Thinking of doing some technological divergence in the timeline, now, rather than political squabbling or wars. Hmm, I've also been thinking of posting a new topic and reposting the more refined portions of my timeline thus far, to make it more accessable. I've tried to go for a non-ASB quasi-steampunk feel here.
Since a lot of this timeline will be occuring 20 years or more after the POD, I might be able to introduce my first butterflied historical figures - a British engineering prodigy born post PoD, who acts as a counterbalance to fast German technological development and becomes a prominent rival of the German automobile inventor and engineering prodigy Karl Benz - this could also form part of a broader technological rivalry between steam and internal combustion technology.
I might also have this British fellow incorporate elements of mass-production in his vehicle manufacture - after all, Henry Ford's likely to get butterflied since he was born in 1863 (well after the PoD), and having his genius on the side of the GRI-friendly Americans makes things just a bit too unfair for the Brits and French.
Again, as always, feel free to tell me if I've screwed up horribly.
...
After the two defining wars for Germany and Italy in the 1860s - the American Civil War and the Luxembourg War, three technologies began to develop at a quick pace - the steam engine, the firearm and the dirigible. All three of these would come to define the most horrific event of the first ten years of the 20th century - an event historians would later refer to as the "First World War".
In 1865, during the American Civil War, a young German military officer by the name of Ferdinand von Zeppelin was deployed to an American aeronautic surveillance unit as part of Germany's deployment to aid the Union against the French-backed Confederate forces. He developed a strong interest in ballooning technology and its potential military and civilian applications.
In 1867, during the last year of the conflict, a Minié ball fired from a French rifle found Zeppelin's left leg. While he recovered in hospital, Zeppelin took this time to work on his concepts for a guidable balloon. When he was informed that his injury was so grievous as to preclude him from re-entering military service, he accepted his honourable discharge.
Meanwhile, during the Luxembourg War, the French, seeing the success of the Needle Gun in the Balkan War and the American Civil War, developed their own breech-loading rifle, the Chassepot. With double the range and a wounding capability which put the earlier Minié rifles to shame, the Germans were severely outclassed - victory for the French in the Luxembourg may have been possible if the Chassepot had been in wider use by the time of the war.
In 1867, the German government was forced to re-adapt their design into something more powerful, longer-ranged and modern. They started a competition amongst the various weapons firms not only in the German empire itself (such as Dreyse and Steyr-Mannilicher), but also amongst firms in the various nations friendly to German interests - Italy, Romania, Russia, the United States and Luxembourg, amongst others. The objective was to either improve the Needle Gun design, or develop an original design that was similar but superior.
Zeppelin, after his discharge, spent the next 10 months in relative seclusion, recovering physically as well as psychologically from the wound which forced his early retirement. Eventually, he decided to move to the United States to study aeronautics. He met up with one of his American superiors from the civil war, professor Thaddeus Lowe. Together, they worked on many of the problems surrounding the development of guidable balloons.
Back in Germany, the incredible success of the steam locomotives in crushing the French in the Luxembourg War leads to the military and private sectors around the globe postulating about the potential of land-based steam vehicles which could move quickly and carry large payloads without being vulnerable to the dangers of railroad sabotage or wear-and-tear. Whilst many steam-powered land vehicles had been in the making since the 18th century, it was only now that people were willing to take the concept seriously.
The English, fearful of the growing threat of the Berlin Treaty bloc, were amongst the most enthusiastic supporters for the development of rail-free steam locomotive technology. A young engineering prodigy and inventor, William Whitney, from Northumberland in England (born March 17, 1848), has been tinkering with everything mechanical since he was a child. He passed the entrance exam for the mechanical engineering course at Oxford University at the age of 14. In 1868, at the age of 20, he had graduated and started his own workshop, where he continued to work on steam cars and quadricycles.
By 1870, the German needle rifle replacement competition was reaching its conclusion. Waffenfabrik von Dreyse, having secured examples of modern Union firearms for research and study during the American Civil War, were intrigued by the rim-fire Henry Model 1860, as well as the experimental center-fire rifles such as the Springfield Model 1866, chambered in .50-70.
Dreyse, in their efforts to develop a rifle, decided to adapt their older Needle Gun rather than go with an all-new design. Nevertheless, the rifle was eventually remade from the ground up: its long firing needle reduced to a short stub, its firing chamber equipped with ejectors and reforged to accomodate centerfire cartridge ammunition, its barrel narrowed to accomodate narrow, round-nosed 10mm bullets. By the time it was done, the "needle gun" had become something completely different - the Dreyse bolt repeater, or Dreyse M1870.
Incorporating elements such as the Henry's tube-fed magazine (capable of holding ten rounds), the Springfield's firing chamber and ammunition design, as well as the classic Dreyse locking bolt, the M1870 became the most advanced rifle in military service in the world upon its adoption by the German Army in 1871.
Over in England, William Whitney and his workshop-turned factory have gained widespread attention after he began selling affordable (relatively speaking) steam cars to upper and upper-middle-class residents in 1871. A new type of boiler he had developed, a smaller, simpler and more efficient version of the vertical-tube boilers used by the narrow-gauge rail locomotives in the Welsh slate mines since the 1860s, was key to the ability to make the personal steam vehicle workable. It was a six-wheeled vehicle that used solid vulcanised rubber tyres, and could carrry ten people. On flat ground, it had a cruising speed of 18 kilometres an hour.
However, the most interesting innovation was in the production of this steam vehicle. He developed a method he called "flow-on manufacture", where each worker was assigned an individual role making or assembling standardised components before passing on the piece to the next person on the assembly floor, who in turn had their own individual role. Production was made cheaper, quicker and more efficient. For the first time, people outside the aristocracy and upper-class could have their own horseless vehicles.
Back in America, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, under the tutelage of Thaddeus Lowe, developed and matured his dirigible concepts quickly, and by 1871 his rough conceptual sketches had been transformed into detailed designs. They were designed to use hydrogen, a gas which he and his mentor had spent quite a while studying and assessing. Whilst its inflammability was a problem, the main obstacle was the inability to synthesise the thousands upon thousands of gallons required to fill a single one of Zeppelin's ship designs.
In 1872, they make a breakthrough. They had developed the "water gas process", a technique through which massive quantities of hydrogen could be synthesised for wide-scale commercial or public use. Zeppelin begins construction of the first of a series of miniature-scale models as proofs-of-concept. The first successful one, which he patents in 1873, is a mere toy, a metre long football-shaped rigid-frame balloon with a spring-loaded propellor; nonetheless, it works perfectly.
Back in Britain, the Hexamotive, or Hexadic Locomotive, is gaining popularity in the early seventies. Whitney Engines Co. is putting out 200 cars a year as of 1874 - a large number, but still not enough to meet the ever increasing demand from both the civil and military markets. It would not be until 1875, when Whitney would hear of the German development of assembly-line techniques with their new M1870 rifles, and how parts were moved along the line using a automated pulley system, that this problem would be resolved. Production jumped to 2500 units per annum by 1876.
Also in 1876, Zeppelin, having finished his studies abroad, returns to Germany. He sets about developing a larger-scale model, dipping into his personal funds as well as asking for donations. In 1877, he travels to Berlin, ready to unveil his model to the Kaiser, the military chiefs and to civil interests. He impresses the crowd by flying his miniature rigid airship, a mere 75 metres long and capable of carrying a usable payload of just over two tonnes, over the nearby buildings before landing in the field in front of where the crowd is waiting. Three men on the ground, some of Zeppelin's research assistants, help with mooring the craft as it lands.
Zeppelin tells the crowd that his full scale models, hundreds of metres long, would be capable of speeds over thirty kilometres an hour and have a usable payload of close to ten tonnes. He suggests the ideas of the Zeppelin airships supplanting ocean liners for trans-Atlantic voyages or transporting troops over the most hostile terrain. He also makes note of the French, Germany's arch-rival, and their development of similar dirigible technology by the French in the wake of the Luxembourg War. Whilst the interest of the various parties present is piqued, it would not be until 1879 when he would receive funding from the German military to develop large cargo airships.
...
Too ASB? Or is this actually believable? Any tech geniuses out there?
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=2377016