<Snipped quote by ClocktowerEchos>
Okay, well all I'm asking for are a couple crappy pump jacks, producing just enough oil to run a few scrap-hobbled tractors, just to give the country a slight edge in food-production, relative to the norm. The majority of work can still be done with horses and simple plows. The idea is that the country sacrifices military manpower (mainly devout pacifists, no hope of general conscription, only useful in self-defense, very little knowledge of military strategy), for an economic advantage. You make a good point about what people would be willing to trade. It could instead be the case that parts and materials are gathered by scavengers, from the ruins of the old world.
The real Hutterites are nothing but tradition, and their entire culture is based around farming and farming technology. Surely, knowledge of how to maintain farm equipment would be the most common attribute of the average citizen. They'd know nothing about how to make guns. That would be something handled by the Albertasleut, if at all. If you'd like, it could be the case that their military is mainly armed with flint-locks and such, and doesn't have much in the way of artillery. I feel like that would be more realistic, than a post-war Hutterite nation that wasn't leading the way (in even the slightest way) in farming technology.
If not, could you propose some other way to better balance the nation?
To cover bases I had to do some more research and ask some questions to some folks. But the other thing being forgotten among all these machine talks is while larger fields still can be maintained with combines - cobbled together or not - there's a standing issue with a lack of fertilizer to issue to the communities to keep the soil maintained. They could soon after the bombs dropping afflicted with a deficit of fertilizers, particularly presently used artificial fertilizers to lay on the fields to restore soil condition.
As a case study to hold the Hutterites here against they'd be facing the same cyclical problems as the English economy in the middle ages which underwent wheat famines through soil depletion. The English wheat economy finally collapsed in the 14th century after intensive agriculture when they depleted the richness of so much of the soil they had to change industry.
Where-as Egypt at the time and even in antiquity could maintain constant agriculture because the Nile was continually replenished with fertile silt soil from up-stream Africa that they could plant their crops in and have a bountiful harvest each time.
The modern answer to making anywhere Egypt was accessible artificial fertilizer which is often produced from petroleum or natural gas itself, further straining any hopes for a viable fuel economy.
And beyond that there's the loss of modern fungicides and herbicides forcing every farming economy to go organic, which isn't a process of agriculture that can maintain modern populations anyways and would be more energy intensive (you'd be planting more than you need to begin with to expect to loose most of it) and probably triggering later calamity (See: Dust Bowl).
Not to say you can't try, but it's not a golden safety gun or a long-term edge. You're going to have to write about it all withering away sooner or later and a seizing economy.
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