Worldbuilding without the post-WW/WWII/Cold War glasses (TL, CR etc.)

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It wouldn't have been invented without some war, but any setting that doesn't have wars is so alien to human nature that it's really hard to speculate.

But it really had to be that particular war at that particular time. A whole lot of stuff had to come together for those gangsters to be using those weapons. Yeah, they'd have had access to some kind of weapons. But it might not have been so easy to get, or as useful. Without a WWI event with trench warfare, there probably wouldn't have been a need to risk developing such a weapon at that time.

What if the equivalent weapon was made in Germany or England or Russia instead? Then it would have been a lot more difficult to acquire. I don't know.

Snrk. Automatic weapons are darned useful, which is why people fighting in small wars all over the world use them.

I'm not sure if that's true. They're useful, sure. But I thought they used them because central planners in socialist states decided to churn out gajillions of them, and then they just happened to be available. Would those people in small wars really be that different if they had bolt actions designed for long range? I don't know. What's a VC sniper? One who learned how to use his sights.