Occupations and specialists - numbers in T2K

[atiff]

Hi all,

Working on some ideas, I downloaded the US Bureau of Labor Statistics file of 1997 employment estimates. This lists around 500 occupation groups, and the estimated numbers in each. I thought this might be useful for looking in a town or city to try and find those specialists you are trying to find...

E.g., you are looking for someone who is a proper (pre-war) dentist - this file would say that 7 in 10,000 people would be a dentist, so there should be a few around in somewhere like Krakow. Of course, they may not be practicing as a dentist now...

I also thought this might provoke some discussion about occupations that are still in demand, and those that essentially become extinct. (This will depend on the image of destruction you have for your T2K world, as well as the organization of areas within that world.) Thoughts?

Andrew

[Tombot]

That is interesting, Atiff.
I mentioned somewhere else that people would be bartering with old dentures (yuck!!!) because of that fact, you just stated! Almost no dentists left...
We could expect a lot of "heroes" with questionable looks in terms of fragmentary sets of teeth

Apart from that, these statistics can be helpful to get a more realistic idea, how society would have to change from our industrialized form of technical specialists, back to more "universal" occupations and scholars like in the 19.century.

[atiff]

For the more "universal" occupations idea - I agree. I think a lot of people will end up having to do something 'on the farm' so to speak. My own games assume 1 person in every 2 is involved in farming and food production (which really equates to about 2/3 of the adult population). I think a lot of them will also take any practical hobbies they had and turn them into something to generate income or barter-able skills.

Also, I think a lot of older professions will make a comeback, as energy distribution collapses and machines stop. Things like:
Tanners
Furriers
Leatherworkers
Cobblers
Weavers
Wainrights (wagon makers)
Farriers (guys who do horseshoes)
Loggers with axes
Ploughmen
Icemen (the guys who deliver ice)
etc....

I don't think it will go "Morrow Project" everywhere, but people will do these things to 'get by' if they can't buy, scrounge or otherwise get the 'modern' versions of things they want/need.

[James Langham]

Also bear in mind the casualty rate will be higher in some professions than others as they will be city based.

Excellent resource though, thanks for posting.

[schnickelfritz]

For the last 17 years, I've been a Mechanical Engineer by trade. In my travels, I've found that there are a lot of manufacturing facilities in out of the way places, usually because the county/city/state offered tax breaks. You'd be suprised some times to see a plant making outboard engines in rural Oklahoma, for instance.

While there are manufacturing plants of great size still within metro areas that were devastated by the nukes or riots (Detroit for one), there are a lot in the middle of nowhere West of the Appalachians.

These facilities, no matter what they made originally, would have a goldmine of talent in the maintenance, engineering, tool room, and assembly personnel, especially the first three. Plus, most places I've worked for had local subcontractors, usually machine shops, that would also be highly valuable.

And let us not forget retirees...some went to the warmer states, but most of the retired toolmakers I know are still in the area and still able to pass along their skills....most of them have 30 years' or more of priceless experience creating tools and parts in the pre-cnc area. If you have nowhere to really go and your 60 years old, why would you in the post TDM era?

I used to work at a plant where the tool room had two lathes with 20 foot beds and 18"+ swing, one Monarch, one American, and they worked as well as they ever had, even though both were built in late 1941 according to their serial data plates. They also had a lot of grinders, mills, and lathes that would be hardly affected by EMP.

Mortars, anyone?

[Legbreaker]

This topic has been discussed in previous threads (which I can't track down at the moment) where it was established that the highly skilled and specialised people were more likely to suffer a disproportionate number of casualties due to their locations being prime targets. This isn't to say dispersed facilities would not exist, but, once the nukes flew, many, many people would be heading away from anywhere they felt could be a target, or set out seeking surviving family. This movement could in fact endanger people more than staying in one place and bunkering down.

Also, the elderly, infirm and the young would suffer a high percentage of casualties from disease, famine and all the stresses placed on the population post 1997. Given that retirees tend to be in the elderly age bracket...

[schnickelfritz]

Leg-
I cannot and will not comment on anything outside of what I've seen with my own eyes in the CONUS. I've worked at some of these places and seen some others, both travelling by and on company business with my own eyes. Stillwater, Oklahoma had as of 2006 a large Mercury Marine facility, in addition to Ohklahoma State University, and the town was some distance from Tulsa. This is one example....there are more than a few others throughout the US like this.

I worked with a number of individuals who were able to retire in their early-mid 50's because the retirement plan at our former employer was doing well. I agree that the elderly/infirm may not hold up well in a post TDM environment, but the guys I know are still going strong. Unless you are hooked to a machine of some kind or have life-or-death meds, there's no switch that goes off and kills you necessarily....you may actually survive, even though you are over 50-

-Dave

[Targan]

I agree that being over 50 is not an automatic death sentence in a post-apocalyptic environment but many people would die as a result of suddenly being without simple medication. Blood pressure meds for instance - hypertension is easily diagnosed and easily treated in a first world country but if your supply of meds suddenly dries up you can quickly suffer some really serious consequences.

I'm not saying that everyone over 50 need medication but many do, and if I was in that situation I would try really hard to build up a stockpile of the medications I needed if the sh*t started hitting the fan in a big way.

[schnickelfritz]

My biggest point is that in the US, there are a lot of major manufacturing facilities that are not near areas on the hit list....in fact Caterpillar has at least 5 plants in Illinois alone, of which only 1 was within even 50 miles of a strike. John Deere has plants in the Quad Cities area (along with the Rock Island Arsenal), and my Chevy Suburban was built to the north outside of Janesville, Wisconsin. Chrysler has a BIG plan in Belvedere, IL, and Rockford IL is just next door, housing a number or hydraulics and aerospace plants. Go figure, no?

Heck, there's a BIG Mitsubishi plant in central Illinois (near Bloomington). None of these facilities are completely vertically integrated...they are fed by a web of suppliers and subcontractors. I've worked at these suppliers and used local tool and die shops to complete my projects in return.

My point is that while there are a number of heavy industry plants (auto/truck/defense/construction) here in the states that would be caught in the TDM destruction and that while US industry would take significant losses from 11/97-01/00, not all is lost.

Look at the Challenge Magazine adventure "Rifle River" for example. I would have thought that the USSR would have nuked the plan..but I guess not. A plant that made Rockeye cluster bombs is also mentioned in Urban Guerilla.

Here and there at these plants or at their suppliers...or sub-suppliers, there will be machines that can be returned to service here and there and powered by generators to help communities here and there manufacture weapons and refurbish/repurpose others to give them an edge over the lawless hordes. In many cases, it will be a small machine shop here and there or a lab in a community college with a mill and a lathe (I took classes in one just like it) making mortars or bazookas in ones and twos. High school/college chemistry teachers can help make explosives and propellants that are good enough for the job.

Museums and Historical Villages are another example. There is an excavating company that has a pair of STEAM POWERED tractors...Holts or Bests, I believe, 15 minutes from me. In the fall they take one to the local 1900-era farm run by the county and hook it to a thresher and harvest as they did 100 years ago here.

-Dave

[Targan]

Originally Posted by schnickelfritz

Museums and Historical Villages are another example. There is an excavating company that has a pair of STEAM POWERED tractors...Holts or Bests, I believe, 15 minutes from me. In the fall they take one to the local 1900-era farm run by the county and hook it to a thresher and harvest as they did 100 years ago here.

That's very cool. At the last Perth Royal Show I attended I hung around a working display of steam engines and steam-powered antique farm machinery for ages. My poor wife had to humour me. They had a bunch of stapled leather belts running from fly wheels, providing motive power to all manner of old wrought iron machines. It was fascinating to watch.

[Legbreaker]

No doubt there will be facilities scattered about, but the availability of skilled technicians where they are needed may well be limited.
Power and raw materials will also be large hurdles to overcome.
Additionally, those facilities will be in great demand for more than just production of weapons. Spare parts and whole new machines will be needed and may have a higher priority than say a new breech block. Production of steam powered machines for example such as the tractors mentioned will be very important to food production once the oil runs out.

[Webstral]

The balance between industry for defense and industry for, well, industry will be almost impossible to find in the post-Exchange world. Everyone who has decisions to make about how to use their available resources will have some hard choices to make.

[James Langham]

Originally Posted by schnickelfritz

My biggest point is that in the US, there are a lot of major manufacturing facilities that are not near areas on the hit list....in fact Caterpillar has at least 5 plants in Illinois alone, of which only 1 was within even 50 miles of a strike. John Deere has plants in the Quad Cities area (along with the Rock Island Arsenal), and my Chevy Suburban was built to the north outside of Janesville, Wisconsin. Chrysler has a BIG plan in Belvedere, IL, and Rockford IL is just next door, housing a number or hydraulics and aerospace plants. Go figure, no?

Heck, there's a BIG Mitsubishi plant in central Illinois (near Bloomington). None of these facilities are completely vertically integrated...they are fed by a web of suppliers and subcontractors. I've worked at these suppliers and used local tool and die shops to complete my projects in return.

My point is that while there are a number of heavy industry plants (auto/truck/defense/construction) here in the states that would be caught in the TDM destruction and that while US industry would take significant losses from 11/97-01/00, not all is lost.

Look at the Challenge Magazine adventure "Rifle River" for example. I would have thought that the USSR would have nuked the plan..but I guess not. A plant that made Rockeye cluster bombs is also mentioned in Urban Guerilla.

Here and there at these plants or at their suppliers...or sub-suppliers, there will be machines that can be returned to service here and there and powered by generators to help communities here and there manufacture weapons and refurbish/repurpose others to give them an edge over the lawless hordes. In many cases, it will be a small machine shop here and there or a lab in a community college with a mill and a lathe (I took classes in one just like it) making mortars or bazookas in ones and twos. High school/college chemistry teachers can help make explosives and propellants that are good enough for the job.

Museums and Historical Villages are another example. There is an excavating company that has a pair of STEAM POWERED tractors...Holts or Bests, I believe, 15 minutes from me. In the fall they take one to the local 1900-era farm run by the county and hook it to a thresher and harvest as they did 100 years ago here.

-Dave

Even if plants are not hit there will be enough problems with transportation, both in getting the resources to the plants and distribution once (if) this has been done. Note that the dispersion of Soviet industrial plants (a policy designed by Stalin to increase inter dependence of the republics) makes the Soviet position even worse.

[atiff]

Bielski partisan group set-up during WWII - a model for a T2K community?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski...s#Organization

[Tombot]

Originally Posted by atiff

Bielski partisan group set-up during WWII - a model for a T2K community?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski...s#Organization

Whooa! Thats inspiring - gotta read that stuff!

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by Targan

That's very cool. At the last Perth Royal Show I attended I hung around a working display of steam engines and steam-powered antique farm machinery for ages. My poor wife had to humour me. They had a bunch of stapled leather belts running from fly wheels, providing motive power to all manner of old wrought iron machines. It was fascinating to watch.

Every May, August, and October, Portersville, PA, hosts a steam show where a spectrum of machines, engines, tractors, etc, are displayed and demonstrated. Portersville is located about 35-40 miles north of Pittsburgh up I-79. The site has a permanent structure housing the local club's apparatus.

There is also another Steam Engine club in western NY near Batavia.
Several other locales have steam hobbyists who would become either god-like in their ability to provide power or would be hunted down and enslaved for the same reason.

[schnickelfritz]

Okay.....deep breath...What I was getting at was a small machine shop or part of a plant's maintenance department, or a school/college shop classroom with a couple or several running, older machines. Your standard Bridgeport style mill, a lathe or two, maybe a grinder. Here in the States, there are shops like this in many places west of the Appalachians. I've seen them, worked/work at them, and worked with them personally.

The size of the operation that I was looking at would be limited first by electric power, then raw materials, and finally manpower. All you need to do is scare up a few individuals that are current/former employees, shop teachers, and hobbyists and you can figure out how to make crude but effective bazookas and mortars. The Wojo Works in Krakow can do it there, we can do it here.

There are small, crusty welding and machine shops all around me that could be used to provide the skills and tools to make some of these larger weapons and a crude armored car/apc (probably from a bank armored car) or two. As far as weapons go it would be a few mortars and or RL's apeice, maybe more if you can take apart a few building sprinkler systems, but you'd be limited by the quantities of propellant/explosives you could make anyway. But every round would make a difference against a biker gang that had nothing to fire like it in return.

It's your game....run it the way you like. If you want to reopen a production line making the LAV...go for it, it's your game. If you want to flesh out a settlement somewhere in the US with a few crude mortars and an armored car, that's an option too. Again, it's your game. I'd probably use some of the WW2 vehicles in some of the vehicle guides because it is a) easy and b) I know they are in the area. There is water power here 10 miles to my west and a hotel on the river has a functioning water driven electric power system that dates from the 1920's and was refurbished in the 90's to provide power to the hotel as a novelty.

All I can do is share what I've seen in real life in my area. You can take it from there.

Incidentally, about 50 miles west of Chicago there is a good sized steam power and vintage tractor show every year. I cannot and will not accept that those older machines wouldn't be the equipment used by T2K era midwestern US rural communities to farm as much as they could keep clear and had seed for. They are compact, durable, easy to work on, and use comparatively little fuel. My Grandfather had a 2-cylinder John Deere that would be started on kerosene and switched to distillate when it got hot enough to run.

My $.05

-Dave

[atiff]

Originally Posted by schnickelfritz

Okay.....deep breath...What I was getting at was a small machine shop or part of a plant's maintenance department, or a school/college shop classroom with a couple or several running, older machines. Your standard Bridgeport style mill, a lathe or two, maybe a grinder. Here in the States, there are shops like this in many places west of the Appalachians. I've seen them, worked/work at them, and worked with them personally.

My father is a mechanical engineer, and has run his own business with 2-3 staff for 30 years. This is in a typical NZ small town (pop 2000 - three such businesses in town). Given a sample, the guys can pretty easily make up pretty much anything (which is what they do daily for hydralics, farm machinery parts, etc.). I don't know what it is like in the US and Europe, but places like his business can be found in hundreds of places around NZ.

Andrew