Good Side to COGA Finding out about steam engines

Well i personally feel like without a massive additional intelligence windfall the information that the COGA got about steam engine is only going to lead to a program along the line of Hitlers Mause program. AKA it is only going to be a massive resource drain and they will end up needing to work their way through the whole history of steam engines. AKA they will be forced to start all the way at a simple boiler. Also it should be interesting to see how the public reacts to the fact the CoGA steam engines explode so much more often the the Charis's steam engines as the CoGA will not have access to anywhere near the quality of steel or any other material that will be needed for steam engines.

captinjoehenry wrote:Well i personally feel like without a massive additional intelligence windfall the information that the COGA got about steam engine is only going to lead to a program along the line of Hitlers Mause program.

They built two Maus tank prototyps and then cancelled the programme. Hardly a significant drain on Speer's resources.
As to the steam engines: With the announcements of RFC on the further development of the series, I don't think that CoGA knowledge will matter in the short term. And in the longer term, knowledge about current Charisian innovations is bound to leak out. If Charis ever halts its innovations, mainland enemies will catch up within about a decade. That'll keep on unless innovations will require going clearly out of the limits of Proscriptions. And that'll trigger a completely different mess...

They got diagrams. This was the briefcase of an engineer. They will not be able to build an engine even close to charisian quality and they will take at least a year to do it, but now they have a huge leg up.

As for exploding. Industrial accidents happen and the members of the CoGA KNOW that god and Langhorne are on their side. Also the charisians are being helped by Shan-wei, who obviously is sabotaging the true sons and daughters of god. It takes me five seconds to come up with a rationalization, RFC could do much better and so can his characters.

Highjohn wrote:They got diagrams. This was the briefcase of an engineer. They will not be able to build an engine even close to Charisian quality and they will take at least a year to do it, but now they have a huge leg up.

Now, it would be interesting to see how long it will take them to implement proper quality assurance on the parts going into a steam engine, I'll expect they are going to have some problems with the engines exploding.

Joat42 wrote:Now, it would be interesting to see how long it will take them to implement proper quality assurance on the parts going into a steam engine, I'll expect they are going to have some problems with the engines exploding.

They can't make engines of the same quality as the charisians. They don't have the chemical knowledge to make the steel alloys and they don't have anything like the knowledge of pressure that was mentioned in text(crush gauges, Plus OWL switched them out for better accuracy). So they can't build engines as good as the charisians. They can build some engines though, these might be built in time to help with mining and manufacturing before the war is over. Note: I'm talking about broad implementation not prototypes. They can build a prototype rather fast I think.

Highjohn wrote:They got diagrams. This was the briefcase of an engineer. They will not be able to build an engine even close to charisian quality and they will take at least a year to do it, but now they have a huge leg up.

As for exploding. Industrial accidents happen and the members of the CoGA KNOW that god and Langhorne are on their side. Also the charisians are being helped by Shan-wei, who obviously is sabotaging the true sons and daughters of god. It takes me five seconds to come up with a rationalization, RFC could do much better and so can his characters.

IIRC, they didn't get diagrams. What they actually got was a description of how steam engines worked. I'm referring back to Rayno's report to Clyntahn in LAMA.

Don

Highjohn wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Now, it would be interesting to see how long it will take them to implement proper quality assurance on the parts going into a steam engine, I'll expect they are going to have some problems with the engines exploding.

They can't make engines of the same quality as the charisians. They don't have the chemical knowledge to make the steel alloys and they don't have anything like the knowledge of pressure that was mentioned in text(crush gauges, Plus OWL switched them out for better accuracy). So they can't build engines as good as the charisians. They can build some engines though, these might be built in time to help with mining and manufacturing before the war is over. Note: I'm talking about broad implementation not prototypes. They can build a prototype rather fast I think.

Building a prototype will cover the most obvious errors, but broad implementation will require diffusion of knowledge, and require skilled labor that is currently building equipment for the war (primarily cannons and rifles).

The only obvious advantage for the EoC if the CoGA figures out how to build a steam engine is that Clyntahn will immediately give it the approval of the Inquisition, so the CoGA won't consider steam power to be a violation of the Proscriptions. That makes it acceptable across the planet, which will be very helpful once the war is over.

A bunch of CoGA researchers will be blown up along the way, which is always helpful for the allied cause. Absent capturing further documentation or getting its hands on a working steam engine, creating one on its own is a task that borders on the scale of the Manhattan Project for the CoGA. Think of all that lovely research. Merlin certainly will be!

Joat42 wrote:

Highjohn wrote:They got diagrams. This was the briefcase of an engineer. They will not be able to build an engine even close to Charisian quality and they will take at least a year to do it, but now they have a huge leg up.

Now, it would be interesting to see how long it will take them to implement proper quality assurance on the parts going into a steam engine, I'll expect they are going to have some problems with the engines exploding.

QUALITY CONTROL is vital to any engineering production

QUALITY ASSURANCE is a mere bureaucratic paper-chase. devised out of acknowledged ignorance and designed to keep management's collective ar5se out of harm's way. It has no value to any civilised person

Actually, it would not be as hard as you assumed. In early XIX century, the he Vietnamese were able to produce their own steam engines based on european works; three local-build steamers were comissioned between 1838 and 1841, before the economical situation forced the Vietnam goverment to abandon project.

The CoGA have a LOT more resources than Vietnam, and have at least a basical data. It wouldn't be too hard to build steam engines of simple-expansion type.