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+--- Thread: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? (/showthread.php?tid=14306)
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Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - marcust - 12-30-2008
I'm afraid these topics are just to good to resist
How would the tank look? what would be it's armament? etc.
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Carlton Bach - 12-30-2008
They are nice, but be careful where you take them. In this case, the main question would need to be can anyone build a working steam tank? In theory, the idea is appealing, but does it work? AFAIR not until internal combusion engines had long become standard. Your problems don't end with getting the powerplant to wok, after all. Suspension, propulsion, and armour all pose problems of their own, especially with a honking big steam engine sitting on the back of it. It takes so much technoloigy that Rome would hae ceased to be what we think of as Rome centuries before the first barocurrus cataphractus comes off the assembly line.
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - P. Clodius Secundus - 12-31-2008
It is true that the generally higher power to weight ratio of the internal combustion engine enabled the development of the first tanks. E.D. Swinton was initially inspired by the development of the Holt tracked agricultural tractor and its use in moving artillery. Those machines, like many contemporary automobiles were steam powered. Although steam was reliable and better provided the higher torque required by heavy machinery, petrol engines proved more practical and easy to enclose within the armored envelope of a tank. The early ones especially, were tempermental and the noise and fumes quickly put many crews out of action. A steam tank is theoretically possible and who knows? with advances in nuclear technology some form of steam power may yet return. Just don't hold you breath waiting. To adress the inital question, what would a Roman tank look like... the easy anwer is it would look like an improved version of a tank some other culture had invented. :lol:
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - texascavtrooper - 12-31-2008
I think a bigger question is what would they have used it for. The only thing I could think of is to punch a hole in a wall. Also I think the Britsh army experemented with a steam powered armored car in the late 1800's. I know that there was a steam powered tractor in the 1800's
Bryan
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Dutchhoplite - 12-31-2008
I would imagine it somewhat like this but without the cannon off course
![[Image: BritSteamTank.gif]](http://www.freewebs.com/steamnoir/BritSteamTank.gif)
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Titvs Statilivs Castvs - 12-31-2008
Nah. A huge segmentata on wheels, with an also huge Gallic I at the front to smash the walls. 8)
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Gaius Julius Caesar - 12-31-2008
I imagine if they were to have developed steam raction engines, the ywould apply the technology to mobile seige towers, mobile battering rams, and also mobile artillary platforms...ie a tank...
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - jvrjenivs - 12-31-2008
if they know how to use steam engines they surely had used them in siege engines, cranes and maybe even for traffic and stage work.
(link from old RAT
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Matthew Amt - 12-31-2008
In their situation, I'd say the Romans would have found it vastly more efficient to use steam to pull supply wagons and for powering ships. The logistical leap alone would have guaranteed an easier world conquest. (And cranes, pumps, mills, factories, etc.)
Beyond that, sure, stick a few big shields on a steam tractor to protect some archers, and you've got a great antipersonnel tank. Then add steam cannons and flamethrowers, power-cranked repeating ballistae...
Better idea: Pliny apparently refers to the discovery of a light-weight grayish metal which was made from gray clay--aluminum! Then use the Bagdad Battery for electrolysis to make hydrogen, and you've got Roman Zepplins! Not to mention aluminum armor for your steam tank, beer cans, etc. If you're gonna change the world, why go half measures?
Matthew
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Epictetus - 01-01-2009
Hero of Alexandria seems to have experimented with steam engines circa 50 AD, but I don't believe that he got them to do any useful work.
I always thought this was quite clever. I think it would be fun to build one.
![[Image: Aeolipile.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Aeolipile.jpg)
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Tarbicus - 01-01-2009
Imagine this on a cold day with all the steam coming out from breath and sweating bodies
![[Image: testudo.jpg]](http://school.ghs.edu/Shakespeare%2006/07%27/Elizabethan%20Homepage%20magnus%20and%20grant/Weapons/testudo.jpg)
:wink:
I believe the reason for the eventual success of steam powered engines was through the ability to make a boiler casing that wouldn't explode under pressure, which the Romans didn't have the ability to do. They did have a small steam engine that did something like turn a door, or something.
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Iagoba - 01-01-2009
I would prefer to think Napoleon having the 1eme Corps d´Automotive Hussards at waterloo :lol:
A bit (only a bit) more possible. After all, a fast-firing compressed air gun was used in Napoleonic wars...
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - M. Demetrius - 01-02-2009
Gee whiz, you might as well ask "What if they'd invented the submachine gun?" A steam tank? Nobody else in the industrial age made one of those, right? Must be a reason.
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - Magnus - 01-02-2009
This thread reminds me of Gothic Clibanarius....gee, I wonder why?
Could it be....?
Re: Suppose rome built a working steam tank? - marcust - 01-02-2009
Who is Gothic Clibnarius?