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An honest to gods HK G3. I was 17, my uncle acquired it somehow. The thing was ejecting brass so hard they were chipping the plexi between lanes. I've had a HK 91(civilian-approved version) on my wishlist for a very long time.

Most of the times french weapon manufacturers came up with very good ideas and designs and then the army and parliament dismembered them by adding hundreds of cost savings or aloof demands. After all, we invented somkeless powder, modern turreted tanks, metal cartridges in the Gras, and a lot of other stuff I forget or don't think of.

I've seen another MAS36 for example that was not used despite being of first type. The main difference I noticed was the bayonet made to sabotage the guns by sticking two together and the front sight. I wish I had got my own MAS instead of borrowing !

Anyway, many MAS weren't issued at all, and prototypes of semi auto in ww1 were never issued, because "we've got spare 8mm Level and your gun doesn't use it so get back to the bench please".

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
The issue I have with Forgotten Weapons is that Ian comments like an expert on military weapons without the tedious first-hand knowledge of what goes into that. His weird attempt to rehabilitate the Chauchat is a great example of not understanding the difference between an afternoon at the range and day after day in a trench. Even a relative tourist like myself can understand why the whole "jams when gets hot, don't shoot to0 fast" thing is a deal-breaker for an LMG. Spending a couple of days running around the back country on a stateside base is in no way comparable to trench warfare, but it's a heck of a lot more demanding than taking your meticulously oiled, cleaned, and pampered weapon to the range for an afternoon and pronouncing it reliable.

I take it for what he can offer as someone doing the background reading for me as it were. I love the background on the procurement, the politics of the time, the observations users of the day had and any neat observations where the mechanics have deviated from the norms of the time, or differences with other platforms. Where he is giving his opinions on how it fires they are just that (and I tend to skip the videos from the range unless someone has told me I should view one) - but even there for me it is instructional because I have to deal with people like that in a variety of fields and its great to have that constant reminder that confidence and good knowledge in other areas doesn't mean they get credibility elsewhere. When you have had to sit and mediate a discussion between an engineering officer upset about his guys suffering pretty awful leg wounds because they are stuffing mouseholing gear in their thigh pockets, the development guys trying to explain about the system and the doctrine writer arguing everyone is doing it wrong, you can appreciate such reminders

(Though don't get me started on a scheme Islamic Relief had to teach people in target areas how to be proper Muslims that some colleagues from other organisations thought was a wonderful idea and we should fund it.)

Before my time with the Army, I somewhat believed that the Stoner platform was flawed, but after "living the lifestyle," I've tremendous confidence in it.

Subsequent arms contracts bears that out. In the 80s, the bullpup was the weapon of the future, but they're slowly fading away. Having the magazine well in front of the trigger guard is just really convenient.

I think alongside that you have increased convergence on the role of a rifleman within the wider system. I am frankly amazed the UK is starting to adopt the KS-1/L403A1 having sat through innumerable lectures and sermons from the great and the good about the rifleman concept in the British army and why that precluded options like the m4 (I am also amazed its a drip drip of changes happening in various places because replacing all the associated stuff from armourers stores and training to secure stowage points in trucks is going to be problematic with two platforms in service). But it shows western countries at least seem to be coming to closer and closer accord to what they want their soldiers to do.

The background of any collectible military rifle is indeed an important factor to decide whether you I would buy it or not.

My favorite ones are by far russian (having learned russian to a very solid level and liking the country and its culture a lot) and french (because I'm very interested in my country's history). Even though of course, while their my go-to choices, if I could afford a nice american, israeli, whatever weapon, I wouldn't be upset doing so at all!

After all, I didn't only buy my Auto 5 because it was a good bargain, but because I was interested in this piece of history with great fascinating design and long and various service!

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:His weird attempt to rehabilitate the Chauchat is a great example of not understanding the difference between an afternoon at the range and day after day in a trench. Even a relative tourist like myself can understand why the whole "jams when gets hot, don't shoot to0 fast" thing is a deal-breaker for an LMG. Spending a couple of days running around the back country on a stateside base is in no way comparable to trench warfare, but it's a heck of a lot more demanding than taking your meticulously oiled, cleaned, and pampered weapon to the range for an afternoon and pronouncing it reliable.

Having formerly worked in small arms testing and evaluation, I find the mythos around the Chauchat absolutely fascinating. I don't take McCollum's range experience as anything more than range-toy-testing and I have no personal experience with trench warfare, but I notice when the opinions of those who used a weapon in combat contrasts with the prevailing public opinion.

First-hand accounts of the original 8mm Lebel examples in French, Belgian, and partisan use were generally positive, and its reliability under combat conditions does not appear to have been noticeably worse than its peers. There were substantiated problems with parts compatibility and magazine quality, but the modern criticisms usually focus on details that do not appear to have been actual problems in use, or vulnerabilities to trench conditions that were fairly universal and caused serious problems even for guns that are typically regarded as reliable (eg Maxim/Vickers guns experiencing stoppages due to moisture-induced swelling of the cotton duck belts).

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Chauchat was designed for Walking Fire like the BAR. Today we want LMGs to dump hundreds of rounds repeatedly in suppressing fire, but at the time that would have been unthinkable. LMGs at the time were conceptually more like Heavy SMGs. Sporadic bursts of aimed fire to suppress the enemy while advancing and at close range dumping bursts for actual killing. They're not made to dump tons of ammo towards enemy trenches to suppress large areas(thats what the Maxim guns are for!).

The French did use the Chauchat for sustained fire in defense, though, and it's worth noting that the thermal lock issue does not appear to have been a major problem in practice. The French Army conducted trials in 1916 that found lockup occurred at 300-400 rounds in continuous automatic fire, not a quick thing with 18rd magazines at a sedate 250RPM. And a survey issued to every infantry regiment in May 1917 yielded strong complaints about magazine fragility, but not overheating, and praised the weapon for its volume of fire in repelling German counterattacks on seized positions, when it had to do the job of heavier machine guns until they could be brought up.

For comparison: The Lewis gun is a lot closer in capabilities to what we would regard as a light machine gun, better able to sustain automatic fire and feeding from 47rd pan magazines. It also weighs close to 50% more, can't be effectively fired from the shoulder, and its magazines are completely uncovered on the bottom (and suffer from the same intrusion problems as the Chauchat mags), but it is generally regarded as an excellent weapon for the time. The British made about 15,000 of them during WW1, and issued one per platoon from 1917 onwards.

The Germans developed the MG08/15 conversion of their Maxim derivative. It's an awkward and ungainly attempt at turning a mounted MMG into a forty-pound LMG, suffering the same problems as other Maxims without the luxury of a carriage to keep out of the mud. They made 130,000 by the end of the war, and each infantry platoon of four squads carried two.

The French made over a quarter million Chauchats. By the end of the war the doctrinal French infantry platoon had a minimum of one Chauchat in every squad. No other nation came remotely close to the density of automatic weapons that the French achieved, and even with its reliability problems, 3+ Chauchats per platoon is a lot more lead going downrange than a single Lewis.

By all accounts it appears to be the Sten of WW1: A crude, suboptimal, but expedient weapon that fulfilled an immediate requirement and could be produced en-masse without occupying manufacturing capacity better suited to more sophisticated arms. The big difference is that the Chauchat is tethered to the albatross of a .30-06 conversion, which dominates English-speaking discourse around the weapon, and the combat ineffectiveness of that variant has been unfairly ascribed to the original.

Good post CatBarf. Always good to look at context and I think there is a lot to be said for the automatic weapon you have vs the theoretically better weapon you don't. As you say, the Sten is a great example.

Were Vickers gun stoppages due to moisture common? Some of the apocyphal stories of Vickers reliability are impressive. Is there a difference between Maxim guns and Vickers guns in this regard? (I know these are the same weapon mechanically, but the Vickers weapons were produced with very high grade materials with good machining, and cost a lot as a result).

 Haighus wrote:
Were Vickers gun stoppages due to moisture common? Some of the apocyphal stories of Vickers reliability are impressive. Is there a difference between Maxim guns and Vickers guns in this regard? (I know these are the same weapon mechanically, but the Vickers weapons were produced with very high grade materials with good machining, and cost a lot as a result).

With any gun using a cotton belt there were issues with humidity or water immersion causing the belt to swell, become loose, and drop the rounds. Or they would stretch to the point of impacting feed reliability, and result in an unusable belt. Or swell and then contract again, gripping the rounds too tightly to extract. This was enough of a problem that post-war pretty much every nation would start designing metallic belts, but the standard solution in WW1 was to keep the belts sealed in boxes whenever possible, and this seems to have worked well for the dugout emplacements in which the MGs were typically employed in the defense.

It's when the guns had to be brought up to improvised firing positions to reinforce newly-seized gains, or were pressed into LMG service (as in the LMG08/15), that this became an issue- if you're just sitting in the rain waiting for a counterattack, there's not much you can do to keep the loaded belt from getting wet. And while the Maxim/Vickers is an exceptionally reliable gun under clean conditions, mud on a belt will stop it up just as surely as mud in a Chauchat magazine or Lewis pan, and keeping a 250rd cotton belt from touching the ground while it's feeding into a gun hastily positioned on the edge of a fighting trench appears to have been challenging.

Basically it's worth keeping in mind that the manner in which a weapon is employed will have a substantial impact on its reliability in practice. There isn't a single automatic weapon of WW1 that functioned reliably when subjected to trench warfare conditions, so if you see an assessment single out a particular weapon as prone to stoppages from mud, take it with a grain of salt and compare to its contemporaries.

Both Maxim and Vickers guns are almost supernaturally reliable. Maxim guns are still being used today in various conflicts. The only real downside to a Maxim gun is they are chonky. The Vickers is basically a Maxim turned upside down and with some weight shaved off(though its still super heavy).

Is that down to a relatively simple design?

Simple design with very robust parts and a cooling system that allows for more or less continuous fire.

There have been multiple occasions where Maxim or Vickers guns were fired for multiple days on end. Some did require swaps of springs and of course changes of the water, but some didn't replace any parts at all.

IIRC there was a 1963 test where a Vickers gun was fired for 7 days straight. 5 million rounds or something.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Is that down to a relatively simple design?

Not really. Like most of the influential turn-of-the-century designs it's significantly more complicated than its modern counterparts, and its recoil system was a technological dead-end.

It's reliable because it's ridiculously overbuilt (the gun alone weighs 60lbs), is designed for a low rate of fire, has easily swapped wear components, and has a water-cooling system that completely mitigates heat accumulation so long as water is available. It's also recoil-operated (being originally designed for black powder), so there's no gas system to clean out.

But if you want your machine gun package to be portable by an infantryman rather than an analogue for crewed artillery, you have to start making compromises.

 catbarf wrote:
The French made over a quarter million Chauchats. By the end of the war the doctrinal French infantry platoon had a minimum of one Chauchat in every squad. No other nation came remotely close to the density of automatic weapons that the French achieved, and even with its reliability problems, 3+ Chauchats per platoon is a lot more lead going downrange than a single Lewis.

Yeah, and how many of these did they keep in service afterwards? The Lewis and the BAR soldiered on, but even the hapless Balkan clients who were "gifted" them in 1919 desperately looked for something, anything else.

To be clear, I like Forgotten Weapons, have watched it for years, I just have to take it with a grain of salt, sometimes lots of grains.

It has been a useful resource for collecting, especially disassembly/reassembly.

One thing I think is weird about it is how many blind spots he has in his coverage. Presumably he cut a deal with C&Rsenal over what he would and would not cover. That channel is the cure for insomnia.

I don't think anybody is saying the Chauchat wasn't quickly obsolete. But it was a good invention for its time.

It's kind of the phenomenon with a lot of things that the first use/adopters of a new idea often don't fully benefit from it. France in general seems to have had this issue with a lot of things. Smokeless powder, mitrailleuse(first machine gun ever fielded arguably), etc...

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't think anybody is saying the Chauchat wasn't quickly obsolete. But it was a good invention for its time.

It's kind of the phenomenon with a lot of things that the first use/adopters of a new idea often don't fully benefit from it. France in general seems to have had this issue with a lot of things. Smokeless powder, mitrailleuse(first machine gun ever fielded arguably), etc...

Ian put a lot of effort into rehabilitating it. I'm all about challenging the prevailing narratives and such, but even watching him try to set it up on a range with those gangly bipod legs, trying to work his body around it, and then seeing how easy and quick the Lewis could be deployed kind of gave the lie to the whole thing. The French used it because it was what they had. It was better than nothing.

But not by that much.

Forgotten Weapons has been very useful in doing research, and it's one of my go-to places because Ian often has guests on who know lots of things and that can lead you to more detailed information. He has provided original research and debunked some long-standing myths.

But he has flaws, and I think his biggest is that when he goes to range and does his LARP thing, he doesn't seem to grasp that actual troops wear the gear and carry the weapons so that they become an extension of themselves. (It's been 23 years, but my rifle's rack number was 109, dammit!)

He regularly seems to skimp on cleaning and maintenance that simply wouldn't be tolerated, and he does it in part because the exposure to the elements is almost always short-term.

TL;DR: he's good on the design/history, not so much on function/utility.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Yeah, and how many of these did they keep in service afterwards? The Lewis and the BAR soldiered on but even the hapless Balkan clients who were "gifted" them in 1919 desperately looked for something, anything else.

You could argue that the Sten was a terrible, irredeemable gun because it was immediately replaced after WW2 with the Sterling while the M3 remained in service, but you would not find it well-received among many historians.

In any case, the Chauchat was used by Belgium at the start of WW2, by Greece in 1940-41 against Italy, in reserve use in France during the Blitz, and by the Finns during the Continuation War. The Lewis had been replaced by the Bren at that point and remained only in Home Guard service, and the BAR was significantly altered just four years after introduction, redesigned into a light machine gun in the 1930s, and then failed in this role during WW2.

Very few designs remained intact in the interwar period, and even some of the ones that were successful in combat- most of the machine guns, the Luger and Mauser pistols and their stocked counterparts, the American Enfields- were soon replaced as both technology and doctrine advanced massively. It's no surprise that an interim, hastily adopted, expedient design was retired ASAP in favor of one that was both newer and more importantly not designed around a wholly obsolete cartridge, but that doesn't mean it was a failure in the capacity in which it was used.

I've critiqued Forgotten Weapons more than once myself. His repetition of that hoary old myth about the XM177 moderator being intended to make the weapon sound like an AK stands out, because it's directly contradicted by official documentation from Aberdeen. I prefer to rely on primary sources.

 catbarf wrote:
In any case, the Chauchat was used by Belgium at the start of WW2, by Greece in 1940-41 against Italy, in reserve use in France during the Blitz, and by the Finns during the Continuation War. The Lewis had been replaced by the Bren at that point and remained only in Home Guard service, and the BAR was significantly altered just four years after introduction, redesigned into a light machine gun in the 1930s, and then failed in this role during WW2.

Clearly I struck a sympathetic nerve.

The Lewis gun absolutely saw service outside the Home Guard in World War II. They're one of the iconic weapons of the LRDG. They were also used for light AA work on channel convoy ships. As for the BAR, it got product improved and for whatever reason remained in service.

The point is that Ian goes down rabbit holes and part of the reason for that is that he's never had to service a weapon day to day in the field. That's all I'm saying.

I do enjoy the show, but am a little annoyed that he's mostly hyping new-built weapons from the Balkans and Central Europe. I don't really care about the latest polymer 9 or bullpup, I want more vintage stuff.

Me again with another movie related question.

Currently watching Mad Max Fury Road with a houseguest.

And as has happened before to Max (at least in Mad Max 2), the shotgun shell, rather than firing, just sort of….fizzles. Like there’s a chemical reaction going on, but it is to a proper firing as a five day old kitten is to a Lion in its prime in terms of strength.

I think I’ve only seen such a thing in this movie series. And it’s got me wondering…..is it just a plot device, is it kind of a standard risk of all rounds, or perhaps a standard risk unique to shotgun cartridges?

Educate me, Dakka!!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think I’ve only seen such a thing in this movie series. And it’s got me wondering…..is it just a plot device, is it kind of a standard risk of all rounds, or perhaps a standard risk unique to shotgun cartridges?

Educate me, Dakka!!

The idea is that the cartridge has been compromised by moisture or something and therefore the powder produces less of a charge. Hence the "damp squib" reaction.

I've never seen it happen. Plastic ammo is pretty well sealed. Maybe the Aussies are still using paper casings, but I've seen people dig out vintage paper shells, dunk them in water, and they still go off.

Mad Max is an Aussie film series, and has Aussie sensibilities, one of which seems to be that ammunition is this strange, mysterious thing that is beyond the ken of mortal men. It's not. If you can supercharge an engine, you can machine firearms and make ammo for them. Lord Humongous in The Road Warrior uses a revolver to inflict mayhem, but revolvers don't eject their brass. So there's no reason he shouldn't be able to reload all his ammo. There's some chemistry involved, but it's not insurmountable. I've seen videos showing how to make homemade percussion caps with aluminum cans.

If nothing else, they could be using blackpowder cartridges - and probably would.

I've seen a few squibs with shotshells. It usually has to do with bad powder (moisture intrusion before loading- sometimes happens to commercial ammo during panic manufacturing and ensuing QC dips), or paper cartridges absorbing moisture over time. But it manifests as either a squib with the load staying stuck in the barrel, or firing with very low velocity. No dramatic Hollywood fizzle, though it can make a funny 'bloop' sound.

Anyways, lack of primitive guns or ammo is kind of a staple trope in post-apocalyptic fiction at this point, isn't it? It's all either baseball bats and crossbows or modern firearms, but a conspicuous lack of even ye olde black powder blunderbuss full of nails, which you'd think would give your average rugby padded raider some pause. Even the franchises that are more gun-heavy like Fallout and Metro tend to have bizarrely overengineered 'improvised' guns that don't differ much from professionally-made firearms in function.

You can make black powder with a medieval-level tech base. Gasoline and engine components, not so much.

so now we're on bogaloo loadouts ?

TFB TV's show on this was awesome.

As far as post apocalipitc settingd are concerned, I am a Stalker fan at the exclusion of all others because even Metro doesn't hook me the same.

Plenty of modern guns along with a few hunting ones. Anomaly cranked it a bit further up. Anyway i know myself and will refrain from going on a "why I love stalker" tangent.

I hate overingeneered "crude" weapons having better dakka than an AUG or AK.

To be fair, gunpowder is hard to make. You don't need a high tech level, but you do need skill and knowledge and sources of the raw ingredients.

Where is post-Apocalyptic Australia going to get the saltpetre and sulphur? Can they produce pure enough charcoal that the gunpowder actually functions as a low explosive? Are there even trees available to make charcoal from, or maybe high quality coal? Get any of this wrong and your guns won't work well enough to be worth the effort.

On top of this, if you are producing good powder it is pretty dangerous stuff and might blow up during manufacture.

The medieval world was pretty well developed and had industry and complex societies producing gunpowder.

Hold on Haighus. I feel the need for clarification.

Is gunpowder hard to make with no understanding of the basic concept.

And if you have that, is it tricky to make reliable gun or black powder?

Again I’m waltzing in with my ignorance, so no ‘Gotcha’ pending from me. Nor I’d hope any other participant in this thread!

 Haighus wrote:
To be fair, gunpowder is hard to make. You don't need a high tech level, but you do need skill and knowledge and sources of the raw ingredients.

Where is post-Apocalyptic Australia going to get the saltpetre and sulphur? Can they produce pure enough charcoal that the gunpowder actually functions as a low explosive? Are there even trees available to make charcoal from, or maybe high quality coal? Get any of this wrong and your guns won't work well enough to be worth the effort.

On top of this, if you are producing good powder it is pretty dangerous stuff and might blow up during manufacture.

The medieval world was pretty well developed and had industry and complex societies producing gunpowder.

Salpeter is "easy" if you got enough humans/animals and water.

Sulphur is the 5th most common element on this planet.

And the aussies have coal reserves.

Getting the mix right now that....yeah


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hold on Haighus. I feel the need for clarification.

Is gunpowder hard to make with no understanding of the basic concept.

And if you have that, is it tricky to make reliable gun or black powder?

Again I’m waltzing in with my ignorance, so no ‘Gotcha’ pending from me. Nor I’d hope any other participant in this thread!

Considering we did it as a species what 800-900 years now, in an era that would Make the average chemistry class look like the pinacle of knowledge? No not particulary difficult. Using comparativly abundand ressources Like well, literal gak.

But quality controll would certainly regress a bit especially when energy for instruments would become scarce.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
To be fair, gunpowder is hard to make. You don't need a high tech level, but you do need skill and knowledge and sources of the raw ingredients.

Where is post-Apocalyptic Australia going to get the saltpetre and sulphur? Can they produce pure enough charcoal that the gunpowder actually functions as a low explosive? Are there even trees available to make charcoal from, or maybe high quality coal? Get any of this wrong and your guns won't work well enough to be worth the effort.

On top of this, if you are producing good powder it is pretty dangerous stuff and might blow up during manufacture.

The medieval world was pretty well developed and had industry and complex societies producing gunpowder.

Salpeter is "easy" if you got enough humans/animals and water.

Sulphur is the 5th most common element on this planet.

And the aussies have coal reserves.

Getting the mix right now that....yeah

Right... but do you know how to extract saltpetre from refuse? IIRC most manure is low yield too, with bat guano being particularly favoured. Or maybe you know other ways of creating saltpetre from readily available reagents?

Do you know where to find or extract the sulphur?

Do you know how to make good, high quality charcoal? Coal is apparently not great for gunpowder and the types found in Australia are probably not the best types. Plus your post-Apocalyptic society has to mine the stuff.

There are people who know how to do the above, but they need to be in your group of survivors and you need to have access to the right raw materials to capitalise on it (like having a forest nearby).

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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hold on Haighus. I feel the need for clarification.

Is gunpowder hard to make with no understanding of the basic concept.

And if you have that, is it tricky to make reliable gun or black powder?

Again I’m waltzing in with my ignorance, so no ‘Gotcha’ pending from me. Nor I’d hope any other participant in this thread!

Considering we did it as a species what 800-900 years now, in an era that would Make the average chemistry class look like the pinacle of knowledge? No not particulary difficult. Using comparativly abundand ressources Like well, literal gak.

But quality controll would certainly regress a bit especially when energy for instruments would become scarce.

Eh, chemistry has improved a lot, but people were not dumb 800 years ago and a lot was determined via trial and error. Gunpowder was a strategic resource for complex societies with wide-reaching trade networks. I.e not post-Apocalyptic collapse of society into small nomadic tribes.

modern firearms don't use black powder and most modern firearms won't work if the shells are filled with black powder, specially of the wrong grain size and mixture (going back to single shot again, making an assault rifle work is going to be tricky)
making something that explodes is easy if you know what you are doing, making a reliable gunpowder that works for small arms is not
and the hardest part of making a modern gun work is not the powder but the primer (nice that you can make black powder and fill the shotgun cartridge but can you make the primer and the percussion cap?)

in addition, black powder weapons have a "fail" rate of ~25%, which was one of the main reasons why the blocked formations came up (to get reliable shots out and the more people together shooting at the same time at the same target the lesser the chance that all fail at the same time)

French elderly remembers the time when they used to make powder themselves. It often ended poorly. My grandfather has got a fair few histories of old timers getting burnt badly after tinkering to much, or a fair few guns that dislocated with that one too many shot... I would not play around with this.

Bad hand reloaded ammo are already dangerous enough, if you add in homemade powder... meh.

This would go against safety.

i don't think in a post apocalypse setting safety is anything you will have anyways depending upon how far collapsed society is...

Then again the nomadic apocalyptic settings doesn't make much sense either. Not since the agricultural revolution.

from a different genre, military grade ammunition becoming the currency in post-apo world
you can use it to shoot, as it is more reliable and will do more damage but it is rare enough and not easily made so you can use it for trade

Not Online!!! wrote:
i don't think in a post apocalypse setting safety is anything you will have anyways depending upon how far collapsed society is...

Then again the nomadic apocalyptic settings doesn't make much sense either. Not since the agricultural revolution.

Depends on the setting and the reason for the apocalypse IMO. Big chunks of Australia do not lend themselves to agriculture without modern industrial processes, and this may be a larger proportion due to whatever killed society. Hunter-gatherer or pastoral lifestyles might be the only viable option outside of some prime territory.

I still think safety is important. If making gunpowder is hard, making it is dangerous, using it is dangerous, and the weapons produced are unreliable or ineffective, groups will make other weapons instead that don't maim their users and manufacturers as much whilst still killing. Javelins, slings, darts, bows can be much easier to produce at a low tech level (although good bows require a lot of skill and access to good wood) and still plenty killy. Shields would probably make a comeback.


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 kodos wrote:
from a different genre, military grade ammunition becoming the currency in post-apo world
you can use it to shoot, as it is more reliable and will do more damage but it is rare enough and not easily made so you can use it for trade

This makes a lot of sense. Functioning firearms and ammo from before the apocalypse would be very valuable.

Not Online!!! wrote:
i don't think in a post apocalypse setting safety is anything you will have anyways depending upon how far collapsed society is...

Then again the nomadic apocalyptic settings doesn't make much sense either. Not since the agricultural revolution.

It's true they don't quite make sense on the whole probably. However if everyone around me and their dog plus fauna and atmosphere all want me dead, I'll probably try not to put myself at yet another risk.