Apocalynomics

POG?

 

Damn straight I am (or was) a POG. Nobody's even heard of my MOS, we were so far off the grunt radar.

ETA: I never understood why our weapons required so much cleaning, or how they were able to fail inspections, when the only time they left the armory was for their twice-weekly cleaning.

 

So, what is a POG, exactly?

 

Backronym: Personnel Other than Grunt. Non-infantry, or non-combat arms, depending on how much of a purist you are. If people in my MOS ever had to fire their weapons, you could be pretty sure that things had gone really, horribly wrong and being overrun was imminent.

 

It's interesting thinking about how to manage resources in the apocalypse. The only solution I've come up with is to take control of resources like food, water, and ammunition, then ration it out and keep track of what you give to whom. Then you'd have to make sure no one's hoarding a private stock. If somebody's hoarding all the ammo for themselves, it puts everyone in the group at risk.

 

Well, after my time in the Air Force, I'd say MREs are a lot tastier than what most people give them credit for... I've had some pretty good MRE brownies, and the chicken soup in a bag isn't bad either.

 

Yeah, about that...

I have a friend, guy who was a little junior to me, who stayed in for twenty-plus years, retired as a Sgt Major. The last time he qualified was something like 1994. Those rules can be pretty flexible when you're busy....

 

The problem with MREs (except for the old omelette one, which was vile no matter what you did to it) wasn't that they were horrible, it's that there are only twelve of them at any given time, and at least one (I still have omelette PTSD) is utterly vile. Three meals a day, from dinner day four you're into repeats. On day nine in the field, there's nothing left but the omelettes everyone refused refused to eat, and even the locals know the omelettes are vile and won't trade for them, so you end up trying to trap your food, but the trash pandas won't touch them either, so they're useless as bait.

 

I remember my father saying that back when he was in Korea, they weren't marked(?), and when nothing could be heated everyone begged the unopened meal, "Please don't be hamburgers and gravy."

 

When I was young I used to think all the soldiers I didn't see with rifles had them shoved in their pants.

 

DADT

 

I wrote a story in an apocalyptic setting and had a similar trade system. People just traded what they had for what they needed. I think your problem is when you say "anyone can just join up with a raiding party and go get stuff and trade it." Its not that easy. If you aren't skilled with weapons you'll die. If you don't already have weapons and gear to go on a raiding party you die. If you aren't in good health you die. Its not something anybody can just do and bring back whatever they want. If two people want the same thing and are going to fight over it, you have a 50/50 chance of not coming back.

 

I think if you look back at what sorts of things have always been valuable no matter what, you'll find water and food to be the main forms of wealth because they are needed for survival. Outside of that alcohol and medical supplies would be next. Alcohol has more uses than just drinking, it has medical uses and can be used as a fuel if need be. Most pirate "treasure" was fruits and medical supplies in real life. If you are talking about the wealthy, then they would have anything thats required and then some. Anything you didnt need to survive or be comfortable would be a luxury, like cigarettes and certain kinds of weapons. I always found it odd that in post apocalyptic worlds there is no shortage of ammo or gun powder. How come more people arent using bows and spears? Also there can be thing that represent forms of wealth. Like in the Fallout series of games, bottles of fresh water had high value and eventually they became to cumbersome and difficult to transport long distances, so bottle caps would be carried to represent water elsewhere.

 

I think smokeless powder/cordite is pretty hard to make, and you need to make primers as well. A flintlock muzzleloader is probably the best "sustainable" firearm. The Postman and The Road both pointed out that in the initial stages of an apocalypse, people are going to burn through a lot of ammo before they realize that it's a finite resource.

 

I take a lot of inspiration from games, and it's always bugged me how turrets and the like can shoot at you forever. Yes, it makes it a challenge to take them down, but it also breaks the realism when there's not a finite (if considerable) amount of rounds. I'd also like to see guns jam and break in games, or take damage from rounds. All of that would happen in firefights in my story, thus increasing the value of weapons and ammunition.

There also would be stockpiles, but it's true explosive powders aren't hard to make. It's also true they could be hazardous to use in reloaded ammunition, and the bullets themselves would be harder to come by. Casings would be plenty available, but resetting primers runs the risk of misfires. All of that would make those stockpiles a precious resource.

 

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat has weapons breakdown due to lack of "repair" (cleaning) as a major factor in the game. There's a Russian gunsmith at the base who will clean your weapon for prices approaching just buying a new one. Kind of like the real military, as a matter of fact