Two horses Arses

Weird Harold wrote:I don't know what they used to decide, but Interstates and US Highways are designed according to a single lane width -- Ten feet, IIRC -- and not according to total width. Interstates are a minimum of two lanes wide, and modern Interstate lanes are much wider than the originals.

Theemile wrote:Don't know about that, but it doesn't surprise me. (Originally) the Eisenhower system stipulated that overpasses outside urban areas had to be a minimum of several (2 or 3) miles apart. This was so that fighters and bombers could be dispersed from airbases if required and operate off any available section of highway.

AFAIK, no US highways (including Interstates) were used or planned as emergency runways. The Autobahn was designed and constructed with emergency airfields in mind, and reinforced sections of highways designated (and used in exercises) as wartime runways can be found all over Europe. But they are just sections; it isn't economically feasible to build highways entirely to the standards required of runways for jet fighters or bombers.

Remember, I said "originally" - it never made it into the official legislation, but was one of the original intentions.

Theemile wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:AFAIK, no US highways (including Interstates) were used or planned as emergency runways. The Autobahn was designed and constructed with emergency airfields in mind,

Remember, I said "originally" - it never made it into the official legislation, but was one of the original intentions.

Since the Interstate system was inspired by the Autobahn, I suspect that some aspects of the Autobahn's specifications, like the spacing between exits, made into the Interstate's specifications without any relation to the original justifications for the Autobahn.

FWIW, Safehold does have a rudimentary "Interstate" system thanks to the terraforming crew -- the high roads and original canal system -- although probably not built with quick movement of troops as the justification.

Weird Harold wrote:
FWIW, Safehold does have a rudimentary "Interstate" system thanks to the terraforming crew -- the high roads and original canal system -- although probably not built with quick movement of troops as the justification.

lol - somehow, I don't see them withstanding use by main battle tanks or working for alternative landing strips by fighter-bombers.

Weird Harold wrote:

EdThomas wrote:Don't recall where I heard this but the minimum width on the Eisenhower Defense highway System , our Interstates, is the width of two main battle tanks. Any one know anything about this?

I don't know what they used to decide, but Interstates and US Highways are designed according to a single lane width -- Ten feet, IIRC -- and not according to total width. Interstates are a minimum of two lanes wide, and modern Interstate lanes are much wider than the originals.

Theemile wrote:Don't know about that, but it doesn't surprise me. (Originally) the Eisenhower system stipulated that overpasses outside urban areas had to be a minimum of several (2 or 3) miles apart. This was so that fighters and bombers could be dispersed from airbases if required and operate off any available section of highway.

AFAIK, no US highways (including Interstates) were used or planned as emergency runways. The Autobahn was designed and constructed with emergency airfields in mind, and reinforced sections of highways designated (and used in exercises) as wartime runways can be found all over Europe. But they are just sections; it isn't economically feasible to build highways entirely to the standards required of runways for jet fighters or bombers.

On one hand, the design was for period fighter aircraft, which were rather smaller and lighter than modern jet aircraft. I can offhand think of several highway sections that fit the description. However, Eisenhower had the original idea of being able to move army reserves to wherever an enemy invaded, and after a while it became painfully obvious that the other side did not have a navy capable of mounting a Normandy-style invasion, not to mention that atom bombs made them obsolete.

Theemile wrote:lol - somehow, I don't see them withstanding use by main battle tanks or working for alternative landing strips by fighter-bombers.

The US Interstate system was never designed for use by main battle tanks, it was designed for tank transporters and cargo trucks (2.5 ton and 18 wheelers.

phillies wrote:However, Eisenhower had the original idea of being able to move army reserves to wherever an enemy invaded, and after a while it became painfully obvious that the other side did not have a navy capable of mounting a Normandy-style invasion, not to mention that atom bombs made them obsolete.

The idea was inspired in part by Ike's participation in a cross-country deployment (in 1911, IIRC) that took several months and destroyed several trucks out of the convoy. He was impressed by Germany's Autobahn system -- although it didn't seem to register that the Allies got more use out of them than the Third Reich ever did.

Weird Harold wrote:AFAIK, no US highways (including Interstates) were used or planned as emergency runways. The Autobahn was designed and constructed with emergency airfields in mind, and reinforced sections of highways designated (and used in exercises) as wartime runways can be found all over Europe. But they are just sections; it isn't economically feasible to build highways entirely to the standards required of runways for jet fighters or bombers.

The Autobahn of Hitler wasnt designed to include wartime airports, airplanes had too low a range and of course nobody would ever need to fight in Germany itself, so why go to the effort? Thre were some build as an emergency measure during the later part, but that wasnt part of the original design so Eisenhower hopefully wasnt inspired by it.

A bit of trivia: Ramstein airbase is build on such an emergency airport. Today the rebuilt Autobahn leads in a large halfcircle around it.


The Autobahn of the cold war era on the other hand definitely was designed with such "Behelfsflugplätzen" (= auxiliary airport) in mind. Sometimes to the extend that large detours were taken or entire Autobahn parts with no rational explanation were built. They simply end nowhere but they do include a suspicious concret part.
The airports themselves are easy to recognize because they're actually illegal. According to DIN norm whatever, the Autobahn must have a curve every XYZ meters to keep drivers awake. Every single 3000-meter-straight part is sure to be such a wartime airport. Also, the middle divider wont be green but made of concret and on both ends of the straight part there'll one rest area each. IIRC there were once over 200 of these in western germany and about 100 in eastern germany, but most of them are gone by now, especially in the eastern part, because we had to basically rebuild the entire reaod network in the ex-DDR.

Hi Weird Harold,

The highway overpasses of the National Defense Highway System were supposed to have bomb shelters in the ramps, actually more like radiation shelters, for all the evacuees fleeing the cities; but that was still way too expensive.

The 1950's jet fighters were much heavier than the WWII fighters, with ground pressures closer to that of bombers since the USAF felt bombers were more important so they were too heavy for the highways.

L

Weird Harold wrote:

Theemile wrote:lol - somehow, I don't see them withstanding use by main battle tanks or working for alternative landing strips by fighter-bombers.

The US Interstate system was never designed for use by main battle tanks, it was designed for tank transporters and cargo trucks (2.5 ton and 18 wheelers.

phillies wrote:However, Eisenhower had the original idea of being able to move army reserves to wherever an enemy invaded, and after a while it became painfully obvious that the other side did not have a navy capable of mounting a Normandy-style invasion, not to mention that atom bombs made them obsolete.

The idea was inspired in part by Ike's participation in a cross-country deployment (in 1911, IIRC) that took several months and destroyed several trucks out of the convoy. He was impressed by Germany's Autobahn system -- although it didn't seem to register that the Allies got more use out of them than the Third Reich ever did.

Keith_w wrote:I would think that you might consider that the terraformers had some continuing input into the width of roads and canal paths throughtout Safehold since they built the original ones and "If it was good enough for the archangels, it's good enough for me" is not an uncommon attitude!

The terraforming teams likely built the roads based on the equipment available to them and road widths in use in the TF, so it is likely they are much wider than would be needed by single lane bidirectional hill dragon or snow dragon traffic. They are probably metric to boot, no doubt causing headaches for all the Safeholdean craftsmen that maintained them due to fractional widths in Roman numerals.

My comment about the differing carriage and cart width was based on the description of the dragons used to haul them, which vary considerably in size based on the species in use. The carts will be sized to the dragon most commonly used in the area, which does change depending on where you are.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Weird Harold,

The highway overpasses of the National Defense Highway System were supposed to have bomb shelters in the ramps, actually more like radiation shelters, for all the evacuees fleeing the cities; but that was still way too expensive.

…

L

Fallout shelters made sense in the very early days of the cold war when most weapons were in the 10s to 100s of kiloton range. If you were not in the immediate area of the detonation or had reasonable blast protection (remember, two bank clerks in Hiroshima survived the blast of the bomb due to the heavy construction of the bank building even though they were less than 300 meters from the hypocenter), you likely would survive if you could be protected from fallout for a few days (remember, things that are highly radioactive do not last long).

The hydrogen bomb pretty much ended the chance of surviving a hit on a city, so the fallout shelter program was largely abandoned in the 1960s.

Weird Harold wrote:

Theemile wrote:lol - somehow, I don't see them withstanding use by main battle tanks or working for alternative landing strips by fighter-bombers.

The US Interstate system was never designed for use by main battle tanks, it was designed for tank transporters and cargo trucks (2.5 ton and 18 wheelers.

<snip>

I was jokingly referring to the Safehold highroads you had just referenced in your pervious post.