Steam

Hi Panther Al,

Remember it was watching the Holt tracked tractors towing artillery that spurred the creation of the tank. :-)

Apparently some 10,000 were used by the allies as artillery tractors, etc.

L

Panther Al wrote:

Emo Otaku wrote:IF (and its a Big if) steam trains are available in charis before they invade the mainland I can see someone pointing out that if it can haul 100 tonnes of iron around a track it could haul 20/30 tonnes of armour/weapons around a battlefield.

I think the main obstical for this will be the CoGA technology at the time, if they are still using Napoleonic style cannon and muskets I think it would be a lot more likely that Charis would get away with it.

If however they have advanced to breach loading cannons and explosive shells I think someone (Merlin) would pop in to point out the disadvantages pointed out above.

I can however see charisian long range artillery using steam powered tractors

Of course this will all depend on charis developing large scale Steel production in the next 5-10 years

Now, here is where I see steam being used on the battlefield: Tractors. Either hauling supplies or larger guns.

And in that line of thought here is a link for the Hornsby Steam Tractors which later became the Holt tractors that pulled the large guns in WWI. Thought it was interesting. The site does a pretty good job of showing scale of the parts.

http://hornsbycrawler.org/index.php/Main/HomePage

I would have to agree that a steam powered AFV would not be really reliable. One wrong round and there goes the whole AFV. And thats even harder with a coal powered tank, as coal takes a lot of space.

And now for a concept of a Hornsby Steam Tractor with guns...

http://www.apokiliptika.com/steam_tank.jpg

With the invention of steam, the obvious next step will be steam locomotives. The problem of course with locomotives (and trains), is they need rails to run on.

The amount of infrastructure to build a decent railway system is massive and time consuming, not to mention labour intensive.

What you need is a large number of people who currently aren't employed.

Prisoners of war, anybody?

All the prisoners captured after the battle in the Gulf of Tarot are currently just sitting in those prison ships. I'm sure there are a quite a few of them that would like to get off those floating prisons.

I wouldn't of course trust the actual Temple soldiers, but quite a lot of the sailors, especially those from Harchong were impressed into the navy. A lot of them would have been serfs, or even slaves.

Get them off the ships and onto land to build the railway lines. Promise them better food, better accommodations and some free time, and they'll jump at the chance.

warchild wrote:And in that line of thought here is a link for the Hornsby Steam Tractors which later became the Holt tractors that pulled the large guns in WWI. Thought it was interesting. The site does a pretty good job of showing scale of the parts.

http://hornsbycrawler.org/index.php/Main/HomePage

I would have to agree that a steam powered AFV would not be really reliable. One wrong round and there goes the whole AFV. And thats even harder with a coal powered tank, as coal takes a lot of space.

And now for a concept of a Hornsby Steam Tractor with guns...

http://www.apokiliptika.com/steam_tank.jpg

Space is not necessarily the worst evil in coal power. Coaling, both in bunkering and in firing operations is an inherently dangerous process in a confined space due to the proclivity of coal dust to explode.

Ok, so I spent the better part of a half hour reading this entire post from start to finish trying to remember all the points that have been made in the pro/cons of ICE (Internal Combustion Engings) over Steam engines which are also known as ECE or external combustion engines. A few of my thoughts...


Steam power is more likely to be of use in the EoC ground forces because it already is proven to work without the OBS waking up. First on the top of steam power weapons such as rotaional gatling guns or the like is extremely impractical. Why you may ask? Because you will be effectively bleeding off your power supply at a rediculous rate. The vehicle's power is not derived from the amount of fuel it can carry but how much steam it can produce at a given rate. And if your mobility is also tied into your offensive ability then you run the risk of using all your steam on weapons and having none left over for moving, and then your stuck for 30+ minutes building up steam again before you can do anything else. You can only use steam at the rate in which your boiler can convert raw water into gassious steam. Use it faster than that and you run out of steam until you make more. For a steam engine to keep up with both moving and weapons it would have to be something so monstrous that it would be impractical on a moving platform.

Now the EoC has been using triple expansion steam piston engines both at the steel works and on the river ironclads, this shows that they have already taken piston driven steam power further than what was commonly used on earth. In the 1950's when the last of the steam locomotives in the US were being built, they only used double expansion pistions as seen on the Challenger 4-6-6-4 or Big Boy 4-8-8-4 locomotives. Most engines in Earths history that used triple expansion steam was on ships. And in the early 20th century a few steam turbine locomotives were built too, but as stated earlier the machining tolerances for those seem to be beyond the abilities of EoC at this present time. Same goes for the Diesel ICEs the machining tolerances are just not there yet.

Also to add, the machining needed for drilling out a cast cannon is entirely different than that for a engine. Also with the introduction of the King Harraald (sp) warship and the reference to the size of her cannon, your talking about a huge leap in barrel manufacturing for those guns. Most of the artillery we've seen so far are cast iron or bronze in a mold and then tooled and drilled into working condition. With steel cannons having muzzels measured in inches it's a whole new ball game. If you remember Howsmyn referring to his improved drawing machines, this is the critical detail for these larger guns. They are basically constructed using long steel rods arranged in a tube fashion then using steel wire are basket woven together in a circuler pattern, then it's wrapped all way 'round with steel wire. This is done because the primrary strength of steel is tension not compaction or torsion. This is why we have steel cable suspension bridges, because the main strength of steel is when it's stretched, not crushed or twisted. So when using steel to make a cannon you use the forces to work against the tension strength of the steel instead of it's ability to survive compaction.

As far as tanks go, I honestly wouldn't put it past RFC to have steam powered Bolos, tanks so large they are practically naval destroyers on land. But I figure they won't be that big due to power:weight ratios. But large steam driven tanks are possible. Also most people assume that steam power comes from coal as a fuel source. You can actually have steam power burning anything like wood or.... oil. Now because of the hassle of dealing with huge coal bunkers in tanks it is perfectly feasable to have them powered on oil fueled steam instead.

Just my two cents, Cheers

Just to note that the Big Boy 4-8-8-4 and Challenger 4-6-6-4 were single expansion engines. The N & W Y Series 2-8-8-2 were compound engines.

WES wrote:Just to note that the Big Boy 4-8-8-4 and Challenger 4-6-6-4 were single expansion engines. The N & W Y Series 2-8-8-2 were compound engines.

My grandfather drove the huge "malleys" that brought the mile long iron ore trains from northern Minnesota to Duluth on the DM&IR. I've seen some of the units at the museum there, but I couldn't describe them in detail except to say "really, really big". For years I had one of his pipe wrenches that was about a yard long and weighed about 40 pounds.

WES wrote:Just to note that the Big Boy 4-8-8-4 and Challenger 4-6-6-4 were single expansion engines. The N & W Y Series 2-8-8-2 were compound engines.

Thanks WES, I had forgotten that, I was trying to recall it from memory but that isn't what it seems it used to be . I did remember that the pistion size difference between the first and second truck of driver wheels was very large. And although it wasn't rule of thumb with engines of this type, most compound engines used this type of set-up.

But to add, Steam powered tanks are doable and can be operated in combat with relative saftey; and along with EoC's unrivalled steel production at this point, even if the CoGA develops the same thing at the same time, the difference between steel armor and iron armor is huge. I don't see using Steam turbines all that much because of the machining involved, but Steam piston engines using oil or fuel oil instead of coal would make a little more sense.

Thanks again, Cheers

I had this idea that there could be steam tank, but people said it would not be practicle. I had this idea as mainland has epic level roads, so a tank could be possible, using these great roads to cause alot of trouble. If tanks are out of the question, are the roads good enough to allow a steam engine to run on it. SUre they would need to have some steering capability, but if the roads are as good as they say, they could possibly hold heavy loads like steam engines and carriges. THeir steam canl boats will speed up river travel, but if they can make the steam road vehicles, they could greatly speed up their logistics.

If, as is clearly demonstrated, Howsmynwerke have the capability to build triplex marine steam engines then their machining capability is well up to the manufacture of a "Diesel" engine such as the Doxford.

These engines ran so slowly as not to need reduction gearboxes and also reversed directly making them eminently suitable for marine propulsion.

Try this link:-

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKWOi0C-sak

In the final days the Doxford Engine Works actually got their development of the 76J4 engine to run on coal dust once warmed up on oil fuel, getting back to Dr Diesel's original ideas for an Infernal Combustion Engine.

unfortunately British politics caused the premature closure of Doxfords due to an unholy combination of European interference and industry infighting.