AHC: An actual Wild Wild West

Another way to contribute to the spy and espionage side of things to this TL could perhaps involve a POD involving the Astor family
 
I'd like to imagine a scenario in which large city buildings have airship docks for small private airships, just like how some buildings have helicopter pads. Reminds me a bit of the cityscape from Ghosts of Manhattan by George Mann
Agreed would love to see some Victorian/Edwardian skyscrapers acting as airports gigantic airships. With the earlier emergence of the Bessemer process we could get skyscrapers emerging earlier.
The Steampunk soldier series is very fun. There is no real plot, its more a history book to an ATL. The POD is ASB (Meteorites strike Earth containing a substances that burns hotter than coal and can be refined into performance enhancing drugs), besides that a lot of the stuff in the book comes off as relatively plausible or at least possible.
A part of me is thinking in a world where the American Civil War had machines guns, airships and who knows what else US soldiers in the aftermath would look more like they came out of the Spanish American War or Pancho Villa Expedition instead of the Indian wars.

I think it is the best look of all the OTL airship designs. I will also point out that there wear early designs for hybrid Helicopter-airships experimented with in the 1920s
The idea has some interesting potential, maybe a dirigible vtol craft?
Another type of machine gun that could have caught on in OTL with a but more funding was the Bailey Machine gun. The first Gatling-type gun I know of that used belt fed ammunition
I'd also like to point out the M1895_Colt Browning_machine_gun which while it did use smokeless powder and was closer to the Maxim Machine Gun actually used a mechanism similar to lever action rifles.
Twain and Tesla? Maybe forming a less ASB version of The Five Fists of Science! Que theme music based on AC/DC's TNT but with the lyrics changed to T&T (Tesla & Twain)

Now one bit of technology used in TWWW that I would like to address is the record player! In several episodes we see characters using a Phonograph, even though it would not exist in the form presented until the 1890s. Now a quick read of Wikipedia states that there was a sound recording device invented in 1857, but it was the work of Thomas Edison that lead to a sound playing device in 1877. I need to figure out what specific discoveries would need to be made to speed that timeline up so that we could have record players in the 1870s. Not necessarily those with discs made of shellac, but maybe wax cylinders like the early forms of phonograph
Guess Edison becomes an even bigger jerk than OTL...

The phonograph does seem a lot more likely to appear early than the record player.
 
Frank Reade Jr is actually prime material for a real life Wild Wild West, even if the designs need some tweaking.
frank_reade.jpg

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I do wonder with this steam-cattlepunk 19th century what the following twentieth century would look like.
 

marathag

Banned
Traction Engine with continuous tank tracks and vertical spring suspension like that of train truck-wheels.
1901 Phoenix Log Hauler
Powered by four steam engines
100 horse power
Capable of speeds of 6-8 mph
Weighs 18 tons
Can pull 25 sleighs of logs
Boiler tested at 240 lbs.

Safety valve set at 125 lbs
 
Agreed would love to see some Victorian/Edwardian skyscrapers acting as airports gigantic airships. With the earlier emergence of the Bessemer process we could get skyscrapers emerging earlier.

A part of me is thinking in a world where the American Civil War had machines guns, airships and who knows what else US soldiers in the aftermath would look more like they came out of the Spanish American War or Pancho Villa Expedition instead of the Indian wars.


The idea has some interesting potential, maybe a dirigible vtol craft?

I'd also like to point out the M1895_Colt Browning_machine_gun which while it did use smokeless powder and was closer to the Maxim Machine Gun actually used a mechanism similar to lever action rifles.

Guess Edison becomes an even bigger jerk than OTL...

The phonograph does seem a lot more likely to appear early than the record player.
More like they came out of the Spanish American War or Pancho Villa Expedition in what ways exactly?

According to the book Airship Technology by Khoury such VTOL setups are categorized as "Rotastats". I think that the fan wing design I mentioned before could also perform as a VTOL of the blades of the wings were made to rotate around the axis of the fan. Otherwise it could also work as a short-take-off-and-landing vehicle

The M1895 was actually the result of a project Browning started years before with a modified Winchester rifle that had a gas catching cup at the end of the barrel. The cup was then connected to a hinge, and a bar that was connected to the gun's lever. As a result Browning had made a gas operated sub-machine gun! I'm not sure if the designs of the M1895 could work with black-powder though. I'm afraid that the gas port near the muzzle would clog up with fowling too easily.

I think an even better design for a similar concept though was made by Hiram Maxim who patented a modification to the Wincester lever action that made it a recoil operated semi-automatic. If that designs had been incorporated into a Winchester 1876 then we could have had an infantry rifle comparable to the M1 Garand
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tumblr_o2nj08qwaR1s57vgxo2_1280.jpg

All of these seem like modifications that I think could have been come up with as soon as the Winchester 1866 hit the market. I imagine a Dr. Loveless type character would have no issue arming his men with such weapons. Much cheaper to make than the mini-gatling guns his henchman seem to use in the WWW Millennium comic series that came out in 1990

Also don't forget that Maxims first machine gun was made to work with black powder cartridges.

Besides those ideas what I have learned from this video is that if you want a black powder automatic then you should use a long-recoil action in order to avoid fowling the action. So a Browning Auto5 would work


1901 Phoenix Log Hauler
Powered by four steam engines
100 horse power
Capable of speeds of 6-8 mph
Weighs 18 tons
Can pull 25 sleighs of logs
Boiler tested at 240 lbs.

Safety valve set at 125 lbs
I didn't know about the Pheonix brand, only Lombard. I'm surprised the track design wasn't used until the 1890s when it existed in patent form decades earlier. I think you have a typo in saying "Powered by four steam engines" the source I found says "four-cylinder engine " which makes more sense. This makes me wonder then about steam engine designs and how they could get more energy from the boiler. How many cylinders could a steam engine have in theory? I'm afraid I don't know much when it comes to engine design

Ah, but esteemed gentleman, have you heard of aetherium, the ultimate plot-device-ium ore ? ;) Aetherium ! It's good in electric batteries, it's good as airship lift gas, it slices and dices and maybe even works as an ingredient in anti-constipation tonics ! Aetherium ! Available now at every aetherium rush mine and claim !
Lol, "plot-device-ium" sure would come in handy, but I enjoy the challenge of finding more plausible means of powering such Steampunk tech. Given that this is a common plot device in things such as Steampunk Soldiers. Deadlands, and Empires of the Smoky Skies, I would like to find out if there are alternative fuels that could be more efficient for steam engines. Providing a more exothermic reaction than coal when burned. Besides radioactive materials of course, but people in the 1800s wouldn't know how to handle such things without massive risks of radiation based diseases. So I'm not sure of any other form of solid, or even liquid, fuel that could provide as much of an exothermic reaction needed for a steam engine boiler that isn't far more dangerous to use
 

marathag

Banned
I didn't know about the Pheonix brand, only Lombard. I'm surprised the track design wasn't used until the 1890s when it existed in patent form decades earlier. I think you have a typo in saying "Powered by four steam engines" the source I found says "four-cylinder engine " which makes more sense. This makes me wonder then about steam engine designs and how they could get more energy from the boiler. How many cylinders could a steam engine have in theory? I'm afraid I don't know much when it comes to engine design
1599380530424.png
from the plaque

Steam cylinders can be single acting, or double acting, meaning how steam is applied to the piston.
It's just as Internal Combustion as many as you want, but complexity goes up.
Valving on steam means it didn't have quite the problem of power pulses or low torque, like gasoline.
fewer cylinders could do the work,
Then you get into how steam after acting on one piston, still has energy remaining, and can be fed into another cylinder to get more work from that single hit of
steam from the boiler, the expansion cylinder. each stage needs a larger cylinder. note this is a double acting engine, steam on both sides of the piston
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quadruple expansion engines were built
 

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Well there's this one design for a steampunk helicopter, though I'm not to sure how practical the design is. Maybe have it act as a type of flying gunship out west or in some other conflict.
cw1v107-01b.jpg
With all of these crazy technological advancements in the 19th century it'll probably have a profound effect on the American gilded age.
 
Agreed would love to see some Victorian/Edwardian skyscrapers acting as airports gigantic airships. With the earlier emergence of the Bessemer process we could get skyscrapers emerging earlier.

A part of me is thinking in a world where the American Civil War had machines guns, airships and who knows what else US soldiers in the aftermath would look more like they came out of the Spanish American War or Pancho Villa Expedition instead of the Indian wars.


The idea has some interesting potential, maybe a dirigible vtol craft?

I'd also like to point out the M1895_Colt Browning_machine_gun which while it did use smokeless powder and was closer to the Maxim Machine Gun actually used a mechanism similar to lever action rifles.

Guess Edison becomes an even bigger jerk than OTL...

The phonograph does seem a lot more likely to appear early than the record player.
"What shall we do with a drunken sailor.
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Ear-lye in the mor-ning?"

Dr. Lovelace had 'em.... ANYTHING is possible in the Steampunk West! (yes, I've seen 'em all ;))
 
Actually airships could be pretty useful as scouting craft out in the Wild West West, especially if Tesla is able to invent the radio earlier.
"What shall we do with a drunken sailor.
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Ear-lye in the mor-ning?"

Dr. Lovelace had 'em.... ANYTHING is possible in the Steampunk West! (yes, I've seen 'em all ;))
Speaking of Dr. Lovelace does anyone have any ideas on how we could believably get such a figure in the Old West? Maybe the son of Latin American nobility who was cut out of the line for deformities? I did mention him building a city of tomorrow and gathering the worlds greatest geniuses together in one place.
 
Well there's this one design for a steampunk helicopter, though I'm not to sure how practical the design is. Maybe have it act as a type of flying gunship out west or in some other conflict.
cw1v107-01b.jpg
With all of these crazy technological advancements in the 19th century it'll probably have a profound effect on the American gilded age.
I think it would take a lot to create a functional helicopter. The advances in design needed to get the blades to work by putting them on hinges took a lot of experimentation

Actually airships could be pretty useful as scouting craft out in the Wild West West, especially if Tesla is able to invent the radio earlier.

Speaking of Dr. Lovelace does anyone have any ideas on how we could believably get such a figure in the Old West? Maybe the son of Latin American nobility who was cut out of the line for deformities? I did mention him building a city of tomorrow and gathering the worlds greatest geniuses together in one place.
Well his origin in TWWW was that his family was entitled to most of southern California due to a Spanish land grant. In OTL the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo was meant to honor all old Mexican Land grants. So I'm not sure what circumstances would have denied Loveless his claim within the story of TWWW, but of course in OTL many Hispanic families were forced to give up their land claims through intimidation and worse up until the 20th century. There was also a man named James Reavis who tried to pull off one of the biggest cons in history by forging documents that would have entitled his wife to much of southern Arizona. Perhaps another figure like Loveless could pull off such a scheme.
Peralta Grant.jpg


If you also want to go with your plan for a "City of the Future Out West" maybe you should ask how far west you want to go. There wear a lot of attempts by utopian idealists to build self sustaining communities during the first half of the 1800s. Nassau Plantation being one created by German immigrants in Texas. Mormon leader Joseph Smith also came up with a plan called "Plat of Zion" meant for a self sustaining city that even people around today have been trying to build. Maybe you can have a POD that involves the Mormon Church building a "Plat of Zion". Either by Brigham Young's faction in Utah or one of the other factions that formed like James Jesse Strang's.
 
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I can still see horses being in common use in the west, even with the steampunk vehicles emerging in this alternate industrial age. Considering how wild the west would still be with the lack of major highways and the railroads still under construction. Limiting the availability of replacement parts for any auto carriages or steam cycles.
I think it would take a lot to create a functional helicopter. The advances in design needed to get the blades to work by putting them on hinges took a lot of experimentation
True. Was thinking of a hybrid craft between your standard steampunk airship and helicopters.
Well his origin in TWWW was that his family was entitled to most of southern California due to a Spanish land grant. In OTL the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo was meant to honor all old Mexican Land grants. So I'm not sure what circumstances would have denied Loveless his claim within the story of TWWW, but of course in OTL many Hispanic families were forced to give up their land claims through intimidation and worse up until the 20th century. There was also a man named James Reavis who tried to pull off one of the biggest cons in history by forging documents that would have entitled his wife to much of southern Arizona. Perhaps another figure like Loveless could pull off such a scheme.
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Could definitely make for an interesting story.
If you also want to go with your plan for a "City of the Future Out West" maybe you should ask how far west you want to go. There wear a lot of attempts by utopian idealists to build self sustaining communities during the first half of the 1800s. Nassau Plantation being one created by German immigrants in Texas. Mormon leader Joseph Smith also came up with a plan called "Plat of Zion" meant for a self sustaining city that even people around today have been trying to build. Maybe you can have a POD that involves the Mormon Church building a "Plat of Zion". Either by Brigham Young's faction in Utah or one of the other factions that formed like James Jesse Strang's.
Was thinking of it being off of various 19th century Utopian movements, with a specific focus on science and industry. Of course people being people it'll eventually gain the vices of any city.
 
Also let's not forget about the Bone_Wars which saw one of the biggest rivalries in the American west. As the two rival paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marshall competed viciously against one another across the American West during the Gilded Age. Who knows maybe have one of them reportedly witness one of the supposed River Dinos cryptids out west in the four corners region. Which actually led to an earlier emergence of avian dinosaur gaining traction amongst the scientific community.
 
I can still see horses being in common use in the west, even with the steampunk vehicles emerging in this alternate industrial age. Considering how wild the west would still be with the lack of major highways and the railroads still under construction. Limiting the availability of replacement parts for any auto carriages or steam cycles.

True. Was thinking of a hybrid craft between your standard steampunk airship and helicopters.

Could definitely make for an interesting story.

Was thinking of it being off of various 19th century Utopian movements, with a specific focus on science and industry. Of course people being people it'll eventually gain the vices of any city.

Sounds interesting
Also let's not forget about the Bone_Wars which saw one of the biggest rivalries in the American west. As the two rival paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marshall competed viciously against one another across the American West during the Gilded Age. Who knows maybe have one of them reportedly witness one of the supposed River Dinos cryptids out west in the four corners region. Which actually led to an earlier emergence of avian dinosaur gaining traction amongst the scientific community.
Lol I haven't looked much into Cryptozoology since I was a teenager, but I remember this story. Maybe on of them could even witness the Thunderbird Pterosaur that supposedly two cowboys killed in 1890. I read about that story in the Creationist book Dinosaur's by Design that I got from church as a kid, and I found another copy of that story online. Michael Crichton wrote a novel set around the Bone Wars before he died titled Dragon Teeth. I still need to finish it for some personal inspiration of my own

Also to add on to the details I gave earlier about Browning's Flapper rifle. I was curious if he really did make that designs work with black powder, and the claims that he did match up with the timeline of when smokless 44-40 cartridges were available. He patented his design in 1892 after creating his first model based on a Winchester 1873 in the year 1890. Winchester 1873s were mostly made to fire WCF 44-40 cartridges, and smokeless versions of it were apparently not made until 1895. So now I wonder if the 44 Henry cartridge that Winchester model 1866s would have provided enough gas pressure to operate a similar system with the 44 Henry's 26-28 grain load of BP in comparison to the 44 WCF's 40 grain load. If not I imagine it could be made to operate on a Spencer carbine. I have also thought that the Spencer could have been modified to cock the hammer with the cycle of the lever, like the Winchester, if an attachment were made for it's lever with gear teeth that interacted with a modified hammer that had matching teeth on the outside. Gun mode kits could have had a great market in the post-ACW era much like it they have today
 
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Sounds interesting

Lol I haven't looked much into Cryptozoology since I was a teenager, but I remember this story. Maybe on of them could even witness the Thunderbird Pterosaur that supposedly two cowboys killed in 1890. I read about that story in the Creationist book Dinosaur's by Design that I got from church as a kid, and I found another copy of that story online. Michael Crichton wrote a novel set around the Bone Wars before he died titled Dragon Teeth. I still need to finish it for some personal inspiration of my own
LoL. Admittedly I thought some supposed cryptid and UFO sightings could be a good way to get some more fantastical elements in. Without it going full on ASB in the process. Though still I'd like to keep it a bare minimum.
Also to add on to the details I gave earlier about Browning's Flapper rifle. I was curious if he really did make that designs work with black powder, and the claims that he did match up with the timeline of when smokless 44-40 cartridges were available. He patented his design in 1892 after creating his first model based on a Winchester 1873 in the year 1890. Winchester 1873s were mostly made to fire WCF 44-40 cartridges, and smokeless versions of it were apparently not made until 1895. So now I wonder if the 44 Henry cartridge that Winchester model 1866s would have provided enough gas pressure to operate a similar system with the 44 Henry's 26-28 grain load of BP in comparison to the 44 WCF's 40 grain load. If not I imagine it could be made to operate on a Spencer carbine. I have also thought that the Spencer could have been modified to cock the hammer with the cycle of the lever, like the Winchester, if an attachment were made for it's lever with gear teeth that interacted with a modified hammer that had matching teeth on the outside. Gun mode kits could have had a great market in the post-ACW era much like it they have today
Well the Outlaws of the Wild West are going to have fun with those that's for sure. Was actually thinking about a steampunk rifle with three revolver cylinders that once one of the cylinders are used up, automatically rotates and is replaced by one of the other two. Though I'm not sure how plausible it is...
 

marathag

Banned
I was curious if he really did make that designs work with black powder,
No reason why it shouldn't, it works on muzzle blast, you change the size of the cup till the op lever moves as far as was designed.

Maxim built hundreds of MG before he tested one with smokeless powder.
 
LoL. Admittedly I thought some supposed cryptid and UFO sightings could be a good way to get some more fantastical elements in. Without it going full on ASB in the process. Though still I'd like to keep it a bare minimum.

Well the Outlaws of the Wild West are going to have fun with those that's for sure. Was actually thinking about a steampunk rifle with three revolver cylinders that once one of the cylinders are used up, automatically rotates and is replaced by one of the other two. Though I'm not sure how plausible it is...
Well I'm not sure how the automatic rotation of a new cylinder may be possible, but multi cylinder revolvers were invented in OTL. Maybe a mechanical counter could be attached to the trigger, then when the trigger has been pulled enough times to use up the rounds in one cylinder the counter activates a spring that rotates a new cylinder into position. I'm not sure how you could simplify a system like that to be practicle, so I think manually rotating a new cylinder in like with the Enouy revolver would be best. Or a chain gun could be a good alternative, like the Treeby or Guycot chain guns, converted to fire brass cartridges of course lol
 
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Well I'm not sure how the automatic rotation of a new cylinder may be possible, but multi cylinder revolvers were invented in OTL. Maybe a mechanical counter could be attached to the trigger, then when the trigger has been pulled enough times to use up the rounds in one cylinder the counter activates a spring that rotates a new cylinder into position. I'm not sure how you could simplify a system like that to be practicle, so I think manually rotating a new cylinder in like with the Enouy revolver would be best. Or a chain gun could be a good alternative, like the Treeby or Guycot chain guns, converted to fire brass cartridges of course lol
Admittedly I was thinking of the clockwork guns you pointed out earlier on this thread. Though those chain guns don't look very practical to me...
 
Admittedly I was thinking of the clockwork guns you pointed out earlier on this thread. Though those chain guns don't look very practical to me...
A similar idea to the chain gun used in a more modern revolver was the Dardick revolver. I have had similar ideas on a steampunk revolving rifle. But I would try to increase ammo capacity through the use of a cartridge magazine combined with a mechanical auto ejector. Which others have doen in OTL. I will share the examples I know of in order of my own personal discovery of them.

There was a guy who shared his progress online a few years ago of him converting a Ruger revolver with a Spencer-like tube magazine and gas ejection. He called it the FrankenRuger.

A similar idea was done over a hundred years ago by a guy named Chaine with a modified Webley revolver, but with a mechanical ejector in the form a a finger attached to the trigger. As well as what seems to be a magazine/buttstock in the form of four tubes that spin on an axis

A much simpler mechanical ejector was patented by Silver and Fletcher in the 1880s that Forgotten Weapons made a great video on

Surprisingly the most efficient form of mechanical auto-ejecting revolver that I know if is also the earliest. With the Swiss made Von Steiger revolvers that I learned about through Forgotten Weapons. Unlike in the Silver Fletcher video he shows how well it actually works.

So I think that the Silver Fletcher design is perhaps the most to mass produce, but I'm not sure how well it may work. I also think the Silver Fletcher design could even be incorporated into Richards-Mason style conversions rings used to convert percussion Colts and Remingtons into cartridge firing revolvers.

Another good source of inspiration for Steampunk guns that I know of I are the animations made by GarethWasHere
 
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