[Dungeon Fantasy]I want to ride my...

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Any of those situations, when applied to wheels the size of bicycle wheels, is quite horrendous for foot transport as well, so I wouldn't necessarily bet on it, but the usual favored use for bicycles is dirt or paved trails.

That's the reason I linked the Smithsonian article - it nicely describes the problems that bicycle troops have when operating in areas with no or minimal trails. AFAIK, other uses of bicycle troops have mostly used reasonably well developed road networks.

[SydneyFreedberg]

A tactical note, since the discussion has been heavily technical: One crucial problem that "cavalry" has -- whether horseback or bike -- is that it can't take cover the way foot troops can. This is a minor inconvenience for most of military history but absolutely lethal once rapid-firing, highly accurate rifles are invented, let alone machineguns. It's the reason cavalry charges stopped being a thing in World War I, despite many powers entering the war with lancers, and it's the reason post-1914 cavalry almost always dismounted before entering rifle range (making them effectively dragoons).

And while this setting is very different from the real world, the OP does mention "repeating gear rifle[s]" as a weapon option, which sounds enough like a Maxim gun that it would massacre any form of cavalry charge, whatever beast or bicycle it's on the back of.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll likely abandon the idea of 'cycle cavalry (although some eccentric folk might use clockwork- or magically-propelled 'cycles in such a role)....

And they will die, rapidly!

Originally Posted by Varyon

... and have military 'cycles used simply for transportation (of troops in the form of 'cycle dragoons, as well as of supplies and materiel by 'cycle-mounted porters)....

A wise choice.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Using bicycles for logistics and to improve the strategic mobility of infantry is great, but they simply aren't well suited to battlefield use (notably, chariots seem to have died out with the introduction of proper cavalry).

Yes, very much this.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by SydneyFreedberg

A tactical note, since the discussion has been heavily technical: One crucial problem that "cavalry" has -- whether horseback or bike -- is that it can't take cover the way foot troops can. This is a minor inconvenience for most of military history but absolutely lethal once rapid-firing, highly accurate rifles are invented, let alone machineguns. It's the reason cavalry charges stopped being a thing in World War I, despite many powers entering the war with lancers, and it's the reason post-1914 cavalry almost always dismounted before entering rifle range (making them effectively dragoons).

And while this setting is very different from the real world, the OP does mention "repeating gear rifle[s]" as a weapon option, which sounds enough like a Maxim gun that it would massacre any form of cavalry charge, whatever beast or bicycle it's on the back of.

The repeating gear rifles probably fire something like once a second, and are stationary weapons, mounted on ships or castle walls or the like. I'm currently intending for typical gear rifles to be about as powerful as a black-powder revolver rifle of around half the weight, and a typical mounted repeating gear rifle is probably comparable to a caliver (3d+1 pi). Don't get me wrong, these things may well be absolutely monstrous to face, but a Maxim they are not.

Originally Posted by SydneyFreedberg

And they will die, rapidly!

Such a person would probably have rather protective (possibly magical) armor, rendering them difficult to injure.

[SydneyFreedberg]

Ah, schizotech to the rescue! And magical armor can totally change the offense:defense balance.

[dcarson]

Ukrainian special forces have apparently made heavy use of ebikes.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by SydneyFreedberg

Ah, schizotech to the rescue! And magical armor can totally change the offense:defense balance.

Indeed. My current plan is that repeating gear rifles generally have a crew of two - one person aiming and the other pedaling to work the mechanism; the pedaler (who really needs a better title) is typically completely behind a protective wall or similar and faces the gunner, and thus has no view of the battlefield. If there's just one repeater in the general vicinity, the gunner will basically just tell (typically through pre-arranged hand signals or flags - battlefields are often too noisy to rely on hearing, and the gear rifles themselves are hardly silent) the pedaler when to start and stop pedaling, as well as how quickly to pedal (which determines how quickly the weapon fires); the gunner is also the one in charge of reloading the hopper. If there are multiple repeaters, you'll typically have one dedicated reloader per group (I'm thinking 3 or 4, but haven't decided) of repeaters, moving between them to keep their hoppers topped up; a dedicated signaler will use flags to give orders to the pedalers, the gunners' job is basically just to make certain the weapon is always pointed at a target. Typical strategy for the gunner is to aim at one target until the weapon fires, then immediately move onto the next, going in the direction of whichever eye is on the sights; with the other eye, they try to assess the point of impact of the previous shot, and adjust for the next if it was too high or too low. I'm thinking typical RoF is 1 shot every 2 to 4 seconds (once per second would be around the maximum speed, with the pedaler essentially sprinting; once per two seconds would therefore be comparable to jogging, and once per 4 seconds would be comparable to hiking), to give time to Aim between shots, but I haven't yet decided.

Originally Posted by dcarson

Ukrainian special forces have apparently made heavy use of ebikes.

That makes a lot of sense, yeah. Oubliette's equivalent of ebikes would be trikes enchanted to propel themselves; regular military forces wouldn't use such, but some specialists (and adventurers!) might.

...

If there aren't any objections to my plans for plant-roads, I'll probably move on to the next part of the discussion later today - trike construction. That's going to be a bit of a doozy; I intend to divide it up into Frame, Powertrain, and Wheels, but it'll probably be all one post. Stay tuned...

[Witchking]

The Japanese advance down the Malay peninsula in WW2 was mentioned upthread.

IIRC another area to look at for historical parallels is Vietnam.

The NVA and VC often used bicycle porters to move supplies. Not so much the porter riding the bicycle as the bicycle 'carrying' the load. The porter would walk beside the bicycle providing balance and motive power.

An advantage being that a lot of weight could be hung on a bicycle frame, hanging that amount of weight on a few narrow pack straps (or asking a human back to support that weight) would lead to disaster.

Another advantage is that kind of two wheeled transport was workable on a narrow trail as opposed to a full scale road. Easier to make and maintain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_trail

Bon chance!

[Varyon]

I keep intending to work this out and post it when I'm home with my books, but keep getting distracted by other things, so I'm just going to bite the bullet and write and post it here, without book access.

I mentioned above that this would be split into three general parts - Frame, Powertrain, and Wheels. Further research has made me realize it really needs a fourth part - Tires, generally separate from the wheels (Tires provide traction, which is needed for something that is self-propelled rather than pulled or pushed).


Frame

This is the base frame for the vehicle, and dictates how much weight the vehicle can carry, as well as its HP. I think three general designs would be available.

Wood: A wooden frame has the advantage of readily available materials. Such frames are flammable and less robust than the other options, and also heavier, but it's cheap.

Iron Bars: This frame is made of thin, solid bars of wrought iron. It requires more maintenance - to avoid rusting - than a wooden frame, but is less fragile and lighter.

Iron Tubes: This frame is made instead of relatively thin-walled iron tubes, not dissimilar to those used for rifles (albeit without the rifling, obviously). The tubes are wider than the bars of the above option, more closely resembling modern bicycle frames. It is the lightest option, but also the most expensive.

For the effects of the above, I'm thinking Iron Tube trikes will have roughly comparable weight to TL 7 bicycles, Iron Bar trikes will weigh about 1.5x as much, and Wood trikes will weigh about 2x as much; for pricing, Wood will be at base cost, Iron Bar at 2x cost (or +1 CF if you prefer), Iron Tube at 5x cost (+4 CF). Fantastic materials, if available, would simply be based on the above - Dragonbone would use Wood as the base, Orichalcum would use Iron (probably Iron Tube, as it would probably cost less to make such due to needing less material). Upgrading the iron to steel should probably be an option, for a minor decrease to weight and increase to cost (but by how much? should I just base it on the proportional DR of such materials?). Would bronze or brass be able to readily stand in for iron, for a higher-priced option that doesn't rust?

For larger and smaller trikes, I'm not sure if I should have carrying capacity scale linearly with weight or as the 2/3 root - that is, if you want a trike that can carry ~twice as much as normal, should it weigh twice as much, or make a Steel Tube trike that is twice as heavy as the default or around 3x as heavy? I suspect the latter is more realistic, but the former seems like a fairer option in-game, particularly when considering larger and smaller characters...


Powertrain

This is how the trike propels itself - the pedals, gears, chain, etc that turn the wheels.

No Powertrain: The earliest bicycles didn't actually have pedals, but rather had the user sit on them and propel themselves using their legs. This is of course the lightest and cheapest option - hard to get below weighing and costing nothing. Because trikes without powertrains are not essentially self-propelled, they don't need tires on their wheels, although many still opt for such to get a smoother ride and protect their wheels. Having tires also makes it possible to have a manual brake, rather than needing to rely on dragging one's feet to slow/stop faster than simply coasting.

Single Gear: This is the most common design, one that lacks the multiple gearing (and ability to shift) of modern bicycles. This means the trike is designed to only really work properly for characters of a certain ST, and must be designed either for endurance (speed ranging between Hiking and Jogging) or speed (speed ranging between Jogging and Sprinting). These are typically TL 5 designs, but TL 5+1, TL 5+2^, and even TL 5+3^ designs are available, at reduced weight but added cost (probably similar to the wood->steel bar->steel tube progression - normal weight/cost for TL 5, 70% weight and +1 CF for TL 5+1, 50% weight and +4 CF for TL 5+2^, and 30% weight and +9 CF for TL 5+3^).

Multi-Gear: These have a built-in lever and multiple sets of gears to switch between. They are a bit more complicated to use, requiring the character to have Bicycling at DX+2. This allows it to work properly for characters with a wider range of ST's, and means it can be used at any speed for such characters. For simplicity, any Multi-Gear tricycle can be used by any character of an appropriate size at any speed, regardless of ST. Being Multi-Gear doubles the weight of the powertrain and adds a +4 CF; TL 5+2^ and TL 5+3^ are typically the only designs that use it, but it is available for less-advanced designs.

How the powertrain actually functions is something I'll be getting into later, but suffice to say I'm not a fan of the GURPS default for bicycles (where they basically grant you Enhanced Move, and having high Bicycling skill can replace Move). I'm thinking those trikes that lack powertrains will basically just serve to reduce the weight of the character's gear (and the character itself) for purposes of encumbrance, and maybe give Enhanced Move 0.5. For those that do have a powertrain, it's ST (specifically Leg ST, if it matters) that will determine base speed.


Wheels

All Wheels are spoked. There are only two base options, but in some cases the tires (below) are permanently affixed, and thus would be more accurately described as a type of wheel - but for simplicity I'll be including those in the next section. While wheels alone will suffice for something being pulled/pushed, like a wagon or cart, or for a trike that lacks a powertrain, most trikes will need tires for traction in order to actually propel themselves. Wheels can typically be removed from the frame for maintenance and replacement; having permanently-attached wheels reduces the weight and cost of the frame by 5%.

Wood: Basically, miniature wagon wheels for your trike, similar to the wheels of early velocipedes.

Iron, Solid: With spokes and rim made of iron, the trike's propulsion system would be lighter and more resilient, similar to the effect seen when replacing the wooden frame with an iron bar frame.

Iron, Hollow: Akin to the Iron Tube option for the frame, this reduces the weight further.

Hybrid: In theory, the spokes and rim could be made of different materials. I'm thinking the spokes make up about 30% of the cost and weight of the wheel, with the rim making up the remaining 70%. Does that sound fair?

Most trikes will probably use the same option for the frame and wheels. Any weight multiplier applied to the frame for purposes of increasing carrying capacity is automatically applied to the wheels - for simplicity, there's no option to have oversized or undersized (or thick vs thin) wheels.


Tires

Wheel rims are, by necessity, smooth - which doesn't lend them to providing the necessary traction to actually pull a trike forward over a surface. Wheels are also often a bit expensive, as you need a perfect circle to get a decent ride out of it. Tires help in both regards - they have higher friction and are cheaper to replace.

Iron Studs: These aren't truly a tire, but rather a slightly different wheel design. The wheel has iron studs at relatively regularly-spaced intervals. These projections can dig into dirt or nestle between vines to provide more traction, but are largely useless - and sometimes destructive! - on smooth stone or paved roads - speed is cut in half (you're often better off walking) on anything other than relatively soft dirt or vineroad, and the owners of paved roads are unlikely to be happy seeing you use such wheels on their property. Any type of wheel can have these studs added (indeed, particularly for wooden wheels, they can be "aftermarket" additions, essentially nails hammered into the wheel rim).

Iron Bands: These are bands of iron that can be attached to the wheel (in some cases, they are permanently riveted on, but detachable screws are more common); they have a textured surface and often alternate between being close in to the wheel and projecting a bit outward. They work on any type of road, but make for an uncomfortable ride on most surfaces - FP costs are increased by 50% (round final value up) if riding on anything other than vineroad or similar.

Rubber: Rubber is an incredibly useful substance, made from the latex harvested from Para trees. Rubber tires are textured to provide additional grip. These are solid tires - pneumatic tires are unknown in Oubliette. They work fine on any surface.

I debated for a long time if Oubliette would have rubber trees, but honestly I don't think velocipedes really work all that well without access to such. I considered leather wheels, but I don't think they'd really work very well - and they probably wouldn't have all that great of traction, unless made of sharkskin or similar. I expect most trikes that have powertrains will use rubber - while it's going to be more expensive, it's simply so much better than the other options, which are mostly just included for completion. The iron bands are my attempt to guess how the iron tires of "boneshakers" were designed, as I'm having trouble finding such (and in all the pictures I find of them, I don't see any obvious iron).

(continued)

[Varyon]

(continued from previous post)

If rubber tires seem anachronistic for DF (I mean, any sort of velocipede already is anachronistic, but I digress), I'll note that the Aztecs appear to have used vulcanized rubber, and it was only around 100 years between Europeans becoming aware of rubber (thanks to Charles Marie de La Condamine introducing it to the French Academy of Sciences in 1736) and the process of vulcanization being rediscovered (by Charles Goodyear in 1839) when trying to figure out a way for rubber tires to be more resilient (at least, going off of the information from Wikipedia). If we presume the cultures of Oubliette have had access to these trees for a good while, the idea they've figured out how to make good tires out of rubber is hardly surprising (there's also the fact that, while Oubliette's past from before the dungeons arrived is purposefully murky and undefined, it's meant to be something of a post-apocalyptic setting, so they may well have been at TL 6 or so before the world ended).


I'm thinking to come up with the base stats, I'll assume the TL 7 bicycle from HT (I think there's a TL 7 bicycle there) uses a TL 7 multi-gear powertrain (equivalent in performance to the TL 5+2^ powertrain in Oubliette) that makes up 30% of its mass, has an Iron Tube (or perhaps Steel Tube) frame that makes up 50% of its mass, has Hollow Iron (or, again, perhaps Hollow Steel) wheels that make up 15% of its mass, and has solid rubber tires that make up 5% of its mass (I believe they are actually pneumatic, but some simplifications should be acceptable). Does this sound fair? I'll have a trike built the same way probably have somewhere around 5% more weight to account for the additional wheel and tire (+10% would make all the wheels+tires equal in weight to those on the bicycle, but using three tires should mean you can have each be a bit smaller). IIRC, all the bicycles in HT have Load of 0.1 (200 lb), so I think I'll have the maximum capacity of this trike - including the weight of the rider and of the trike itself - be around 500 lb (400 lb would roughly match what was mentioned for Vietnam, but I feel a higher value for using three wheels may be appropriate). Such a bike would cost 8x more than its list price in HT (because it's a TL 7 device in a TL 4 setting), but how to divvy this up? I'm thinking a fairly easy option would be 50% for powertrain and have the rest just have the cost scale with weight (the powertrain is more expensive than its weight implies because it's more complicated). How does all this sound?

[Varyon]

Alright, at home with my books, now. The basic TL 7 bicycle costs $50, weighs 48 lb, and has Load 0.1, or 200 lb. Applying what I outlined above, we boost the cost to $400 for being TL 7. The power train weighs in at 14.4 lb, the frame is 24 lb, the wheels are a total of 7.2 lb (3.6 lb each), and the tires are a total of 2.4 lb (1.2 lb each). In terms of cost, the power train is $200, the frame is ~$143, the wheels are ~$43, and the tires are ~$14. Making it a trike boosts the weight of the wheels+tires by 2.4 lb - +1.8 lb (and +~$11) for wheels, +0.6 lb (and +~$3.50) for tires.

Scaling these to a TL 5 single gear power train, a wooden frame, and wooden wheels (we'll keep the rubber tires) gives us the following as our base to work from.

Frame (Wood): 48 lb, ~$30.

Power Train (TL 5, Single Gear): 19.2 lb, $22.

Wheel (Wood): 18 lb, ~$11

Tire (Rubber): 3 lb, ~$17.50

Total: 88.2 lb, $80.5

Yeah, that's not going to work - wood worked into the frame of a bicycle (or spoke and rim of a wheel) isn't going to cost less than $1/lb, and the clockwork gears are certainly going to cost more than slightly over $1/lb!

I think I'm alright with the weight breakdown for the TL 7 bike, but I think the prices are off for my purposes (and both weight and price is probably off for the baseline model). I think I'm going to sit down with my old Vehicles conversion and the Pyramid armor design articles and see what I can come up with.