Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

I'm working on the writeup for my upcoming campaign The Blight Years. This game takes place a few centuries after a near human extinction and civilization has bounced back (albeit under constraints on areas suitable for settlement and severely restricted population density). The area in which the campaign takes place (in northern California and Oregon) is now able to maintain a TL5 industrial base but lacks the population to support TL6+. However, some knowledge and artifacts survive from before the apocalypse and they have some limited indirect trade with a TL6 culture.

What kinds of technology that's technically higher than TL5 should they still be able to produce (if any)?

What sorts of firearms are they likely to manufacture (and can I get away with just renaming some existing models)?

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Centuries can change a lot. Consider XX century which changed TL 6 to TL 8.

So, I'd start with defining the nature of apocalypse and its long-term natural (non-social) consequenses (as well as technogeneous disasters).

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Copies of the TL6 culture's in-use firearms seems most likely. Alternately, the TL6 bolt-action rifles that load from an integral box or tubular magazine (M1903, Mosin-Nagant, etc) seem more like refinements of design than anything that strictly requires TL6 metallurgy or machining.

Similarly, being able to skip past the experimental stages will allow many of the TL6 conceptual advances to occur early, especially in medicine (blood typing, vaccination, antibiotics) and power (electrification, doubly true with the considerable hydroelectric possibilities of that region). Radio communication is also likely to be advanced ahead of the TL 5 industrial base.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

I would tend to agree with most of these, albeit with reservations. These are exactly the areas I would expect a greater level of advancement over the TL base (at least if they are operating at late TL5) there will however be problems with implementation.

Electrification is the standout here, I would think that imported or copied generators tied into local millworks would be a given. However given the problems with population and productive capacity it is likely these will be small scale local setups rather than a full blown grid. The manpower demands associated with large hydro dams and long distribution lines are probably beyond this group.

The other areas seem to offer fewer hang ups, spark gap radios (as an alternative to optical or electrical telegraphy), reliable breach loading firearms (and simple repeaters) and a few less infrastructure intensive medical innovations seem possible although the actual goods may come at a premium.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Yes, I've done this. That 's not what I'm asking. I'm asking if for example CPR is possible at TL5 (I don't see why not) and if they'd use centerfire cartridges.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

The major change isn't going to depend on the gadgets but on the surviving ideas.

Germ theory, basic sanitation, universal suffrage, food and drug safety standards, assembly-line production, universal education and literacy...the survival of any of these concepts or many similar things would have a massive impact on the society. In turn, that is going to have a strong influence on the manufacturing capability they possess, and therefore the technology they produce.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

The game takes place in a loose confederation of city states, some of which will be democracies with universal suffrage, and so on while others are despotic. As a whole it lacks sufficient federalism to enact anything like federal food and drug safety. Due to the nature of the apocalypse (which continues to keep population density low) full TL6+ factory mass production simply isn't possible.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is meant to be a Western of sorts, and I'd like the technology to more or less feel like the gilded age.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

It seems as though it's able to sustain TL6 technology on the small scale.

I can see them maintaining brass cartridge firearms, usually in the revolver, pump-action, and lever-action models. Almost any of the guns from High-Tech that are produced from 1870 to 1910 would be able to be used as-is with a name change, I think. (IMO, gun technology hit TL6 by 1870, not 1880, although the rest of the technologies didn't hit TL6 until 1880.)

I can see them able to refine crude oil into gasoline, kerosene, and lubricants, although plastics may be out of the picture still. Computerized anything are out, of course, but I can see one town scavenging the countryside for metals, melting them down, and selling the ingots or using them in their own manufacturing (they may be one of the local bullet suppliers).

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Well...from my recent bits of research...an example of one TL 6 smokeless powder is Poudre B, made from nitrocellulose (cellulose from various sources - cotton, wood plus nitric acid) plus 2% paraffin (oil byproduct), and ether (ethanol and sulfuric acid).

I don't think there are any smokeless powders as 'easy' to put together as black powder (assuming a source of sulfur...).

Saying only black powder is chemically possible tends to eliminate most TL 6 capabilities as far as firearms. Because smokeless powder is certainly where a good bit of the bump in velocity and power comes from. Perhaps just in whatever 'phase' the society happens to be at - maybe they'll get smokeless powder technology in several years if they last.

There is the matter of the primer. The easiest is probably potassium chlorate but it is quite corrosive over the long term. Maybe even the short term.

Mercury Fulminate is the other option, if mercury is indeed available, which is non-corrosive in the form that potassium chlorate is, but weakens over time. Apparently not even all that long of a time.

The other more TL 6 plus primers seem much harder to manufacture.

The cartridge case and primer itself seem either easy or hard, depending on if one has or can make the machining equipment.

Lead bullets (i.e. just the bullet) are of course immensely easy to make. A campfire and a mold. Muzzleloaders seem destined to be used by some lower tech groups because of the simplicity.

Airguns are a fairly logical alternative assuming the know-how is available and the steel machining capable of building air reservoirs that can hold 2500+ psi. And the air pumps. But if so, it's attractive to just need air and muscle and lead instead of cartridge cases, powder, etc.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

A major problem with black powder to keep in mind, is fouling building up in the barrel. A significant number of automatic actions will not allow for this, and may have a variety of amusing, annoying to downright dangerous malfunctions. On the other hand AK-47s and STEN guns will likely work just fine with black powder, and the first Maxim guns were designed for it, if you can make enough ammunition for them.

Don't forget other ways to make fixed fortification weapons, such as steam.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

I don't really won't some weird steampunk schizo-tech. What I want is a post-apocalyptic horror/western. The goal is a rationale for weapons and technology that wouldn't be totally out of place in the late 19th century.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Fair enough, although the Maxim gun is mid 1880's, and there were Gatling guns in the U.S. Civil War era, with individually loaded casings along the line of muskets, that needed percussion caps on each round.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

I would guess that they could probably maintain fairly high TL technology level in regards to agriculture/ranching. We already have TL 8 seeds and have been breeding various food animals to be bigger and bigger. If they survive your apocolypse then then we are likely to have higher food yields compared to historical TL 5.

Secondly we could probably maintain fairly high tech levels in various softer scientific fields such as psychiatry/socialogy/economics with just the books surviving and an interest from the population.

Third in terms of medical tech, I suspect we could probably do a better job than historical TL5 in terms of disease prevention from just our better understanding of Germ theory and Sanitation.

Fourth we are probably going to get a number of knick knack techs that survive such as Blue Jeans (first invented in 1873), Hollywood Holsters rather than historical holster choices. Overall thanks to historical documentation the post apocolypse society can probably skip a significant amount of the experimentation period of tech developement cycle. Since they have teh historical documentation to go off and are simply reinventing tech rather than developing it for the first time.

Expect for this to result in less overall time spent on the experimentation period of tech developement and more on deciphering historicaly documented tech filling the various blanks in the documentation of older tech. You are probably going to see a great deal of Tech cherry picking over time by the various new TL 5+ Societies as they reimplement the "best tech choices" that their infrastructure will allow.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

The apocalypse is ongoing and serves to depress crop yields both by occasionally infecting crops and by enforcing a whole host of complex food taboos.
Yeah, especially since Telepathy is a thing.

Enough to change the medical TL to 6 or higher for First Aid and Physician rolls? Of course Germ Theory is solidly TL5 already.
Yes and this was the sort of detail I'm looking for here. What items and techniques that are technically TL6-8 by date of introduction but are totally possible for cottage industry production at TL5?

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Unless there's some obvious reason the Haber process isn't doable (historically TL 6, but the industrial requirements are not particularly severe) you're going to have smokeless powder. Once you have concentrated nitric acid, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine are not difficult to produce.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Right, that's what I thought, and there's no reason they wouldn't use centerfire cartridges either, right?

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

It might be tough to make good smokeless powders, including good primers, but your main barrier looks to be purity, improperly prepared guncotton is extremely unstable (nitrocellulose was discovered in 1846, and the first practical smokeless powder was in 1884).

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Camelbacks, backpacks with good padded shoulder straps and hip belts, web gear, etc should all be pretty easily doable. A lot of modern LBE style stuff isn't particularly complicated but didn't catch on till later for some reason. Leather and cloth rather than synthetics though, obviously.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

So lower Malf numbers?

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Limit production to black powder and you're pretty much limited to manual actions (revolver, lever, pump, bolt).. You won't get the velocity normally associated with bolt-action rifle either.

Maxim guns did predate smokeless powder but they jammed due to black powder fouling. This would do in gas-actions too. A recoil-operated autoloader _might_ be possible if designed from scratch but would probably jam just like the Maxims.

Electric motors are fairly likely as relic-tech and you could have black powder chain and miniguns but even hand-cranked Gatlings usually needed to be sited in a crosswind situation to keep from blinding the crew with powder smoke.

An AK-47 (or any other recoil-operated weapon native to the smokeless powder era) is very unlikely to cycle properly if you replace smokeless with black powder. They would become mostly minor caliber cartridges with black powder even if it did work. No black powder rifles below .450 are likely for serious combat. In the notes fro the Winchester on p.110 there are stats for a 32-20 Win but it only did 2D+1 P even from a rifle barrel. Carrying that much gun for that little effect isn't a good bargain.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Is that especially plausible? The Haber process doesn't require a huge industrial base.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

I am thinking TL 6 but I am far from being an expert on the requirements of medical infrastructure. They should still have a lot of knowledge left over on how the human body works, the need to sterilize medical tools between uses etc etc. Addtionally little things such as CPR or the Heimlich maneuver probably do not need a tech base to maintain as long you still have the information lying around.

Left/right shoes and standardized shoe sizes, up to as late as 1850 most shoes had no difference between left and right. I really can't see not to have left/right shoes once the concept has been around.

Double Seem Canning seems to be both cheaper and safer ultimately and was invented in 1888. Considering ongoing food problems are still an ongoing issue in your campaign "safe food tech" seems like a priority tech.

Baseball caps were first introduced in 1860 and seem to be a simple enough piece of tech to still be maintained

Zippers were a 1851 tech so shouldnt be to hard for your TL 5/6 society to still have around.

T Shirts are a late 19th century tech but seem simple enough that they should not present any real hurdles for a TL 5 Tech Base to manufacture, nor should using T Shirts to advertise various things either.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

That's totally TL5. Pasteur did the theoretical groundwork in the 1860s and Lister the practical technology in the '70s.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

My apologies mentally I was thinking the border line for TL 5-6 was 1850s for some reason. I might actually have to look through the books and relook at the defined tech year divides again :). TL 5 is not one of those tech levels I have looked at for a very long time

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

<shrug> Eccentric survival of knowldege of TL6 industrial processes is certainly possible after the failure of TL8 information storage technology.

Looking up "Haber process"......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

......I get multiple steps involving very high pressures with one step apparently requiring no less than 2200 psi. looks to me as though you need good steel and probably lots of it. I'd rate it as full TL6 industry with no "cottage" stuff.

If you have that fully developed TL6 society available to you then smokeless powder would not really be significantly more difficult to make than black powder. On the other hand, if you're trying to recreate technology in an abandoned barn TL5 generally might look much more attractive.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

If 'air rifle' is steampunk schizo-tech someone should tell the many hunters out there killing deer, buffalo, boar, etcetera with them right now...

Mostly agree, and individual 'barns' would have their own recipes. Since longer-living powder makers are probably keeping things in small doses there would probably be dozens of different manufacturers of varying qualities - even if there was a central manufacturer churning out the bulk and crossing their fingers.

Someone, somewhere, would probably be messing with Nitro though...I can see it going either way in terms of how wide-spread it gets, as again, 1 central manufacture having some know-how, equipment, and luck can blow it open.

Some blown-up factories can put a damper on anyone's style, though.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

What about flame throwers? Zippo lighters are tl 5 & a stray aerosol can and a few jury rigs to keep things in place and you have a weapon for lower income scavengers, also, what about spring loaded one shots when black powder isn't available? And vehicles. With modern appliances laying around, the possibilities for chariot vehicles can be particularly lucrative.

Horse drawn chariots with barbed wire siding and gouts of flame at the flanks, scavenged rifle rows jury rigged to fire at once in the front and front armor with viewing slits. Heavy metal studded armor for horses.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

The problem I always run into when trying to think of what there would still be for a setting like this is that I can't seem to keep technology from quickly returning to at least early WWII technology in relatively short order.

If you've got TL 5 tech base, and any information left over on what is required for TL 6+ combined with the various bits left laying around from the before times... most of the tech difference consists of slight improvements on how to do things.

For example, electricity, if you know the basics of how to generate it, is relatively easy to do, even at a lower tech base. If you have electricity, you can make motors to run machines, which then gives you finer control over manufacturing, even on a small scale.

Sure, you won't have all the bells and whistles of the higher tech, but you could probably get the equivalent of artisan crafted motor vehicles as opposed to assembly line building of them.

The population issue will slow down large scale advancement, but don't underestimate how much can be done with a small shop when you already know something is possible.

After all, things like the Sten series weapons were designed to be quickly built by most private garage shops. So if they can manufacture admittedly ugly weapons, what else can they manufacture that can assist in restoring past technology.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

A bolt-action .45-70 with a tubular magazine is starting to sound pretty attractive.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

If the knowledge survived, then you can get production of many things at the "Artisan" level which can't be produced at the factory level, and some of the things which were invented at higher TL are actually easier to produce than their lower TL counterparts, as long as the knowledge is retained.

This also applies to many medical procedures, you can do transplants, blood transfusions and such, you just don't get the imaging bonuses.

The advantage of the artisanship paradigm is that each item/batch becomes unique, so you don't get standardization of ammunition or parts.

For weapons that means you have to either self-load, or buy from a given dealer/artisan group who make ammo and parts for your particular weapons. Though if they're trying to abide by an existing standard you could just have a Malfunction roll when using off-manufacture so called .45 ammo, just like you'd apply for someone reloading the same old cartridge for the umpteenth time.

You can adapt some of the Prototype rules from p.473, but basically anyone with the right knowledge and access to a good machine shop can make individual one off items, especially if the items don't have inordinately high precision tolerances.

Think of all the things you can build in your garage/shop if you wanted to, the biggest hindrances are time and money. Time can be somewhat mitigated by hiring a few people to do grunt work, but just like every good sized town used to have a blacksmith, if knowledge is retained every good sized town will also have a machinist/artisan if at nothing else at the bike shop level.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Yes, and there can be air-rifles, but I don't want them to be especially significant or iconic. This is supposed to be a Western. I want my lawmen armed with revolvers and lever action rifles if at all possible.

Again, Western Horror not Road Warrior.

Not enough people for widespread late TL6 (there is a larger more northern state that is approaching late TL6). Remember it took over a hundred million to harvest raw materials, refine them, transport them and assemble them into the mass produced consumer goods of 1939 America, Germany or even the USSR. I haven't figured out exactly the population of the Gold Coast Confederacy, but it's not large. Cities and towns with more than 250/sq mile or so vanished and reproduction taboos and the ongoing blight have kept populations low. Call it about 3 million people at the most.
Yeah, and I don't have a problem there using the normal rules for Higher-Tech equipment. Imported or Artisan TL 6 gear is double cost, TL8 relics are 8x cost.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Bolt action with detachable box is better .

Remington Lee M1885

1885 is very T.L 5 .

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

And that in itself is probably going to seriously impede any future technological development. Overcoming the idea that "the ancients were wiser than us, and old is always better than new" was one of the major barriers holding up the start of the Enlightenment. The distinguishing feature of many of the great pioneers of science (Galileo, Harvey, etc.) was that they were willing to chuck Aristotle and Hippocrates in the bin.

OTOH, in this case the ancient knowledge actually is better most of the time. Things could get weird.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Actually it's TL6. TL6 starts in 1880.

The continued invasion of Earth by inimical, incomprehensible and insubstantial aliens, the entire uninhabitable Southwest, the uncrossable Ocean and the zombie hive mind threat make technological renaissance a low priority.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Bicycles (although they'll be heavy and clunky, and adequately reliable pneumatic tyres may be difficult). Motorised transport, steam-powered if necessary (and probably prone to the occasional boiler explosion if so, although a sensible designer will arrange things to direct potential blasts outwards). Good designs for complicated gears and cams and such.

Locks that actually work. Clocks that actually work. Good topographic maps of just about everywhere. Properly realistic artwork.

Sensible tent, sleeping bag and rucksack designs. Good compound bows and crossbows. Very good low-tech artillery designs. A variety of martial art styles.

The concept of animal welfare (although the reality is likely to take a hit). The concept of mental illness as morally-neutral disease. Open atheism. Secularism. Feminism. The rejection of claims of racial superiority. The condemnation of slavery and torture. The concept of environmentally sustainable practice. Contraception. The awareness of child abuse.

A large assortment of recreational drugs / drugs of abuse. Much better medical care, as mentioned by others. Quite a few nasty chemical weapons. The concept of the fuel-air explosive...

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Remember that it's not the actual year which makes something a TL higher, it's when an aggregate number of concepts are determined to have exceeded a certain threshold.

Many mechanical weapons systems in use during TL6-8 are simply refinements on TL5 concepts, many of which can be done with TL5 artisanry due to not requiring exacting machining, they just weren't thought of earlier is all, sort of like a paperclip.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

The knowledge was there, but sterile surgical practice did not enter common use until the early 20th century. There was a great deal of resistance to its introduction from the medical establishment of the time.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Didn't TL5 have all of these things? It certainly had good timepieces, maps, and realistic art (photography is TL5).

Why? Fiberglass isn't going to be available. What are you making these out of that isn't already a TL5 material? Also why bother? Fancy bows are a luxury hunting fad when you have guns. Instead of cannon? What do TL8 martial arts styles have that TL5 styles did not?

Horror game, Taint is very real here.
Absolutely, the fact that too many people getting infected in one place kills even more people is a strong incentive for population control here.

Maybe. FAEs require some sophisticated chemistry and it's not something that you can learn from The Way Things Work.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

If you haven't already, you should look at Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The first book (The Gunslinger) seems like exactly the vibe you're after.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Actually, Wizard and Glass is even closer to where I'm going. Down to the Knightly Order.

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.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

You mean the modern S&W .500 magnum?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.500_S%26W_Magnum

The maximum psi with that is 60,000 and even conservative factory ammo is loaded at 50,000 psi. You will not be seeing that with black powder. No, not even if you use a "lot" of it.

I don't see nay real reason to go back to loading gate revolvers. It wasn't am matter of good steel or even precision manufacturing that lead to the "modern" swing-out cylinder designs seen in the late 1890s. It was just working the bugs out of the ergonomics.

So Colt New Service in .45 Colt. See Pulp Guns 1.

You could stick with the break open action of the S&W Model 3 even if you didn't go all the way to 1896 revolvers. The Number 3 is probably what Wyatt Earp actually carried at the OK Corral so that ought to be iconic enough for anyone.

Explain the proceedure for a loading gate revolver to your players and they'll choose anything else.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

I recall reading somewhere that the .50-110 black powder centerfire rifle cartridge got up to ~55,000 psi, I don't have a cite and could be misremembering, but that's why I suggested a sturdy revolver to fire those.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

From what I know about black powder such pressures are impossible.

What you may have heard about is this thing.....

http://www.z-hat.com/The%20Fifty.htm

...which is based on post-1900 barrels and smokeless powder.

It goes on to say......

<cut and paste>
Older rifles that are not stamped “nickel steel” (pre-1900~ on the barrel should be relegated to black-powder loads or smokeless loads that do not ex*ceed 28,000 psi.
</cut and paste>

This talks about reloading modern muzzleloaders with modern (read high quality) black powder and the psi produced.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/muzzleloading_pressure.htm

There were some pressured cited that exceeded what I expected but the average appeared to be under 20,000 psi. That's just not going to produce TL6 military rifle loads. No 9mm either. You might be able to do .45 ACP autoloader but I bet the black powder fouling makes it jam too often.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Is it just traditional black powder, or would black powder made using current knowledge but TL5-6 techniques also be so constrained?


BTW, that article you cited does mention that the Winchester Model 71 can handle 42,000 psi, so perhaps what I'm misremembering is that one of the rifles chambered for the .50-110 black powder centerfire rifle cartridge is capable of handling up to ~55,000 psi, then again I read so much fiction that it could have just been what some author tossed out as justification for a dinosaur load or some such.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Absolutely. It's based in black powder's fundamental burning characteristics.

You need high quality black powder to get up to the 1400 fps you sometimes see in black powder weapons. You absolutely have to have smokeless powder to get tot he 2800 fps we've come to expect from military rifles. Many historical black powder weapons in use under field conditions may have fired at not much over 500 fps.

The twin factors of higher velocities and less residue is why you see the French 75mm artillery piece the Maxim machine gun, the high velocity .30 caliber rifle and the self-loading autopistol appear so quickly after the invention of smokeless powder while none was practical before smokeless powder.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

Not sure it's the pressure that's impossible, it's just that the pressure is fairly useless because a bullet can't go faster than the expansion rate of the gas.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

.....and the expansion rate of black powder gases is much lower than that of smokeless powder gasses.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

TL8 didn't do anything good the first time, why would they expect it to help the second time? Besides I don't plan to run a game about inventors struggling to recreate the atom bomb, or whatever.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

NPCs trying might make good set dressing though.


Anyway, as others have said, antibiotics and vaccines seem like good contenders for things people would put the work in to keep.

Just looking at pages 6-7 of High-Tech for things that might be doable on a small scale and useful enough to bother with: Poison gas, fingerprinting, radios, electric lights, blood transfusions, inoculation, penicillin, electric motors, hydroelectric power, genetically engineered crops*, wind power.

As for medical technology I would go with the sidebar on Bio-Tech page 123; treat First Aid as a cultural skill. I would expect people to use versions of intubation kits, bag masks, sphygmomanometers, and IV fluids. People should also, I expect, practice basically modern physiotherapy. Prosthetics should be a lot better than historical TL 5 ones.

*Like Nosforontu said, any that survive might be useful.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

It also occurs to me that you are not going to see such a neat distinction between civilian and military arms assuming that there is any distinction at all.

Given the limited production capacity, which under the circumstances may well be lower than the overall TL might imply it is not unlikely that individual producers may favour a relatively small number of 'dual use' models.

My best guess would be that these will be rifles in .45-70 or similar calibres, think Remington-Lee and Winchester '76 clones, and revolvers similar to the S&W no3 or hand ejector, Colt New Service or Webley models in a variety of .38 or .45 chamberings.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

One thing that makes it more Western is lack of a portable power source. They don't have the long range transport to move coal cheaply, oil is scarce, if they have problems growing enough food devoting crops to biodiesel won't make sense. So wood powered trains and horses.

I'd expect weapons to use both black powder and smokeless. You can make black powder on a small scale, nitric acid is a larger industrial base. So it will be available but you can't count on it everywhere and it will cost more. So a rancher or farmer that expects to fire a shot at a time for hunting or varmints will use the cheaper black powder. Someone that expects combat will use the more expensive stuff for lack of smoke to obscure vision and give away your position and barrels that don't foul.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

And electric power will be small scale so stick to water wheels and windmills for that.

This sounds like good game design to me.

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

If your justification was "Because its not the feel I want" that is all you had to say as otherwise it falls pretty flat. :p

Re: Post-apocalyptic TL 5/8
 

I deliberately tried to avoid to discuss the the details of the setting in this thread because I didn't want to derail the question I was actually asking. I will post a thread with a link to the writeup when I'm done, and at that point I will happily entertain more general criticism about the campaign.

In the setting there certainly are people engaged in technological Renaissance, but that's not who the PCs are supposed to be.