How Much Food is in an Urban US Armory?

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Dustin

Flipping this around, a warehouse that already has a supply of MREs is going to be very attractive as a base for any group. Depending on the willingness of the warehouse denizens to negotiate, this is an opportunity for the PCs to make hard choices about bargaining, offering to merge the 2 groups, etc etc, versus murder-hoboing the warehouse (and gaining a reputation as bandits, if any witnesses survive).

Possible, but speaking as someone who worked in a trucking freight terminal for 2ish years, for the most part workers do not really have an idea what the freight is.

Of the people who worked in the terminal 4-10ish, I was one of the people who knew what 'some' of the freight was (because I helped set up freight that required an appointment be made for delivery time). Vast majority of freight bills do not necessarily have much in the way of detail (number of pallets, weight of each pallet or aggregate weight).

Even the details that were on the bills were often not paid attention to by drivers and dock workers.

We had an account that manufactured and shipped lightbulbs (fluorescent tubes). We moved the customers freight a couple of times a week, every week. Pallets were marked 'fragile' and 'do not topload'. Yet every 2-3 months or so someone would put 1k+ lbs of freight on top of one of their pallets. 4-6 feet of cardboard boxes containing glass tubes would reduce to 18 odd inches or so in a New York minute. (I knew because I also handled OSD - Overs, Shorts, and Damage).

For the most part the concerns (if this much attention WAS paid) would be 'is this the right trailer?', 'will it fit?'/'can I MAKE it fit?', and 'what am I having for lunch?'.

Now the terminal actually picking up from the MRE manufacturer would likely know who they are and what their freight tends to be. (Also where the factory is)

As the freight crosses the country and moves from terminal to terminal there is a progressively lower chance for peeps to have any idea what is on the pallet(s) other than 'dry goods' or whatever short, vague description was put into the template for the bills of lading and exported out again and again for years.

But yeah your scenario is another possibility that a GM can play with...