Landships II

JC Carbonel · Captain

any mechanical mole around ?

Centurion · Legend

JC Carbonel wrote:

Even the related idea of Howard Hughes Sr of using a drilling bit (like for petrol exploration of course) at the horizontal and then pushing a mine when the target is reached I have never found any proof it was tested.
I wonder if any of you has more information on the subject ?

Steerable drilling bits are fairly widely used in today's oil and gas exploration and production industry. One of the things that prompted Sadaam to invade Kuwait was the use of this technology to access reservoirs on the Iraqi side of the border. The Bahrainis may well have attempted to use this approach to access the Qatari gas fields but 's****d up and nearly caused a blow out on a marine rig (not a nice thing to happen).
The technique is often used legitimately to allow a single marine rig to access more than one reservoir without having to reloccate the rig.

Gwyn Evans · Legend

I've never heard of underground moles as described, but some years ago I wrote a very interesting and worth publishing (in case there's any publishers out there...) book on British unmanned land weapons developed between 1915 and 1951.

There was a WW2 development that looked rather like a torpedo but was intended to travel overland, with Archimedian screw threads around it to pull it along.� As I recall the propulsion was intended to work because the front and rear�halves of this strange contraption revolved in opposite directions.� No idea if it actually worked.� It certainly didn't impress the powers that be.

Gwyn�

James H · Legend

Without wishing to bring Thunderbirds into it . . . again . . . I can only offer the notorious subterranean criminal mastermind The Black Sapper, about whom I remember reading as a kid in the 1950s/60s, but who apparently first appeared in the 1920s or 30s:

-- Edited by James H at 23:22, 2007-08-22

Roger Todd · Legend

There was the magnificently baroque Nellie trenchdigger of WW2 (instigated by Churchill). And there's a photo of an Austrian tunneling machine during WW1 which I'll try and scan soon.

d_fernetti · Hero

Bonjour monsieur Carbonel!
I'm a frquent reader of your website and someday, I'll have to build a gyroptere too!
Regarding the mechanical moles, on the book "War underground" by Alexander Barrie, there was a description of a tunelling machine designed to dig under no man's land and leave mines under enemies trenches. However the machine failed and it was abandoned several feet down the terrain surface, and I guess it still is there. Wish I can locate the exact chapter with the description, but the index of this little book is horrid and I guess I'll have to read it all again to find what I meant.

-- Edited by d_fernetti at 00:27, 2007-08-23

Roger Todd · Legend

Here's the Austrian tunneler I mentioned...

Proud parents of a bouncing baby tunnel...

d_fernetti · Hero

That's a scary machine indeed!

JC Carbonel · Captain

Thank you all for your replies . Nellie and the Austrian machine are known to me. I already have the Austrian trench digger on my page on "real" moles� (http://modelshelves.free.fr/dossiers/Taupes_P/page3.html) but the machine described by Mr Fernetti is new to me. More info would be appreciated. I hope to update my mole article in October with a lot of new fictionnal designs and the various patents I found (I got one "Pellucidar-ish" patent from the US during WW2)
All the patents about underground torpedoes are from the early-1916 period which suggests there could have been a "concerted" work on the theme during the late-14+1915 period when every inventor (at least in France) was called to find a way to go through barbed-wire and trenchwork.

JCC

d_fernetti · Hero

Here's from the book "War underground" by Alexander Barrie, page 181:
"The machine consisted of a chassis on wheels carrying a pair of rotating cutters at the front. These cutters wer powered by a two-cylinder compressed air engine which was in turn driven by a miniature generating station installed in the surface. As the compressed air blasted into the cutters they screwed themselves forward tearing out the face ahead and the spoil back. While cutting went on, the machine was stabilized by top and bottom jacks."
That's a little more seems to be the better description, but as I said earlier, I should read several pages to locate any more quotes of descriptions. Here's another perplexing quote from a veteran in that book "This machine showed a a complete disinclination to proceed toward Germany, but preferred to head to Australia by the most direct route" describing how the infernal apparatus had an unexplained tendency to dig its tunnel deeper and deeper.

JC Carbonel · Captain

Thank you
Any idea where the test hapenned ? there is a current rash of "then and now" pictures in French War-history magazines and I think it would be a good joke to have a Google-earth picture with some nondescript field "underneath this field lays an old mole" ...

JCC

d_fernetti · Hero

Hello JC... Yes, but unfortunately I've put the book on the shelves again and just now I see your post. I promise I'll be back with more info on this... soon!
By the way, just read the new articles on modelstories. well done!

JC Carbonel · Captain

I finally found a few devices which could be termed "moles" (called "Torpille Automobile Souterraine" at the time) by Delaunay-Belleville, Breton (not D�put� Breton but maybe someone of his family?) and Howard Hughes.

http://modelarchives.free.fr/Bestiaire/index.html (the link icone is dead wonder why ?)

Breton's subterranean torpedo

As a sample here is Breton's final design. These are small vehicles, of the apparent size of the WW2 Goliath , faraway from the Pellucidar version!

JCC

Centurion · Legend

Roger's KuK tunneling machine was made by a company callered Ritter