for the smokeless / modern stuff. This takes away from survival time. If one guy has a full time job keeping a town supplied with black powder, perhaps with a few helpers to do manual labor, the town has to supply him with everything he needs to survive, whether it's in service, barter or payment. The modern stuff could easily take a handful of guys full-time to do. How many towns are going to decide 'Let's feed all 6, so we can have 10% better muzzle velocity"?

Bottom line, (after the stocks of current ammo are gone, which would be quicker than surmised because people aren't going to be able to find or travel to it) It's simply too much added trouble for a minimal benefit to go anything but black powder. The stuff works, and I can probably go out in my back yard and find 90% of the ingredients to make it do so.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Frost

If you are trying to produce good quality black powder fairly quickly and in any quantity you are going to want to run your incorporation process using a roller type mill driven by water or maybe a big electric motor a good long distence away. This will produce a more consistent product with a lower manpower requirement and less risk of explosion than cooking it up with a mortar and pestle. Nitrocellulose production is a fairly long process, it requires careful monitoring of the ingredients and regular repetition with no such mechanical shortcuts. And that is before we consider the fact that you are working with some seriously unlpeasent stuff.

That's mechanization, not automation. Nitrocellulose production doesn't seem to particularly invite use of mechanical power, but in what regard is it so labor-intensive as to need it?

Originally Posted by Frost

City is however something of a relitive concept, there have been cities for a long time and as you say they would reappear fairly quickly after the event. But I used the word town for a fairly good reason, without modern infrastructure these cities will be fairly small and fairly rural. Think tens of thousands, perhaps just thousands, of people living in something resembling and english market town more than say New York City.

It is not likely that even most cities will realy have the manpower for really big chemical works. So you are probably still looking at kitchen sink opperations producing very small lots by labour intensive methods leaving you no further forward.

I'm pretty sure the contact process isn't something that takes a massive works with thousands of employees. Even if you can't skip a step or two by starting from refined sulfur stockpiles, it only has ~6 chambers, only one of them is a reactor, and that only needs to run at about 450 C. You do need a Vanadium oxide catalyst, but I'm sure we've got plenty of that lying around if you know to look for it.

Originally Posted by Frost

Given a much reduced and largely agrarian population I am not sure anybody would realy have a choice. Black powder is fairly easy to produce in quantity from common materials, there are cases of one man outfits producing hundreds of pounds with basic equipment in periods of at most a few weeks. Once the pre-event stuff is gone for a couple of generations at least it will be the only propellant availible in militarly useful quantities even if you can get widespread trade networks restablished.

I think pre-existing ammo stocks would be good for a couple generations. And where's this largely agrarian population deal springing from? We're never going back to before the agricultural revolution. That gives you good enough productivity to support industry.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

A preliminary survey of Wikipedia and the Internet suggests that a rudimentary knowledge of the use of nitric substances in explosives would allow someone to make smokeless powder in a shed in their backyard. Producing nitric acid itself is an age-old art, early TL3 stuff.

In tiny amounts, from saltpeter, in very impure (and thus for explosives work very, very dangerous) batches. Industrial acid production is one of the foundations of the chemical industry. If you can still make sulfuric acid in quantity, you still have the bulk of a TL5 chemical industry up and running, if you can make bulk nitric acid, you have part of TL6 too.

This isn't actually that implausible for a moderate apocalypse. A state with 50,000 people, 200 arable square miles, one decent library and one functioning port (a not particularly unusual rural US county or two for example) can very likely rebuild and sustain TL5 (minimum) in *everything* in a decade or so, if there aren't any bigger states around that absorb it first. But that's a considerably more advanced nation that I'd expect in a setting billed as "after the fall of civilization".

[safisher]

Originally Posted by copeab

Modern manual repeaters (pump, lever or bolt action, plus revolvers) are going to suffer less from a conversion to black-powder cartridges than self-loading firearms. Modern firearms, if well-maintained (and ones firing black powder ammo require much more frequent cleaning than those iring smokeless powder), can last for quite a long time, although some parts will eventually wear out.

Right. There are plenty of modern firearms which will work fine with black powder. The automatics and semis, not so much. But lever action rifle killed many a man before smokeless powder was widely adopted, and its a darn sight better than a muzzleloader! Same deal with revolvers versus semis. You've got plenty of modern revolvers that SASS uses with blackpowder reloads. So, again, even without modern smokeless ammo, you still have plenty of guns and ammo available.

[TheGnome]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Only if they aren't very smart.

Buying training is a hell of a lot cheaper than a war. And if they already have a gunsmith and you don't, won't sell the information for less than a war would cost, and don't think the balance of forces is bad enough they can be intimidated into a deal by just the threat, well, the odds for winning a war to capture this knowledge with enough of your community left to benefit from it don't look so good.

Buying training is only cheap if the two communities are at the vary lest neutral to one another, and not fighting over other resources. Now I agree that such fights for skilled persons would be common but is some situationist it may happen. One thing that should be keep in mind is one side of the conflict may not be to tribally rational on why they are going to war.

[TheGnome]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

In the short run there are lots of guns to go around without gunsmithing. In the long run, gunsmithing won't be any more a rare skill than iron age blacksmithing. There might be a period when gun stocks are low but gunsmith training hasn't been disseminated well, but I don't think the existing stock will run down fast enough for that.

In the short run yes, getting guns is easy but what of ammo? If you have a fairly violent tribe or community then ammo will run low fast. This may not be a feasible community but for the short life the group may have can do a lot of thoughtless damage namely kidnapping those they think they need.

[LargePrime]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Uh, you want to run the Haber and Ostwald processes on a workshop level? I'm not sure that's even possible, but it's definitely neither simple nor easy.

Ostwald history
Haber and Ostwald did it at the workshop level?

Originally Posted by Frost

It dosen't offer that much of a power increase over black powder. It can still cause fouling problems.

It has three (3) times the power of Black Powder. But the real point is it begins one along the path of chemical production again. Even if it is not viable from an economic or military standpoint, the technical gains from actually doing it are more than worth it.

I would like to note that "A machine shop" does not function without 440 AC. If ones post 'civerlisation' world has 440 three phase (Again, not that hard) then it really is not a "post 'civerlisation'" world.

Again, I question the premise. We are not going back to preagrarian, and we are not going back to preindustrial. We are not going back period. It is simply too easy to go forward again IMHO.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by LargePrime

Ostwald history
Haber and Ostwald did it at the workshop level?

Presumably they did it at the laboratory level, but that's not quite the same thing. If the process can be economically useful at the workshop level, that's very interesting. Can you give a better link? I'm not getting anything useful out of that one.