Could a Civil War tech society reverse engineer modern weapons/vehicles?

Question

This is a continuation of my other question How does a mid-19 century military combat a modernized one?

So, let’s say our USCA was able to destroy those damn meddling Bunkerites once and for all. Their bases in Sawtooth and Pocatello have been eliminated, and the few survivors have been arrested, tried for war crimes, and executed. Except for one. Dr. Theodore Bloomfield was a Bunkerite scientist who, along with having extensive knowledge on their weaponry and vehicles, happened to have schematics of them on him. After brief torture, Dr. Bloomfield is convinced to join the USCA’s developmental team.

My question is, even with schematics, and an expert on hand, could a civil war society recreate modern weapons?

Answer 1

Yes, but ...

It is a mistake to think about a 19th century industry building 20th century weapons. Instead, you have a 19th century industry getting selectively upgraded to 20th century standards. Afterwards, it won't be a 19th century industry any more.

If you have reached interchangeable parts, you are on the right track, and that concept was developed over the 19th century. But you also have to mass-produce them.

Assuming this Dr. Bloomfeld is really properly trained by 20th century standards (he's the grandkid of a scientists who went into a bunker, right?), consider the "simple" task of building an assault rifle.

• Start with the propellant. Black powder won't do, it would foul the action in no time. They will need soda and acids in large quantity and good purity. Do they have the chemical industry to supply that?
• Used to be that each soldier could cast a lead bullet with a mold, even if most bullets were centrally produced. No longer. To get a modern full metal jacket round, they need a production line and machine tools.
• Cartridge cases were within reach of 19th century science, but feeding them into the action of a semi-automatic or automatic weapon will require uniform dimensions and quality. Otherwise the case might rupture on extraction and jam the weapon.
• The weapon itself may be barely within their grasp, but parts will corrode much faster unless the metallurgy gets improved. A modern firing pin lasts for tens of thousands of shots. Same for the recoil spring.

That was an assault rifle. A machine gun is just the same, right? But a modern GPMG without water cooling has to switch barrels every couple of thousand rounds. That requires interchangeable parts instead of individually fitted ones. Even so, inferior metals could mean that you have to switch the barrel every dozen rounds, not every couple hundred rounds.

Next, a mortar. The metallurgy might actually be easier, but you will need a fuse. Perhaps a watchmaker can make it. One a day? One a week? How many watchmakers in your postapocalyptic 19th-century industry?

Answer 2

I'd say they wouldn't be able to, not without overcoming a number of technical barriers first.

So you have 1 scientist who knows how weapons and vehicles work, and some schematics- I'd say they were a long way from being able to implement these, depending on what the scientist's background is (does he have a background in chemistry, as well as more practical aspects such as machining, engineering etc or is it more designing things on the drawing board and letting others do the fine details).

Firstly, in order to make the weapons, you need the raw resources. In order to produce metals capable of containing the pressure of firearm propellants, you're going to need a lot of trace minerals (elements like manganese were used quite a bit in the 20th century firearm production, for example). You're going to need things like chromium and tungsten for the machine tools to make the components. You're also going to need a lot of knowledge like how much trace elements are needed, how to heat treat the materials, etc. You're also going to need to know how to mine and refine these resources- all of which seems like it's going to be outside of the scientist's expertise, although a civil war society may have some understanding of these processes.

Once you have the actually raw materials like steel produced, you then have to manufacture the parts. A civil war tech society may have some exposure to milling, however it would be a fairly immature technology if they have even invented it yet, and there would be a lot of kinks to work out. Techniques such as stamping sheet metal would be used pretty extensively by the Bunkerites, and as this is an early 20th century technology the USCA would have absolutely no experience with this, this would make mass manufacturing very difficult as everything has to be milled. (One real world example I can point to is the Soviet Union, trying to adopt technologies learned from the Stg-44 after WW2. Even with help from German small arms designers, there was a number of manufacturing hurdles they had to overcome.)

Tolerances (i.e. how accurately you can machine something), are going to be vital in manufacturing weapons and vehicles. Improving this is going to be one of the scientist's key tasks.

Trying to reverse engineer modern weapons is not going to be an easy challenge, and unlikely at best. However, on writing this, one thing that could work is the scientist helping the USCA develop WW1 / interwar level weapons. A civil war tech society is probably on the route to developing firearm cartridges, and maybe 20 years or so from developing smokeless powder (which is something the scientist is likely well suited to assisting them with.) The USCA may have tried developing weapons like black powder revolvers, paper cartidges etc. Once integrated cartridges, smokeless powder and better manufacturing tolerances have been achieved, it isn't too much of a stretch to begin to work on bolt action rifles, and semi automatic handguns, as well as heavier machine guns (all probably 30 ish years away for a civil war tech society).

As a significant amount of firearms development has been collective learning on how to approach certain problems (like the best gas systems for semi automatic weapons, how to develop magazines, what propellants to use etc), the scientist has a lot of hindsight to apply to these problems. It would probably take a number of years to get working prototypes out for bolt action rifles, handguns and machine guns, but it would definitely be possible to massively improve the capability of the USCA given where they already stand technologically.

The scientist would also be able to help developing internal combustion engines, however again trying to jump all the way to modern tech levels would be very difficult.

Edit: while not 100% relevant to your question, this video analyzing an attempt at reverse engineering the 1911 pistol by a Vietnamese craftsman does give some interesting insights to the issue.

Answer 3

Simply put, NO!

Some of the technology isn't significantly different, and the USCA can work out what they do and duplicate them, if they have samples or schematics.

Most of these will be duds.

The precision of machining in the Vietnam era was far greater than that of the Civil War era, and the fractions of an inch involved will drive up the failure rate, hence the costs.

As regards the devices they don't have a frame of reference for, such as electrical switches and valves, if not electronics, those will take years of developing an industrial base, in order to use them. That means aircraft and guided missiles are right out.

Note that I'm strictly maintaining the definition of weapons to include firearms and vehicles only. Chemicals, such as high explosive, and supporting technology such as radar and radio communications are not addressed, even though any of those could be a game changer

Answer 4

Of course.

Because they aren't really reverse engineering anything. They have Dr. Bloomfield and Dr. Bloomfield has access to all the Bunkerite technology, processes, machinery and etc. that were used to make the things used by the Bunkerites!

It all comes down to does he have enough time to teach the technologically backward USCA engineers how to fill the gaps in their knowledge base.