Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is the Artifact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time. The tank was the destiny of military technology. As artillery evolved became a dominant force and armed conflict of the nineteenth century, it still suffered from a severe
mobility problem. In order to use such weapons outside of fortified defense locations, you had to haul them, often by animal labor, and set them up as needed, all of which made the artillery incredibly vulnerable to attack. But if heavy artillery could be made both self propelled and armored, then the battlefield will be changed forever. And so it was. The tank became a defining technology of the first in Second World Wars, and remains an important part of modern
ground warfare. The evolution of the tank is in its entirety a fascinating and terrifying journey. But today I want to focus on an early proposal to the design challenges involved. Today I'm going to talk about the pet rail wheel. Imagine iron behemoths advancing across a broken battlefield, not on wheels, nor mechanical legs, but a curious combination of the two. Quote big wheels upon which the great elephant like feet
were hung. Those are the words of H. G. Wells, whose n three short story The Land Ironclads, in some ways forecasted the shape of armored warfare to come. What Wells is describing here was an actual proposal for the challenges of all terrain recognized transport. While tracks would become the chosen technology for heavy vehicles on soft ground, Brahma Joseph Diplock proposed a different solution in eight in his publication A New System of Heavy Goods Transport on Common Roads.
He outlined a series of sixteen stumpy feet hanging from the outside of the wheel on pivots, so that as the wheel rotates, the feet are driven down. In succession the wheel turns the feet march. The pet rail wheel is similar to the boidle or dreadnought wheel, a design which lined railway wheels with articulated rails for use on the ground. It too provided footing, but without the use
of multiple marching elephant feet. The dreadnought wheel saw some use, but the pet rail wheel only took to the battlefield in Wells science fiction, before being abandoned by its creator
in favor of track technology. As Richard o'gorquez points out in the book Tanks one Years of Evolution Continue, this track technology emerged out of applications in tractor designed by several individuals, but credit for its use in armed warfare, at least in the West, is often credited to Britain's Colonel Ernest Swinton, who saw it as a possible solution to transporting soldiers across rough landscape under armored protection from
machine gun fire. Swinton's convictions would help bring about the nineteen fifteen debut of the first British Mark one tank prototype, dubbed Little Willie. It is frankly surprising that the pet
rail wheel does not emerge more in science fiction. In the Titanic War, Machines of such works as Star Wars, The Clone Wars, Battle Tech Gundam or Warhammer forty, such as the Shadow cast by twentieth century tank Warfare and are enduring fascination with bio mimetic walking machines, But the pet rail wheel marches on popping up in various robotics designs such as a two thousand twelve design for a wall climbing robot with bio mimetic gecko feet by wu
at All in Advanced Mechatronics and Memes Devices. Similar designs envisioned pet rail wheels on robots for use in planetary exploration. Perhaps the age of the pet rail wheel is yet at hand, just at a much smaller scale and on far different terrains than wells envisioned. Tune into additional installments of the artifact each week, hosted by either Joe or myself. As always, you can email us at contact. It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your
Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.