How does Strelok fight a war in this scenario? I have heard some on craptube say that "armies would revert back to mass formations and lines of battle" but that seems idiotic and suicidal. Fire and maneuver with muzzle loaders or bolt action rifles with black powder loads might also be problematic.
And what would be the most advanced weapon that could use black powder? Rifled muskets? Bolt action rifles? I personally suspect that semi/full-autos are out of the question - the fouling from the black powder would foul up the action. You might get a couple of shots off but then it would need to be cleaned.
The maxim gun/vickers gun would make a comeback considering they were chambered in .577/450/11mm Gras respectively.
Nathan Evans
Peak oil is a meme.
Lucas Hall
Why would black powder weapons be used in a such a scenerio? It's not like black powder manufacturing is all that widely different from smokeless powder manufacturing, and if your excuse is brass shortage then why not shotgun shells or even bootleg caseless. And even, ignoring that, if we did go back to blackpowder, we wouldn't be using muzzle loaders, we'd go to paper cartridges & modernly enhanced rocket balls in breech/tube loaders.
Hence the "humor me on this one! Apply copious amounts of bullshitium"
Black powder would be useful for localized production. While smokeless powders could still be made I imagine obtaining and transporting the chemicals/materials needed to make them might make the cost prohibitive. Or at the very least make it an expensive thing that only the special forces or their equivalents get to use. Of course, I could be wrong. And I will admit I am pretty ignorant when it comes to these matters and have a lot to learn.
A brass shortage might not be the issue - it might be that there is not enough electricity to run the machines to make brass sheets. Unless there is a low tech solution, or a given factory/community/whatever has access to a renewable source of energy like hydroelectric, geothermal, etc.
Again I know very little about this topic, so this could be complete bullshit on my part.
Justin Phillips
Peak oil was in 2008. All that's gonna happens transport wise is the massive switch to electric power that the car industry (and not the oil industry) has been trying to avoid since a fucking century (did you know electric cars are OLDER than internal combustion engine cars? And that they had some going over 100 km/h in fucking 1899?) You can thank the Germans and burgers for fucking everyone up and burning the finite reserve oil (a.k.a. the material of God, that can be recombined in hundreds of thousands of fashions, the dream of all alchemists) for over a century instead of using it to better mankind life in the long run.
Thomas Walker
Just set the oils on fire to rid of it forever.
James Baker
Older forms of smokeless powder exist that are just as easy to manufacture without electricity as black powder, and while not as effective as true modern powder are still miles above bp. I.e cordite
Elijah Adams
Electric cars are good for those who live in small countries, where the cities are close to one another. When you are in a country that is large with several large cities separated by hundreds or thousands of kilometers of fuck all… they are not as useful as you might think. Its not how fast it can go that matters. Its how far it can go.
So society would, in the worst case scenario, revert back to older kinds of smokeless powders, and possibly early kinds of repeating rifles/carbines, perhaps with paper cartridges or rocket balls (assuming there was a brass shortage or an inability to get the machinery used to make cartridges working)? So no real change in tactics would be needed.
