There is a fiction series out... The first book is called 1632. The bulk of the series is written by Eric Flint, but he collaborates with David Weber and several others.
The premise intrigues me. In the year 2000, a sphere 10 miles in diameter surrounds and transports the town of Grantville West Virginia back in time and space to the year 1632, but lands them in Northern Germany. This is during the middle of the 30 Years War. The series expounds on how they cope and how this momentous event changes the world. The town quickly realizes that they aren't going to be able to maintain a late 20th Century technological level, (you try to make a laptop computer using the resources of any small town. Or a cheap lightbulb, for that matter) but they CAN re-tool to a 19th Century tech base with ease. High School students that learned first aid are as good as most doctors (they know what germs are), and farming techniques and knowledge is an order of magnitude better, even without tractors.
But there is plenty of gunnie content.
One townsperson that came back is an Olympic level rifle competitor (biathalon). And she is DEADLY as a sniper on the battlefield. And enemy generals don't expect to be targetted... A town of hunters, with modern bolt action rifles, that wear camouflage, and are going up against men with muskets in dense formations is a military revolution in 1632. And a dump-truck, converted to run on natural gas that town had access to BEFORE the time shift, makes a superb armored personnel carrier after you cut firing loops in the sides. The enemy muskets can't penetrate the steel. No one has invented socketed bayonets in 1632 yet, so an army that fields this up-time innovation can eliminate the need for intermingling men with polearms with the riflemen/musketmen (vital to have pointy things to discourage cavalry.)
The scenario really set's the mind a thinkin'. What would YOU do? With half a brain, in partnership with motivated local German allies, you can get rich pretty fast. If you survive. And you think of something.
Let's say you are master gunsmith. You can make, from scratch, a mauser style bolt action rifle. You are that good. You happen to have a basement full of machine tools and precision devices, a massive lathe or two, a big old milling machine, others, all running on 3 phase power with 5 horsepower motors. You are well setup. And the town has a power plant providing you with reliable power. So? Where are you going to get the bar-stock? Metallurgy at the time can get you a quantity of wrought iron, but not the quality steel you are used to. Fine, you simplify. Maybe you can make trapdoor style Springfields. Single shot breech loaders and you'll have to make them a bit heavier than you had to because of the steel available. And where are you going to get the cartridges? Stamping out brass in quantity to form a cartridge case will take a whole 'nother supporting industry. Not to mention smokeless powder will require ANOTHER industry. And primers for cartridges, or even mere percussion caps, is another problem you might not be able to solve as a mere master-gunsmith.
So you are down to making flintlock rifled muskets. Good. The lock on guns at the time were wheel-locks and match-locks, so you are ahead of the game. Your German tradesmen allies know how to make muskets so you can employ locals to make rifles in quantity. The Minie-Ball innovation of the 19th century (conical shaped bullets with a concave bottom that helps the base of it expand to engage the rifling, obviating the need for a tightly sealed, patched, round ball) can be cribbed quickly and your flintlocks will load as fast as any other musket of the day, but you will field a force with much greater effective range. Until the enemies catch up you will have a crushing advantage, if you can turn out rifles quickly. As YOU would be the factory foreman, training up a cadre and increasing your workforce by orders of magnitude.
Hopefully someone can solve the problem of making percussion caps and you can have Civil War era rifled muskets. If someone can solve the cartridge making problem you can just about touch the 20th Century again. Not having Brownells on the other end of a phone line is a real hamstring.
There are other problems I'm not considering in getting your modern arms factory off the ground. Where do you get the precision tooling? Ok, you can make some. You are a master-gunsmith. What about something as simple as screws? Sure you can make those too, but they won't be interchangeable. Better go to the library and hope they have stuff about Harper's Ferry Arsenal and how they tried to develop a system of interchangeable parts there. There will be pressure on your shop to make OTHER parts and machines for other industries, too.
But you didn't have to be a master gunsmith to get rich in 1632. If you were a hobby farmer with a few modern bred 20th Century sheep you have the seeds to a superior wool industry with product better than any available. If you were a stoner Hippy in the 20th C., well your skills growing weed and making LSD is the start of great pharmaceutical empire.
The premise intrigues me. In the year 2000, a sphere 10 miles in diameter surrounds and transports the town of Grantville West Virginia back in time and space to the year 1632, but lands them in Northern Germany. This is during the middle of the 30 Years War. The series expounds on how they cope and how this momentous event changes the world. The town quickly realizes that they aren't going to be able to maintain a late 20th Century technological level, (you try to make a laptop computer using the resources of any small town. Or a cheap lightbulb, for that matter) but they CAN re-tool to a 19th Century tech base with ease. High School students that learned first aid are as good as most doctors (they know what germs are), and farming techniques and knowledge is an order of magnitude better, even without tractors.
But there is plenty of gunnie content.
One townsperson that came back is an Olympic level rifle competitor (biathalon). And she is DEADLY as a sniper on the battlefield. And enemy generals don't expect to be targetted... A town of hunters, with modern bolt action rifles, that wear camouflage, and are going up against men with muskets in dense formations is a military revolution in 1632. And a dump-truck, converted to run on natural gas that town had access to BEFORE the time shift, makes a superb armored personnel carrier after you cut firing loops in the sides. The enemy muskets can't penetrate the steel. No one has invented socketed bayonets in 1632 yet, so an army that fields this up-time innovation can eliminate the need for intermingling men with polearms with the riflemen/musketmen (vital to have pointy things to discourage cavalry.)
The scenario really set's the mind a thinkin'. What would YOU do? With half a brain, in partnership with motivated local German allies, you can get rich pretty fast. If you survive. And you think of something.
Let's say you are master gunsmith. You can make, from scratch, a mauser style bolt action rifle. You are that good. You happen to have a basement full of machine tools and precision devices, a massive lathe or two, a big old milling machine, others, all running on 3 phase power with 5 horsepower motors. You are well setup. And the town has a power plant providing you with reliable power. So? Where are you going to get the bar-stock? Metallurgy at the time can get you a quantity of wrought iron, but not the quality steel you are used to. Fine, you simplify. Maybe you can make trapdoor style Springfields. Single shot breech loaders and you'll have to make them a bit heavier than you had to because of the steel available. And where are you going to get the cartridges? Stamping out brass in quantity to form a cartridge case will take a whole 'nother supporting industry. Not to mention smokeless powder will require ANOTHER industry. And primers for cartridges, or even mere percussion caps, is another problem you might not be able to solve as a mere master-gunsmith.
So you are down to making flintlock rifled muskets. Good. The lock on guns at the time were wheel-locks and match-locks, so you are ahead of the game. Your German tradesmen allies know how to make muskets so you can employ locals to make rifles in quantity. The Minie-Ball innovation of the 19th century (conical shaped bullets with a concave bottom that helps the base of it expand to engage the rifling, obviating the need for a tightly sealed, patched, round ball) can be cribbed quickly and your flintlocks will load as fast as any other musket of the day, but you will field a force with much greater effective range. Until the enemies catch up you will have a crushing advantage, if you can turn out rifles quickly. As YOU would be the factory foreman, training up a cadre and increasing your workforce by orders of magnitude.
Hopefully someone can solve the problem of making percussion caps and you can have Civil War era rifled muskets. If someone can solve the cartridge making problem you can just about touch the 20th Century again. Not having Brownells on the other end of a phone line is a real hamstring.
There are other problems I'm not considering in getting your modern arms factory off the ground. Where do you get the precision tooling? Ok, you can make some. You are a master-gunsmith. What about something as simple as screws? Sure you can make those too, but they won't be interchangeable. Better go to the library and hope they have stuff about Harper's Ferry Arsenal and how they tried to develop a system of interchangeable parts there. There will be pressure on your shop to make OTHER parts and machines for other industries, too.
But you didn't have to be a master gunsmith to get rich in 1632. If you were a hobby farmer with a few modern bred 20th Century sheep you have the seeds to a superior wool industry with product better than any available. If you were a stoner Hippy in the 20th C., well your skills growing weed and making LSD is the start of great pharmaceutical empire.
8 comments:
Bolt,
I read that series and it helped me realize a gap in my planning. I don't have a great deal of printed reference materials on how to do non-technological activities.
I'm looking at the Foxfire books as a start. But need to branch out for TEOTWAWKI. How do you recognize metals in their natural state, how do you tan hides, etc.
A simple thing that I also picked up on was watches. One character had a kinetic self winding watch instead of one relying on batteries, not a bad idea to pick up on my next watch purchase.
It's a great series....
Been reading for sometime now. Some books are better than others. A couple of really cool things about the series is that Eric Flint opened it up to amateur writers thru his Grantville Gazette e-books and later best of print books.
Also, Baen (the publisher) has been really cool with a number of the hard covers containing CDs with the full works of older books in the series and by the authors in PDF version.
Lastly, you might also want to check out another series by the same author entitled 1812 which is an alternate history of the U.S. pre-civil war.
http://www.amazon.com/1632-Assiti-Shards-Eric-Flint/dp/0671319728/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222356715&sr=1-1
The series is oft fun and light-hearted, but also a great historical education. I have constantly found myself going to Wikipedia to look up various characters and read up on their actual histories.
***
As I always like to put forth to people. "Could you make a drinking cup?" From scratch, not using some left-over remains of equipment we have. But how would you make a drinking cup. Okay, so you'll make a wood one. How do you cut the tree, carve it, treat it, etc?
Most people discover just how stupid we really are. We've become so diversified and focused that we've almost lost the basic essentials.
Another approach is Leo Frankowski's "Crosstime Engineer" - an American educated Polish engineer, on solo holiday in back-country modern Poland, gets drunk, wakes up alone with backpack in 13th Century Poland up in the mountains - 10 years before the Huns overrun Poland and much of the rest of Europe.
Often amusing, Contrad keeps falling down and coming up smelling of roses. In one drunken evening of explaining socialism to a tavern owner, he inadvertently buys the tavern and turns it into what becomes a bunny club/cookware store/post office chain. Conrad struggles to get gunpowder invented, while keeping knowledge of gunpowder a secret.
A fun series. And some interesting thoughts about technology, wind power, and how to bootstrap a culture.
I didn't know this was part of a series. I'll have to check out Flint and Frankowski.
This reminds me of High Crusade by (I think) L. Sprague De Kamp, in which a band of Norman knights believably!) get the better of a whole civilization of inter-stellar-travelling-ray-gun-toting extraterrestrials.
Oh great - like how much user-interface design work am I ever gonna get in 1632? I'm hosed. Maybe I can draw political cartoons.
But sheesh, you make a drinking cup out of the skull of your enemy! Get down with the Fijiian Islanders, bro!
Now that I think of it, if you were a stoner locksmith/gunsmith you'd come up with a Babbage calculating machine and then with the LSD part invent UNIX - as they say at Slashdot, only two things came out of Berkeley in the 60's...
The thing that strikes me is how different the scenario would be if the starting time were set in, say, 2007. More laptops, everyone has cellphones - both good for better battery tech and communication. Also, there might be more solar and wind tech. Interesting how much things change in 10-15 years.
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