Not gonna lie for me, the big thing I think of steampunk in military terms is always the British Imperial model of the redcoat in his latter days. The type you see in Zulu or The Four Feathers. Still capable of forming square or line to meet the charge, just said I'd post to see if other people just weren't discussing about RP campaigns!

Oh Im with you on those Loverly Red Squares.

A suitable enemy required of course.

In our PnP Space 1889 game we are going to be covering alot of time periods. One PC has a small nation and is arming them up in more modern ways with mobile squads with a machine gun. One aspect of Steampunk is the transition from what is to what could be.

The small PC nation has a chance in the big leagues because of its use of more modern organization.

Setting the main stage though is all about the Victorian forces. On Mars we have the ad-hoc feudal forces being improved first with rifles and then by rifle formations. The basic Martian Legion (in Space 1889) has like 1/3 musket, 1/3 shield and spear and 1/3 other. Universally crappy at all things.

Well... this is new to me!

http://www.bartitsu.org/

Victorian gentlemanly martial arts for hats and canes.

Some material written by Frederick Engels on military matters:

http://www.marxists.org/archiv...ubject/war/index.htm

Read the US Civil War article. Interesting points on the hasty raised massed armies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5VR4Ch__q8

Youtube of a squad of re-enactors doing Victorian drills

Thought I'd give a topic bump on the Victorian martial art Bartitsu

http://breakingmuscle.com/othe...nk-mixed-martial-art

Been looking at it again. What thoughts from the rest of our establishment?

I found this picture pretty funny:

http://fightland.vice.com/blog...ins-victorian-london
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:10, Mon 07 Sept 2015.

Too cool! I'm incorporating it into my game as a free cliche from now on.

Great to hear!

Our organization here on rpol works as a discussion depository. Its easy for the old timers who've talked about things to not mention them because we already know. Its the conversations that help grow the 'database' and catch the eye of the new comers.

Looks like a hit for my game as well... Jolly Good Show

In reply to Brygun (msg # 3):

Some of the best sources are reprinted period catalogs. They can generally be found cheap on Bookfinder.com or Amazon. There are several from the 1890s and 1900s. Not sure if there are any from the 1880s

Random bit

We did in the real world once make a nuclear powered steam cannon.

Accidentally.

True story.

You see there was an underground nuclear test. This was in the early days when the USA and Russia were still figuring out just what these bad boys could do.

Well.

For the underground test they thought it would be a good idea to mitigate the risk by having the nuclear detonator submerged in water. This would help deal with the excess heat. They were really trying to study the shock wave, as in earthquake, type affects. So the heat was more an unwanted by product.

The water of course was in a vat. More of a tube. See where this is going? That tube of course had a hatch. Didn't want anything dangerous coming out right.

Well.

The sides of the tube incased in rock acted like the breech and barrel of a firearm. You know, not really expanding. Very much that is. I'm sure it got shaken and pulsed outward at least a little bit.

The water converted lots of energy into steam. Like a "Holy Victoria, Head of the Church of England" amount.

Steam by volume takes up more room than water. The expanding steam gases acted like a firearm's expanding gunpowder expanding.

Now remember that lid?

Compared to rock supported tube walls the lid was the weak point. So the lid was were the pressure broke through.

Better to say...

The lid was launched.

Beyond escape velocity. Like six times escape velocity.

Seriously. Beyond escape velocity.

There are theories that in the event of an actual hostile alien invasion we could use these nuclear steam cannons to shoot at the mother ships.

A nuclear bomb in space has no atmosphere to carry the shock wave so not much affect from a nearby detonation. The aliens being space travellers have probably made defenses against the radiation aspects.

A multi-ton super speed projectile though.

Well that's just old school smash them in the face, I mean hull, type of fighting.

And people think steam weapons aren't dangerous. Pashaaaa.

---

And at least one reference link for you:

http://www.deathvalley.com/dvt.../messages/4001.shtml

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html

---

Though sadly reading through my wonderful story is a bit off. It was the concrete that vaporized to be the expanding gas. Which in turn blew off the man hole cover.

The confusion coming form the proposed steam version to launch spaceships:


from: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html
This message was last edited by the player at 16:25, Tue 21 Feb 2017.

Well that makes sense I would think?
  Picture a foreign land with many races, all having their favorite niche. My folk love the shallow mines and riverside deposits.  We still like to see green stuff and animals you see.  So picture a guild that works; tin, copper, brass-copper, and bronze.  We could make alchemical cannons, or even steam cannons of the same power.
  But that kind of arcane cannon would take, like you said the Rock work that the Longbeard guild works. They like the deep stone, so they like rock work and the volcanic forges.  That is were one might get steam from the forges waste heat.

 It might be Steam that both cannons use, but it would be the secrets of another guild to make each.

Steam is a way of storing energy.

A fictional society might have steam tanks spread around a community like we have water tanks in a city. All the steam tanks might be called on at once for a massive collected use of the cities super steam cannon firing. Then like 30 minutes while every place restores pressure.

Actually what you were posting about fit a area I have been working on.

  The funny thing was it started out as a fairly standard D&D Megalopolis Built actually from one of my long term characters strongholds.  The fact was it was placed actually on a volcano that due to it's intersection of an undersea with the vent had created sporadic geyser like eruptions throwing up water steam and silt.

  At one point I realized that the sources of Steam and tinker gnomes created a regular source of power.
 The fact was I did expect the Deep Dwarves clans and guilds to handle the Volcanic forges and the generation of steam.  While the mountain and hill dwarves, mined ore and worked stone.  But this creates the idea of different levels of steam power much like AC and DC current.  While I still would have all dwarven clans do mining and stone work.

  I now see the deep dwarves still having the specialty guild of generating the source steam. The mountain Dwarves having specialty guilds in under ground public civil engineering, that create water works, both for drinking and for transport, public tunnel systems, but also The Steam Mains. Stone tunnels created to stand great pressure, which when stepped down in power feed the Gnomish steam "batteries" which feed the brass steamworks of the Gnome guilds.
 But those Dwarven mains also can also feed "Dragoon breath" batteries that throw either great worked boulders or woven baskets filled with rock to sweep the skies and waters with a rain of stone.  the only method of range control being weight of shot and released pressure.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:36, Wed 22 Feb 2017.

The stone tunnels wouldn't be efficient steam conveyors, as they would suck of heat and likely have many leaks... So once the tunnel was built, the Gnomes would need to line them with brass/bronze and probably some insulation as well. The distances traveled would still need to be controlled, as heat loss builds water in the lines ... I would also point out that volcanic pressures are neither consistent or regular. Given the sudden spikes in pressure, an expansion tank would be desirable and the piping would need to be damn strong ... something brass/bronze is not so good at...

There is a lot of truth to that.
 Water drainage in all areas of construction is a given in a land that is hit with a semi monthly eruption/monsoon.
  But you are very right for all the Mountain dwarves Large scale stonework skills, the temperatures and pressures involved would still be the domain of the deep dwarves. so the mains themselves and the guild secrets of their materials and construction would have to belong to them.

But I suspect the dragoon's breath mortars tunnels, would probably still be under mountain dwarf control.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:45, Wed 22 Feb 2017.

That's heat. It dissipates.
There are ways to minimize heat losses other than plain insulation, but mostly for active systems, not storage.
A form of energy known to be good for low tech storage is gravity. As in, lifting weight and keeping it up there, then making it work on descent.
The classic variant is pumping water.
See also "Advanced Rail Energy Storage System" - a train moving uphill used as an accumulator, it's in use now.

Lot of media seams to fail to realize the pressure drops as the gas cools.

Hey Az!
If only they were storing heat as well as gas. If only we could think up some kind of fictional perfectly reflective energy inert containment device.

…that can withstand pressure well and does not become much worse when built big.
On a small scale, even a simple thermos can be enough. Improvements can and were designed (like Dewar vessels), sure. But not for raw power. The inherent problem is, when you widen bottleneck pipe (which limits how quickly you can dump power) and add thick support, cross-sections of the parts go up and heat conductivity of the whole raises with them. While keeping them sealed becomes increasingly troublesome.
The better reservoir becomes at pulse power output, the worse it's going to leak and more maintenance it's likely to need.
When a system cycles quickly, you still have heat losses from the rest of system, so losses in this one part don't matter much, and if they do, usually it's easy to dump some waste heat around the parts that need to be insulated: the less (T_in-T_out), the less heat flux. Much like countercurrent heat exchangers are used to save waste heat.
When it's slow, losses go on, so the question is, how much you'll have to waste for a given delay, and whether the system can hold this excess.

As a pulse power solution without long term storage requirement, as long as we don't want anything supersonic, steam proven to be quite useful.
Of course, what matters there is the form of energy on output. For some uses (pile-drivers, assisted launch systems, subsonic steam or steam/hydraulic guns) steam works well, for others not, for some it would compete with gravity (raise the hammer…) or flywheel.

Yah like steam boy..... good anime.... but the idea of a tiny ball holding that much steam power is pushing the idea of sci-fi way way way into the realms of fantasy to the point of not even being reasonable >.<

three of them have enough steam to make a freaking town sized building fly around in the sky blowing steam down at the ground for months????

>.<

no.... nooooooooooo

Just wondering what brought on the renewal of this discussion after three years?!

If you're talking strictly steampunk, then that's one thing.

But since Turbo brought up an accumulator, suppose an alternate technology is employed. Direct-storage of electrical energy... known as an accumulator is some fiction.

Another possibility is the perpetual motion machine.

Heat loss is certainly a thing, but this is tech being addressed as we speak with gravity-based batteries. Excess steam energy in a community could be used to lift large objects on pulleys and those objects can be dropped and the energy of gravity moving the mass can be harnessed with fly wheels and the like. Now you've got nifty active towers of energy being transferred around mechanically and whirly flywheels doing their thing :)

On Steam Boy the wonder ball is a bit of quirk. A McGuffin (you can look into that, its a plot device item).

They needed to collect the steam for the steam ball from a specific source so it could be that its not water steam as we know it.

Which scientifically is rather wrong but thats the "magic" McGuffin of the setting.

There is also how the father got a blast of the special steam and began acting oddly. I attributed that to the magical affects affecting his own essence.

We do see Steam Boy himself using that ball to fly around over and over, day after day, without any apparent refueling. So a bit of accepting the setting is certainly there for that too.

---

As for resparking after 3 years...

... as a former operator of this forum...

... that's okay. Part of why it was founded (and later turned onto myself and then others) was specifically to retain information for other games. This isnt a game itself. Rather its a holding point for Steampunk information. Questions, answers and in a way an archive.

Initially there was a lot of questions and chatter. We saved those answers. So new seekers could already find the knowledge. A natural consequence in not needing new typing that would repeat those answers.

So...

Huzzah! For new chatter.