The players recently busted up a black market arms deal. I was surprised, as well as very pleased, that despite having nearly a dozen crates of weapons and ammo they never once cracked one open to take a peek. The stuck to the old 'professional courtesy' and turned over every weapon and the ammo over to their contact. I was pretty pleased with them, usually they're kicking everything open and popping clips and shooting away like it's Gears of War not Shadowrun.

One question came up during play though and I realized that I hadn't even thought of it so I thought I'd ask all of you, especially considering I've seen some of you have a military background.

How many guns are usually shipped in a crate? I've heard 6 pistols, 2 assault rifles, 4 SMGs.... but no one can really give me an accurate count.

This is what I've come up with...

Pistols: 4 Heavy, 6 Light, 4 Machine
SMGs: 3 per crate
Assault Rifles: 2 per crate
Sniper Rifles: 1 per crate
Shotguns: 2 per crate (similar in size to assault rifles)

Anyone have factual info or just some input that they'd like to add?

Well I can't speak for crates, because we usually transport weapons on racks. But on the racks we have, we usually stack about 30 M-16s or shotguns, and M-60s are about 20 off the top of my head. Theyre shipped in the standing position (on their butts), secured to the rack, with weapons on both sides.

That sounds like a really really really tiny crate. I mean a light pistol is like what, 6" long and maybe an 2" wide? Maybe 4" high? So a crate of 6 of them is 6"x4"x12"? That sounds more like a weapon's shoebox to me.

The biggest problem here is you need to define crate. Are we talking those big 6'x6'x6' ordeals, or are we talking something more like a gun rack in size, like 3'x3'x6"? Or something inbetween, maybe a 4'x3'x2' type crate.

Even that middle one, which is the smallest, could easily contain a dozen or two assault rifles, the last one would have easily 50ish of most any kind of weapon you wanted to jam in there, and could even be used to carry around say two dozen rocket launchers.

If your talking the big 6'x6'x6' type crates or even their smaller cousin the 4'x4'x4' create (Like the things you usually see in warehouses and military supply drops) they could be transporting hundreds of weapons each, or several thousands of rounds each, perhaps tens of thousands depending on the caliber.

Perhaps the best way for you to get an idea would be to go to somewhere that sells guns (Like alot of outdoors type stores) and see how many guns they can pack into their display racks. Keeping in mind that most of those are, you know, on display, so they are set up to look good as well as allow a good number to be on display.

Hehe... weapons shoebox

IIRC they had 4 M4s per crate in the Pilot of Sons of Anarchy, and yes the crates were small and the wepons were not packed tightly. I can't remember how many pistols were in the crates the Mayans stole.

I think when I've seen weapons transported in film and television (grain of salt disclaimer, YMMV) they've always been in smallish, man-portable sizes as opposed to full pallets of weapons. They're generally padded pretty well (ie, at least twice the width of the weapon in foam rubber), and in a hard-shell case of some type.

I did find this link:

http://www.gun-cases.net/

A quick look at that site seems to indicate that they have reasonably professional looking weapon boxes in a variety of capacities. If none of the veterans on the forum chime in, you can always just pick a few of those for reference.

[EDIT] That site is half-broken. Check these links out:

http://www.casesbypelican.com/military/military.htm
http://www.casefoam.com/weaponcases.htm

These catalogs are awesome. I'm getting so many great ideas. What's in the box? Well, it's a big two man crate with a dozen Ares Alphas inside. Looks like the ammo is in a seperate box. The other one is the size of an oversized briefcase, and has an Ares HVAR weapon and a half-dozen clips with some sales brochures...looks like a demo model.

~Mike
Deadmetal: You, Sir, are a Dick GM.

This is a good refrence if you're talking about a smaller crate. The reason I was thinking about such big crates and not the small personal type things is because the OP said 'crate' and not 'case' (I think...) Case would be more along the lines of what he said with a half dozen pistols or maybe two larger weapons. Crate is more along the lines of "The army is running low on stuff, time to ship some stuff out." in my mind.

My dad keeps his M1 Carbine collection in some custom-made roadie-style cases that hold 12 M! Carbines. One bottom layer of six with about 1.5" of separation, then the top layer similarly stacked in the opposite direction in a drop in rack. He also has a standard military issue rack that holds them in the vertical position, butt down, 15 on a side. The few with the grenade launchers or active IR scopes he keeps in a custom roadie case with one carbine per case. The IR emitter and scope takes up a lot of space, so he stores those searately due to that and the grenade launcher ones, he stores individually to make room for the M8 launcher and four grenades.

He also has a few of the cases that Pelican makes for the military and paramilitary agencies. I would guess that these would be a VERY good example for your purposes. http://www.casesbypelican.com/military/military.htm

Doh! Sorry Karoline, just realized that I just linked to pretty much the same thing you did.

I forgive you

As many as you want.

Storage needs work for the manufacturer or owner of the item being stored, not the other way around. Whose guns were these, originally? If Ares was shipping handguns to a retail store for sale to individual customers, then they'd come one to a box. If they were shipping shotguns to the CAS Army, they'd come fifteen or more to a wheeled crate. The people who make boxes and crates work just like any other industry - if there's a demand out there, they'll supply it.

It would surprise me, though, to see different weapons or types of weapons in the same crate. How often do you run across a customer who says, "I need exactly four heavy pistols, two light pistols, and two machine pistols?"

One of the Pelican cases linked above was a crate of assault rifles with sidearms alongside. That makes some sense to me, if you plan on equipping them as a set. Otherwise, I think Zen is probably dead on - I doubt you'd find a crate marked "SMALL ARMS, VARIOUS".

The only thing I can think of is if it's a mixed lot of items being sent to a gun shop or weapons trade fair. Or then are returns that are being shipped back to the factory because of defects (e.g. scarring in the barrel. Cracked grips, slide which jams, buggy software).

When we took apart our weapon stores for the new SA80A1s, we packed them in padlocked boxes of 4 a piece. This was because that was the boxes we had and they were liftable when you put two or three on top of each other.

Depends on what you want them for. If you want to be able to use the rifles right out of the box, you can't fit as many. Usually the boxes are specially constructed for the type of rifle, on hand, by cutting up bits of wood.

A standard-sized wood footlocker (2 feet tall, 2 feet wide, 4 feet long) with some wood dividers constructed inside will ship 10x AK-47s (2 stacks of 5, first stack pointing at the front, second at the back).

I have seen units ship 12x M4s in plastic contico boxes, but the M4s were disassembled into upper and lower receivers.

Specialized weapon systems usually come in things like pelican cases from the OEM, and units occasionally buy pelican cases if they have to transport weapons in low numbers or on the economy. Common weapons systems usually come in crates, covered in new, sticky, and very annoying grease.

It's called Cosmoline. Many manufacturers have since switched to vaccum sealed foil packaging.
For the record, I swear by all that is unholy that I will kill anyone who brings me a weapon covered in Cosmoline and asks me to clean it. I do not have the tools necessary to heat the foul concoction enough to get it off the easy way, and have no intention of doing it the hard way. You can't pay me enough for that.

*just finished making a stencile and painting my black gunsafe with 'SMALL ARMS, VARIOUS' in white lettering* Because I though it was funny, that's why.