Logistically Viable Weapons AtE

[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.

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.

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.

[DanHoward]

Training, morale, and logistics will be a lot more important than equipment. If you can put together a small force of highly disciplined pikemen with some cavalry and sniper support, you will roll over most forces that have crude firearms.

[The Colonel]

For Fallout:New Vegas fans that would seem to be part of the doctrine on Caesar's Legion - mostly armed with melee weapons and javelins but have been able to conquer huge areas with superior organisation and aggression.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Training, morale, and logistics will be a lot more important than equipment. If you can put together a small force of highly disciplined pikemen with some cavalry and sniper support, you will roll over most forces that have crude firearms.

I think that is only true for TL4 and maybe early TL5 firearms. At mid to late TL5 and especially at TL6, pike formations are just pointless suicide. Most post-apocalyptic settings have TL6-TL9+ firearms, the only exception I can think of are things like the Emberverse where firearms just don't work anymore.

You don't see trained pike being fielded against even green preadolescent children armed with AKMs in the conflicts in central Africa, for example, and the suggestion that you should seems ... unsound.

During the 19th century trained spearmen like Zulus and Comanche abandoned spears for firearms all over the world. Presumably they had sound military reasons to do so.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I think that is only true for TL4 and maybe early TL5 firearms. At mid to late TL5 and especially at TL6, pike formations are just pointless suicide. Most post-apocalyptic settings have TL6-TL9+ firearms, the only exception I can think of are things like the Emberverse where firearms just don't work anymore.

You don't see trained pike being fielded against even green preadolescent children armed with AKMs in the conflicts in central Africa, for example, and the suggestion that you should seems ... unsound.

During the 19th century trained spearmen like Zulus and Comanche abandoned spears for firearms all over the world. Presumably they had sound military reasons to do so.

Which is why I deliberately specified "crude firearms", But even at TL6 the right troops will win with inferior weapons if they are highly trained and deployed properly. FWIW one of the reasons why armies adopted firearms as fast as they did was because of the difficulty in raising highly trained and disciplined troops. It is quicker and easier to raise a greater number of poorly trained men and give the firearms, even if these weapons gave no significant tactical advantage.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Which is why I deliberately specified "crude firearms"

What kinds of weapons does that mean specifically? What firearm is crude enough to qualify but still can use the stockpiles of M855?

But even at TL6 the right troops will win with inferior weapons if they are highly trained and deployed properly.

Do you have a historical example in mind?

Tercios seem like a especially bad idea against machine gun emplacements. I don't really see anyway that can possibly work out without unsustainable casualties.

[safisher]

Pyramid 88 has an article on Post-Apocalyptic Guns that will answer this question very thoroughly.

[ericthered]

its only during late TL5 that you see the gun achieve true battlefield dominance. As you state DURING the nineteenth century. And at that point in time, you still had cavalry formations that attacked in melee combat and carried the day against fire-arm carrying troops. Massed charges only become infeasible against TL6 machine guns or units of well drilled troops quick firing breech-loaded rounds. Such weapons show up only in the last 10 years of TL5, and the grand majority of TL5 is fought with muzzle loaded fire arms and bayonets.

of course, after the end settings have a weird tech level, and if you've got a factory churning out ammunition back home... you've got a clear advantage on everyone else, who is counting their bullets. As for what ammo you should be churning out, that probably depends on what the most common gun remaining in the area is.

I don't know what the most common caliber in the US, but 12 gauge shotgun rounds are a strong contender. Well over half of all shotguns I see seem to use this round. The biggest concern with such a round is range. Of course, that's more than one round: are you making just slugs also buckshot rounds?

[malloyd]

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.

"Cheap to manufacture" is a slippery target.

Historically the flintlock rifle displaced most everything else because it could be repaired (and copied!) by village blacksmiths, so I think that's the lowest level target - a tolerably accurate firearm that can be manufactured by craftsmen who probably aren't skilled enough to make a sword or other fancy pre-gunpowder weapons.

The issue with bolt action rifles isn't so much the gun - they need tighter tolerances than the flintlocks, but if your society has machine shops at all it can make useful numbers of them easily enough - it's the supply of cartridges which are rather intricate chemical and metallurgical machines themselves.

[phayman53]

Originally Posted by malloyd

"Cheap to manufacture" is a slippery target.

Historically the flintlock rifle displaced most everything else because it could be repaired (and copied!) by village blacksmiths, so I think that's the lowest level target - a tolerably accurate firearm that can be manufactured by craftsmen who probably aren't skilled enough to make a sword or other fancy pre-gunpowder weapons.

The issue with bolt action rifles isn't so much the gun - they need tighter tolerances than the flintlocks, but if your society has machine shops at all it can make useful numbers of them easily enough - it's the supply of cartridges which are rather intricate chemical and metallurgical machines themselves.

I agree with this completely for manufacturing new firearms. However, remember that AtE assumes that the vast majority of the population died. This means, depending on the setting (such as North America or any other area where there are a relatively high number of guns per capita) and reason for the "end", there might be a LOT of guns and ammo left lying around that would take a long time for the surviving population to deplete. This point was made in a thread I started back in April here where I asked a fairly similar question. That said, if in your setting ammo was depleted or not particularly widely available in your area, flintlocks might be your warlord's best bet. If this were not the case, then you would probably have a fairly large supply of "standard" caliber ammunition and weapons such as 9mm, .45, 556/.223, 7.62x51/.308 or 7.62x39, possibly 30-06, etc. Shotguns, both shot and slugs, could also be very popular given the fact that shotgun shells would be fairly easy to manufacture and tolerances on shotguns are typically less strict than other firearms.