A new weapon?

NapoleonXIV

Banned
I've often wondered about this weapon

Imagine you have a small cylinder, closable at both ends, into which you can introduce a fairly high steam pressure, fairly quickly
On top of this you have a slit, which is controlled by a gate, on top of this is a hopper.

In the hopper are arrows, all are pointed in the same direction, all have a solid thingie in place of fletching, which is just about the size of the cylinder.

You open the gate and one end of the cylinder, then introduce the steam pressure. The arrow which dropped down flies out at considerable velocity and another drops in, and is just as quickly shot in turn then another, etc,

The arrows are bodkin tipped, no bigger than the shaft and the gate is shaped to fit the shaft and the "thingie". The arrow has the weight of all the other arrows in the hopper, (which is kept replenished as it drops) so the arrow will drop into the pressure stream before the stream can push it out thru the narrow slit.

Steam powered arrow shooting machine gun.

Two questions;

Would this work? (why not, a simple no will fetch you a steampowered arrow in the kister, and the impossible ones hurt a lot more)

What would happen if the Romans thought it up? I don't see it as beyond them, what with Hero and everything.
 
MrP

MrP

Banned
Interesting.

Accuracy? Presumably it'll be part of the whole scorpions, ballistas &c paraphernalia, since it will involve a lot of steam pressure. Defensive potential for settlements, maybe?
 

EvolvedSaurian

I have no idea if it would work since I can't get a picture of it in my head.

If it did work and the Romans got hold of it, expect fields of dead barbarians in the next few years.

Then barbarians who had served in the legions would return home with the knowledge and tools needed to build one and fields of dead Romans start appearing.


I'd rather like something like this to appear in the Americas. Imagine Aztecs using these with blunt arrows to capture more people to sacrifice.
 

Berra

It don't look that practical since you need a lot of heat all the time so you don't get supriced and its not safe. You could easeli burn yourself. Don't try this at home.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Berra said:
It don't look that practical since you need a lot of heat all the time so you don't get supriced and its not safe. You could easeli burn yourself. Don't try this at home.
Click to expand...

It's not a Mythbusters experiment, it's something for the Roman legions. I'm not going to build an arbalest either, don't worry.:p

Hell, I'll just use it, workability be damned, it's whether you make it believable that counts.
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
Not workable. The steam resevoir is not going to be large enough to contain enough pressurized steam to be either easily portable or provide any great rate or range of fire. On top of that the steam barrel and arrow part doesn't seem workable in maintaing pressure once an arrow is fired.

This may work like some steam powered version of a Gatling Gun, but I suspect the rate of fire and range will be inferior to archers.
 

monkey

Banned
The way this is described it sounds like the steam presure is going to escape out the hopper. If it is fed through the breach either manualy or through a hopper, a secure seal needs to be made with the steam nozle, which will in turn will need a buterfly or ball valve which also needs to seal securly. A muzle loading version will be easier. Lead balls might be a better prodjectile also especialy on a breach loading version.

A boiler large enough to provide a good head of steam for this weapon is going to be large and in no way portable, maybe built in to the city walls or towers. If the boiler does not have a reliable presure gauge and realease valve it will likely explode providing a handy breach in the wall for your enemys.

Will not have as high a muzle velocity as gunpowder based weapons so you will probably need a heavier prodjectile to get the most enerjy from steams slower rate of expantion.

In short probably more efective, cheaper, and reliable to arm ten men with cross bows.

Stephen Wordsworth
 

Mark

What prevents teh steam from going around the arrow? If you place a disk at the back of the arrow, then the aerodynamics are shot. Also, depending on the invention date, I doubt they could have gotten the tolerances small enough to build up enough pressure to provide sufficient force to the arrow.
 

The Abyss

NapoleonXIV said:
Would this work? (why not, a simple no will fetch you a steampowered arrow in the kister, and the impossible ones hurt a lot more)

What would happen if the Romans thought it up? I don't see it as beyond them, what with Hero and everything.
Click to expand...
1. i think it would work, it would maybe need some fine tuning regarding accuracy.
2. it would give them an edge in battle thus helping them conquer and/or maintain more land.
 

bugboy

IMO, it doesn't sound robust or easily produced enough to be decisive.

It would be prone to hopper jams, leaky seals and little unreliabilites like that.

You would have to have considerable machining capabilities before it could be produced in quality and numbers

The Romans did invent a repeating ballista that could fire 3x as fast as a normal one, but they never used it for reasons like these.
 
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Berra

I think that ordinary gunpowder weapons are underestemated from the suspension of disbelif point of wive. Its not more complex than the steam gun and you need less explaining.
 

Tielhard

Banned
No it won't work. Lots of reasons.

1) Wet or dry steam. Wet steam - condensation everywhere thing jamms. Dry steam dead operator.
2) Goodness of fit Romans could not build tight enough seals to get a sensible steam pressure
3) To stabilise needs a spiral groove or thingy to hard for Romans to build.
4) Hard to build HP steam plant with Roman metalurgy.
5) Heavy.
6) Uses lots of water as no recuperation is possible.
7) Uses lots of wood.
8) Hard to aim I would think.
 
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