[Vehicles] Marine Steam Engines

[Tinman]

Fuel efficiency seems to be a high priority also. You can easily refuel on land but in the mid-Atlantic or mid-Pacific there's no place to refuel.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Fuel efficiency seems to be a high priority also. You can easily refuel on land but in the mid-Atlantic or mid-Pacific there's no place to refuel.

Do you have a cite on that? The Titanic consumed ~600 tons coal/day, which works out to about 1,300 kw/ton of coal in an hour. A GWR 4300 had a 7 ton fuel capacity - which I think is the bunker, not the tender - but I can't figure out the burn rate so that doesn't help much.

I'm not saying you're wrong, and certainly fuel efficiency and operating range were a design consideration of steamer ships. But John Dallman's point that ships required steam condensers while trains just periodically refilled from water towers would explain a lot of the power-per-weight difference for marine engines.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

The water capacity of railway engines was also an important factor. In 1941 the Germans discovered that the water capacity of Soviet steam engines was much greater than that of German equipment, forcing the Germans to not only change the rail gauge but build a new set of water towers on the Soviet railways which they were using. They also, of course, became targets for Soviet partisans. {From the book "Engines of War")

Also, "lagging", or the insulation of engine components (against heat loss) improved significantly between c. 1880 and 1920, improving the fuel efficiency of triple expansion engines considerably. See D.K. Brown's series on marine design and construction.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

Also, "lagging", or the insulation of engine components (against heat loss) improved significantly between c. 1880 and 1920, improving the fuel efficiency of triple expansion engines considerably. See D.K. Brown's series on marine design and construction.

There's only 1 instance of the word "lagging" that Kindle search finds in my copies of The Grand Fleet and Warrior to Dreadnought, and it's in reference to boiler design on the Argus. I'm not saying you're wrong, but is there a different DK Brown series on marine design and construction?

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Do you have a cite on that?

No. Just going off of logistics & reasoning. (Though this topic would be a great question for Drachinifel. A naval warfare youtube channel.)

Whether it's fuel, fresh water or whatever, you've got to take it with you. Looking at territories around the world that were naval resupply depots for both the UK & the USA and their distances from other bases shows the range of ships. In between their launch point & destination there was nowhere to really resupply.