What sort of exit muzzle velocity did these devices have, compared to Pak 43 8.8 cm's 3400-3700 ft/sec?
Flintlock76I remember reading about the "dynamite gun," that turned out to be a disappointment as well.
It was an idea that made enormous sense at the time: you couldn't fire contemporary high-explosive charges from rifled guns as the perceived combination of concussion and friction heat would cause the charge to go off prematurely, perhaps while still in the barrel. Therefore the idea of using compressed air (at about 2500psi, which seems high until you look at the kinetics and, more importantly, the required mass flow) to provide a smooth push for the available length of the barrel. The 1890s guns that used a powder charge to flash-compress the air are probably the most interesting in terms of thinking about what's going on; it's also valuable to note why compressed air, and not steam, was used as the 'working fluid' in these guns.
I admit I still have fun with the true high-velocity gun designs like SHARP that use hydrogen of some flavor as the driver gas. It's sooooo just-the-opposite from what you want in rocketry.
I still think it's strange that nobody with a Hale tubular launcher thought to put the thing on padding on his shoulder and point it straight at the enemy...
Very good. I didn't catch that "Mythbusters" episode, and I don't have a lot of info here in the archives of the "Fortress Flintlock" about the steam gun, just a short blurb in one of my Civil War books.
I did catch the "M-B" show where they built a Hale rocket, that was fun!
The only other thing I could find out about the steam gun was it was never tried in combat, but it was installed as part of the defenses of a B&O bridge over the Patuxant River.
I remember reading about the "dynamite gun," that turned out to be a disappointment as well.
The "Winans" steam gun was centrifugal, not pressure-limited. Mythbusters built a replica in 2007 that ran the disc at something like 2000 rpm but found even the 'point blank' velocity not 'lethal'. See John Lamb's book and Strange Engines blog for more.
The long pointed cowl is a shield against counter fire: it has a thin horizontal slot that allows barrel traverse and the whole device is elevated as the plane of the horizontal wheel. Note that the design would greatly benefit from large 'flywheel' mass. There are a couple of other guns, one patented as early as 1838, that use the same 'sling' principle.
Somewhat surprisingly, no one seems to have used this to sling dynamite grenades, or to drive any of the contemporary high rate-of-fire magazine weapons with either an engine or clockwork wound by one. (Railroad tie-in is that similar high-speed clockwork can be used for high-precision riding cutoff with trick-ported slide valves)
Seems it took until 1883 for the first dynamite guns to be tried, and a decade more for the free-piston gas generator version (that was actually used in the Spanish-American War!)
There are steam guns that can achieve very high muzzle velocities using a 'multiplicity' of fairly small Perkins boilers, if you have good precision timing to release the steam sequentially behind the projectile -- who was that Canadian guy the Israelis killed? Ah yes, Gerald Bull.
There was a steam-powered cannon built during the Civil War but it was a bust. If I remember correctly one shot was all it was good for, then it took forever to build up pressure again for a second shot.
It was called the Winans' Steam Gun. Designed by Charles S. Dickenson and built by Ross Winans (I think we all know THAT name!) in Baltimore it was intended for the Confederates but was confiscated by the US Army ( the 6th Massachusetts) in May of 1861.
Here's the NASA Spaceflight Forum discussion on the Confederate rocket. Interesting reading!
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=19894.0
Mythbusters had an episode that explored stories that the Confederacy had (or were at least working on) a steam-powered rocket. As I recall, they determined it was plausible.
Shades of the Goon Show "Wings over Dagenham"
Cut the string ... now, I'm going to accelerate to 30 miles per hour!
It appears that this guy was unaware that a water heater was never designed to generate steam at any pressure. He might have had a better chance of pulling off this stunt if he had a mechanical engineer on his crew.
Don't count on Craig's List for rocketry components....
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7351789/Flat-Earthers-bid-launch-5-000-feet-air-homemade-steam-rocket-fails.html
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Proving a Spherical Earth with Centrifugal Forces
CSSHEGEWISCHI get the impression that Mad Mike is this generation's version of Evel Knievel, but without sufficient publicity and no history of nearly getting killed multiple times in flamboyant stunts.
I was thinking about the Jackass movies. Maybe he could get some financial backing from them and be part of their their next movie.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
I get the impression that Mad Mike is this generation's version of Evel Knievel, but without sufficient publicity and no history of nearly getting killed multiple times in flamboyant stunts.
I doubt that he'll even get to 10,000 feet, much less 100 km.
News item about Mad Mike
https://www.space.com/craigslist-water-heater-mad-rocket-launch.html
SD70DudeIn the reverse of this, are there any documented instances of missiles being fired at regular trains?
No few, in Vietnam, although I don't have either scholarly or YouTube references to substantiate it. Suspect you will find some examples somewhere in either Desert Storm or Enduring Freedom. There is of course that most awful of all camera feeds, this:
The Nazis couldn't really aim the V1 or V2 at specific small targets (let alone moving ones), but I imagine a few of those might have hit British stations or railyards.
More by accident: neither the steering nor the CEP were anywhere near accurate enough to target a rail facility and do significant damage; in all likelihood, the characteristics of the warhead would produce relatively easily-patched-over cratering damage rather than the equivalent of facility denial for any important length of time. As William Liscum Borden would point out a few years later, it would take missiles and high-yield lightweight warheads together to actually realize the doctrine Douhet was advocating; it would actually require Oppenheimer's fireball too large for any legitimate military target to make mutual assured deterrence workable... or interdiction of a facility as large as a marshalling yard cost-effective for 'sufficiently advanced missile technology' including final precise guidance or TERCOM.
Just as a note: there are, or were, targeting plans that have PGM directed down yard leads to maximize the likelihood of damage, instead of 'quartering' on a relatively point target like the hump or yard office. You would not particularly want to know the warhead munition/submunition types involved.
I don't know if this would count but Hawker Typhoons carried rockets for the ground attack role so it is possible.
Overmod Miningman A 'Blast' from the past. http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/264009.aspx (copy, paste and go.. Kalmbach's links won't light up.) It actually does light up but only when you click it. The problem is that it doesn't automatically launch either in this window/tab or a new one when you click it ... I wish we had buslist back. He had more stories to tell and wisdom to impart. Although I am very, very glad we don't have any firsthand examples of 'warbirds attacking trains' in this context ... or Garrison, either!
Miningman A 'Blast' from the past. http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/264009.aspx (copy, paste and go.. Kalmbach's links won't light up.)
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/264009.aspx
(copy, paste and go.. Kalmbach's links won't light up.)
It actually does light up but only when you click it. The problem is that it doesn't automatically launch either in this window/tab or a new one when you click it ...
I wish we had buslist back. He had more stories to tell and wisdom to impart.
Although I am very, very glad we don't have any firsthand examples of 'warbirds attacking trains' in this context ... or Garrison, either!
In the reverse of this, are there any documented intances of missiles being fired at regular trains?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Miningman Thanks Paul, appreciate the support. A 'Blast' from the past. http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/264009.aspx ( copy, paste and go.. Kalmabachs links won't light up.)
Thanks Paul, appreciate the support.
A 'Blast' from the past.
( copy, paste and go.. Kalmabachs links won't light up.)
Let there be light.
To get those to light up you have to manually enter [ url ] before the link and [ /url ] after it, but without any spaces. Just like quoting manually.
Thanks to Ed (GMpullman) for pointing this out on the Classic forum a while back.
We should have a sticky IT help thread...
nhrand ROCKET STEAM LOCOMOTIVES Unfortunately, rockets powered by steam were all too common during the era of the steam locomotive --- they were known as boiler explosions. When a rupture occurs in a locomotive boiler, the boiling water under pressure turns to steam instantly when the pressure is released. Often the rupture occurs in the crown sheet in the firebox and the steam escapes by blowing through the grates. As is well documented, the escaping steam can send a large boiler into the air, sometimes landing a 100 or more feet away. Essentially, the locomotive boiler becomes a rocket -- it is not the pressure of the steam that causes "lift-off" but the enormous quantity of steam that is created when pressure is released. If you ask why the silly story about the idiot and his steam rocket is relevent to the Forum, the reason is the dummy probably got his ideas from locomotive boiler explosions.
ROCKET STEAM LOCOMOTIVES
Unfortunately, rockets powered by steam were all too common during the era of the steam locomotive --- they were known as boiler explosions. When a rupture occurs in a locomotive boiler, the boiling water under pressure turns to steam instantly when the pressure is released. Often the rupture occurs in the crown sheet in the firebox and the steam escapes by blowing through the grates. As is well documented, the escaping steam can send a large boiler into the air, sometimes landing a 100 or more feet away. Essentially, the locomotive boiler becomes a rocket -- it is not the pressure of the steam that causes "lift-off" but the enormous quantity of steam that is created when pressure is released. If you ask why the silly story about the idiot and his steam rocket is relevent to the Forum, the reason is the dummy probably got his ideas from locomotive boiler explosions.
One of the things manned space travel had to overcome was that the acceleration of the rocket had to be controlled to stay within the parameters that human beings can withstand, over a sustained period of time, and continue to live to tell about it.
One very early idea had been to put humans in a properly sized artillery shell and shoot them into space - once WW II came along and efforts were advanced into making a proximity fuse for anti-aircraft shells - engineers began to understand the effects of acceleration upon the electronics of the time and by extension what the effects would be on the human body.
MiningmanA 'Blast' from the past. http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/264009.aspx (copy, paste and go.. Kalmbach's links won't light up.)
Miningman There is always the slimmest of possibilities that those explanations are wrong because it is possible that all mathematics is flawed, especially when it comes to gravity. It is possible that a new unified theory changes everything and 2+2 was never 4, it's just that we cannot 'see the forest for the trees'. It is unlikely but we must keep an open mind regarding these things.
There is always the slimmest of possibilities that those explanations are wrong because it is possible that all mathematics is flawed, especially when it comes to gravity. It is possible that a new unified theory changes everything and 2+2 was never 4, it's just that we cannot 'see the forest for the trees'.
It is unlikely but we must keep an open mind regarding these things.
Well said. After all, we have to keep in mind the fact that we don't know enough to know how much we don't know.
Miningmanit is possible that all mathematics is flawed, especially when it comes to gravity. It is possible that a new unified theory changes everything and 2+2 was never 4, it's just that we cannot 'see the forest for the trees'.
Considering exactly what we 'know' about gravity, this is highly likely in one sense ... on the other, one of the most highly confirmed numbers in all of practical mathematics is the "^2" exponent in the gravitational-attraction equation, which has been confirmed to some experimentally-amazing number of decimal places even though we don't know any more than Insane Clown Posse knew about magnets 'how that stuff actually works'. Likewise, we don't really understand electrons, but it doesn't stop us using single-well or quantum devices that are relatively easy to calculate or even construct... or conduct experimentation including the fundamental charge (remember the Millikan oil-drop experiment?) exactly as if the thing were a hard little dimensionless BB. The fact that geometry consists of impalpably thin lines joining impossibly small points doesn't stop us from evolving detailed Mongean descriptive geometry to any arbitrary achievable precision. And so on.
All scientists do ... or they aren't real scientists. Even if you don't understand what Popperian falsifiability actually means ... you know to keep an open mind based on the evidence, not 'explain away' what you don't know (which many proponents of the religion, as opposed to the scientific theory, of evolution often go overboard doing), and make sure that the preponderance of the evidence from diverse fields of study and theories all converges on truth, however that finds itself being expressed.
One place this argument broke down for me, as it does when attempting to compare cell phone plans, is in attempting to convert Silliman's popular explanations of water chemistry circa 1865 -- in one of the most popular college textbooks of that era! -- where he thought water was one hydrogen linked to one oxygen. I'd have better results reconciling phlogiston with thermodynamics!
(He also colossally overcomplicated electric theory, well past the point of incomprehensibility for anyone but a truly gifted doublethinker, by experimentally concluding that currents in a spark ran 'both ways', but that's another interesting scientific misstep entirely...)
Meanwhile, of course, you can always get 'correct' results out of an inadequate theory. Everyone probably knows the old chestnut about Einsteinian vs. Newtonian geometry, but I was shown a very carefully proven discussion that orbital mechanics well sufficient for interplanetary missions could be calculated entirely with Ptolemaic epicycles ... as long as you weren't concerned what was actually 'pivoting' the circular motions in reality. I'm also tempted to mention the story from golden-age SF -- damned if I remember the author! -- which discusses the invention of wireless by a putative Spanish-Inquisition Catholic civilization ... with the result being exactly the same principles, with exactly the same abbreviations for units, that typified actual radio at that time. (BTW there are steam trains a'plenty in the later novel with a similar premise, Pavane, if you are literarily inclined...)
MiningmanYet they lay perfectly straight rails. You would think they would have to gently bend them to confirm to the earths curvature because after a couple of hundred Kms they would start to go straight into the air and not rest on the earths surface.
I'm glad to see an actual railroad-related flat-Earth question, even if I see you making one of the truly silly mistakes the Victorian author did.
Of course the rails curve "vertically", and of course they are more than marginally longer than 'straight-out- rails would be -- see the discussion we had a few weeks ago about just how much longer rails were to accommodate a slight curve offset; it's in the sun-kink thread. The problem is that he assumes, and you apparently have started by assuming, that the geometry is relative to gravity that pulls consistently 'straight down' toward the turtle or whatever sub-turtle is holding him up, whereas even a cursory geological consideration of what actually makes the gravity 'pull down' will indicate that any practical measurement of 'level' will implicitly be made with reference to local gravity (if 'level' is to have the importance it is expected to when you actually run trains) which is (for all practical intents and purposes in this thread) normal to the curved surface at any point. In fact you would need to calculate a resultant for the case of artificially 'straight' rails that neatly resolves the "gotcha!" mathematics so foolishly if typically arrogantly assumed.
I would also note that it is not difficult to calculate the circular 'error' involved with geometry on a curved surface, and that it becomes of some importance in actual celestial navigation (including of course great-circle navigation, something our Victorian author apparently chooses to neglect as he doesn't recognize great circles as an actual 'thing') -- but that is why we have non-Euclidean geometry as another actual 'thing' and I don't propose to take the thread anywhere near there as we could all find better references almost in our sleep.
Gee, doesn't anyone feel like indulging in some insane joy over Mad Mike's achievement? Am I alone in this? Am I wrong?
Personally, I could care less if he thinks the Earth is as flat as a pizza or as round as a capicola.
Anyway...
Mod-man, maybe you should correspond with Mad Mike over the engineering aspects of how it did it? That is is he's willing to talk. Might be fun for the both of you!
Maybe after his ears stop ringing.
Did anyoñe even bother to look over or read the 'Earth is not a Globe' article at the bottom of the previous page.
So continuing on with their Railroad example in Australia in particular there are very very long stretches of straight track, no curves. Yet they lay perfectly straight rails. You would think they would have to gently bend them to confirm to the earths curvature because after a couple of hundred Kms they would start to go straight into the air and not rest on the earths surface.
Steve SweeneyWhat I wanted to say is: "As long as you all are trying to stay on topic, that's enough for today. Tomorrow is a different day."
Hopefully by tomorrow the thing will have run its course, including any residual need to try tickling the dragon's tail as it were, and there will be no need to invoke Official Policy to stop it.
On the other hand, I do think it would be a good idea to tolerate certain off-railroad threads, if they are well-manneredly kept and prominently indicated as off-subject appropriately in the topic line, as they really don't take much server capacity, risk much for Kalmbach in terms of perceived liability, or cause any confusion when railfans go to pick topics to read on the Forum. That solves the perceived issue of 'free speech' that a number of people here seem to think should be a 'right' although, even Constitutionally, it's not. It also provides a not-unfair right of 'strict scrutiny' that would allow such threads to be shut down peremptorily if their discourse turns nasty or people start forgetting proper Kalmbach-TOS etiquette...
Overmod Flintlock76 Well there you go. ALCO lives! I'm sure Steve Sweeney will appreciate this recent news item about Crawler-Transporter 2 that prominently contains the words "American Locomotive Company". Note also the inspection covers in the foreground of the top picture...
Flintlock76 Well there you go. ALCO lives!
I'm sure Steve Sweeney will appreciate this recent news item about Crawler-Transporter 2 that prominently contains the words "American Locomotive Company". Note also the inspection covers in the foreground of the top picture...
Overmod. Accidentally hit "Edit" instead of "Reply" and typed a reply. Sorry.
What I wanted to say is: "As long as you all are trying to stay on topic, that's enough for today.
Tomorrow is a different day."
Steve SweeneyDigital Editor, Hobby
Circumnavigable Earth Society. Ferdinand Magellan https://ia802909.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/12/items/keynoter8831amer/keynoter8831amer_jp2.zip&file=keynoter8831amer_jp2/keynoter8831amer_0011.jp2&scale=2&rotate=0 https://archive.org/details/keynoter8831amer Mad Mike's Limo ...
Circumnavigable Earth Society. Ferdinand Magellan
https://ia802909.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/12/items/keynoter8831amer/keynoter8831amer_jp2.zip&file=keynoter8831amer_jp2/keynoter8831amer_0011.jp2&scale=2&rotate=0 https://archive.org/details/keynoter8831amer Mad Mike's Limo ...
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.