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The contrast I'm drawing is that Mad Max has the tech level to create high-end internal combustion engines and somehow drag-race caliber booster fuel, but is reduced to using crossbows.

Oh, and they know how to extract methane from pig excrement and burn it to create electricity

So the tech level of machining and chemistry would be there, and any warlord worthy of the name would have had his boys spending less time on ludicrous Noise Marine wagons and more time in reloading brass and milling the parts for rudimentary submachineguns.

It's worth noting that the first generation of cased ammo used black powder, and it was refined to a good degree at that time. The issue of fouling was still there, which is why it had to be manually cycled. Automatic operation could only happen with cleaner smokeless powder.

Basically, Old West level tech would not be that difficult to sustain. I mean if they can drill oil, refine it to high-octane gasoline and build superchargers, a Sten gun is within reach.

Disagree here, as there is a difference between technology being available and the need if machine tooling industry to manufacture something

like rifled guns, breach loading and metal cartridges existed for several 100 years yet what made the difference was the percussion primer and it took another 80 years from finding the chemical compound that worked well to making modern metal cartridges in industrial scale with the stop gap of the Minie/Lorenz bullet making rifled guns the norm
something that might have an effect on such post-apo developments as well, as a muzzle loader is much easier to make and to maintain but to get a rifled muzzle loader to work like modern arms a special bullet design is necessary

(as a fun fact, Austrian military used the percussion tube for several years as a stop gap to the percussion cap simply because they needed to build the industry for those first and meanwhile they converted flintlocks to use rolled up copper tubes with percussion primer)

with technology available but industry is not, things change and weapon one can make the ammunition easily on his own would replace the current modern stock very fast as the weapon itself is less important than the supply of ammunition

as why going the complicated why of creating the machinery to produce cartridges and percussion caps when an airgun is doing the same job
a bow or crossbow having the big advantage that you can recover your ammunition or have a constant supply if the opponent is using them too (like in historic warfare, if only one side had archers, they were of limited use because they run out of arrows quickly with no one shooting them back)

I've never read that archers had to salvage the arrows shot at them mid-battle in order to keep fighting. That sounds like nonsense.

As for why you would go to all the trouble of developing primitive firearms if you have bows and crossbows- because even a 1500s-era smoothbore arquebus has longer range, greater accuracy, massively better killing power and armor penetration (very relevant if your targets ride around in steel-skinned vehicles), and is less tiring to employ and less reliant on the physical condition of the wielder. And if you have the industrial base to maintain internal combustion engines and the chemistry know-how to produce the complex (and perishable) fuel they need, you can do a lot better than 1500s-level arquebuses, like Commissar said.

But even leaving aside firearms entirely, even if you have absolutely no ability to manufacture low explosives of any sort, there's a lot you can do with just the tech and knowledge base involved in automobiles. If you can form and weld steel you can easily make a pressure vessel for an airgun and cast lead projectiles- the Girardoni air rifle was a thirty-shot semi-automatic capable of killing at over a hundred yards, and that was done with brazed iron circa the late 1700s. Or since you already have fuel, you can make flamethrowers, and with a thickener it's less ten-foot-range Hollywood flamethrower and more hundred-yard napalm dispenser perfect for cleaning out those pesky open-topped vehicles and leaving salvageable hulls behind. A terrestrial Zippo Monitor would rule the desert.

Basically it's just difficult to reconcile having the ability to maintain complex and logistically intensive 20th-century machinery with only being able to produce medieval weaponry, and thus having to climb out of your car to whack the other guy with a baseball bat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
The issue of fouling was still there, which is why it had to be manually cycled. Automatic operation could only happen with cleaner smokeless powder.

FWIW Maxim's original machine gun prototypes were extensively demonstrated in 1884 using black powder. He held a number of patents on systems intended to reduce fouling, which was seen as an issue for sustained fire but not a complete showstopper.

 catbarf wrote:
I've never read that archers had to salvage the arrows shot at them mid-battle in order to keep fighting. That sounds like nonsense.

I have also not heard of this being a significant factor in battles. Plenty of famous engagements involving archers do not have equivalent weapons in use on both sides where ammunition could be loosed back.

Basically it's just difficult to reconcile having the ability to maintain complex and logistically intensive 20th-century machinery with only being able to produce medieval weaponry, and thus having to climb out of your car to whack the other guy with a baseball bat.

This is a fair point. I don't think most folks realise that fuel is a perishable though, which is probably part of the issue. You could scavenge usable car parts in arid climates for decades if the population drop was suitably massive, but fuel would be very scarce. This wouldn't be quite so much of an issue if we hadn't already extracted all the easy oil.

I think producing ethanol from biofuel would be doable with a poor technology base (distilling spirits is not the most complicated process). The issue is you need crops to farm and significant fixed infrastructure to defend if you want to produce a reasonable amount of fuel. That is flat inconsistent with being tech nomads unless they constantly raid or trade it from some sedentary neighbours.

Edit: a society based around air rifles would be really cool. I think they are a great example of a tech that is not that hard to produce if you have the knowledge. They could probably have made late medieval/renaissance air rifles if someone had thought of the idea.

 catbarf wrote:
I've never read that archers had to salvage the arrows shot at them mid-battle in order to keep fighting. That sounds like nonsense.

should read about the battle of hastings

 catbarf wrote:

As for why you would go to all the trouble of developing primitive firearms if you have bows and crossbows- because even a 1500s-era smoothbore arquebus has longer range, greater accuracy, massively better killing power and armor penetration (very relevant if your targets ride around in steel-skinned vehicles), and is less tiring to employ and less reliant on the physical condition of the wielder.

Hollywood history, even in 1800 a bow would be superior
the only reason why black powder weapons replaced bows was simply that it took years to get military trained archers, but weeks for musketeers

in a post-apo setting were you don't have armies clashing but skirmies and time to train (as you also need a hunting weapon) a bow is the better option for several reasons
and for complex fuel, you won't have the industrial base to do that, as is one theme of the MadMax setting, that the access to high quality fuel is limited and if you have the industrial base for complex fuel, you don't have a post-apo setting but the early 20th century

If you can form and weld steel you can easily make a pressure vessel for an airgun

which I wrote above, with the knowledge available and limited industrial base, airguns or other weapons that don't have complex ammunition are much more likely.
(hence the comparison with the percussion tube, that was used as stop gap until austria had the base to produce percussion caps, it was much easier to convert flintlocks into rifles to use the percussion tube than to build the industry for percussion caps)
so building a gun is easy, get the ammunition is the hard part and any weapon that reduces the work needed for ammunition (or has reusable ammunition) will take over as soon as old stock runs out

it is just that not many post-apocalyptic or low industry (with high tech knowledge) settings have picked that option up although it is a logical choice as even without engines to get compressed air,

 kodos wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I've never read that archers had to salvage the arrows shot at them mid-battle in order to keep fighting. That sounds like nonsense.

should read about the battle of hastings

I have never heard of a significant number of archers being on the English side in this battle, so who is loosing arrows back at the Normans?

 catbarf wrote:

As for why you would go to all the trouble of developing primitive firearms if you have bows and crossbows- because even a 1500s-era smoothbore arquebus has longer range, greater accuracy, massively better killing power and armor penetration (very relevant if your targets ride around in steel-skinned vehicles), and is less tiring to employ and less reliant on the physical condition of the wielder.

Hollywood history, even in 1800 a bow would be superior
the only reason why black powder weapons replaced bows was simply that it took years to get military trained archers, but weeks for musketeers

in a post-apo setting were you don't have armies clashing but skirmies and time to train (as you also need a hunting weapon) a bow is the better option for several reasons
and for complex fuel, you won't have the industrial base to do that, as is one theme of the MadMax setting, that the access to high quality fuel is limited and if you have the industrial base for complex fuel, you don't have a post-apo setting but the early 20th century

This is something of a myth, or a distortion at least. Training is only part of the story, but hitting power is also only part of the story.

Yes, a 15th or 16th century longbowmen is longer ranged and faster firing than a Napoleonic musketeer. At this point, almost no soldiers are wearing armour so the only factor in army composition is socioeconomic reasons that dictate a large number of musketeers is cheaper and quicker than a smaller number of archers. But that ignores how they got there.

A 16th century musketeer could have an effective range longer than a longbow or crossbow. There are examples of muskets hitting out and killing armoured opponents at 100 or even 200 yards. A bow wasn't penetrating period armour at those ranges with any reliability. However, a 16th century musketeer was also generally a highly-skilled soldier who loaded their weapon much more carefully than the later archetype. Early muskets are also much larger and heavier and really light support weapons (these are the weapons with the barrel rests) and existed alongside arquebuses as the lighter infantry firearm that was much shorter ranged and much worse at penetrating armour. Again, though, arquebusiers were also usually highly skilled troops that knew their weapons well. That was the late medieval/renaissance paradigm- relatively small, elite armies. In this context, guns were used (alongside bows) because they offered something bows couldn't- stopping power and long range.

Socioeconomic changes increased the size of armies and destroyed the systems that allowed smaller numbers of elite troops to be economically and socially sustainable, and armour and bows and precision use of early firearms basically ceased to exist on the battlefield.

So in the context of armour (in this case cars) muskets are going to be better if available to those experienced in their use, although using both is probably superior.

On arrow recovery? I suspect it was used as a source of extra, but not something you’d exactly rely on.

Salvaging after the battle? Yeah, I can see that, if only to recover the heads and possibly flights, with the shafts only being reused in extremis, due to the stresses being shot puts on them.

 Haighus wrote:
I have never heard of a significant number of archers being on the English side in this battle, so who is loosing arrows back at the Normans?

that is the point?
that the norman archers were of limited use as they run out of arrows quickly because there were not many englisch archers shooting back

A 16th century musketeer could have an effective range longer than a longbow or crossbow. There are examples of muskets hitting out and killing armoured opponents at 100 or even 200 yards. A bow wasn't penetrating period armour at those ranges with any reliability. However, a 16th century musketeer was also generally a highly-skilled soldier who loaded their weapon much more carefully than the later archetype. Early muskets are also much larger and heavier and really light support weapons (these are the weapons with the barrel rests) and existed alongside arquebuses as the lighter infantry firearm that was much shorter ranged and much worse at penetrating armour. Again, though, arquebusiers were also usually highly skilled troops that knew their weapons well. That was the late medieval/renaissance paradigm- relatively small, elite armies. In this context, guns were used (alongside bows) because they offered something bows couldn't- stopping power and long range.

pretty much, yes but in addition this also caused armour to become better and saw the renaissance of heavy shields for infantry
as heavy plate armour and shields were designed to withstand the heavy bullets in the 17th century, which also caused the shift to lighter weapons with higher rate of fire instead of penetration as of the opponent could get into close range before you reloaded, you got a problem (and the Swedish Army was successful with fast melee units charging for a while)

so going back to the post-apo setting and like what can you make from the stuff you have at home or available in your town
outside of stock that will be gone sooner than later, can you make ammunition for an assault rifle, can you make black powder, can you make an air gun and can you make a bow and arrows?

The same archers that very famously were important in the final stages of the battle when the shield wall broke? Apocryphally even killing the English leader (although probably not)? I am not sure if that is a great example.

Armour in the 17th century was generally poorer in quality and bullet resistance than earlier armour. The peak was in the second half of the 16th century for armour quality. What did happen in the 17th century was a contraction in armour coverage to allow for thicker plates over the most vital places (breastplate and helm). You would have still been safer in a harness of the finest plate from the late 16th to maybe very early 17th century from somewhere like Innsbruck or Greenwich.

 Haighus wrote:

Edit: a society based around air rifles would be really cool. I think they are a great example of a tech that is not that hard to produce if you have the knowledge. They could probably have made late medieval/renaissance air rifles if someone had thought of the idea.

What no one remembers Amtrak Wars?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Since we have segue into armour, an adjacent topic to firearms, do you yanks also posses body armour? Post apocalyptic or otherwise.

Whilst firearms have multiple applications, one that makes the news over here is the portrayal of Americans all believing they need guns to defend themselves (I exaggerate but only slightly, our media does delight in sterotypes). Part of that defensive posture would be body armour of some type, and I guess a basic medi kit including an Israeli bandage and tourniquet.

Is there much overlap or is it a small minority of firearm owners that would also have armour? And are first aid kits part of a daily carry/car set up?

I don't currently but if money was never going to be a limiting factor I would probably get an IOTV or a plate carrier. I had the IOTV during deployment so I would go with what I know most likely. Although I believe there is some other stuff on the market now that is far more discrete. I don't think I need armor right now maybe never would. I would get all the trimmings (Plates and side plates ect) except the canteens. That would include an Ifak and somewhere to stuff candy.
armor also means I would have to find a helmet. This is quickly getting out of hand.
Because I would keep adding to the kit. Gasmasks, nvgs and why stop there.
This got expensive fast.

 Haighus wrote:
Yes, a 15th or 16th century longbowmen is longer ranged and faster firing than a Napoleonic musketeer.

Leaving aside that the English longbow is decidedly not representative of the typical European bow, when you see range comparisons it's usually maximum arced distance for bows compared to some arbitrary point target effective range for muskets- totally apples and oranges.

Spanish musketeers of the Italian Wars could engage infantry formations at up to 500m, effective fire at 300-500m was not unheard of during the Thirty Years War (decidedly pre-Napoleonic), and you can find firsthand accounts from both conflicts attesting to the superiority of firearms in range and effectiveness over bows. By the time of the English Civil War in the mid-1650s, English longbows were relegated to second-rate militias supplying their own arms and typically re-equipped with pike and shot when able. In Japan, the tanegashima introduced in 1543 was rapidly adopted by samurai and ashigaru already trained in the use of the bow, and they praised its superior range and power- as was lamented by the Koreans invaded in the 1590s, as Yu Songyong described the Japanese gunners killing from ranges where Korean arrows fell short. In the Americas, natives who fought the settlers started to widely acquire guns in the early-1600s, abandoning their traditional bows in the face of superior firepower. Maybe bows could sustain a higher rate of fire- though I think commenters often gloss over the difficulty of maintaining a high rate of fire with a weapon that is physically exhausting to use- but by all accounts it doesn't appear to have been enough of an advantage for anyone to favor the bow.

That old hoary myth Kodos is repeating, that bows were better on the battlefield but guns were just easier to spam, is pop history born from romanticism over displaced cultural traditions of archery. It's nonsense, in the same vein as katana worship. Every bow-armed society that went up against Renaissance-era guns either got guns of their own ASAP or got conquered before they could.

Now, a modern-style compound bow or crossbow does perform better than medieval equivalents, providing performance like the English longbow without requiring a lifetime of physical training, and can be DIY'd using springs to provide the necessary energy storage. There's also utility in having a quiet weapon for stealthy use, and training to handle a black powder firearm is an awful lot trickier than it's made out to be (as you noted, this was the domain of professionals, not conscripts), but for raw effectiveness there's still no contest and I'm not sure how difficult it is to improvise modern-style arrows/bolts. If you are able to work out the chemistry, producing large quantities of powder and casting projectiles is a more efficient and scalable process than handmaking arrows. Plus beyond small arms, something like a falconet or swivel gun would be an immediate mission kill if you could connect with a car engine.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On arrow recovery? I suspect it was used as a source of extra, but not something you’d exactly rely on.

Salvaging after the battle? Yeah, I can see that, if only to recover the heads and possibly flights, with the shafts only being reused in extremis, due to the stresses being shot puts on them.

An arrow that doesn't break can be reused. If it does break usually it's the head separating from the shaft, and that can be repaired. There's historical evidence that arrows were sometimes salvaged after a battle, but it doesn't appear to have been common enough practice to be significantly documented.

Despite having got no plate carrier, I have got a load est with mole attachments and a mole warbelt, I bought all of those because I needed them in the army, with a fair few pouches.

I'd hate to feel like a larper going around with a full complement.

I still keep what I have though, both for the reserve and for rapid shooting, since we plan on using them to fight over little challenges using them.

You needed to get your own load vest, too?

However I've got a full military like first aid pouche, I keep it in my car all the time. If I ever happen to stumble across an accident on the road or at the range, I'll have basic necessities like tourniquets available. Better safe than sorry, while educated shooters are theorically safe, something can always go unexpectedly wrong, and when guns are involved, it can bring severe consequences with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bobthehero wrote:
You needed to get your own load vest, too?

Over time I gradually had to by more and more pouches and equipment to actually outfit myself realtivly properly: radio pouches, ammo pouches, dump pouch...

While I was a trainee at the cavalry school, my squadron didn't have enough plate carriers, so I was told to get something by myself.

Jeez. At least the reason I bought my vest was because the issued one is... not ideal, to remain polite.

It did help that I got to free-trial the current vest I got because my friend was issued it when he went to train in another country, and lent it to me for a while so I knew what I was getting into.

Yeah, to be fair if it hadn't been for this I wouldn't have bought any tactical stuff. I prefer spending the money on guns and ammunition.

Thing is buying such expensive items for a quick friendly challenges from time to time is really to expensive for the use I'd make of it.

The elephant in the room in the Mad Max discussion is cannon.

The most basic firearm, and utterly devastating. The whole setup in The Road Warrior ends with the first cannon shot.

If you can build all those fancy wartrukks, you can forge a cannon. If you you can formulate nitro-fuel, you can make black powder.

The big advantage of a "recovery" civilization over a primitive one is that it knows certain things are possible. Gunpowder is known, the question isn't "if" but "how." With the imperative of war, solutions will be found.

One other thought: landfills. These are ready-made repositories of aluminum, steel, and other metals. It's even refined! I recall a science teacher in grade school suggesting that in due time, these would be mined - especially the older ones, which had more metal and less plastic.

Yeah, in the event of an apocalypse technology would only revert so far. The only way we go back to the stone age is if the only people who survive are tribals in the middle of the rainforest somewhere.

The main hurdle of technology is actually figuring out what works. Once you have that making it work is the easy part.

Blackpowder is fairly easy. And if you know that it is charcoal+saltpeter+sulpher you can do it, even if you don't know the exact combination. That is what trial and error is for, but you have the advantage of knowing it works in a post-apocalypse. And presumably you can loot books and such to help even more.

Realistically, a post-apocalyptic society on Earth will revert back to Renaissance level technology at worst. And there will likely be a few societies who maintain modern weaponry, electricity, and manufacturing enough to carry that forward. Those who manage to survive without any modern technology will go back to pike formations backed up by cannon and muskets, but modern weapons will be sprinkled about and never disappear and slowly return to common use. Though many modern luxuries will definitely disappear for everybody. No more internet. Food will be a challenge for a while. Running water will still exist, but be more limited(though lots of buildings will be around with pipe systems you can retrofit).

RE: body armor. Yes I have body armor. I have a single plate carrier, probably should get another one or two. I currently have 2 sets of plates. A level 3 steel set which is 2 chest/back plates and 2 side plates, but in my carrier I currently have the 2 side plates and 2 level 4 ceramic plates in the chest/back slots. The plate carrier also has a medical kit(bandages, sutures, misc supplies and tourniquet), 3 mag pouch, and pistol holster on it.

I would say that it is fairly common for people who have guns to get body armor if they are anything beyond casual owners(only like 1-2 guns). If there is a tacticool guy, he's definitely has body armor unless he is also a cheapskate. Body armor is also pretty affordable. If you settle for kevlar you can get surplus stuff for sub $100. It'll only stop pistols and you'll have broken ribs, but its better than nothing. A full set of level 3s in a plate carrier will be $3-400 usually. Level 4 plates are where it gets really expensive. 3-400 per plate. And there is some insane stuff available now. Adept Armor makes a plate that can... kinda... stop .50BMG. Its like $650

I really should get another set of level 4 plates and a different camo plate carrier... Level 4 Ceramic plates are much better protection, but the downside vs level 3 steel plates is that they are only good for a few hits. Steel plates, if they aren't penetrated, can last for more repeated punishment. Ceramics are usually only good for 2-3 hits before they become useless. Steel, if its a threat they are rated for, can survive more repeat hits. Especially if its pistol calibers. Pistols won't go through ceramics at first, but they will shred it. Steel plates can basically tank pistol calibers more or less indefinitely, but they weigh like 3 times as much.

Why rennaisance level?

Also massed formations require massed population so i doubt a return to tercios.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Why rennaisance level?

Also massed formations require massed population so i doubt a return to tercios.

Europe's population back then was tiny, yet they supported them.

I think the "floor" would be late 18th Century. Steam power is not a hard concept, and there's enough metal around to hack a boiler and turbine together. Indeed, there are functional steam engines still in use.

Also, you can use charcoal to run it rather than refining oil, which was why it was so popular.

As for body armor, no I don't have any, most of the collectors I know don't, either. I've got helmets of various vintages that Uncle Sam lost track of, including my father's helmet liner, which he used as a painting hat. He gave it to me and I got the steel pot, chin strap and cover for it, which is fun. I picked up a US WW I helmet at an auction 25 years ago, complete with original liner. I got it cheap, because all the money was chasing the German stuff. I subsequently picked up a later issue version (maybe Canadian?) at a surplus store with modern webbing and a mesh cover.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Why rennaisance level?

Also massed formations require massed population so i doubt a return to tercios.

Europe's population back then was tiny, yet they supported them.

I think the "floor" would be late 18th Century. Steam power is not a hard concept, and there's enough metal around to hack a boiler and turbine together. Indeed, there are functional steam engines still in use.

Except that is not true. 1300 estimates europe at 72 mio after a phase from the 1100-1300s called landesausbau in which vast areas were settled and cities founded.
1400 due to the plague 55mio.
Then 1500 arguably the End of the highpoint of the renaissance we are back at an estimated 80 mio inhabitants. According to some quick google search.

Incidentally the ascendancy of the Swiss confederation happens around the 1350s onwards and with that the infantry revolution starts in a Phase of massive population regrowth in middle europe.


Europe at the age of the infantry revolution came of the back end of a massive population increase.

That said i agree, steam and even electricity aswell as metalurgy would not drop to rennaisance level.

Unless we really have a major collapse of population by atleast 50%.

New game, wot I just thought of.

For each era of firearms, which shooter would you most like to shoot, and why.

By eras I mean technological innovations. So Arqueba, Matchlock, Flintlock etc etc. But if my understanding of eras is incorrect, go with the right one.

Shooting an arquebusa could be fun, but i don't really know of anyone made a reproduction of it.

Oh I didn't mean everybody would drop. I meant that some societies would drop to that level, but no further. And it would be a temporary thing as the areas where technology was maintained would spread it back around.

If you had an area where anything beyond blackpowder weaponry well and truly disappeared due to lack of knowledge or resources, the people there would be forced back to melee weapons, crossbows/bows, and blackpowder weapons in a mixture. But this is again the worst case scenario. Which if you had time passing and the population recovering would in some ways resemble the Rennaissance era, at least in terms of technology for combat. Weather or not the tactics would resemble pike and shot formations is debatable, but I would say it is the more likely outcome if you assume the worst case scenario for that area.

I'm really just basing this on how "easy" things like metal working and black powder are to keep around and do if you have at least an idea of how they work. You're not medieval levels due to having black powder and more advanced metallurgy than existed back then, so Renaissance seems the best place to put a floor for tech regression.

But it is more likely that you also retain electricity and steam engines as well, which means you can keep some modern manufacturing to support things like modern firearms. I would put regressing to Renaissance levels as the unlikely worst case scenario. Most likely you are better than that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Why rennaisance level?

Also massed formations require massed population so i doubt a return to tercios.

Europe's population back then was tiny, yet they supported them.

I think the "floor" would be late 18th Century. Steam power is not a hard concept, and there's enough metal around to hack a boiler and turbine together. Indeed, there are functional steam engines still in use.

Except that is not true. 1300 estimates europe at 72 mio after a phase from the 1100-1300s called landesausbau in which vast areas were settled and cities founded.
1400 due to the plague 55mio.
Then 1500 arguably the End of the highpoint of the renaissance we are back at an estimated 80 mio inhabitants. According to some quick google search.

Europe wasn't exactly low pop yes, but it wasn't high pop either. Really Europe had only just recovered back to what it roughly was during the Roman Empire.

And more crucially the armies of the time were a significantly higher % of the population than they are today and were fielded in much more concentrated groups.

If you did regress back to a roughly renaissance level(so you have blackpowder weapons, but can't make them to a scale or reliable as they could during the 1700s), any organized armed conflict would require larger numbers of soldiers and for them to be in large formations due to still having lots of melee troops.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Europe wasn't exactly low pop yes, but it wasn't high pop either. Really Europe had only just recovered back to what it roughly was during the Roman Empire.

The individual societies supporting the armies of the middle ages were tiny. What was England's population, 2 million? I remember France being a heavyweight because it had 20 million people. The Swiss were not only fielding pike formations, but hiring out for fun and profit. The historic city centers were miniscule compared to the sprawling areas we call "London" and "Paris" today.

The point is that society was far more militarized then because it had to be, and everyone had arms "appropriate to their station."

There are replicas of just about everything that we have an example of because why not? I know reenactor types who have "hand cannon' - literally a tube mounded on a stick with a touchhole. No trigger, you apply the match manually.

Some years ago I picked up a percussion cap kit gun for $25 at a pawn shop. I had to make a replacement ramrod for it, and the nipple was the wrong size, lock plate was missing a screw, but after these were remedied, it was fun to shoot though laughably inaccurate.

Big boom and lots of smoke. I expect percussion caps (you can see how to make your own on youtube using beer cans) would be a realistic tech floor and here in the US there are lots of repro revolvers and muskets out there thanks to Civil War reenacting. That also means there's the tooling to make more of them, if the need arose.

Middle ages and Renaissance are different.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Middle ages and Renaissance are different.

There is no hard line. The traditional date of 1453 is somewhat arbitrary (and convenient), but like all historical movements, there are leading edges and lagging indicators. I recall a map in one of my historical atlases that shows the spread of "gunpowder" forts across Europe. Italy was a century ahead of northern Europe, so who was right? How do you fix the date?

Indeed, just picking a year is best for our purposes, because that's how the populations are tracked, and if you consider the "might of Rome" and it's infantry-heavy armies fighting in close quarters had less population than Egypt does today, the level of depopulation necessary to make that impossible would be unprecedented. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I think Italy's current population was probably equal to that of all of Western Europe in 1400.

But we digress.

Firearms aren't microchips or software. We use them, but damn if we know how they work. You can take apart a firearm and see exactly how it does what it does. That's the genius of Forgotten Weapons. With time, tools and experience, you can even fabricate your own replacement parts.

Manufacturing is more widespread than people think. We talk about de-industrialization and the Rust Belt, but there are literally tons of little machine shops, fabricators, third-tier parts suppliers all over the place. During the pandemic ammo shortage, I was fascinated to see start-up ammo manufacturers pop up at shows and online. Some merely remanufactured (reloaded) range brass, but it was clearly something that could happen quickly, and without major capital investment. In some cases, the "company" was someone who was a recreational reloader with a decent set-up and all his did was hire guys to keep the press going 8 hours a day while he did QC.

In that kind of environment, empty brass would be currency, and revolvers (which of course retain it) would be more valued that wasteful, profligate auto-loaders spewing the stuff around.

I think the traditional outline of history overstates the loss of technology. Once a technology is found and used, it's hard to "lose" it unless it's reliant on diverse items obtainable only through long-distance trade. Otherwise, the knowledge that something can be done spurs people to want to recreate it. The Renaissance wasn't so much an intellectual rediscovery as a society that finally had the population and wealth to support more ambitious works.

To be sure the Renaissance was more of a cultural revolution than a technological one(outside of the printing press and general manufacturing). But in some ways you can actually see it as a Post-apocalypse recovery itself. Recovering from the apocalypse of Rome's fall.

Going back to the Bronze Age collapse. While the major Empires did collapse and writing disappeared entirely, the technology of smithing did not. Bronze couldn't be made without the trade networks, but you could make iron tools. And indeed it is likely that iron had been being used prior to the collapse in small amounts, but would have been shunned due to its inferiority to bronze. But after the collapse, smiths didn't go away. Existing bronze could have been recycled indefinitely and iron would have been a substitute for those who couldn't afford the now limited bronze. In some ways the collapse forced us to go further down the "tech tree" and explore Iron and Steel.

For guns, I would expect to see trade routes pop up where places with manufacturing equipment that can make new brass and primers becoming hubs. They trade their product for the raw materials needed to make more of their product. Smokeless powder isn't terribly hard to make either. Nitrocellulose is complex, but no more than blackpowder. The real tough part is making the primers. The components of ammunition would definitely become a currency of sort, though value would vary a bit depending on who and what type.

The problem when french erderly used to make its own black powder, was not the making of the powder.

It was that you can't just fit any powder in any cartridge safely, and they had no real idea if their mix suited the falibrr they were making.

Resulting in frequent guns breaking under overpressure, sometimes injuring the shooter.

So even if you can make powder, unless your group has got a Vihtavuori or Nobel sport engineer, it'll be hard to get THE powder.