Non-weapons of war, weapons of war

Tenshinai wrote:That´s a careless wording. If you want selfmoving steam plows, every PSI you chuck out means the plow moves slower, because driving on soft ground is a difficult chore.

You haven't looked at Steam Plows, have you? They don't tow plowshares, they work in pairs to winch the plows back and forth. They plow ten to twenty times as fast as a team of mules or horses. When they change position, the only thing moving is the steam engines on the hard packed ground at the edges of the fields.

Tenshinai wrote:Cranes and canal boats use what is effectively fixed position engines meaning you can run them almost as you please, while the railroad track removes most of the resistance to movement that the ground causes.

Steam cranes and steam shovels can move on tacks, or they can move on crawler tracks or huge wheels like steam traction engines.

Weird Harold wrote: ICE are not "Wind, Water, or Muscle" and no amount of weasel wording will make them so.

I respectfully dissent. Internal combustion engines are exactly as "wind, water, or muscle" as steam engines. Both works on the fact that heating a gas raises its pressure, which allows for harnessing mechanical power. The only difference is that internal combustion engines use a chemical reaction to produce hot gas where steam engines use a heat exchanger. Otherwise, it is essentially the same thing.

niethil wrote:I respectfully dissent. Internal combustion engines are exactly as "wind, water, or muscle" as steam engines. ...

You don't need to convince me, you need to convince Pater Wylsyn. He approved steam engines because they expand water to derive their power. ICE don't expand Water, and you can't breath what they do expand as you can Wind.

The operating principles may be similar to the technologically literate of the real world, but we're dealing with Safeholdians and a Church Inquisition designed to crush innovation. The Church of Charis has loosened that imperative but it hasn't completely rejected it either.

Weird Harold wrote:

niethil wrote:I respectfully dissent. Internal combustion engines are exactly as "wind, water, or muscle" as steam engines. ...

You don't need to convince me, you need to convince Pater Wylsyn. He approved steam engines because they expand water to derive their power. ICE don't expand Water, and you can't breath what they do expand as you can Wind.

The operating principles may be similar to the technologically literate of the real world, but we're dealing with Safeholdians and a Church Inquisition designed to crush innovation. The Church of Charis has loosened that imperative but it hasn't completely rejected it either.

I'm not sure that Paityr Wylsyn would be a problem. Steam is already way over the prescriptions and he found a way of justifying it that he admitted at the time was probably bogus. There is no reason to believe that he wouldn't do the same thing with diesel. The point is that Father Paityr is trying to work around the prescriptions rather than enforce them.

Don

n7axw wrote:I'm not sure that Paityr Wylsyn would be a problem. Steam is already way over the prescriptions and he found a way of justifying it that he admitted at the time was probably bogus. There is no reason to believe that he wouldn't do the same thing with diesel. The point is that Father Paityr is trying to work around the prescriptions rather than enforce them.

Don

Trying to work around the Proscriptions, not flaunt them. The Church of Charis hasn't renounced the Proscriptions and even the Inner Circle has to pay them at least lip service.

More important than Pater Wylsyn's approval, is the approval of the Charisians who will be using them. Bogus or not, his "just another form of water" or "pneumatic tools just use another form of Wind," won't fly with IC engines. Just one or two deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning and the Safeholdian equivalent of Luddites will be out with sledgehammers and explosives to destroy "Shan Wei's Engines."

We're not talking about Army and Navy personnel who have a vested interest in having better weapons than the Go4; We're talking about farmers and tradesmen and various others who have to be convinced new technology doesn't violate the Proscriptions before they'll adopt it.

Once the Inner Circle can come into the open and the Proscriptions can be ignored, ICEs can be introduced and take over, but until then, I can't see any inquisitor approving them no matter how much Pater Wylsyn might want to.

Weird Harold wrote:You haven't looked at Steam Plows, have you? They don't tow plowshares, they work in pairs to winch the plows back and forth. They plow ten to twenty times as fast as a team of mules or horses. When they change position, the only thing moving is the steam engines on the hard packed ground at the edges of the fields.

I have repeatedly used steam plow and steam tractor interchangeably as that was what you inferred earlier, if you meant cable plows only, then you should have figured that out when i specifically mentioned those previously.

And as i noted then, cable plows were mostly popular in England and Germany, but never a big hit in USA due to larger fields and terrain.

You´re talking about this style:
http://www.leedsengine.info/leeds/photo ... inting.jpg

While i was talking about this:
http://www.smokstak.com/gallery/files/3 ... estler.jpg

For a cable plow, yes there´s less need for mobility, it is also drastically less capable(which means you´re paying maybe 70-80% as much for something that can do maybe 10-30% of the work a steam tractor can do), cannot handle uneven terrain or large fields very well.

Which means that ALL the extra work needed(as i quoted earlier) to be done will have to be done completely by additional horses/oxen etc..

And all those extra animals still need to be fed for the whole year. This is part of the reason why cable plows lost popularity even faster than steam tractors.

It´s bloody damned expensive to make useful.

And why they never really got popular at all outside of areas with small fields on flat terrain with plenty of road access.

Weird Harold wrote:Steam cranes and steam shovels can move on tracks

That was pretty much my point yes. For the purpose of power needed, running on railroad tracks is easy.

or they can move on crawler tracks or huge wheels like steam traction engines.

Very slowly.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:I'm not sure that Paityr Wylsyn would be a problem. Steam is already way over the prescriptions and he found a way of justifying it that he admitted at the time was probably bogus. There is no reason to believe that he wouldn't do the same thing with diesel. The point is that Father Paityr is trying to work around the prescriptions rather than enforce them.

Don

Trying to work around the Proscriptions, not flaunt them. The Church of Charis hasn't renounced the Proscriptions and even the Inner Circle has to pay them at least lip service.

More important than Pater Wylsyn's approval, is the approval of the Charisians who will be using them. Bogus or not, his "just another form of water" or "pneumatic tools just use another form of Wind," won't fly with IC engines. Just one or two deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning and the Safeholdian equivalent of Luddites will be out with sledgehammers and explosives to destroy "Shan Wei's Engines."

We're not talking about Army and Navy personnel who have a vested interest in having better weapons than the Go4; We're talking about farmers and tradesmen and various others who have to be convinced new technology doesn't violate the Proscriptions before they'll adopt it.

Once the Inner Circle can come into the open and the Proscriptions can be ignored, ICEs can be introduced and take over, but until then, I can't see any inquisitor approving them no matter how much Pater Wylsyn might want to.

That is why they introduced the steam tug HMS Mule to get ordinary folks used to the idea of steam power and why they have also introduced gas lighting.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:I'm not sure that Paityr Wylsyn would be a problem. Steam is already way over the prescriptions and he found a way of justifying it that he admitted at the time was probably bogus. There is no reason to believe that he wouldn't do the same thing with diesel. The point is that Father Paityr is trying to work around the prescriptions rather than enforce them.

Don

Trying to work around the Proscriptions, not flaunt them. The Church of Charis hasn't renounced the Proscriptions and even the Inner Circle has to pay them at least lip service.

More important than Pater Wylsyn's approval, is the approval of the Charisians who will be using them. Bogus or not, his "just another form of water" or "pneumatic tools just use another form of Wind," won't fly with IC engines. Just one or two deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning and the Safeholdian equivalent of Luddites will be out with sledgehammers and explosives to destroy "Shan Wei's Engines."

We're not talking about Army and Navy personnel who have a vested interest in having better weapons than the Go4; We're talking about farmers and tradesmen and various others who have to be convinced new technology doesn't violate the Proscriptions before they'll adopt it.

Once the Inner Circle can come into the open and the Proscriptions can be ignored, ICEs can be introduced and take over, but until then, I can't see any inquisitor approving them no matter how much Pater Wylsyn might want to.

Well, if we approach the problem from that direction, how about steam? For the average Safeholden, including those living on Charis, steam wouldn't appear much different than diesel. Both would be pretty incomprehensible. Father Paityr used what he called "chop logic" to justify it. Textev suggests that steam is pretty far on the wrong side of the line as far as the prescriptions are concerned. In fact I can see where diesel would be a bit less scary than steam to the ordinary Joe. Less racket if you use a muffler and much smaller!

Don

saber964 wrote:That is why they introduced the steam tug HMS Mule to get ordinary folks used to the idea of steam power and why they have also introduced gas lighting.

Ah yes, gaslights is interesting...

Essentially those probably means ICE should already be acceptable.

Which could turn a few things on their head.

My personal opinion is that if you can produce a rifle assembly line with pneumatic tools, you have the machining capability to produce a diesel: if you can produce 10" naval rifles, you have the founding capabilities to produce diesel: if you can produce piping, valves and triple expansion steam engines operating at 280 psi, you can produce a workable diesel. If RFC wanted diesel, Charis would have diesel. They have the capacity to produce them at need. Right now they don't need them.