Re: Change (was: (TFT) Jobs table: ...)

[raito@raito.com]

Quoting Mark Tapley <mtapley@swri.edu>:
> At 14:54 -0400 9/29/11, Neil wrote:
> 	But I still think that the ability to use gunpowder
> effectively in warfare is a good diagnostic for a certain level of
> industrial development that is probably beyond the medieval level we
> normally envision for our campaigns. If nothing else, getting ammo
> cast to reliably fit barrels implies measurement standards,
> reproducible mechanical tolerances on things cheap enough to be
> expendable, and similar building blocks of mass-production that are
> not consistent with the single-craftsman model of industry. 

Measurement standards have been around in reliable enough form since 
Greece or Rome. And even if you don't believe that, Renaissance 
Florence had them. 

> 	Am I completely off the beam here? My recollection is that
> production-line technology and firearms were in a mutual feedback
> relationship that more or less kicked off the ascent of industrial
> civilization. Not so?

Well, I went out to wikipedia's article on interchangeable parts to see 
if my memory was intact. It was.  The short bit is that modern 
standardization fo weapons beagn with French artillery barrels being 
bored to a specific size, instead of whatever was convenient for the 
casting. Anciently, there's quite a bit of evidence that the Romans did 
standardized manufacturing. 

Blanc's demonstration was more about showing the advantages of 
interchangeable parts thana ctually being able to produce them in 
qiantity. Similarly, Eli Whitney's version appears to be snake oil. 

The milling machine comes in around 1816, but by then there'd already 
been commercial successes in manufacturing going back a decade or two. 
And the first interchangeable parts arms were still finished off by 
hand to the tolerances required. 

Anyway, here's a paragraph:

Historians differ over the question of whether Hall or North made the 
crucial improvement. Merrit Roe Smith believes that it was done by 
Hall.[20][21] Muir demonstrates the close personal ties and 
professional alliances between Simeon North and neighboring mechanics 
mass-producing wooden clocks to argue that the process for 
manufacturing guns with interchangeable parts was most probably devised 
by North in emulation of the successful methods used in mass-producing 
clocks.[18] It may not be possible to resolve the question with 
absolute certainty unless documents now unknown should surface in the 
future. 

So, if the gun method were emutaling thsoe for clocks, the whole arms 
race thing kinda falls apart. At least we do know that mass 
manufacturing as we know it today begins later in the 1800's. 

I'll end with saying that the single-craftsman model as I think you 
mean it effectively didn't exist since the Roman Empire. For an 
example, read the autobiography ofBenvenuto Cellini. He's a 
goldsmith,but his shop guys do 95% of the work. 

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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