Logistically Viable Weapons AtE

[(E)]

One issue with the small elite force vs the large less well trained force. Combat is not the only thing an army does.

Say for arguments sake you can afford either 10 well trained soldier or 100 poorly trained soldiers. Now before you can send any out into the field you still have to provide a garrison/police force for your home town, protect the supply lines and so forth. Many of these tasks only require a warm body with a gun. If the numbers required for these tasks exceed 10 people then you can't afford to have an elite force.

There are also many other tasks a military performs that are best served by a larger number of people. Civil defense, fortification building and so forth. An elite force is usually only fielded by an army that already has sufficient numbers of just plain grunts for every other job that soldiers get ordered to do.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'd say it's a very different thing. To import weapons you need money or trade goods.

Lately you mostly just need to be able to claim some number of fighters with varying degrees of accuracy and pay lip service ether in favor or opposed to some ideology with varying degrees of sincerity.

To salvage weapons you need access to pre-End stockpiles. Those might come out to similar ultimate levels of availability but call for quite different economic activities.

Sure, notably you aren't in the idealogical posturing game at all, at least not for this reason.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Originally Posted by (E)

One issue with the small elite force vs the large less well trained force. Combat is not the only thing an army does.

Say for arguments sake you can afford either 10 well trained soldier or 100 poorly trained soldiers. Now before you can send any out into the field you still have to provide a garrison/police force for your home town, protect the supply lines and so forth. Many of these tasks only require a warm body with a gun. If the numbers required for these tasks exceed 10 people then you can't afford to have an elite force.

There are also many other tasks a military performs that are best served by a larger number of people. Civil defense, fortification building and so forth. An elite force is usually only fielded by an army that already has sufficient numbers of just plain grunts for every other job that soldiers get ordered to do.

Yep, absolutely. Even in combat, you have need for manpower. Want to have any degree of recon? That takes people. Want to hold key terrain so the enemy can't move advantageously on you? You need enough people to defend those places. Want to make use of those logistics you're so happy about? Better have soldiers to either escort them or hold terrain to keep the enemy away. Want to defend more than a single critical location? People.

Special ops are a powerful tool, but only in narrow (And often very specialized) conditions. There's a reason most of the money and effort is put into the more general military.

[tshiggins]

You've had a lot of good questions and answers, in this thread, so I'll raise questions that may help you work through the problem.

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

It's an After the End Falloutisk scenario and I'm a tactically adept warlord trying to arm my conscripts with a cheap to manufacture, reliable, easily maintained weapon as we try and build an Autocratic state out of the ruins of america.

Okaaaay, how much is it "Fallout" and how much is it "-isk"?

Here's why I ask that question. Most most post-apocalyptic "FPS survival" games are all about the FPS, and very little about the "survival." The logistics of supply are completely ignored in favor of the lowest-common-denominator fun to be had by putting out bullet-storms.

In the Fallout computer game, the collapse of civilization through nuclear holocaust seems to have done nothing to limit the supply of ammunition -- and, as has been repeatedly noted, the problem is not the firearm, it's the ammunition.

Basically, if you want to TL6 or later firearms, you need metal cartridges -- ideally, made of brass, either rimfire or (preferably) an embedded center-fire primer. Metal cartridges are required for magazine-fed firearms, because they can stand up to the mechanical pressure from the metal spring.

So, to make a brass cartridge, your warlord needs a supply of copper and zinc. Where does he get that? How much is available, and how is it delivered to the factory?

Also, where does he get the metal with the proper flexibility to make the springs inside the magazines?

Even more problematic, logisitically, are the primers. Most modern primers use various mixtures of non-corrosive explosives, mostly based on lead styphenate. While much more stable than previous types, the manufacture of primers and their insertion into cartridge casings is still the most dangerous part of ammunition manufacture.

The main reason it's so safe, these days, is that modern manufacturing allows for incredible purity (impurities in primers decrease stability, and increase the possibility of lethal -- or even catastrophic -- accidents). Also, automated assembly lines allow for close tolerances, and fine quality control.

So, what sort of primers does your warlord's factory produce? How does he maintain purity? How skilled are his chemists, and from whence do they get their supplies? How many chemists does he have? What sort of manufacturing technology does he possess, and how is it powered?

(These same questions -- exactly the same questions -- apply to the manufacture of percussion caps. A primer is nothing more than a percussion cap that's been integrated into a cartridge, after all....)

In order to manufacture TL 6-9 ammunition, you need a TL 6-9 supply chain. If you have one of those, then the setting doesn't resemble AtE, very much -- or, alternatively, you're just playing an table-top version of a computer game.

If it's the latter, that's fine and can be a lot of fun. However, just be aware that computer "survival FPS" games are really nothing more than PacMan with guns, and that includes Fallout. You run around, grab up magically spawned ammo produced by nobody, and use it in like-new firearms that (in most games) never wear out.

Alternatively, as noted, the availability of pre-collapse ammunition depends largely upon the nature of the collapse. Most ammunition caches exist in either industrial areas, near the point of manufacture; or in warehouses in cities, near the points of sale; or in military bases, where it's frequently used.

All three of those areas are prime targets in a nuclear war, so if that was the nature of your collapse, then why haven't most pre-collapse cartridges been reduced to radioactive slag?

If it's the slow collapse scenario, as noted, then most of the existing ammunition gets used up during the fall, and the collapse of supply-chains means it never gets replaced (no magical re-spawning, as happens in computer "survival" games...). If it's a slow collapse, then why did that not occur?

The only way to have a large supply of unused ammunition that didn't get slagged is to have a fast collapse that didn't destroy the logistical infrastructure, and that means it was almost certainly some sort of fast-acting disease. Is that the case?

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

Considering barely trained conscrips armed with this weapon will be the bread and butter combatant my PCs will be facing I'm not looking for a weapon that's "good", ideally it would be reliable and cheap at the expense of other traits like wounding ability, accuracy, and weight.

This statement focuses on the wrong thing. The firearms aren't the issue, the ammunition is the issue. As noted, up-thread, the firearms aren't too tough to make; the question is, what sort of knowledge and resources does the warlord have available for bullets?

That determines the type of firearms to manufacture.

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

Two ideas I've had so far have been a stripped down basic bolt action rifle, and the TRW low maintenance rifle. Though I want the gun to start off on the low end of effectiveness, I'd also like it have plenty of room to improve through play, either becouse the players have taken a liking to them and want to improve the design or becouse this faction has grown and can now provide a better weapon.

Then focus on your ammunition supply chain, first. Figure out what's available, there, and build out your growth-tree, accordingly.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

All three of those areas are prime targets in a nuclear war, so if that was the nature of your collapse, then why haven't most pre-collapse cartridges been reduced to radioactive slag?

Because that's not what nuclear weapons do, as a rule. The ammo might be destroyed by fire or crushed in blast-induced building collapses, but it's not at all likely to be melted down.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Here's why I ask that question. Most most post-apocalyptic "FPS survival" games are all about the FPS, and very little about the "survival." The logistics of supply are completely ignored in favor of the lowest-common-denominator fun to be had by putting out bullet-storms.

Fallout had guns long before it was an FPS, and the very first quest is literally logistical.

Alternatively, as noted, the availability of pre-collapse ammunition depends largely upon the nature of the collapse. Most ammunition caches exist in either industrial areas, near the point of manufacture, or in warehouses in cities, near the points of sale, or in military bases.

The NATO stockpiles in the caves in Norway are there, in part, in order to survive a nuclear strike, and those are the ones we know about.

Post-apocalyptic adventure fiction is basically a fantasy anyway, a full scale global nuclear war is unlikely to be survivable, and certainly isn't going to produce scorpions the size of horses and Tony Jay voiced green giants. Roleplaying a corpse or fallout isn't really fun though.

Metro is more realistic, and while ammo is scarce enough that it is a currency (store of value) , it is also plentiful enough to be currency (medium of exchange).

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Because that's not what nuclear weapons do, as a rule. The ammo might be destroyed by fire or crushed in blast-induced building collapses, but it's not at all likely to be melted down.

I was being amusing, not pedantic.

So, fine. The question is, if it was a nuclear war, why wasn't most of the pre-collapse ammo destroyed, one way or another, during hostilities which almost certainly targeted the places where it was manufactured, stored, sold and used?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I was being amusing, not pedantic.

So, fine. The question is, if it was a nuclear war, why wasn't most of the pre-collapse ammo destroyed, one way or another, during hostilities which almost certainly targeted the places where it was manufactured, stored, sold and used?

Because there are large stockpiles (including, probably, the largest stockpiles) that aren't in those places, and any nuclear war that has a meaningful post- about it wasn't mutually assured destruction anyway. If you look at kill maps of the US, there's actually quite a lot of the country that isn't believed to be on anybody's target list, and if you look at whole world there are entire countries that aren't likely to have a single direct strike.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

(SNIP)

Post-apocalyptic adventure fiction is basically a fantasy anyway, a full scale global nuclear war is unlikely to be survivable, and certainly isn't going to produce scorpions the size of horses and Tony Jay voiced green giants. Roleplaying a corpse or fallout isn't really fun though.

(SNIP)

So, you favor "PacMan with guns" then? That's fine, and more power to you. Those games are popular for a reason.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Because there are large stockpiles (including, probably, the largest stockpiles) that aren't in those places, and any nuclear war that has a meaningful post- about it wasn't mutually assured destruction anyway. If you look at kill maps of the US, there's actually quite a lot of the country that isn't believed to be on anybody's target list, and if you look at whole world there are entire countries that aren't likely to have a single direct strike.

And, again, that's fine. However, the question needs to be answered by the GM, for his campaign.

If, in fact, he determines that the resources available for bullets come from a large cache of ammunition, then the type(s) of ammunition in that cache determine(s) the development path. A large cache of mixed hunting ammunition found in several boxcars in a train tunnel means the starting point and development path are very different from, say, a large cache of 5.56 mm in a concealed military bunker that survived the blasts (somehow).

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

So, you favor "PacMan with guns" then? That's fine, and more power to you. Those games are popular for a reason.

What is Pac-Man-like about Fallout 2 (IMO, the best game in the series)?

At any rate the kind of situation you seem to be talking about is what? Maximum overkill happened and everybody is dead? Is this Bill Stoddard's idea for running Wraith as a post-apocalyptic setting? I suppose if you just have the ghosts, there's no need to fear Pac-Man.

Ammunition is much more likely to survive than people are. Ammunition in caves in remote locations even more so.

And, again, that's fine. However, the question needs to be answered by the GM, for his campaign.

I was answering in regards to the facts about real world ammunition supplies and nuclear kill zones. You made a statement that all ammo stockpiles are in kill zones, which is incorrect.

If, in fact, he determines that the resources available for bullets are, in fact, a large cache of ammunition, then the type of ammunition in that cache determines the development path.

He did, in post #8.