Plastic or Composite weapons in Twilight 2000

[kato13]

pmulcahy 06-29-2005, 05:41 PM It seems, as the war wears on, the materials for these modern weapons are going to become more and more scarce, and that even in regular production weapons (as long as that lasts...) you are going to see more steel and wood, and less plastic, composites, and titanium/scandium/unobtanium alloy weapons. Perhaps even weapons which were once made with these materials would later on be made from steel and wood. Just I thought I had...

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Abbott Shaull 06-30-2005, 01:56 AM I think this part of the reason why they had include the details of the M16EZ model when they did their small arms resource guide. They knew that at sometimes the plastic used in the regular M16 would go by the way and that they would need some way to explain how to make new weapons later. Yes, I know from the guide most of these barrels used were already used up, but it doesn't take much to see that this could be used for new weapons system too.


I see several WWII weapons coming back into production. Largely the stamp metal Machineguns that were so popular with the everyone. I think these weapons would be made and issued in large numbers. I remember seeing a table somewhere that WWII Infantry Division had a surprising number of Rifles within the Division when compared to the number of Submachineguns and Carbines that were in the Divisions.


I also think for the US Army beside a version of the M16EZ being introduce that a version of the M4 would be speed up as anternative.


Just some thoughts.


Abbott

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ReHerakhte 06-30-2005, 06:25 AM It's worth thinking about this in regards to weapons already issued as well because some parts will need replacing due to wear & tear etc. and after a while spares stocks will be used up.


For example, in the early 1990s, I was asked (because the guys in my unit considered me to be a "gunhead" - I have an interest in military firearms ) what type of M16 someone from another infantry unit was using, the weapon was an M16A1 that had the damaged buttstock replaced with an M16A2 buttstock because M16A1 buttstocks were no longer held as spares, (the M16A2 butt is slightly longer and of a different finish to the plastic material so looks noticeably different to the M16A1 butt). After a while during the Twilight War, replacement parts are going to be scarce and new build parts will have to be made using whatever materials are available so you will probably start to see parts that used to be made from plastic being made from wood and so on as mentioned in the other posts.


Here in Australia we also see another problem with wear & tear on weapons that some other parts of the world see but I don't know how much of a problem it would be in northern Europe and northern North America due to the cooler climate - sweaty hands. I was once issued an M16A1 that had most of the blacking colour removed from the area around the magazine well due to years of being gripped there. With the hot climate in parts of Australia, the sweat from the user's hands basically leached the black from the metal.

So what does this really mean in terms of Twilight? I suppose what it means is that with the kind of hard use that personal weapons will get in Twilight, any lower grade metals used to construct replacement parts or weapons will probably wear faster than expected due to such simple things as the salts in the user's sweat. Sweat will also help to break down the wood furniture of a weapon given enough time (Anyone have experience with the L1A1 SLR or M14? You could always pick where the previous user had placed his off hand by the worn wood on the forestock!). This is one part of the reason we see so many plastics and alloys used in modern smallarms.


As Abbott mentioned about machineguns, you might also see a resurgence of some submachine-guns that are constructed largely from folded/pressed sheet metal (such as the Uzi and again as Abbott mentioned, WW2 weapons like the Sten Gun). Most of these weapons only need the bolt/operating group and the barrel to be milled/forged from solid metal.

In regards to weapons using large amounts of plastics for their furniture, recycled petroleum would probably be suitable for producing the plastics until the facilities for production wear out etc. or supplies of petrochemicals stop so the number of Steyr AUGs and such like are probably going to decline sharply, after all, you can't simply make a wooden stock for an AUG in a few hours (although it would be kinda interesting to see!)


Just some additional thoughts!

Cheers,

Kevin

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TiggerCCW UK 07-06-2005, 07:02 AM As Abbott mentioned about machineguns, you might also see a resurgence of some submachine-guns that are constructed largely from folded/pressed sheet metal (such as the Uzi and again as Abbott mentioned, WW2 weapons like the Sten Gun). Most of these weapons only need the bolt/operating group and the barrel to be milled/forged from solid metal.

In regards to weapons using large amounts of plastics for their furniture, recycled petroleum would probably be suitable for producing the plastics until the facilities for production wear out etc. or supplies of petrochemicals stop so the number of Steyr AUGs and such like are probably going to decline sharply, after all, you can't simply make a wooden stock for an AUG in a few hours (although it would be kinda interesting to see!)


Just some additional thoughts!

Cheers,

Kevin


How long do people reckon it would take for home made SMG's and the like to become widespread? I have a PC who is a huge fan of the Sten gun and would far rather have it (or at least something that looks like it) than an equivalent more modern weapon. Also, do you see muskets and the like becoming more common? I'm thinking of including them in my game as more common civilian weapons as I think they would be a lot easier to manufacture.

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Abbott Shaull 07-07-2005, 07:04 AM Realistically, I don't think it would take long for either side to start pumping out the old weapons or newer models of these type of weapons.


The NATO nations will take longer to issue these weapons on large scale with the exception being Germany. They would almost start immediately largely due to try to get troops using a common ammo base which would be nightmare for the West German Army trying to supply former East German units. One interesting thing in the game this issue was that after the 'Re-unification' that many of the East German units that were absorbed into the West German Army that they would all take their turn in being pulled from the front-line to have NATO weapons issued and train them. NATO didn't have lot of Pact ammo laying around to turn over to them after they used what they had to begin with. So I can see the Submachinegun at all levels of the Germany Army being re-introduce Army-wide to help make for the lack of long-arms that have been used to re-equip some of the East German units.


As for the British forces I don't think it would take long for them either. For what I have heard of the LSW. I don't think it would be long before they would look for some stop-gap replacements for it to serve the purpose it was so called built for. Submachinegun might not be the idea replacement, but it would work and compact when compare to the SLR(IIRC) of the Battle Rifle that could issued as a replacement. Then again any replacement would be two edge sword. Do you give something that is as light, but still puts lead down range quickly. Or do you go with something that hell lot slower, but has more stopping power. With the number of Urban combat situation well, there would be no real choice unless you are defending and have the option to pick the best places to shoot from.....


Abbott

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dawg180 07-24-2005, 02:22 PM The nice thing about the M16 patfrom is that it is extremely modular, and pretty much anyone with a little knowledge and a few basic tools can fix most any problem on it. In fact, I perosnally have built an AR-15 (civilian M16 in the U.S.) forom a pile of parts, and the only special tool required was a special wrench to install the barrel and a special vise block to hodl the upper while doing it. I can maintain all my AR-15's and have quite a few spare parts to do so when the bomb drops!


You would definitely start to see some bastardized weapons such as M4's with M16A2 buttstocks, and vice versa, but I think that would take many, many years to become more prevalent. National guard untis and even USAF units still carry M16A1's that were issued in the eraly 60's.


Here in the U.S. the civilain market has tons of parts avaialble too, so it would be much easier to keep an AR running, although you would see a lot of wierd aftermarket things like rail hanguards and the like.

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Privyet_Anton 07-30-2005, 09:17 PM Chello!


National guard untis and even USAF units still carry M16A1's that were issued in the eraly 60's.


Well, from personal experience, when I went through Basic (US Army) in 1988, the M-16 I used through basic had "XM-16" stamp on the nomenclature point on the receiver!!! You could shake it and hear it rattle!!!


I still shot Expert!!!


But I think that we would see manufacture of older models...the VC pirated the Thompson and made a model in machine shops during the Vietnam War. And the Sten has already been mentioned. I'm pretty sure a decent shop could throw out an M-3 or a Soviet PPsh-41.


Tony

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dawg180 08-02-2005, 11:52 AM I think you might be on to something with the sten gun type of weapon...


Stens, Sterlings, M3 Greasguns, etc. all were pretty much a metal tube with a simple bolt, barrel, and a very basic trigger mechanism. these weapons were all designed under the principles of being simple to manufacture, not needing a lot of raw materials, and cheap. One other nice thing is that a pistol caliber weapon like these can operate on the blowback principle, which is far, far easier to design and build than say the gas operated system the M16 uses.


In fact, you can get the leftover parts minus the receiver fro a Sten Gun here in the U.S., get a few parts to make it semiauto (for legal purposes), a metal tube of the proper diameter, and with really nothing more than a jigsaw and a welder assemble it into a functioning weapon.


I suspect as the war dragged on that someone (anyone say Wojo Armemnets factory?) would develop a Sten/Greasugun type weapon, probably that fed off whatever pistol caliber magazine was common to the area, and most likely 9mmP in Europe. I figure full auto a heavy bolt like the M3 so the cyclic rate is low enough you can snap off one or two shots at a quick pull of the trigger.



As for weapons like the Thompson, Garand, M14, etc, and their european counterparts I generally think you WOULD NOT see these go back into production. All of these weapons take a termendous amount of machining and effort to produce. The Thompson was notorious for the amount of labor required for its construction, IIRC it took 6 times as long to proudce one as it did to produce an M3 greasgun, and a Thompson cost $150 compared to $8 for the M3 (that was in the 1940's!). The garand recevier alone takes 157 machining operations to produce, and that is just the receiver. There are at least two dozen other milled parts on that weapon that each take quite a few operations to make!


As for our good friend the "M16EZ" being that I know the M16 inside and out there really aren't too many things you can do to simplify the design, especially if you are trying to use standard parts, but I will list the few I can think of:


1. Do not chrome line barrel

2. If manufacturing new barrels, do not contour barrel (standard M16A2 barrels have a smaller diameter under the handguards than in front, and uncontoured barrels are common in civilian AR-15's)

3. minimize finishing operations on the uppper and lower receiver. The receivers both start out as hunks of aluminum that are rough but are pretty close in shape to the finished product, with machinging done to drill the holes, carve out the magazine well, and so forth. You could probaly reduce the time by 25% or so by not smoothing down oeverything after critical operations were done, and then anodzing. It woudl look ugly but work.


beyond that there sin't a whole hell of alot you can do, everything else is pretty damn necessary except for maybe not threading the barrel and installing a flashider, but that is a 10 minute job with a lathe...

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TR 08-05-2005, 10:59 PM I think there's three categories of material to consider...


Milgov Resources: They are going to have a large cache of parts, spares and the capability to do small scale manufacturing of the current production line up. However their going to obviously want to save these resources to make either different weapons or the EZ line up of firearms.


Civgov Resources: They are going to have less supplies than the Milgov but their going to have quantities available, as well as depots (Anniston Army Depot in setting) of previously made weapons to fall back to. I think we would see more EZ grade weapons here as well as new designs made on simplified patterns to test and potentially adopt.


Civilian Resources: This is a real hodge podge... there are so many gun sellers, stores, manufacturers out there right now that their materials would become the basis for trading. There's all kinds of ways to buy kit bags of various weapons from WWII forward of everything but the receiver... all you need is either the receiver, a gunsmith to make one or make a hybrid receiver that will fit the parts. Certainly some civilians would have milgrade weapons but the percentage of Class III dealers and owners is small compared to the population of the USA.


So what does this all mean? Milgov is going to be more likely to have milgrade armaments and EZ variants, Civgov is more likely to have EZ armaments and new designs their testing and Civlians can have combinations of the two in varying numbers and not to mention everything else but the kitchen sink.

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