The Great American Road Trip

[Aesop]

Sadly, with neither fuel nor an airstrip for takeoff, you'll be spending a lot longer than three years, with or without WSO, clearing a strip, drilling for oil, and constructing the necessary instruments to refine crude into JP-8 using whatever you can construct from abalone shells and pine trees.

Well, nobody said anything about having to craft all your ammo, gear, and other logistical concerns at the starting point, either.

Hey, I'll spot you the ammo, even for the M61, and anything else you can carry.
If you can figure out a way to tote the F-15E on your back, have at it.

The template is simply Different Ways To Skin A Cat.
Positting a Nuclear Powered Cat Skinning Facility, w/Included Thorium Reactor Power Supply at the outset is hardly cricket.

[Jericho941]

Weeeeeeeeeell... get me a tow bar and some cedar, and... naw, I don't have an excuse for a Coleman, but I could probably fit the M61 on a cart given enough time, experimentation, and batteries. Fine. I'll remove my tongue from my cheek for the sake of humoring the original premise, which is Manly Men Doing Pointless, Painful, Miserable Things Because That Defines Manliness.

As... "sexy" as the notion of ammo commonality is, I have no intention of letting any of my weapons break. If there's one thing my limited forms of simulation have taught me, it's that when your primary and secondary (and tertiary?) eat the same ammo, your ability to launch bullets dissipates faster as you employ both. Or you only employ one, but after you've been put into a position where you need to fight your way back to your primary, you've already burned through your primary's ammo in the process.

TL;DR: M1 Garand
Glock 20
Remington 870

No matter where I wind up, I'll get there with at least 1 powerful weapon, assuming my usual luck has broken at least 2 of my selections.

[JKosprey]

Using only weapons I own:

Rifle: Yugo M48 in .35 whelen...although I would want to cut the barrel down to 18 inches and replace the scope with a solid peep sight first.

Pistol: .357 mag 686+

Shotgun: Mossberg 500 12 gauge.

Not sure if my choices would change much if I could draw from an imaginary arsenal. The range advantage gained by modern weapons would be substantial, but it wouldn't really matter much in an ambush....however a well maintained AR or AK could make a serious difference, with the shotgun providing adequate critter defense. Ammo would be limited though, so the increased firepower might not actually matter.

[Greg]

As... "sexy" as the notion of ammo commonality is, I have no intention of letting any of my weapons break. If there's one thing my limited forms of simulation have taught me, it's that when your primary and secondary (and tertiary?) eat the same ammo, your ability to launch bullets dissipates faster as you employ both. Or you only employ one, but after you've been put into a position where you need to fight your way back to your primary, you've already burned through your primary's ammo in the process.

None of that makes any sense.

You're completely ignoring the case where you use various weapons more (and less) than you expected, leaving you with no ammo for the weapons that turn out to be convenient and useful, but lots of ammo for the weapon that just hasn't turned out to be practical or useful for your needs.

And your 'simulations' are no doubt gaming. Stop to think for a second in real life you wouldn't have the gaming scenario of 'hard limits of how many rounds of each of X Y and Z type ammo you could carry, so it's best to maximize your effective ammo capacity by having one each of X Y and Z weapons, and having 2 X weapons would lead you to burn through your (fixed maximum amount) X ammo in half the time'. And assuming that translates to real life is, frankly, moronic.

Replacing a pistol and carbine in different calibers with a .44 revolver and a .44 carbine lets.you, instead of carrying say 10lbs of dedicated pistol ammo and 10lbs of dedicated carbine ammo you could carry 20lbs of .44 ammo. And, referring back to my first paragraph, you know all 20lbs of that ammo will be useful.

[Jericho941]

Yeah, I guess I'm still having trouble taking it seriously.

[evan price]

As... "sexy" as the notion of ammo commonality is, I have no intention of letting any of my weapons break. If there's one thing my limited forms of simulation have taught me, it's that when your primary and secondary (and tertiary?) eat the same ammo, your ability to launch bullets dissipates faster as you employ both. Or you only employ one, but after you've been put into a position where you need to fight your way back to your primary, you've already burned through your primary's ammo in the process.

None of that makes any sense.

You're completely ignoring the case where you use various weapons more (and less) than you expected, leaving you with no ammo for the weapons that turn out to be convenient and useful, but lots of ammo for the weapon that just hasn't turned out to be practical or useful for your needs.

And your 'simulations' are no doubt gaming. Stop to think for a second in real life you wouldn't have the gaming scenario of 'hard limits of how many rounds of each of X Y and Z type ammo you could carry, so it's best to maximize your effective ammo capacity by having one each of X Y and Z weapons, and having 2 X weapons would lead you to burn through your (fixed maximum amount) X ammo in half the time'. And assuming that translates to real life is, frankly, moronic.

Replacing a pistol and carbine in different calibers with a .44 revolver and a .44 carbine lets.you, instead of carrying say 10lbs of dedicated pistol ammo and 10lbs of dedicated carbine ammo you could carry 20lbs of .44 ammo. And, referring back to my first paragraph, you know all 20lbs of that ammo will be useful.

Totally agree. But the "Yeah, but" comes into play.

Assuming that you are trekking west to east coasts solitary, no pack animals or vehicles (Heck, I'd want a canoe at least, and that wouldn't be much use in places) you are limited to how far you go in a day which in broken terrain, including need for a fairly secure campsite each night, need for water and food to be foraged each day or two...you'll be lucky to get ten or twelve miles a day. Since the distance between the coasts is roughly 3000 miles...you are looking at between 250-300 days of steady travel, no days off, no sick days, no troubles. What you have is what you have for a solid year of heavy exertion on foot.
Carrying 20 pounds of ammo will be roughly one third of your pack.
I don't see that much of a percentage of your kit devoted to ammo being useful.

The guns and ammo portion of this 'challenge' is probably the least useful. The other survival appurtenances would be so much more important.

[Greg]

Yeah, I guess I'm still having trouble taking it seriously.

I hear you there.

[Greg]

Assuming that you are trekking west to east coasts solitary, no pack animals or vehicles (Heck, I'd want a canoe at least, and that wouldn't be much use in places) you are limited to how far you go in a day which in broken terrain, including need for a fairly secure campsite each night, need for water and food to be foraged each day or two...you'll be lucky to get ten or twelve miles a day. Since the distance between the coasts is roughly 3000 miles...you are looking at between 250-300 days of steady travel, no days off, no sick days, no troubles. What you have is what you have for a solid year of heavy exertion on foot.
Carrying 20 pounds of ammo will be roughly one third of your pack.
I don't see that much of a percentage of your kit devoted to ammo being useful.

The guns and ammo portion of this 'challenge' is probably the least useful. The other survival appurtenances would be so much more important.

Don't get too attached to any particular #'s from my previous post, I pulled them out of my butt to use as examples. I thought a couple of concrete #'s would read better than 'x' of this 'y' of that or 'x + y' of the other thing.