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The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

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Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#151

Post by 082349872349872 »

skylanh wrote: post #120
gdubs wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. I want that walker for my woodland, because it looks a lot less damaging to the soil (less soil disruption / compaction). The other thing is it would be nice for climbing to spots that don’t have easy road access. This way you can pick a few trees without devastating a whole area just to reach them.

Draft horse logging; we had it done in a sensitive woodland. It's not particularly fast, and it would be expensive.

For those of you into team[ster]work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NthnHmZT0Go

(for those of you who aren't familiar with the english method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soPp06vwwiI )

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#152

Post by lumberingjack »

hutzlibu wrote: post #146
Meph504 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you aren't from the U.S. but in the southern U.S. growing newer species of Pine (variants of Loblolly Pine). A standard lease is 20 years from seedling to harvest, some older variants can go 30 to 50, but you don't see that being planted any longer and that's all leases maturing. And here, I can assure you they are very much mono culture, evenly spaced, engineered species of trees, almost nothing else ha…

"See the issue is, at least in the southern U.S. they clear cut nearly everything in the 1800s. There is very little old growth left." I pity them. Real forest is something very different, than a wood farm. With the recent droughts and dying out of the monoculture spruce, more and more mixed forest is coming back to europe. Idealism brought a little change, but the big drive was the huge economical loss of the timber…

We lost every ash tree in Ohio in the last 10 years some places it was 40% of the entire Forest

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#153

Post by hutzlibu »

jcims wrote: post #117
hutzlibu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once camped wild with a friend in the middle of a forest. The next morning there was sawing in the distance, no worries. Got closer and closer ... so we hurried to pack our things .. just in time to have our camping place vanished as it was in the path of destruction. I was not aware before how fast they could be. (and I don't know, if we just had bad luck, or he had fun messing us, but we were quite hidden)

That’s some nightmare fuel haha

Well, I think I actually had some dreams in that regard, because there was also a second encounter with unexcpected approaching foresters and this time in a dramatic setting, with a strong thunderstorm approaching and we generally were quite paranoid, because we were in the border area of germany and Czech and we were really scared of the high wildcamping fines that exist in theory and we did not know at that time, that usually you get away with a warning and mostly not even that.

So we felt a bit like hunted ...

(ah yeah, also because a hunter was shooting close to us, without noticing us)

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#154

Post by projektfu »

ghaff wrote: post #53
Firehawke wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely this. With the culling of most corporate R&D groups over the last 20-30 years, DARPA pie-in-the-sky research projects seem to be one of the last real sources for investigating anything that can't be immediately and quickly monetized.

How much real research, as opposed to early-stage product development, has ever happened at corporations? We can easily name a few specific examples (Bell Labs, Xerox PARC) presumably because they weren't the norm. (And there were doubtless some others at companies that weren't as aligned with what's thought of as today's tech industry such as DuPont.)

There’s some, obviously, especially in companies in chemicals and materials. I think the push in the 80s-90s to remove slack from corporations to reward managers and shareholders killed a lot of basic research they were doing for posterity.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#155

Post by 24gttghh »

hutzlibu wrote: post #134
octoberfranklin wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because from a ecological perspective the walkers are superior You sure about that? Soil compaction is the most serious long-term damage caused by timber harvesting. It's why only tracked harvesters driven by highly-paid fellers are allowed off the gravel. The masses of everyday log-truck drivers (and their wheeled vehicles) are not allowed on the dirt. You want the ground pressure spread out as much as possible, n…

I am not sure about compaction compared to a tracked forester. Physics implies that tracked ones are better, for that, yes. But they rip up even more surface. I believe it is a question, how often the specific path has to be passed by by a forester. "It's why only tracked harvesters driven by highly-paid fellers are allowed off the gravel." And this is sadly not true for germany or other parts of europe I know about.…

This is a good example of the range of equipment I have seen:

https://www.mainecustomwoodlands.com/maine-custom-woodlands-...

Only thing non-tracked that goes off the gravel logging roads would be the Skidder (it literally drags bunches, or 'hitches' of trees to the transport vehicles). And even that might be partially or fully-tracked.

The feller, slasher, excavator, bulldozer, etc. are all tracked from what I've seen.

Mandatory? Doubtful. But they are most practical in the rough terrain.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#156

Post by uryga »

hellweaver666 wrote: post #148
iso1210 wrote: post #7

Hey, guys, you ever see that really old movie, Empire Strikes Back?

If you go to the Clone Wars you'll see vehicles with six legs that look a lot closer to this one!

they're called AT-TE for anyone who wants to google it

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#158

Post by gdubs »

twothamendment wrote: post #107
gdubs wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That timber harvester looks amazing . As I commented below, the weight distribution is a pretty appealing aspect for minimizing the impact on soil. Though, unclear how much better it is then the tank treads which also do a pretty good job distributing weight as far as I know? Super cool though. Would be a nice way to selectively take out trees without tearing up a whole area for access, etc.

It isn't just about weight distribution. My yard is a forest. I have a mini excavator with tracks and I can sneak in and out of places without disturbing things too much - as long as I don't have to turn sharp (and the ground isn't too wet). I think the walking machines might have an advantage there. The tracks can only slide sideways when you turn, that tears stuff up.

I know what you mean — we’re restoring an oak woodland and between the various springs and poorly drained soil, there’s a very small window where an excavator can actually get in there to work.

Our Douglas Fir stand is on good soil, but getting to it is a little tricky. Getting a bit easier though after 3 years of blackberry removal, and tree limbing (to reduce wildfire risk and improve trails etc).

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#160

Post by projektfu »

pjc50 wrote: post #131
CamperBob2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

," he said, on an ARPA-funded network.

I'd be impressed if you could find a single hop in the modern network we're using that's actually run by ARPA. The ISPs, the hosting, the interconnect - all private. Who owns the transatlantic link? Calling the internet an ARPA system is like insisting on calling telephones the Bell system.

Yes, but it’s exactly what DARPA generally does. They fund people to propose and prototype. I remember my Dad trying to get grants in the SBIR program. In phase I, they’re funding projects that are merely proposals for something they could eventually fund. Things may graduate from ARPA and go through the normal procurement process or they might be shelved.

The government and military are very large consumers of internet hardware, software and services, all of which would look very different if they waited on the private sector. (Probably something specified by ITU).

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