[Webstral]

Though I ought not to, I’ll weigh in on the subject.

I’ll repeat what someone wrote to me regarding my idea for having three BTR-80 under the command of the Shogun in Nevada: if you want to have it in your campaign, just do it. I’ll go further by saying that everyone has different ideas of what remains functional by 2001. If it’s important for you to have fairly widespread tanks and AFV in your Twilight: 2000 campaign, then you’ll find the justification. If it’s not important, you’ll find the justification.

All that said, all of the equipment under discussion is going to be of great interest to every surviving group. It will not take long before one government or another takes possession of working machine shops capable of modifying or making AFV and the equipment associated with them.

I think a quick review of the things needed for a machine shop capable of restoring non-functional tanks to working condition is in order. We all know all this stuff, but sometimes it’s useful to have a recap of the existing knowledge.

1) The machines. A machine shop needs the machines. Ideally, it will be able to make its own replacement machines. However, machine tools are less common than the machines themselves. All machine shops are not created equal. The machines for sheet metal and civilian automotive are not suited for all AFV functions. Machines for maintaining tractor trailers might be necessary for some tanks. This isn’t my field of expertise.
a. In 1997, the nation’s machine shops might be working to capacity. This is favorable for the idea of finding the right machines and people for the job of restoring old tanks to working order.
2) The skilled work force. The machine shop needs people to run the machines. People are fragile. Training a new worker to replace someone dead from starvation, violence, disease, suicide, etc. takes time. Some people cannot be replaced in the time permitting between NOV 97 and [circa] APR 01. Overall, the quality of the nation’s machinist workforce will decline dramatically because some of the dead people will be the most seasoned machinists.
3) Electricity. Without electricity to run the machines, they’re more useful as cover in CQB than anything else.
4) Proper materials. The best machinists in the world can’t do much without the right materials to work with. When one considers all of the parts that go into an old school tank like the M4 Sherman, there is a tremendous supply network stretching across the country and even across the world. The old economics driving mass production will be gone by APR 01, so to some degree local fabrication will pick up the slack. But all parts get made from raw materials. A break anywhere in the supply chain from the ground (or whatever source the shop is supposed to be using) to the finished product represents a huge obstacle.
Of course, machinists can be very imaginative. Substitutes might be found for many items. However, the substitutes, even if they work, bring their own drawbacks. Unfortunately, workable substitutes either won’t exist or won’t be found for a huge array of materials and parts.
5) Food and protection. A machine shop without a workforce fed enough to keep working isn’t worth much. A machine shop without adequate protection for the workers isn’t worth much.

By the time we meet all of the requirements for work, far fewer machine shops are going to be in a position to support bringing tanks back to life than we might imagine. Let’s remember, too, that ammunition production requires chemical stocks. Large caliber ammunition production is much more demanding than small arms ammunition production.

As everyone here knows, I’m of the school that the US basically stabilizes by Spring 2001. The nadir of food production and availability would have been in 1999-2000, provided one tosses out that deus ex machina of a drought. Of course, we have seen from real life that the US is quite subject to vagaries of the weather. Let’s hope there’s more rain in 2013 than there was in 2012. However, in most locations around the country the overwhelming majority of people will be involved in growing food, husbanding animals for food, hunting for food, or gathering wild foods. The workforce left over for all other tasks will be less than half the half the available manpower—sometimes much less than half. Demands on this workforce will include manual labor, medical functions, security, administration, and manufacturing to meet local needs. When the chief machinist tells the cantonment leadership that putting the main gun of the tank back into working order will require 400 man hours, plus another 300 to get the assembly line for one type of large caliber ammunition ready for production and another 100 per week to produce 15-20 rounds, the leadership may say forget it. Maintenance of small arms might prove more immediate.

Big cantonments like Colorado might have the ingredients for putting old tanks and AFV back in working order. Smaller cantonments just might not have all the ingredients needed and the willingness to place priority on getting those ingredients working towards the goal of restoring old tanks and other AFV to working order. So however many tanks and AFV there may be in working condition in NOV 97 across the US, the number of cantonments that have put them into working order will be very, very small. This doesn’t mean that they can’t have been dug in and armed. A working MG inside a tank turret that can be turned by a hand crank or electricity run through a wire from outside the vehicle would be both a formidable obstacle and a real morale boost for the defenders. But a Sherman capable of acting like a Sherman tank would be pretty rare in 2001 for my money.