USS Elsworth (AMB-1) - completed on page 8

[nönöbär]

The first attempt to print some Snow Crusiers in 1/700. Not so bad. I used two different models that I woundi n the web, have to see which one I will use.



Now they have to be painted red.

[kerick]

I have a bunch of tank roadwheels left over and I wonder how hard it would be to park them under a ship. Lots of scale o rama with a couple of 1/72nd vehicles along with to show scale.

[Rick Lowe]

It is of course "support SHIPS"!

Yes, I knew that - but where's the fun in reading it correctly?    

[nönöbär]

The Amphibious Base needs tracks to mode on land, or better said to move on ice. As it should operation on the Antarctic Ice.

To reduce the drag inside the water, they will not be installed besides the hull, but integrated on its lower side. So here is a frist test-prinf of one of them:



Plan is to have four of them, two on the side, one at the box and ine at the stern.

[PR19_Kit]

Plan is to have four of them, two on the side, one at the box and ine at the stern.

That'll lower the ground pressure nicely, down to a few hundred tons/sq. ft. 

[Rick Lowe]

Plan is to have four of them, two on the side, one at the box and ine at the stern.

That'll lower the ground pressure nicely, down to a few hundred tons/sq. ft. 

Hey, every little bit helps... 

[kerick]

That was the totally impractical side of the land battleship. No one ever seemed to calculate out what it would take to make it actually move. Between the horsepower required and having enough track to manage the ground pressure it just wasn't going to work. At least with 1930s tech.
But it made great magazine cover illustrations!

[nönöbär]

@kerick Sure, this would never work. But as you said, it looks good on a magazine cover

So, while I am still working on hull details and hangars, I started to paint the flight deck:



The island is still a dummy.

And of course the Snow Cruisers. Two different ones printed and I like the smaller one better (the one at the front) . Just have to complete the paint job for it.

[kerick]

So just for giggles I decided to very roughly calc how much track would be needed to give an Essex class carrier the ground pressure of a pickup truck. 40,000 tons with a pressure of 40 psi gives about 280 feet of track 50 feet wide. So, with a ship length of about 850 feet and a beam of 93 feet you could cover most of the underside with track and be able to support the weight on firm ground. On ice and snow, it seems you would have one extreme or the other to drive on. Now figuring out the power needed to move all this at a speed of say, 20 mph is out of my league.
It would be interesting to see if that would be more or less than the power used to drive the ship through water. 

[nönöbär]

The tracks in two sizes are printed now. Better to ha ve a few more than needed, just in case on print is not so good.



@kerick The USS Elsworth is smaller than a Essex class carrier, only 186m compared to the 265m of real carrier. And it only can make 10km/h - about 6mph. So much less power is needed 

[Captain Canada]

Excellent stuff !

[buzzbomb]

Moving along, the tracks look very nice for what they are aimed for

[kerick]

Moving along, the tracks look very nice for what they are aimed for

They will do nicely!

The tracks in two sizes are printed now. Better to ha ve a few more than needed, just in case on print is not so good.



@kerick The USS Elsworth is smaller than a Essex class carrier, only 186m compared to the 265m of real carrier. And it only can make 10km/h - about 6mph. So much less power is needed 

I was using 40,000 tons for gross loaded weight which would be too high for the Elsworth. But we need to consider the weight of the tracks and all the machinery to transfer power to the tracks. Another 5000 tons or so?
I'm just joking around but the mechanical requirements for such a machine intrigues me. Of course there is the problem of having enough power to go up a hill of any serious grade. None of this has considered how to stop such a beast. Maybe the ships power plant driving generators powering electric motors on the props or electric motors driving each set of tracks. Regenerative braking to charge batteries for extra power to the tracks for acceleration or hill climbing.  Hmmmm......

[PR19_Kit]

Just bung it in reverse...................

Same a ship does. 

[tahsin]

So many years in the past l had calculated the Leopard 2 running gear was (very roughly) coming to a ton of weight per square meter of track surface.