07-03-2009, 04:08 PM | #31 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Guns after the fall of civerlisation
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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.
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07-03-2009, 04:52 PM | #32 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Shropshire, uk
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Re: Guns after the fall of civerlisation
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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. 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. |
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07-03-2009, 05:48 PM | #33 |
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Detroit
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Re: Guns after the fall of civerlisation
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. |
07-03-2009, 05:54 PM | #34 | |||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Guns after the fall of civerlisation
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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07-03-2009, 06:37 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Guns after the fall of civerlisation
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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".
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07-03-2009, 07:03 PM | #36 | |
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Guns after the fall of civerlisation
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07-03-2009, 08:04 PM | #37 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
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07-03-2009, 08:11 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
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07-04-2009, 09:20 AM | #39 | ||
Join Date: May 2009
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Re: Guns after the fall of civerlisation
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Haber and Ostwald did it at the workshop level? Quote:
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. |
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07-04-2009, 11:55 AM | #40 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Guns after the fall of civerlisation
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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Tags |
economics, firearms, guns, logistics, post-apocalyptic |
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