"Preview: Hive, Queen, and Country Ground Vehicles" Topic

Hello All!

Aerolyth Enterprises and Objects May Appear… are working on the next supplement to the Hive, Queen, and Country Victorian Science Fiction line. Our previous book, Flying Machines of the Worlds, dealt with flying machines. This next book will focus on the fighting ground vehicles.

Our tentative plan is to include about 80 vehicles in the book and to make them available for purchase through Shapeways, like the previous book's models. We are targeting 15mm, but may do other scales as well. If successful we, may produce some of the models ourselves as well.

We're actively soliciting feedback on the models, so here are a few samples:

For a relatively small vehicle, this Prussian Tank has a considerable offensive punch: a heavy gun (4-inch), a good rangefinder and a mechanical fire control computer provides it with good long-range capabilities. Its good frontal armor helps compensate for its relatively modest speed.

Engine: 5L 2.5Mpa Triple Expansion Condensing Steam Engine
Road Speed: 7.7m/s 27.71km/hr 17.21mi/hr
Off-road (Dry Sand): 4.4m/s 15.84km/hr 9.84mi/hr

This French tank is designed with relatively high speed and good frontal protection to help break through enemy formations or strongholds. Its preferred tactic is to quickly charge towards the enemy and engage, possibly forming a foothold before heavier follow-up forces can arrive. It included a bulldozer blade to help clear obstacles.

The tank uses a high RPM steam engine to increase its speed, but this does cause some reliability issues. However, as its tactical role is more focused on short range, this is not considered a critical issue. Like many French tanks, it carries some measure of antiaircraft defense. In this case, 2 Maxims in an external pintle mount.

Road Speed: 8.81m/s 31.71km/hr 19.7mi/hr
Suspension: Lightly Damped (0.05) Macpherson/Christie

This Chinese amphibious troop transport was designed for and used heavily in the failed Chinese invasion of Japan in 1904. Several components (engine, transmission) were imported from Prussia and design work done partly at Foochow, partly overseas.

Capacity: 22 persons
Road Speed: 7.11m/s 25.6km/hr 15.9mi/hr
Off-road (Clayey Soil): 4.9m/s 17.64km/hr 10.96mi/hr
Water: 2.9m/s 10.44km/hr 6.49mi/hr

A Prussian "Tank Hunter", export versions of which saw service in the Russo-Boer War.

Road Speed: 9.95m/s 35.81km/hr 22.24mi/hr
Off-Road: 5.1m/s 18.36km/hr 11.4mi/hr

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

I like them in general; I think the sloped armor makes them look a little too advanced for a VSF setting.

KJdidit
Arun and I work very closely on the machines and other technical details of the HQC Universe. We are both interested in producing the best "hard science" Victorian Science Fiction gaming universe that we know how. Some of what we do will not look or feel like what has become known as Steampunk. We are looking at designing machines in particular and the setting in general to be both consistent with the improved Victorian era technology we have developed for the universe and to keep internal consistency. In terms of sloped armor though, we think there are a lot of period precedents.

Interesting justification, but real-world ground combat vehicle development ignored sloped armor for quite a while after inception.

And you did ask for feedback. ;)

looks like

Sherman
Lee
M113
Hetzer

Thinking that might be causing the confusion

KJdidit – Thanks for the feedback. In the HQC setting, early steam powered vehicles have been in use since the 1880s and these are from 1905, so they are a little more advanced than the initial WWI tanks, closer to interwar period.

That said, we've been trying hard to find a balance between 'practical' and 'still looks Victorian' These are early designs and your feedback helps a lot.

Thanks KJdidit and even if I argue back I still respect your opinion and ideas!

A lot had to do with the unique requirement of the western front, but there were a number of AFVs that had sloped armor early one

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Russell
You have a point. However at some point everything looks like something.

How can we design vehicles that look unique but still function on the battle field with historical technology?

Terry

Very interesting

I find all VSF/Steampunk vehicles ignore the issue of how much space it takes to mount a boiler and steam engine and carry fuel and water. Workable vehicles need to be much larger.

Allen57,

That is a great point, external combustion engines tend to have less power density than internal combustion engines, plus the need to carry feed water has a big impact. The engines of HQC avoid some of this by being multiple-expansion (dual or triple), using flash boilers, forced air, and carrying condensers. Also, optimizations like Kylchap cowls, superheating, and numeric optimization of the smokebox (made possible by Babbage machines) help. Still, you'll note that a lot of these vehicles still have relatively modest speeds and end up fairly tall compared to interwar tanks, also the armor and range ends up being a bit less than some interwar tanks and often we had to thin the rear armor quite a bit, which will have big impacts on tactics. Even then, to get the weight and space down required some tough tradeoffs – mainly in reliability and in the complexity of the transmission system (i.e. they have to have a gearbox, unlike most trains).

For sizing the engines and flywheels I used "Steam Engine Design" by International Correspondence Schools. For the condensers I found some data from "An elementary text-book on steam engines and boilers" By John Henry Kinealy and for the boilers I used some data from "Marine boiler management and construction" By C. E. Stromeyer. The transmission systems (for geared engines) I based off some sizing equations in "Automotive Transmissions: Fundamentals, Selection, Design and Application" by Lechner, Naunheimer, and Day.

If you have some other sources to suggest I'd love to hear or some simpler sizing equations, I'd be very interested.

edit: changed "energy density" to "power density" whoops! :-)

This is great news! I have been using some of your flying ships as naval/hover units in other games. I hope that these will be cranked out in 1/600 like the rest of the line.

You have to have a fair jump in precision, as well, for the sizes you suggest. Right?

May I suggest a look at the old GI Joe I.M.P.? Awkward, open engine space, ridiculously tall…

Is there any question of why General Rederring fell in love? ;->=

And the hull is NOTHING like WWII tanks.

I keep repeating myself that the peaked track is a bit too far, though.

I think there's an issue with VSF where either something is assumed to be oversized, because precision is only available for some technologies, and things that are adapted from those, ergo, 'clockwork mechanisms'.

Agreed, 1905 would be further along, but then it's not 'Victorian', unless you're doing one of those The Queen, G'awd bless her, as 40K Emperor…

Doug

We do have a fair jump in precision. This is driven by the early adoption of Babbage engine. The need to machine these tiny little gears and cogs produces widespread improvements in machining technology. To tell the truth the Victorians could measure and machine to extremely tight tolerances in our own history.

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In HQC Victoria will have an extended life, but I will contend that even in Our Time Line for most purposes the Victorian didn't really end until the First World War and the horror of Western Front

The Cobra IMP is an interesting design, but I have some questions about it. Where does the driver sit? And how does he see to do so?

Also it does look a bit like this, at least at the front end

I just post it because with many hundreds of designs of AFVs over the last hundred years coming up with something that doesn't look like one of them is tough!

cloudcaptain,

Thnanks! I'm glad you're liking the flying machines! We're still exploring which scales to offer, but 1/600 should be quite reasonable, especially for some of the larger vehicles.

thanks!

I just post it because with many hundreds of designs of AFVs over the last hundred years coming up with something that doesn't look like one of them is tough!

Though I would have hoped you'd admit 'looking like one of' hundreds of designs is a bit different than:

Sherman
Lee
M113
Hetzer

I accept we'll disagree, and you'll already have plenty of customers.

Doug

Doug
I didn't really respond to the original post because I'm not sure what to say, but I'll give it a shot now. The Sherman, the Somua S-35 and the T-34 all look similar to a greater or lesser degree and I think the first one looks more like a Somua than a Sherman. I'd say the second one looks much more like an M-2 Medium with a bigger turret than a M-3, but doesn't really look a whole lot like either of them to me. The battle taxis that look like M113 includes British FV432, Swedish PVB 302,and other nation's. Its hard to make an APC that DOESN'T look like one of these.

I'll give you the Hetzer though. The sloped rear panel is kind of a trademark and we might want to fix that.

Convergent evolution means a lot of machines designed in the same constraints may well look a lot alike, BTR-80s, LAV-25, Luchs, Chinese Type 03 and a lot of other 8 wheelers look a lot alike.

I look at vehicles that folks have come up with either for VSF or for straight SF and to me they either look similar to something else or just look like they were designed not to look like anything else and then I start picking them apart as to what their major tactical issues would be.

Did t they run a kickstarter to create tanks and bugs already? What happened to those designs?

John
Richard Delorme of Rosa Miniatures ran an unsuccessful Kickstarter several months ago. The vehicles in that project will be included in the book, although will probably not be available from Objects May Appear, since Rosa hopes to get their 3D production of them up and running in 2015. Richard has been very successful producing 3D printed parts of R/C aircraft and intends upon leveraging that to grow his business into producing wargaming miniatures. When that happens the cost per model will be substantially lower than coming through Shapeways and we look forward to partnering with Richard to produce these vehicles in 28mm and 15mm with both price and quality that compete with injection moulded models. In addition they will not be made in China but in the USA. This is not a patriotic statement but rather one based on a close watch of several other companies issues with production and shipping problems coming out of China.

These are the machines Richard had planned on producing. Some are clearly based on WW1 tanks, with added turrets and other features. We did those as much to have the historical machines available and to test process as to add them to the Hive Queen and Country technology and storyline.

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