Odd Treasure Troves

[swaghauler]

There are 129,817 Licensed Gun Dealers in America. The breakdown of those "Dealers" is as follows:

61,562 are "Licensed Collectors," either private or for museums.
7,356 are "Pawn Shops (retail)"
51,438 are "Gun Shops (retail)"
all of the remaining License holders are manufacturers or importers.
There are approximately 270 MILLION guns in American civilian hands (no accurate count is available).

I though this could be a very interesting figure for those of you setting up a World War Z scenario where you need to know how many firearms are available.

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

There are 129,817 Licensed Gun Dealers in America. The breakdown of those "Dealers" is as follows:

61,562 are "Licensed Collectors," either private or for museums.
7,356 are "Pawn Shops (retail)"
51,438 are "Gun Shops (retail)"
all of the remaining License holders are manufacturers or importers.
There are approximately 270 MILLION guns in American civilian hands (no accurate count is available).

I though this could be a very interesting figure for those of you setting up a World War Z scenario where you need to know how many firearms are available.

Wait, the US population is over 322 million...we are in danger of a gun gap! Quick, fire up the machinery, we have about 55 million more weapons to produce!!!: schiessen

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

Wait, the US population is over 322 million...we are in danger of a gun gap! Quick, fire up the machinery, we have about 55 million more weapons to produce!!!: schiessen

Except for the fact that the number I quoted is the number of guns registered since the Gun Control Act of 1968. All of the guns made before 1968 didn't just cease to exist, so this number is WWAYY LOW!

[WallShadow]

https://gma.yahoo.com/family-plans-d...opstories.html
Without getting into a debate regarding the disposition of the cache, that was one (wealthy, apparently) owner's accumulation of 1500 weapons with 6.5 _tons_ of associated ammo. From the photo, most of the visible ones appear to be sporting arms (shotguns, bolt-action rifles), but still, enough to bolster a fair-sized militia, with a reserve arsenal, _and_ have some left for trading to a neighboring enclave. Imagine an underground resistance to the Mexican invasion having this to arm the disarmed populace with.
Update: according to the LA Times, it was _1200_ guns and over _2_ tons of ammo. Two days later it's over _6_ tons. Let's hear it for accurate reporting. yay.
BUT--it does reveal that the deceased claimed to have been an alien hybrid sent to protect the human race. The death occurred about a year ago, and the family's decisions about the cache is being publicized currently.

[WallShadow]

Not so much a personal cache, but ISTR a business in West Pittsburgh (which is actually North-West of Pittsburgh and south of New Castle, that dealt in literally tons of end-market machined metal metal items. From steel rods, plates, and tubes to nuts, bolts, rivets, and stuff people weren't using in mainstream. The place closed afew years ago, but it would have been open when the balloon went up.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

Not so much a personal cache, but ISTR a business in West Pittsburgh (which is actually North-West of Pittsburgh and south of New Castle, that dealt in literally tons of end-market machined metal metal items. From steel rods, plates, and tubes to nuts, bolts, rivets, and stuff people weren't using in mainstream. The place closed afew years ago, but it would have been open when the balloon went up.

This raises an interesting side note - in most 1st & 2nd World nations, the largest percentage of sales that the business sector makes is not business to end-user (i.e. the individual buying the end product) but it is business to business (often seen expressed as B2B in trade lingo).

That is to say, the majority of sales are from one business supplying items to another business who makes the end product. This means that there's probably a whole lot of companies doing the same type of business transactions as the company WallShadow mentioned above. What that means in terms of gaming is, I think, that a lot of those items that would make rebuilding society a lot easier, will be found as parts in different company warehouses.

That makes for an adventure in itself but one with at least a high chance of success because I don't imagine looters thinking far enough into the future to cart off box loads of nuts & bolts, steel rod, sheet metal and so on. I think they will be focusing on what's immediately useful - food, water, fuel, tools, weapons, ammo etc. etc. They'll make off with a washing machine but they're not so likely to make off with the parts to make a washing machine.

[unkated]

Remember though that there are not that many supplies laying about in a warehouse laying around.

The 1980s had this entire Just In Time (JIT) movement that involved coordinating production, with the goal of NOT having warehouses holding months of raw parts for industry. This skipped the cost of warehousing, and eliminated warehouse staff for many industries.

For example, a computer manufacturer would have motherboards (and connectors and wires and disk drives and mice and casings and tiny screws and all other components) delivered on a schedule a few days to a couple of weeks apart, retaining no more than a few days worth of materials to manufacture on hand. This depends on the component manufacturers delivering (guaranteed by contract with penalties for non-compliance) every few days, but skips needing to have enormous warehouses.

The downside, of course, is that this complex network makes it quicker for production to fall apart. If a component manufacturer was set up near a nuke target, and has to shut down, in a few days, whatever was made with that component stops being made until a replacement can be found.

(To my mind, this is the main problem with trying to start a new production line for an older but simpler military vehicle post TDM as we discussed a few months ago; as things start to breakdown after TDM, getting multiple manufacturing locations up, running, and coordinated becomes too difficult to produce en masse, even if the completed article is simpler than what it is replacing, ie. M113 for M2 Bradley, not to mention re-creating the heavy machinery needed to create the components in the first place...).

So, you can go somewhere and perhaps find the components needed for a limited production run of something in quantities perhaps as high as 2-3 truckloads, but you are unlikely to find acres of warehouses filled with components. This is fine for campaign level, and may produce enough of something to save a city, but this is not restarting a national industry....

Uncle Ted

[WallShadow]

If saving a city means that city can begin to manufacture machine tools and precision instruments of even the most basic type, civilization will follow and spread.

[WallShadow]

An open question: how much skilled training is required to rewind motor armatures, small-to-medium transfomers, and the like?

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

An open question: how much skilled training is required to rewind motor armatures, small-to-medium transfomers, and the like?

Not that much. I have actually done this working at Sharon Steel during the summers of my college years. Davey Crocket (our 250 Ton Overhead Crane) required his armatures re-wrapped every year as there were NO replacement armatures available for him (he was built in 1911 and still in service in 1991 when the Open Hearth shut down).

I have spent MANY A DAY combing a junk yard for parts to the older machinery we used to farm with. Repurposing is a way of life on the smaller family farms prevalent in the Northeastern US. If you drive "out in the country" in PA, you will often see rows of derelict vehicles near farms. These are not actually "derelicts," but rather supplies of nuts, bolts, wire and steel that can be used to repair the machines still in use on that farm.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by unkated

Remember though that there are not that many supplies laying about in a warehouse laying around.

The 1980s had this entire Just In Time (JIT) movement that involved coordinating production, with the goal of NOT having warehouses holding months of raw parts for industry. This skipped the cost of warehousing, and eliminated warehouse staff for many industries.

For example, a computer manufacturer would have motherboards (and connectors and wires and disk drives and mice and casings and tiny screws and all other components) delivered on a schedule a few days to a couple of weeks apart, retaining no more than a few days worth of materials to manufacture on hand. This depends on the component manufacturers delivering (guaranteed by contract with penalties for non-compliance) every few days, but skips needing to have enormous warehouses.

The downside, of course, is that this complex network makes it quicker for production to fall apart. If a component manufacturer was set up near a nuke target, and has to shut down, in a few days, whatever was made with that component stops being made until a replacement can be found.

(To my mind, this is the main problem with trying to start a new production line for an older but simpler military vehicle post TDM as we discussed a few months ago; as things start to breakdown after TDM, getting multiple manufacturing locations up, running, and coordinated becomes too difficult to produce en masse, even if the completed article is simpler than what it is replacing, ie. M113 for M2 Bradley, not to mention re-creating the heavy machinery needed to create the components in the first place...).

So, you can go somewhere and perhaps find the components needed for a limited production run of something in quantities perhaps as high as 2-3 truckloads, but you are unlikely to find acres of warehouses filled with components. This is fine for campaign level, and may produce enough of something to save a city, but this is not restarting a national industry....

Uncle Ted

While I agree with your post for the most part; Repurposing "broken parts" is a way of life in many parts of the World. Those motherboards that were fried by EMP still have lots of small screws, copper wire and even gold and silver solder in them. The amount of other "salvage" is only limited by your imagination. I have seen *"trains" made from old trucks (or bogeys to our European posters), lumber, a leather belt, and an outboard motor, *a repurposed "main-frame" that a friend of mine built out of old desktops (what an electrician's nightmare that was), *a round-bailer built out an old Chevy truck, and various parts such as motors, alternators, and capacitors "repurposed" into all sorts of weird equipment. NEVER underestimate the ingenuity of a desperate man! Where to all of these "devices" originate from? They originate from all the "stuff" that quits working and is "abandoned" by those without the "vision" to see that something that's "broken" may still be useful....

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

While I agree with your post for the most part; Repurposing "broken parts" is a way of life in many parts of the World.
<Snip>
NEVER underestimate the ingenuity of a desperate man! Where to all of these "devices" originate from? They originate from all the "stuff" that quits working and is "abandoned" by those without the "vision" to see that something that's "broken" may still be useful....

Which reminds me of the ingenuity/desperation of the American Army officer trying to organize, run, and supply the Phillipine Resistance to the Japanese during WW2. Making bullets by hand-filing brass curtain rods to shape, cobbling together a radio out of some really unlikely stuff, and lots of other "Mother of Invention" stuff.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

If saving a city means that city can begin to manufacture machine tools and precision instruments of even the most basic type, civilization will follow and spread.

You're missing my point. You DON'T have enough to spread.

For example, my town recovers a enough spare parts for us to make 25 alarm clocks. We can now have 25 houses live in a synchronized civilized manner.

But we cannot make another 25 to trade with another town. No parts.

When someone elbows their clock and cracks the case, we cannot build them a spare. No parts.

When you use the parts for 5 computers to make one that works, you have... one computer. You cannot mate them to make more.

My point was that you cannot make another visit to a giant warehouse of parts to take away a truckload and build another load of stuff. One trip to a dead factory may get you a useful load - but there won't be more built to go back a second time.

Salvage is not a bottmless pit, and its scattershot for what you find; it may be useful - or it may not be helpful at this point in time.

IMHO

Uncle Ted

[The Dark]

Somewhat tangential to the current discussion, but a book I've found useful at times when determining what salvage is useful is Lewis Dartnell's The Knowledge, which is intended to help bootstrap a civilization after the end of the world as we know it. He primarily focuses on a plague scenario, simply because it decimates the population while leaving large amounts of potential salvage, but the general principles remain the same.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by The Dark

Somewhat tangential to the current discussion, but a book I've found useful at times when determining what salvage is useful is Lewis Dartnell's The Knowledge, which is intended to help bootstrap a civilization after the end of the world as we know it. He primarily focuses on a plague scenario, simply because it decimates the population while leaving large amounts of potential salvage, but the general principles remain the same.

That's a pretty good book you recommended. I've ordered my copy after reading some excerpts.

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by unkated

You're missing my point. You DON'T have enough to spread.

For example, my town recovers a enough spare parts for us to make 25 alarm clocks. We can now have 25 houses live in a synchronized civilized manner.

But we cannot make another 25 to trade with another town. No parts.

When someone elbows their clock and cracks the case, we cannot build them a spare. No parts.

Unkated, I _got_ your point: true, if you only scrounge components, you only have limited opportunities.
But-- what I was trying to put forward is, if you focus not only on parts, but on components of _machine tools_--tools which can make tools-- you have a greater chance of making an industrial base that can make parts or repair damaged parts, and there are probably lots of broken clocks out there that can be _fixed_ if the right capacity in manufacturing is built up.

Originally Posted by unkated

When you use the parts for 5 computers to make one that works, you have... one computer. You cannot mate them to make more.

My point was that you cannot make another visit to a giant warehouse of parts to take away a truckload and build another load of stuff. One trip to a dead factory may get you a useful load - but there won't be more built to go back a second time.

Salvage is not a bottmless pit, and its scattershot for what you find; it may be useful - or it may not be helpful at this point in time.

IMHO

Uncle Ted

I agree that _salvage_ is a crutch and a bandage, but the time gained in their use must be put to use in growing industry and agriculture. If that is done, then, yes, a community can get enough industrial muscle to reach out in trade and aid to their neighbors, mutual defense agreements, protected trade routes and convoys, reestablishment of the infrastructure, perhaps fixing/rebuilding a bridge or highway tunnel, clearing blocked roads, fixing connecting roads, loan or lease (perhaps paid with a small, fair percent of the harvested crop) of heavier agricultural machinery, offering armory/gunsmithing service to keep cooperating militias' weaponry in working repair, creating a hydroelectric dam for a local power net, reestablishing phone/telegraph lines, or repurposing a connecting rail line as a transportation/trade artery, with associate armed oversight, patrolling, and escort.