The Locomotion GB

[Weaver]

Okay here's the idea: build any kind of vehicle you want, but you must whiff it by changing it's primary mode of locomotion. For instance, if it has wheels, you could change it to tracks, or even rotor blades!

Here's a rough and incomplete list of means of locomotion. Whatever your model starts with, change it to something else on the list. Note that I'm adopting a deliberately loose definition of "locomotion" here: skis and wings don't propel the vehicle as such, but replacing the wheels of a bus with either would certainly qualify!

Road wheels
Tracks
Train wheels
Fixed wings
Rotor blades
Hovercraft
Boat hull - powered (boat = displacement i.e. "normal" boat)
Boat hull - sail
Hydrofoil
Mechanical legs
Skis
Anti-grav
Airship (i.e. lighter than air)

Mixed systems (half-tracks, gyroplanes) are up for debate, the key question being "is the change radical enough?"

Note that it's the primary or most important means of locomotion that must change, but it's okay to keep the originals if they are now secondary. For instance, if you add rotor blades to a bus, it can still have it's wheels to land on. On the other hand, adding a small fold-down track unit (think Spectrum SPV) to push the bus through bad terrain wouldn't count, because it's still primarily a wheeled vehicle.

All up for discussion, as ever.

[The Rat]

AHA! Reading one of my recent posts, were ya? I have a cunning plan...

[Weaver]

AHA! Reading one of my recent posts, were ya? I have a cunning plan...

Umm no, actually - which one was that? 

[The Rat]

Umm no, actually - which one was that? 

This one!

[ysi_maniac]

What if a static thing converted to mobile? I mean, usually static artillery converted to selfpropelled.

[nev]

I've had quite a few ideas of what to do with a 1/72 Stryker - mainly Praetorian Guard, but I can decide on tracks or anti-grav......

[Weaver]

What if a static thing converted to mobile? I mean, usually static artillery converted to selfpropelled.

Well most artillery isn't really static in that it has wheels, it's just unpowered. If it was a truly static piece, i.e. one that's normally bolted to a concrete base, and you made it mobile, then I'd say that's in. Putting a towed piece on an SP chassis is rather more "normal" than I had in mind though. Do you have something specific in mind?

[Weaver]

I've had quite a few ideas of what to do with a 1/72 Stryker - mainly Praetorian Guard, but I can decide on tracks or anti-grav......

Good one - added anti-grav to the list! 

[jcf]

Interesting notion.

Additions to your list under boat:
planing hulls (power and wind)
stepped hydroplanes (single and multi)
3-point hydroplanes ("normal" or reversed ala Cobb's Crusader)

Also with boats/ships, wouldn't you say that locomotion is defined as much by power source as hull form?
The basic power options would be mechanical or wind, with loads of variations.

[Weaver]

Hmm, knew we'd get into definition problems with this.....

Here's a better stab at what I mean:

1. "Locomotion", for the purposes of this GB, means the manner in which a vehicle interacts with it's enviroment in order to move.

2. If the vehicle has several means of locomotion, then it's the most important or significant one that counts. So converting a car to a helicopter is valid even though it still has wheels. Making the car amphibious wouldn't count, because it would still spend most of it's time out of the water driving on it's wheels (if you converted it to spend most of it's time in the water though, that would count).

3. Locomotion is NOT the same as "propulsion" or "power source". For instance, an aeroplane and a car can both be powered by an IC engine, but they are different for the purposes of this GB. Likewise, a boat with a propellor and a boat with a water jet may have different means of propulsion, but they are the same for this GB because they both have displacement hulls.

4. The conversion from one type of locomotion to another must be significant in modelling terms, i.e. it must result in gross physical modifications to the existing design.


jon: I don't think the difference between planing and non-planing displacement hulls, or between different types of hydrofoil/hydroplane, is significant enough to meet point 4. Sail is an interesting one. I'd be inclined to allow it as a different type, since although the hull of a sailing ship and that of a powered ship are both displacement types, changing from one to another would result in both gross modification and a change in the way the ship interacts with it's enviroment. At the end of the day, the point of the exercise is to have a GB full of radically changed vehicles, rather than to acheive the perfect definition.

[The Rat]

I may as well toss my idea in. Looking at my old and falling apart Airfix Stirling made me think that the fuselage would make an interesting electric locomotive, so they may have been recycled by BR after the war as inter-city transports. 

[PR19_Kit]

I may as well toss my idea in. Looking at my old and falling apart Airfix Stirling made me think that the fuselage would make an interesting electric locomotive, so they may have been recycled by BR after the war as inter-city transports. 

The missing Class 80 no less! 

It would need to be all over gloss black with silver pinstripes or trim lines of course.........

[Weaver]

I may as well toss my idea in. Looking at my old and falling apart Airfix Stirling made me think that the fuselage would make an interesting electric locomotive, so they may have been recycled by BR after the war as inter-city transports. 

Ah, so that's your cunning plan!

You could always give it a Stirling Cycle engine if you wanted to be appropriate......

[ysi_maniac]

What if a static thing converted to mobile? I mean, usually static artillery converted to selfpropelled.

Well most artillery isn't really static in that it has wheels, it's just unpowered. If it was a truly static piece, i.e. one that's normally bolted to a concrete base, and you made it mobile, then I'd say that's in. Putting a towed piece on an SP chassis is rather more "normal" than I had in mind though. Do you have something specific in mind?

Something in this line. Think that FlaK-18 was basically static that was fitted with wheels only to be towed.

[Weaver]

What if a static thing converted to mobile? I mean, usually static artillery converted to selfpropelled.

Well most artillery isn't really static in that it has wheels, it's just unpowered. If it was a truly static piece, i.e. one that's normally bolted to a concrete base, and you made it mobile, then I'd say that's in. Putting a towed piece on an SP chassis is rather more "normal" than I had in mind though. Do you have something specific in mind?

Something in this line. Think that FlaK-18 was basically static that was fitted with wheels only to be towed.

Hmmm - not really what I had in mind, to be honest. My argument is that that isn't a gun who's means of locomotion's changed, rather it's a tracked tank that been given a different gun, but it's still a tracked tank.