Tires and meds

[Trmckelvey]

In your various MP campaigns, does anyone address how long consumables such as tires, meds, ammo and food would last in the extended sleep scenario used in the core rules?

In other words do you generally assume all the teams consumables are factory fresh when they wake up? Meds certainly have a finite shelf life for instance, and ammo gets unpredictable with age. Rubber tires detiriorate under normal storage conditions.

Was just wondering if everyone assumes the project's preservation techniques are good enough after 150 years.

I know one module, cant remember which mentions that a biker group was the envy of their rivals because the actually had rubber tires on their motorcycles rather than steel rimmed wheels.

That got me to thinking about what it would take to keep chemical compounds like tires, meds, gunpowder from degrading over the course of a century and a half.

[Gelrir]

Well, it's a matter of squinting a bit.

Presuming a sincere Morrow Project, they expect nobody will be in a bolthole for more than twenty or thirty years ... they didn't have fusion reactors before 1979, the Atomic War was in 1989. It's not quite clear to me what the Project was doing with their recruits and cryosleep berths before 1979. Big diesel generators?

(if you're running some variant game ... well ... )

So: the boltholes are sealed, the atmosphere is entirely nitrogen, big tubs of dehumidifier compounds are set out on the floor. Vehicles are up on jackstands, to prevent the tires from getting 'flat on the bottom'; the tires may even be deflated to reduce pressure on the rubber, or the wheels removed and laid up 'flat'. All fluids are removed from vehicles, anti-corrosion measures and preservatives are applied -- the sort of stuff the Air Force does to preserve aircraft at Davis-Monthan AFB. A heater, run by the reactor, prevents any dangerously-low temperatures (not too likely underground in any case). Ammunition, foods, lubricants, etc. are chosen with an eye towards 'long lifespan', since even after the teams leave their boltholes their supplies may have to last for years during reconstruction. Food and other organic compounds are irradiated to kill any germs.

I've fired ammunition that's 50 or 60 years old with no trouble -- and have also had issues with ammunition only 30 years old. While they didn't fire a lot of it, there was a video recently at the excellent Forgotten Weapons blog where 100+ years-old ammo was fired in a test:

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/remi...l-8-ammo-test/

And, as referee ... you cheat. Just describe surviving items as "well, that's lucky" or "you don't know if the aspirin is still good, do you?". Plus it's always fun when the characters look at their 100-year-past-the-printed-expiration-date packet of chili.

http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/cd...y/medical.html

One thing not to cheat on: radioactive half-lives. Tritium is used to activate the glow-in-the-dark markings on various items (military compasses most notably). The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years ... after 12 half-lives it's pretty much kaput.

I find that discussions about how the Project made/chose only things that would last 150 years deliberately cause players to start wondering if the Project was telling a big fib all along.

--
Michael B.

[ArmySGT.]

Some of the modules mention a mixture of noble gases as filling the environment to prevent deterioration due to oxidation.

[ArmySGT.]

Can't say for sure on meds...... on one hand, the absolute darkness, 55 degree temp (its always 55 below 20 feet), and the nitrogen environment is perfect for storing anything. On the other hand, if it is the chemicals breaking down themselves because they react to one another?

GM, call. However, I would rule these are good. After all the Project buried some of the caches and bolt holes 20 years prior to the event and expected a 3-5 year wait after the war before activating.

[stormlion1]

Not sure about meds, but I can speak of old tires pretty well as I spent a few years rebuilding classical cars with my dad, including looking for original 1930 Plymoth (I think they were Plymoth) era tires at one point. About every set of original tires I ran across they had suffered horribly due to time and neglect until I ran across a set of eight in Texas. Drove down to look at them as the pics I was sent looked good to discover these old tires had been stored in crates filled with gun grease. After cleaning them up, they were exactly like new and had next to no problems at all so I think if they were stored properly tires could still be good after a 150 year gap. But tires that aren't cared for will begin to fall apart but not fast. Underground in a dry enviroment they might be good, but would I want to trust my vehichle with them? That's the other question. Next time I see my old man I will ask him the question.

[kato13]

I've always consider tires to be a problem for the project long term.

Short term I agree with the posters here that some method might have been determined for long term storage. They may only expect the team to sleep for 5 years but they expect the vehicles to have a much longer lifespan and tires (esp on rough terrain found after the war) would need to be replaced quite often.

Since a vehicle without a tire is pretty useless, what can the project do to mitigate a long term tire issue.

I had the following thoughts

1) Reengineering all tires. Increase the durability perhaps by adding an internal runflat support and using much more durable materials.

2) Some sort of modular tires. Perhaps tires with a tough but flexible core and replaceable treads

3) Standardizing the tires as few rim configurations as possible or allowing for flexibility in attachment points.

I did some research on the number of different tires used by the US millitary and the number was staggering. (Edit I found the PDF the list is like 35 pages long) I know the canon game has only a few different vehicle systems but some type of generic flexible tire concept could streamline logistics and perhaps keep more prewar vehicles moving with project replacement tires (assuming the project worked as planned)


Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?