Going back in time.

[Germanic Templars]

Then again, I would give blue prints to the Romans to teach them on how to make Guns, bullets, gunpowder, bombs, and vehicles, and oil wells.

[Keronians]

Though, tbh, I'd also take a time machine, go back a few years, then claim the invention as my own.

[Autash]

Though, tbh, I'd also take a time machine, go back a few years, then claim the invention as my own.

Why would you want to? The level of government regulation on time machines would be enough to bankrupt you no matter how many of them you sold.

[Keronians]

Though, tbh, I'd also take a time machine, go back a few years, then claim the invention as my own.

Why would you want to? The level of government regulation on time machines would be enough to bankrupt you no matter how many of them you sold.

Psst. The reputation, obviously. The media. THE POWER.

And also because I'd probably sell the machine to some sorry loser.

[Trotskylvania]

But it's not just that they don't have the tools to make sten guns; the Romans don't have the tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools that make the sten gun. The advances in metallurgy, machine tools, standardization, and chemistry required even to make a crude bolt action rifle, let-alone a finicky automatic weapon, just aren't there.

Nonsense. I'm not sure where this idea comes from that people who lived a long time ago were stupider than we are.

The technology for making steel predates Rome by a thousand years and more, the chemistry and mettalurgy are more than sufficient - all it needs is a template - and that's the beauty of the Sten, its the pinnacle of template technology. It's NOT finicky - they were often given nicknames like "Plumber's Abortion" because they are so simple, they can be made in a few hours (largely) out of simple parts (like plumbing supplies). The hardest thing to facilitate in ancient Rome would probably be the (few) welds required, but since ancient Egyptians had electric cell technology, I think that would be a small hurdle to cross.

It has nothing to do with how intelligent the Romans were.

Sure they can make steel: but neither consistently nor cost effectively. Steel was worth it's weight in gold . Most Roman weapons and armor were made of low-carbon wrought iron, because balancing the carbon content, as well as other impurities, to make steel is extremely difficult.

Making the receiver for a Sten gun, like any automatic weapons,requires machine tools. You can't get around that. You can't make the parts for an automatic weapon by hand: the tolerances just aren't there. You could make each part, but they wouldn't fit together, let alone operate as intended. So besides cheap, high strength steel, you'd need the tools to make the sten gun, as well as the tools to make the blast furnaces to make steel. But how do you make those in the average Roman blacksmith shop?

Here's a hint: you don't. You need to make tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools necessary to even make the Sten gun.

Then you need to make nitroglycerin, which requires complex chemistry and quite a bit of delicacy, or you'll blow yourself up. Then you need to do the complex operations to make nitrocellulose, which is the bare minimum you'd need for an operational automatic gun. Then you need brass for your cartridges, but here's a problem: the zinc necessary to make brass wasn't even produced in large quantities until the 13th century, in India.

Then you need to make the percussion caps. The technology to mass produce them wasn't available until the 1800s. Again, you need to do this while not blowing yourself up.

Teching up is hard, hard work, even when you know what you're doing. Just building the industry necessary to make a single sten gun would be a century long effort. It's not easy, and it's not a silver bullet.

[Serviss]

Give the Native Americans vaccinations and tanks.

hello natives invading Europe

[Autash]

Give the Native Americans vaccinations and tanks.

hello natives invading Europe

Dear North America: Sorry to hear about your smallpox epidemic. Karma's a bitch. Yours truly, Native Europe.

[AiliailiA]

If you could take a piece of modern technology with you back in time, what would it be and for what purpose?

I'd take some of Benjamin Franklin's research notes on electricity to some Roman scholars.

I'd take a time machine and show it to Albert Einstein to blow his mind.

Whatever else you take, you have to take the time machine back with you too. How else is the damn thing going to get invented?

[Serviss]

I would go back to the war of 1812 and give Canada and the brits modern weaponry
Unified Canadian North America FTW

[Genivaria]

Nonsense. I'm not sure where this idea comes from that people who lived a long time ago were stupider than we are.

The technology for making steel predates Rome by a thousand years and more, the chemistry and mettalurgy are more than sufficient - all it needs is a template - and that's the beauty of the Sten, its the pinnacle of template technology. It's NOT finicky - they were often given nicknames like "Plumber's Abortion" because they are so simple, they can be made in a few hours (largely) out of simple parts (like plumbing supplies). The hardest thing to facilitate in ancient Rome would probably be the (few) welds required, but since ancient Egyptians had electric cell technology, I think that would be a small hurdle to cross.

It has nothing to do with how intelligent the Romans were.

Sure they can make steel: but neither consistently nor cost effectively. Steel was worth it's weight in gold . Most Roman weapons and armor were made of low-carbon wrought iron, because balancing the carbon content, as well as other impurities, to make steel is extremely difficult.

Making the receiver for a Sten gun, like any automatic weapons,requires machine tools. You can't get around that. You can't make the parts for an automatic weapon by hand: the tolerances just aren't there. You could make each part, but they wouldn't fit together, let alone operate as intended. So besides cheap, high strength steel, you'd need the tools to make the sten gun, as well as the tools to make the blast furnaces to make steel. But how do you make those in the average Roman blacksmith shop?

Here's a hint: you don't. You need to make tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools necessary to even make the Sten gun.

Then you need to make nitroglycerin, which requires complex chemistry and quite a bit of delicacy, or you'll blow yourself up. Then you need to do the complex operations to make nitrocellulose, which is the bare minimum you'd need for an operational automatic gun. Then you need brass for your cartridges, but here's a problem: the zinc necessary to make brass wasn't even produced in large quantities until the 13th century, in India.

Then you need to make the percussion caps. The technology to mass produce them wasn't available until the 1800s. Again, you need to do this while not blowing yourself up.

Teching up is hard, hard work, even when you know what you're doing. Just building the industry necessary to make a single sten gun would be a century long effort. It's not easy, and it's not a silver bullet.

When I brought up gunpowder I was thinking primitive cannons and arquebus, who the hell thought they'd be able to make AK's?

[Metroarachnidanopolis]

Nice.
I was thinking giving them the formula for gunpowder.

Which is a lot more practical, since they wouldn't be able to manufacture replacement parts for the machine guns once they started breaking down. I have to go with Sprague DeCamp's formula, Arabic numerals, double-entry bookkeeping, distilled spirits and moveable type. Especially the latter. Being able to print large numbers of copies of things spreads information and keeps it from being lost.

Please show up at least a decade before the fire @ the Library of Alexandria.

[Volmachtia]

With a cargo ship full of modern technology including tanks and guns, and give it to the German Empire before WW1.

[Genivaria]

I'd show the Romans some blueprints for indoor plumbing. No more dumping waste out the window, yuck.

[Grave_n_idle]

Nonsense. I'm not sure where this idea comes from that people who lived a long time ago were stupider than we are.

The technology for making steel predates Rome by a thousand years and more, the chemistry and mettalurgy are more than sufficient - all it needs is a template - and that's the beauty of the Sten, its the pinnacle of template technology. It's NOT finicky - they were often given nicknames like "Plumber's Abortion" because they are so simple, they can be made in a few hours (largely) out of simple parts (like plumbing supplies). The hardest thing to facilitate in ancient Rome would probably be the (few) welds required, but since ancient Egyptians had electric cell technology, I think that would be a small hurdle to cross.

It has nothing to do with how intelligent the Romans were.

Sure they can make steel: but neither consistently nor cost effectively. Steel was worth it's weight in gold . Most Roman weapons and armor were made of low-carbon wrought iron, because balancing the carbon content, as well as other impurities, to make steel is extremely difficult.

Making the receiver for a Sten gun, like any automatic weapons,requires machine tools. You can't get around that. You can't make the parts for an automatic weapon by hand: the tolerances just aren't there. You could make each part, but they wouldn't fit together, let alone operate as intended. So besides cheap, high strength steel, you'd need the tools to make the sten gun, as well as the tools to make the blast furnaces to make steel. But how do you make those in the average Roman blacksmith shop?

Here's a hint: you don't. You need to make tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools necessary to even make the Sten gun.

Then you need to make nitroglycerin, which requires complex chemistry and quite a bit of delicacy, or you'll blow yourself up. Then you need to do the complex operations to make nitrocellulose, which is the bare minimum you'd need for an operational automatic gun. Then you need brass for your cartridges, but here's a problem: the zinc necessary to make brass wasn't even produced in large quantities until the 13th century, in India.

Then you need to make the percussion caps. The technology to mass produce them wasn't available until the 1800s. Again, you need to do this while not blowing yourself up.

Teching up is hard, hard work, even when you know what you're doing. Just building the industry necessary to make a single sten gun would be a century long effort. It's not easy, and it's not a silver bullet.

Not going to touch ammo, here - I've already said that ammunition would be tricky, and I'm not going to dive too deep into it, but you're inventing other problems here.

Creating steel doesn't need a blast furnace. Steel was been produced in bloomeries for arguably half a millennium or more before the earliest blast furnaces. And, since the first blast furnace technology predates the era I'm talking about by about 500 years, I'm not convinced blast furnace technology is an unreasonable expectation.

Similarly, you're suggesting nitrocellulose is a big rate-determining step that's going to shut down the whole endeavour... but it's really no big deal. As a chemist, I'm aware that it would be pretty easy to make nitrocellulose in a pretty basic lab, by combining Nitric Acid and something like cotton. I have an advantage over Romans, in that I know how to take 'vitriol' and use it to make Nitric acid (and I would also use vitriol to catalyse the nitrocellulose reaction).

Steel is not the hardship you suggest. Stamping it requires a lot less tooling than you seem to be proposing... I'd probably take an easy route and use a very heavy weight (mechanically lifted) to punch pretty simple template pieces - much like industrialised stamping, but without the industrial machinery. The hardest part of the assembly process would be the welding, not making components - but the earliest (archeologically supported) welding seems to have taken place 300 years before I'm talking about, so I don't really see a problem here, either.

Even nitroglycerine is not necessarily a problem - although safe transportation and storage would be. As I said, I'm a chemist, and I'd already have the most of the required ingredients for my nitrocellulose production. The only other ingredient I'd really need (other than the acids), would be glycerol - and since that's a by-product of soap manufacture, and the Romans already made soap, I assume no real difficulty obtaining it.

The biggest advantage I have over the Romans of the day isn't that I know what I'm looking for already, or that I know stuff they couldn't have known (I don't think that's true, even)... no, my biggest advantage would be that I already know WHERE to find the technology that already existed, to bring it together. (e.g. Anatolia for the bloomery technology or China for the blast furnace technology. (Africa for the cotton technology.) India or Greece for the welding technology. Roman Gaul for Zinc. And so forth.

[AiliailiA]

The biggest advantage I have over the Romans of the day isn't that I know what I'm looking for already, or that I know stuff they couldn't have known (I don't think that's true, even)... no, my biggest advantage would be that I already know WHERE to find the technology that already existed, to bring it together. (e.g. Anatolia for the bloomery technology or China for the blast furnace technology. (Africa for the cotton technology.) India or Greece for the welding technology. Roman Gaul for Zinc. And so forth.

You're going to need a good horse. And probably a ship too.

As a chemist, what's your opinion of starting up an oil industry two millenia before time? I'm guessing that internal combustion wouldn't be practical, but even just as an energy source to raise steam. Plastics? Fertilizers?

[Naurobia]

I would take an ipod to the 18th century but that would be pretty useless after a point when the battery dies and I can't recharge it. But it would be fun while it worked.

[Genivaria]

I would take an ipod to the 18th century but that would be pretty useless after a point when the battery dies and I can't recharge it. But it would be fun while it worked.

BURN THE WITCH!

[AiliailiA]

I would take an ipod to the 18th century but that would be pretty useless after a point when the battery dies and I can't recharge it. But it would be fun while it worked.

Take a solar panel with you too. Or even a hand-cranked generator, an iPod doesn't need much.

And yes it would be fun. I've never seen a witch-burning, and you'd get a real close up view.

[Grave_n_idle]

The biggest advantage I have over the Romans of the day isn't that I know what I'm looking for already, or that I know stuff they couldn't have known (I don't think that's true, even)... no, my biggest advantage would be that I already know WHERE to find the technology that already existed, to bring it together. (e.g. Anatolia for the bloomery technology or China for the blast furnace technology. (Africa for the cotton technology.) India or Greece for the welding technology. Roman Gaul for Zinc. And so forth.

You're going to need a good horse. And probably a ship too.

As a chemist, what's your opinion of starting up an oil industry two millenia before time? I'm guessing that internal combustion wouldn't be practical, but even just as an energy source to raise steam. Plastics? Fertilizers?

It seems to me that - for the most part - coal is a better choice than oil for the purpose of providing an energy source, if you're not going to build an internal combustion engine. It's portability is better, for example.

I think plastics are a fairly tricky prospect for a pre-industrial society, in general. I think fractionated oil, of any real purity, is also a little tricky. So that basically means we'd be using crude oil as a fuel... and it seems to me coal is easier to obtain and probably more reliable.

[Rambhutan]

The ammunition would be more of a problem than the guns. It might be more efficient to make a more primitive black-powder weapon, just because of that... but Romans with submachine guns would look cooler.

*nods*

I am not an expert, but wouldn't you need a smokeless propellant for a submachine gun?

EDIT Just saw your 'not touching ammo here' post so ignore this.

[Hellenic Protectorates]

I would take a cyanide pill with me to 1935 Germany, do something politically incorrect to get thrown in jail, give the pill to Hitler and tell him it would make his breath smell better.

[Meowfoundland]

I would take a cyanide pill with me to 1935 Germany, do something politically incorrect to get thrown in jail, give the pill to Hitler and tell him it would make his breath smell better.

If you were in jail, then how would you get to Hitler?

[Genivaria]

I would take a cyanide pill with me to 1935 Germany, do something politically incorrect to get thrown in jail, give the pill to Hitler and tell him it would make his breath smell better.

If you were in jail, then how would you get to Hitler?

Hitler was in prison for a time. Its when he wrote Mein Kampf.

[Hellenic Protectorates]

If you were in jail, then how would you get to Hitler?

Hitler was in prison for a time. Its when he wrote Mein Kampf.

Exactly. ...I could also tell him the cyanide's a revolutionary cure for writer's block...

[Meowfoundland]

If you were in jail, then how would you get to Hitler?

Hitler was in prison for a time. Its when he wrote Mein Kampf.

But not in 1935. He was already in charge by then.