And now for a particularly silly notion... TANKS!!!

Airtech wrote:The advantage of a steam truck is that it can burn wood and so is not tethered to a supply train unless you are in a desert.

That's true. But it made me wonder how much green wood you would have to cut to keep a useful sized loaded truck going at reasonable speed for, say 12 hours/day. Any ideas?

AirTech wrote:A steam powered truck would be practical now ...

Google "Steam Lorry" for a plethora of videos starting with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV9vOHnXpT8 (54+minutes)

Randomiser wrote:

Airtech wrote:The advantage of a steam truck is that it can burn wood and so is not tethered to a supply train unless you are in a desert.

That's true. But it made me wonder how much green wood you would have to cut to keep a useful sized loaded truck going at reasonable speed for, say 12 hours/day. Any ideas?

In the midst of any forest there is not only green wood, but lots of dead standing wood, trees dead and have fallen over, and sheer brush some of which is living but much of which is not. The only place where that is not true is in areas where humans have for whatever reason cleared out the dead stuff.

So now... instead of stopping to let the horses graze, we stop to let the woodcutters graze. Sounds like poetic justice to me!!!

Don

Randomiser wrote:

Airtech wrote:The advantage of a steam truck is that it can burn wood and so is not tethered to a supply train unless you are in a desert.

That's true. But it made me wonder how much green wood you would have to cut to keep a useful sized loaded truck going at reasonable speed for, say 12 hours/day. Any ideas?

High quality fuel wood ranges from 1/3 to 1/6 the energy content of petrol and diesel.

And since wood is lighter than petrol, and even using pellets or similar, there´s still a fair amount of air included in it, expect to have a "fuel tank" 5-10 times what would be needed if using petrol or diesel.

An advantage of steam power for a tank is its torque characteristics. Unlike an internal combustion engine a steam engine develops maximum torque at low rpm or even when it is stalled. This is an advantage for a cross country vehicle which may have to climb steep hills or get its way out of mud or cross obstacles.

Another reason to delay building tanks is that you need machine guns first to protect them from infantry.
Ans of course locomotive would have priority for the limited supply of stem engines, at least for a while.

I would say they are between the Crimea and WW1. Remember they have cartridge firearms now. Prior to that breech loading black powder rifles had been around sine the late 1700's. I think the Ferguson dates back to about 1770.

mike currill wrote:I would say they are between the Crimea and WW1. Remember they have cartridge firearms now. Prior to that breech loading black powder rifles had been around sine the late 1700's. I think the Ferguson dates back to about 1770.

Wikipedia indicates that breech loading swivel guns (ie, Wolves in Safeholdian terms) were invented in Burgundy in the 14th century and Henry VIII had a breech loading fowling piece (for bird hunting) in the 16th century. The Ferguson breech loader was invented in 1772 but swiftly retired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_weapon

Tenshinai wrote:
High quality fuel wood ranges from 1/3 to 1/6 the energy content of petrol and diesel.

And since wood is lighter than petrol, and even using pellets or similar, there´s still a fair amount of air included in it, expect to have a "fuel tank" 5-10 times what would be needed if using petrol or diesel.

But you don't ship wood - you cut it off the side of the road (or pinch it from the farmers wood piles if you have an army with better guns than the farmers).
Wood fired railway engines and steam tractors were widely used anywhere where a forest was to be found - (England and Europe had by this time converted the forests to ships and charcoal so coal firing was more common in developed areas). A wood burning engine can also easily be adapted to burn coal or oil (the reverse is not true as the fire boxes on a dedicated coal burning engine would be too small for wood).

AirTech wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:
High quality fuel wood ranges from 1/3 to 1/6 the energy content of petrol and diesel.

And since wood is lighter than petrol, and even using pellets or similar, there´s still a fair amount of air included in it, expect to have a "fuel tank" 5-10 times what would be needed if using petrol or diesel.

But you don't ship wood - you cut it off the side of the road (or pinch it from the farmers wood piles if you have an army with better guns than the farmers).
Wood fired railway engines and steam tractors were widely used anywhere where a forest was to be found - (England and Europe had by this time converted the forests to ships and charcoal so coal firing was more common in developed areas). A wood burning engine can also easily be adapted to burn coal or oil (the reverse is not true as the fire boxes on a dedicated coal burning engine would be too small for wood).

England was already out of wood for burning by the time railway engines came along. Indeed, John Lackland (r. 1199-1216) passed laws against the burning of "sea coal" because of the pollution. I believe that one of the first tasks of railway engines was to transport coal to shipping ports.