Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Yeah, I was thinking a bit TL4 on the locks and clocks. Photography is TL5, but it followed much of the still heavily-stylised features of 18th century art.

With the bows, I was thinking of the concept of compound bows (i.e. cams) rather than materials. Regardless of what you make it out of, camming allows a person to use a much stronger bow.


Bows have some stealth advantages, but their popularity will depend on just how hard it is to get hold of decent firearms. I was brainstorming "possible" rather than "exceptionally useful".

The martial arts advantage is that, if the knowledge survived, instead of having one pretty good local style you get to pick the best bits from the many styles known across the world. This applies to a fair variety of things apart from martial arts.


Yeah, I'm not sure of the practicality. But I figure that someone is going to try it; getting the stoichiometric ratios right with any of a wide variety of things (e.g. powdered milk, a fan and a flare, as seen on Youtube and Mythbusters) will make a helluva big boom.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

To demonstrate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRw4ZRqmxOc

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Bows are useful, and once you have good cams made, which you can do with artisan quality, any hack can then make bolts/arrows for you.

The biggest constraint on firearms is ammo, getting good quality powder for reloads, etc., issues which are totally bypassed with compound bows and compound crossbows, even if they have to be made out of recycled leaf-springs.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

My Knights/Lawmen aren't going to be armed with bows. This is supposed to be a Western and they are supposed to be the law archetype not the Indian archetype.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Makes sense, but for the bandits and scavengers on the fringes, who play the Indian archetype, compound bows may make them a bit scarier than not.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Good call, TL 6 but fairly easy to implement at late TL 5 although I might be tempted to step up to some analogue of the Lee-Metford (which historically were produced using cottage industry techniques). The powder technology used in the early .303 cartridges seems to offer a significant advantage without being too hard to duplicate on a small scale.

I would also suspect that people are overplaying some of the losses particularly in terms of non-physical developments i.e. administrative systems and production processes. In particular don't rule out interchangeable parts which are actually a TL 5 development.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

It's not just interchangeable parts, it's the level of precision of said parts, while you're good to go with something like a revolver, bolt, lever or pump action, but you're likely not going to be firing something on full auto without going through jam hell every couple of bullets.

The question really comes down to whether or not the M1911 pistol can be built and used reliably at TL5, if it can, then that'll be the primary pistol, if not then the M1873 Peacemaker will be the standard.

Since the OP wants a c&i feel and the Peacemaker is a better fit, we can just stipulate that the M1911 isn't in general use because of bad powder or some such.

Personally I'd make something like the Winchester 1892 as the basic civilian standard chambered in the same .45 as the Peacemaker.

For law enforcement I'd go with something like the Winchester 1886 chambered in .50-110 black powder centerfire rifle cartridge, and something like the S&W 500 chambered to fire the same bullet as a five shot revolver.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

I can see what you are trying to say but I think that you are placing too much weight on one specific and fairly minor issue, the tolerances will not nessecarly be particularly great but they need not be that poor either. I would go out on a limb and suggest that low volume production of some of the earlier and more robust recoil operated designs is not impossible (historically they where produced by not dissimilar methods with at most Very early TL 6 tooling).

There are other more significant issues with these weapons that will slow, but not I suspect stop their adoption, and account for most of the failures of their historical counterparts in particular fouling, failed cartridge cases, degraded primers etc.

The question is probably better restated as what is the most effective item of a given type that can be produced in the local conditions. In this case these are probably closer to early TL 6 for small scale applications say equivalent to the 1880's or 90's or a modern workshop in the Khyber pass.

In these conditions it is probably possible to produce and (barely) maintain at least low quality versions of both. What they are actually likely to be making are a variety of top or side breaking double action revolvers in .38 .44 or .45 maybe copies of Smith and Wesson hand ejector models or indeed many other designs of that sort of era.

the same story will probably true for rifles, machineguns, mortars and anything else for that matter.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

A constant, hostile invasion threatening humanities existence and its NOT sparking people to try recovering/discovering better means to fight these things?

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

No, FAEs require sophisticated machining; the chemistry is quite simple, the mechanisms for properly dispersing a liquid so it will actually explode in a remotely efficient manner and then detonating it at the right time is not.