Weapons Timelines for the Twilight War

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Well how else could he pay for his new Porsche and the golf club membership?

P.S. Meant to add the following, Raellus, I chose those links mostly for the Soviet weapons because some of them had the in service dates listed but for a fuller write-up and more pictures the site I got the TRW rifle from is far better http://world.guns.ru/main-e.htm

As an aside, I'm very skeptical of anything called a "Low-Maintenance Rifle" -- they said the same thing about the M-16 when it arrived in Vietnam.

[Legbreaker]

While wartime R&D is likely to speed up, it has to be remembered that most countries entered the conflict(s) essentially unprepared. Given that by late 1997 all forward progress had effectively ceased due to the nukes, it's therefore hard to justify more than 12-18 months of development.
Regardless how much money is thrown at it, I just can't see 3-5 years compressed into such a short period of time.

Something else worth looking at is the situation with the US (and others) in Iraq. Even several years on, they're still having trouble supplying the troops with everything they need although I'm sure it's a bit different now than it was several years ago. And that's a comparatively minor engagement when you look at T2K and it's multiple, large scale operational theatres.

[pmulcahy11b]

Here's a possibility: Local progress. Except for the November Nuclear Strikes, the nukes and chemical warfare came in dribs and drabs. Some places that already have a decent technological base, but are otherwise intact (even if for only a while) might develop stuff that saw only local use or small-scale production and issue to overseas troops or nationwide. Offhand, I can only think of a few spots, mostly in the US, but:

Groom Lake (the so-called "Area 51"), Edwards AFB (probably would have been hit early, but it's a huge base), various places in Silicon Valley, and Crane Weapons Center. If you go by some Challenge magazine articles, the Lima, Ohio M-1 Abrams plant is relatively undamaged. Maybe throw in some deep-secret, underground development labs (could go for lots of countries), isolated gunsmiths, and prototypes that some government facility took to fruition, but couldn't make many of. Old experimental projects could also have been dusted off, maybe updated a bit, and put into production early in the war. Wartime expedients would also have happened; I once played a character in a late-war draft that was told to show up with his own weapons, ammunition, and equipment if possible (luckily, he was an outdoor enthusiast and a gun collector).