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Post Info TOPIC: Wacky inventions during the war...
nurgle


Sergeant

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Wacky inventions during the war...
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Hi,

I think it would be interesting if there was some information on the many wacko "War-winning" inventions...

enclosed is the front cover from Electrical experimenter from 1916...

(I had an almost complete set to 1919, but all lost in the Ipswich floods)

luckily I had this one scanned in., but there were many stupid, and seriously wierd ones. any more...

regards, Sandy



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Gwyn Evans


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How interesting. I don't suppose you have page 66 scanned by any chance?

Gwyn

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Roger Todd


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You can download it here in a variety of formats:

http://archive.org/details/n10electricalexperi05gern

Oddly it's dated February 1918, but appears to be the same issue (same cover etc.). I've attached jpegs of the relevant pages (for some reason I had to reduce the second page and really ramp down the quality to get the file small enough to upload but keep the image large enough to read the text).



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d_fernetti


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"My name is HARD TACK MAN!"

 

Armour.jpg



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nurgle


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Hi, great one. actually that one could be practical.

I am more interested in the impractical...

This stupid idea to save men "wastes in Bands" was impossible, as any gramarphone person would point out that needle jump would be impossible to control...

Regards, Sandy



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Gwyn Evans


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Thanks Roger

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Roger Todd


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Looks like you and I are the only ones interested in it...



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James H


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I'm interested.



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"Sometimes things that are not true are included in Wikipedia. While at first glance that may appear like a very great problem for Wikipedia, in reality is it not. In fact, it's a good thing." - Wikipedia.
Roger Todd


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Thee and me and he, that's three.

Well stone me, I'm a poet and didn't know it...



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Rectalgia


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Oh well then, Helmet gun of 1916 (link)
Here is a picture of the 1953 version, an obvious improvement which would have suited both trench and (with trivial adjustments provided for) tunnel warfare:

 

helmetpistol.jpg

Alas, I also had one for a kerosene-powered pogo-stick too but ImageShack ate it when I wasn't watching.  Unfortunately, assured ignition of that device required a fairly rich fuel:air mixture (accordingly 200 times more energetic w/w than TNT, incredible but true, the power of the thermobaric bomb, well ahead of its time) which, combined with the natural cylinder bore taken from the 1¼ inch (water pipe) inner reciprocating tube and the (American, I think) inventor's ambitious choice of a 1:2 "under-square" configuration - that is a 2½ inch stroke, giving just over 3 cu in or 50.275 cc cylinder volume - also his considerable avoirdupois contributing great compression, combined with the surprising efficiency of a linear engine with but a single sliding surface - well, we need no pictures of his demise, do we? Though it's sad his rightful place in history as the first man (or indeed any life form) to achieve low earth orbit is largely ignored, especially in Russia.



-- Edited by Rectalgia on Tuesday 2nd of July 2013 10:39:22 PM

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Rectalgia


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Ah, thanks TCT. Must have a Finn in my ancestry. Would never know my Dad was a mechanic though. Post edited to preserve the obvious versimiltude of the account.  Actually, I know there is at least one patent application for such a thing, I really did have that picture - and I think the stroke was much, much greater.

The helmet-mounted gun fired by blowing through a tube sounds awfully like that shown in the link for the "Helmet gun of 1916".



-- Edited by Rectalgia on Tuesday 2nd of July 2013 10:43:42 PM

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TinCanTadpole


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Hmmm, that's quite a find, Steve! It reminds me of a comic strip I read as a kid, in which someone had a hat/helmet-mounted gun fired by blowing through a tube. Can't remember if it was a Dandy/Beano story, or what.

A kerosene-powered pogo stick???!!! Madness! One thing I will point out though, is the technicality that 1.25 inch bore by 2.5 inch stroke is undersquare, not oversquare. Oversquare is for short stroke pistons, not long stroke.

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TinCanTadpole


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I don't remember much about the comic-strip, but I have an idea it was a helmet that looked a bit like a rounded-off saucepan, with the "handle" being the cylindrical barrel! It was somewhat smaller than the bulky contraption pictured in that patent.

"Much, much greater" stroke? What, like several thousand feet?

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Rectalgia


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Well, effectively, if the explosion was violent enough (but no suitable propellant exists, or ever could unless I miss my guess). No, more like the normal muscle-powered pogo stroke of some 6-8 inches I guess, body weight would never compress the piston that far but anything's fair in love, war and patent applications. Or maybe the compression and exhaust strokes were different lengths (a little ingenuity with the valving) I simply don't remember enough.

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nurgle


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it had been attributed to Napoleon that he once said "there is a field marshals baton on every soldiers knapsack"... probably what he meant was there was the Potential for such.

as almost ever soldier would have a different opinion on how any war could be won... (an no doubt a few would have had ideas better than many of the generals at the time)

i find it interesting to see all the impractical ideas that people come up with, which with the slightest serious thought would be ruled out...

The big wheel weapon sound great fun, but seriously, could have been seen for miles before it even reached the front, drawing every long range gun's ire.

and considering a faire amount of the war was fought in the mud, I wonder how it would have made it through the first puddle...

If I remember my days in cadets, hard tack man could have been made out to the army biscuits... (I know I cracked a tooth on one)

where was the model of the big wheel...?

I know one of the great alternative thinkers of the era,  Gersenbeck, publisher and major author of the Scientific and also electrical experimenter magazines, was full of ideas... but the readers submissions were truly also wacky...

regards, Sandy

 



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Rectalgia


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nurgle wrote:
...

where was the model of the big wheel...?

I know one of the great alternative thinkers of the era,  Gersenbeck, publisher and major author of the Scientific and also electrical experimenter magazines, was full of ideas... but the readers submissions were truly also wacky...

regards, Sandy

 

 See http://landships.activeboard.com/t53815998/models-at-muse-des-blinds/ Sandy



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nurgle


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Much appreciated. regards, Sandy



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