What should gangers have? Options

[sunnyside]

It has occurred to me that even in the FASA days exactly what kind of gear gangs should be toting and in what quantities has been something they haven't laid a baseline for. Even in sourcebooks supposedly dedicated to the underworld. Sure they'll give stats for a single typical ganger, but they don't give indications of the complete package especially in regards to things like heavy and special weapons.

And the stats do give are somewhat questionable. (You'll pay for hand razors but not an armored jacket, heavy pistol, or melee weapon? No wonder the halloweeners as written in SR4 got wiped out.)

Typically I've just balanced things along the lines of how much cash flow the gang probably has compared to the availability of weapons and the like, and then just winged it with only a handful of extra heavy weapons if any.

Still I'm feeling bugged by it. On one hand real world gangs may have lots of money, but in developed nations they tend to not have anything heavier than an assault rifle, and even in third world countries they seem to only be able to come up with some LMGs and a smattering of RPGs.

However gangs are known to be able to make LOTS of money in the drug trade etc, and I think we all know what the PCs would do if you had them play gang leaders with a six figure budget.

Typically my games haven't centered around gangs to much so it wasn't enough of a factor for me to worry about. But now I'm running a game out of the Redmond Barrens so gang contact is a bigger factor.