[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....