For sci fi: How to run a modern war without oil?
September 24, 2022 4:32 PM Subscribe
I've got a constructed world that is moving through the modern era. One difference from Earth is that it has much less oil. Picture oil running out in the 1950s rather than the 2050s.
My question is, how would they fight a modern war? How can they use tanks, aircraft, and warships? All those slurp up oil, and aren't conducive to electric power.
My first thought is biofuel. Is that even realistic though? How many acres of crops do you need to burn to run an aircraft carrier? Or half a dozen of them?
Nuclear power? We use that for submarines, but would it work for everything else?
Some near-future tech is OK, but I'd rather not use pure handwavium (gridfire, antimatter drives, warp drives...).
My first thought is biofuel. Is that even realistic though? How many acres of crops do you need to burn to run an aircraft carrier? Or half a dozen of them?
Nuclear power? We use that for submarines, but would it work for everything else?
Some near-future tech is OK, but I'd rather not use pure handwavium (gridfire, antimatter drives, warp drives...).
Are you assuming that natural gas is equally scarce?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:51 PM on September 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:51 PM on September 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
I would expect that a world without much fossil fuels would have spent a lot more effort developing electrical storage technology. Some early cars were electrical, after all, before it was realized that fossil fuels have a much higher energy density.
Coal gasification could also be used to create liquid fuels via various chemical processes, including the Fischer-Tropsch process. (If your world doesn't have coal, then it's hard for me to see how you get an Industrial Revolution, let alone modern warfare.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:54 PM on September 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
Coal gasification could also be used to create liquid fuels via various chemical processes, including the Fischer-Tropsch process. (If your world doesn't have coal, then it's hard for me to see how you get an Industrial Revolution, let alone modern warfare.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:54 PM on September 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
Do you have other fossil fuels? You can convert coal or natural gas to synthetic liquid fuel.
For aircraft, perhaps gliders or dirigibles would be a lot more popular than they were in our world. Gliders and powered aircraft that could glide were used quite a bit in WW2.
posted by offog at 4:55 PM on September 24, 2022
For aircraft, perhaps gliders or dirigibles would be a lot more popular than they were in our world. Gliders and powered aircraft that could glide were used quite a bit in WW2.
posted by offog at 4:55 PM on September 24, 2022
There will always be oil, it just doesn't come out of the ground as easy as it once did.
posted by geoff. at 5:08 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by geoff. at 5:08 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Keep in mind that without oil you also don’t have plastics and you don’t have modern agriculture. You could replace diesel with biodiesel, but you’d have to figure out how to produce all that biodiesel.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:09 PM on September 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:09 PM on September 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
They might use oil from plants or animals(whales supplied a lot of lamp oil), or have better solar/ storage.
posted by theora55 at 5:13 PM on September 24, 2022
posted by theora55 at 5:13 PM on September 24, 2022
the lack of oil may have incentivized research into battery technology earlier and they might have effective batteries for driving machines like that. imagine an electric car battery with thousands of miles of range, solar charged. probably plant based oils for lubrication.
ethanol production currently is dwarfed by oil and gas production, but the lack of oil might make things different. maybe bacteria would be genetically engineered to produce ethanol from biomass at much more massive scales. ethanol is an excellent fuel, and would certainly be used for airplanes.
posted by dis_integration at 5:15 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
ethanol production currently is dwarfed by oil and gas production, but the lack of oil might make things different. maybe bacteria would be genetically engineered to produce ethanol from biomass at much more massive scales. ethanol is an excellent fuel, and would certainly be used for airplanes.
posted by dis_integration at 5:15 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
also, nuclear power for small vehicles is certainly possible although it seems incredibly dangerous to me (doesn't this make every car a potential dirty bomb?)
posted by dis_integration at 5:28 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by dis_integration at 5:28 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Steam. The first car to do 60mph was electric. The first one to do 120mph was steam.
It's been pointed out many times that steam is a much better power source than gasoline.
A gas engine runs by setting off a series of controlled explosions in a block of cast iron. You can make a lot of liquids explode, but it's not easy, which is why gas engines are cantankerous. You have to have movement to compress your gas into something explosive, so your engine has to be running before it can start. That means you need a starter motor, and that requires a battery, and you need a generator to charge the battery. The engine can't produce power while it's not rotating, so you need a clutch, and the pistons have to move at something like the speed of the explosion so you have to have a transmission to allow different ratios of engine speed to driveshaft speed. All this complexity makes it heavy, so you need a massive frame and suspension, and it's prone to break down because there are so many different systems. I left out the water jacket and pump and radiator to get rid of all the waste heat from the explosions, the ignition system to set off the explosions at the right time, the exhaust to take away incandescently hot gases and kill the insane noise the things make.
Really, there's no worse engine for a moving vehicle than a gas engine.
A steam engine uses steam under pressure to move your pistons. Steam presses just as hard on the pistons when they're not moving - engineers say 100% power at 0 rpm - so you don't need a starter motor or battery or clutch. Steam works over a wide range of speeds, so there's no transmission. The engine from a Stanley steamer had about two dozen parts and weighed twenty pounds. A steam car can be light.
On the down side you need a boiler, but you can burn almost anything to heat it - coal, wood, vegetable oil, butter, waste paper. A lot of the demise of steam came from very cheap gasoline and the perception that steam cars were too hard to run. Also people were afraid of boiler explosions, and that is a concern. A boiler in a car can be made strong enough not to explode (I know of no steam car explosions), but if someone fires a shell into it, it's going to add to the force of the explosion. An explosive shell can kill you, a steam explosion kills you and cooks you. This is probably an acceptable risk in a war.
Before diesel engines were a thing, all warships were steam powered. If we'd developed steam (external combustion, because it's outside the cylinders, so you can, again, burn anything) as opposed to internal combustion, (burning fuel inside a cylinder, in a space that's that's constantly changing shape and volume) it's pretty likely that vehicles would be at least as advanced by now, and less polluting because it's vastly easier to control external combustion and make it efficient.
I suppose I should add that a nuclear aircraft carrier is also a big steam engine, but a turbine. The most powerful locomotives were steam powered, and a few are still in service. (Look up 4-8-8-4 Big Boy.)
There have been steam planes flown, at least once, but I think faster ones would have come much later, with lighter materials and better insulation.
You could definitely run a war without oil.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 5:42 PM on September 24, 2022 [18 favorites]
It's been pointed out many times that steam is a much better power source than gasoline.
A gas engine runs by setting off a series of controlled explosions in a block of cast iron. You can make a lot of liquids explode, but it's not easy, which is why gas engines are cantankerous. You have to have movement to compress your gas into something explosive, so your engine has to be running before it can start. That means you need a starter motor, and that requires a battery, and you need a generator to charge the battery. The engine can't produce power while it's not rotating, so you need a clutch, and the pistons have to move at something like the speed of the explosion so you have to have a transmission to allow different ratios of engine speed to driveshaft speed. All this complexity makes it heavy, so you need a massive frame and suspension, and it's prone to break down because there are so many different systems. I left out the water jacket and pump and radiator to get rid of all the waste heat from the explosions, the ignition system to set off the explosions at the right time, the exhaust to take away incandescently hot gases and kill the insane noise the things make.
Really, there's no worse engine for a moving vehicle than a gas engine.
A steam engine uses steam under pressure to move your pistons. Steam presses just as hard on the pistons when they're not moving - engineers say 100% power at 0 rpm - so you don't need a starter motor or battery or clutch. Steam works over a wide range of speeds, so there's no transmission. The engine from a Stanley steamer had about two dozen parts and weighed twenty pounds. A steam car can be light.
On the down side you need a boiler, but you can burn almost anything to heat it - coal, wood, vegetable oil, butter, waste paper. A lot of the demise of steam came from very cheap gasoline and the perception that steam cars were too hard to run. Also people were afraid of boiler explosions, and that is a concern. A boiler in a car can be made strong enough not to explode (I know of no steam car explosions), but if someone fires a shell into it, it's going to add to the force of the explosion. An explosive shell can kill you, a steam explosion kills you and cooks you. This is probably an acceptable risk in a war.
Before diesel engines were a thing, all warships were steam powered. If we'd developed steam (external combustion, because it's outside the cylinders, so you can, again, burn anything) as opposed to internal combustion, (burning fuel inside a cylinder, in a space that's that's constantly changing shape and volume) it's pretty likely that vehicles would be at least as advanced by now, and less polluting because it's vastly easier to control external combustion and make it efficient.
I suppose I should add that a nuclear aircraft carrier is also a big steam engine, but a turbine. The most powerful locomotives were steam powered, and a few are still in service. (Look up 4-8-8-4 Big Boy.)
There have been steam planes flown, at least once, but I think faster ones would have come much later, with lighter materials and better insulation.
You could definitely run a war without oil.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 5:42 PM on September 24, 2022 [18 favorites]
nuclear power for small vehicles is certainly possible
The linked concept car was one that had an assumption that some day an engine would be created in that size, it's exactly as much evidence that it can be done as the Mr Fusion in the DeLorean in Back To The Future.
Nuclear reactors are big and need a lot of management, including cooling which is a lot easier when you're in the middle of the ocean. I'd imagine a ridiculously large land vehicle, something like the offspring of a nuclear submarine and the crawler they used to move the Space Shuttle.
It would have to have a ton of armor, since it would be a slow moving target (as well as missile defense systems) and it would have to be incredibly wide to have enough contact with the ground so it doesn't crush the topsoil and get stuck due to it's own weight; both the crawler and regular trains are heavy, but they have prepared roads/tracks that are engineered to hold their weight but obviously you don't want that if you're invading and need freedom of movement.
Perhaps a mega machine like that would pair with tanks that would act like a fighter jet does on a carrier; return to the mothership and charge up the battery then take off and go into battle covering a wider front.
It's not practical per se, but it could be an interesting world for a story.
posted by Superilla at 5:58 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
The linked concept car was one that had an assumption that some day an engine would be created in that size, it's exactly as much evidence that it can be done as the Mr Fusion in the DeLorean in Back To The Future.
Nuclear reactors are big and need a lot of management, including cooling which is a lot easier when you're in the middle of the ocean. I'd imagine a ridiculously large land vehicle, something like the offspring of a nuclear submarine and the crawler they used to move the Space Shuttle.
It would have to have a ton of armor, since it would be a slow moving target (as well as missile defense systems) and it would have to be incredibly wide to have enough contact with the ground so it doesn't crush the topsoil and get stuck due to it's own weight; both the crawler and regular trains are heavy, but they have prepared roads/tracks that are engineered to hold their weight but obviously you don't want that if you're invading and need freedom of movement.
Perhaps a mega machine like that would pair with tanks that would act like a fighter jet does on a carrier; return to the mothership and charge up the battery then take off and go into battle covering a wider front.
It's not practical per se, but it could be an interesting world for a story.
posted by Superilla at 5:58 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Was this a world that capitalized on the energy density of fossil fuels as ours did and then ran out faster, or a world where oil's scarcity meant other options were always part of the dominant paradigms? I think the evolution would be different depending on that.
Steam offers a lot of possibilities but you still need to burn something to get the heat you need. This page offers some data on yield per acre for biofuels but the yield data seems pretty handwavy. Still, for just-for-fun project it might be enough.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:26 PM on September 24, 2022
Steam offers a lot of possibilities but you still need to burn something to get the heat you need. This page offers some data on yield per acre for biofuels but the yield data seems pretty handwavy. Still, for just-for-fun project it might be enough.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:26 PM on September 24, 2022
You could use nuclear power to produce hydrogen and run everything off fuel cells, probably. Airplanes might be hard, but ships and tanks are probably fine.
Or pull carbon out of the air and turn it into synthetic gasoline.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:58 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Or pull carbon out of the air and turn it into synthetic gasoline.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:58 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: This world had fossil fuels like ours, but just much less of them. (If you're curious, that's because and earlier civilization used most of them, 3 million years ago.)
Nuclear and algae sound good. And steam, though could you really build a jetliner, or a bomber, that runs on steam?
That page on biofuels, and this one, aren't reassuring: the US is producing 1/10 as much biofuel as oil, and already using 1/3 of our corn.
posted by zompist at 8:00 PM on September 24, 2022
Nuclear and algae sound good. And steam, though could you really build a jetliner, or a bomber, that runs on steam?
That page on biofuels, and this one, aren't reassuring: the US is producing 1/10 as much biofuel as oil, and already using 1/3 of our corn.
posted by zompist at 8:00 PM on September 24, 2022
If planes are too tricky to figure out, there's a history of military balloons, and you could combine large zeppelins with military gliders.
posted by foxfirefey at 8:11 PM on September 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by foxfirefey at 8:11 PM on September 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
Gasoline and diesel are typically in our world derived from fossil sources, but their main feature is that they're incredibly energy dense (in kWh/lb), not where they come from. Any chemical that is energy dense is a store of energy, but how it's made is independent of that feature. So if you can imagine a chemical that could be created using other energy sources, you could still have internal or external combustion engines, motors, or even rockets, if it can be dismantled in order to create heat, electricity or pressure. This could, of course, simply be gasoline itself, or biodiesel, or ethanol, or hydrogen, all of which are currently in use. All you need is, say, a biological agent to make them, or posit that they're made using a solar furnace, and you're off. Warfare might involve plant viruses or cloud seeding.
It's also fairly normal that energy dense chemicals are unstable and explosive. Some are also poisonous or corrosive. So depending on your mythos you might choose something like sulphuric acid and ammonia.
And if you don't want to detail what the chemicals are, you can always use code names (the Nazis used names like C-stoff, as an example).
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 8:53 PM on September 24, 2022
It's also fairly normal that energy dense chemicals are unstable and explosive. Some are also poisonous or corrosive. So depending on your mythos you might choose something like sulphuric acid and ammonia.
And if you don't want to detail what the chemicals are, you can always use code names (the Nazis used names like C-stoff, as an example).
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 8:53 PM on September 24, 2022
Nuclear and algae sound good. And steam, though could you really build a jetliner, or a bomber, that runs on steam?
Zeppelins and other balloon-type aircraft make excellent bombers because they are almost totally silent. They were used quite a bit on the First World War.
Airships were also considered an elegant form of air travel.
I imagine in a lower energy world that brute-force war tactics would not endure much after the oil runs out. I think MollyRealized is right in that you'd basically skip right through to Cold War and nukes. There's some excellent opportunities for putting espionage and statecraft ahead of bombastic set pieces.
posted by Jilder at 9:05 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Zeppelins and other balloon-type aircraft make excellent bombers because they are almost totally silent. They were used quite a bit on the First World War.
Airships were also considered an elegant form of air travel.
I imagine in a lower energy world that brute-force war tactics would not endure much after the oil runs out. I think MollyRealized is right in that you'd basically skip right through to Cold War and nukes. There's some excellent opportunities for putting espionage and statecraft ahead of bombastic set pieces.
posted by Jilder at 9:05 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Zeppelins and other balloon-type aircraft make excellent bombers because they are almost totally silent. They were used quite a bit on the First World War.
They didn't run on steam though. Successful dirigibles didn't show up earlier because steam engines were too heavy. Once internal combustion engines were on the scene, they were able to build engines that were light and powerful enough propel a balloon.
I don't know whether this is a fundamental restriction on steam engines or not, but at least historically nobody ever really flew a steam-powered dirigible. Which means zeppelins are more properly dieselpunk than steampunk.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:56 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
They didn't run on steam though. Successful dirigibles didn't show up earlier because steam engines were too heavy. Once internal combustion engines were on the scene, they were able to build engines that were light and powerful enough propel a balloon.
I don't know whether this is a fundamental restriction on steam engines or not, but at least historically nobody ever really flew a steam-powered dirigible. Which means zeppelins are more properly dieselpunk than steampunk.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:56 PM on September 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's been pointed out many times that steam is a much better power source than gasoline.
Steam is not a power source, it is a method of power transmission (barring capping a geyser).
A gas engine runs by setting off a series of controlled explosions in a block of cast iron.
That is not how they work. If you get explosions it's called engine knock.
posted by flimflam at 12:00 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Steam is not a power source, it is a method of power transmission (barring capping a geyser).
A gas engine runs by setting off a series of controlled explosions in a block of cast iron.
That is not how they work. If you get explosions it's called engine knock.
posted by flimflam at 12:00 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
We also use fossil fuels to create steel and concrete. Without massive industrial surplus from fossil fuels we would not have developed the integrated circuits to transition to solar power. It's possible a society recognizes fossil fuels are running out and has enough development to get nuclear plants built, which could produce enough excess to keep an industrial society going. You also wouldn't have excess oil to use for plastics, so you wouldn't make that investment, which is needed to unlock most of our advances since then. The US Navy has been investigating creating synthetic fuels from sea water and electricity on their carriers, but human society wouldn't allow devoting so much energy and coordination to warfare -- we'd be talking about 90% of people being peasants growing crops -- they would demand their own lives be better.
WWII was started, in part, due to Germany's lack of oil/gas deposits (isn't that a timely subject.) So I think there would be resource wars and society wouldn't be stable enough to transition to nuclear. So the wars would be fought with WWII weapons until the fuel runs low enough that modern governments collapse back to agriculture like the fall of Rome. Future wars would be fought like in 18th?-century Japan: a small firearm corps mixed with calvary, archers, and pikemen.
But, a different society, with just nuclear reactors, can generate synthetic oil. And if that was widespread, then war wouldn't be much different than in the 70s, but infantry would be bigger and tanks and jets would be more sparse. Probably keep calvary.
posted by flimflam at 12:30 AM on September 25, 2022
WWII was started, in part, due to Germany's lack of oil/gas deposits (isn't that a timely subject.) So I think there would be resource wars and society wouldn't be stable enough to transition to nuclear. So the wars would be fought with WWII weapons until the fuel runs low enough that modern governments collapse back to agriculture like the fall of Rome. Future wars would be fought like in 18th?-century Japan: a small firearm corps mixed with calvary, archers, and pikemen.
But, a different society, with just nuclear reactors, can generate synthetic oil. And if that was widespread, then war wouldn't be much different than in the 70s, but infantry would be bigger and tanks and jets would be more sparse. Probably keep calvary.
posted by flimflam at 12:30 AM on September 25, 2022
Best answer: Hydrogen fuel cells, which are already used in space craft, planes, ships, trains, and cars
posted by underclocked at 3:04 AM on September 25, 2022
posted by underclocked at 3:04 AM on September 25, 2022
Here on earth, the post-oil energy is mostly going to be solar. For war-fighting, you need kinetic energy created from chemical energy. We convert from solar to chemical in a number of ways, but primarily via biofuels,
; we get plants to do it for us.
We capture solar energy directly and turn it into electrical energy, but also use windmills to capture kinetic energy created by solar. We also use solar-derived potential energy manifested by rain to create electric.
For your purposes, the big problem is conversion to chemical. Aside from biofuels, we know how to do this with hydrogen, and we do it every time we charge a battery. Perhaps the folks on your planet have figured out how to do it with nitrogen. Nitrogen compounds can store a lot of energy (most explosives are nitrogen based). Hydrazine, a very nasty chemical, is used as a rocket propellant.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:48 AM on September 25, 2022
; we get plants to do it for us.
We capture solar energy directly and turn it into electrical energy, but also use windmills to capture kinetic energy created by solar. We also use solar-derived potential energy manifested by rain to create electric.
For your purposes, the big problem is conversion to chemical. Aside from biofuels, we know how to do this with hydrogen, and we do it every time we charge a battery. Perhaps the folks on your planet have figured out how to do it with nitrogen. Nitrogen compounds can store a lot of energy (most explosives are nitrogen based). Hydrazine, a very nasty chemical, is used as a rocket propellant.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:48 AM on September 25, 2022
A book you might enjoy/find useful is Robert Charles Wilson's "Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America." It takes place after the "efflorescence of oil."
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 12:10 PM on September 25, 2022
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 12:10 PM on September 25, 2022
Best answer: So this a lot of this is going to be channeling things I learned from (MeFi favourite) Bret Devereaux's blog, with my own rambling speculation on top of it, but hopefully it helps.
So a lot of technology is going to be path dependent, so it's good to think of how society would have gotten to where they are. So the big change is going to be that there are less fossil fuels, which means they are going to be harder to get and more expensive.
The huge change between pre modern and modern warfare isn't armored vehicles and planes, but railroads. Well, motorized transport in general, but railroads were the first thing that allowed you to ship vast quantities of supplies and materiel over land cheaply, and meant armies could be supplied centrally without pillaging and looting the fields ("foraging") as they went. And you can easily make electrified rail transport. It's actually better than internal combustion, just with more up front capital cost.
No this might be straying from the premise you want to investigate a little, but with rarer and costlier fossil fuels, there is far less incentive to invent combustion based engines, steam boilers, turbines, internal combustion piston engines or any of it. And also noted, a lot of chemistry gets a lot harder. Not impossible, but harder. For example, creating modern fertilizer takes hydrogen and carbon dioxide, which is really easy to create by stripping the hydrogen off natural gas and fully burning the leftover carbon, but you can also get the hydrogen by electrolysis of water, and burn charcoal for the carbon dioxide.
I think the big society-changing power source would likely be hydroelectric power. It is a relatively abundant, and easily exploitable resources once you realize you want to make things spin and create electricity from it. If wikipedia is accurate. hydro power still provides about 7% of the world's total energy (not just electricity.) That can get you a good way towards a modern society similar to today's without any fossil fuels.
From there, it seems like once electricity had a foothold, exploiting wind resources would be the next step, followed by solar thermal. Honestly solar thermal is the step that would likely result in heat engines being researched and worked on and lead to stuff like proper combustion engines for specialized tasks.
Overland transport in that case might overtake sea transport for a long time, with ships remaining sail based for a much longer time.
Nuclear power is, well, it's another depletable resource, so depending on your worldbuilding, the easy to get uranium may have already been used up. But if you want your society to have split the atom, massive nuclear powered battleships are a definite possibility.
So with thoughts on the energy technology out of the way, what implications does that have for how wars are fought?
The biggest thing would probably be that any sort of combustion based engine steam or otherwise will remain much more primitive and underdeveloped without cheap coal to jumpstart industrial and commercial use. Mechanized transport outside of electrified railway will be much more costly and therefore more rare, though there's likely some level where charcoal steam power or biofuels become cheaper and better than horses. It will just take a lot longer than it did in our history.
Still you are unlikely to see specifically tanks be developed, because hauling around a lot of steel armor is expensive, but minimally/unarmored self propelled artillery is almost certainly going to be a big deal if you have at least a minimally viable biofuel engine.
Planes, too, are going to be relatively extremely difficult/expensive to run, but also dirigibles because helium comes from natural gas deposits, and hydrogen is most cheaply created from natural gas. And they also still need some engine power. But aerial surveillance is just so useful, it's likely that aerial warfare becomes a thing, less for bombers, but more for scouting/denying the enemy scouting opportunities. If science proceeds apace as far as aerodynamics goes, balloon launched scouting gliders would probably end up common before biofuel engines got good enough for truly powered flight. Aircraft carriers would likely never develop as a major component of warfare.
In general, transport and maneuvering would be much more expensive outside of electrified rail lines. Explosives and such would be moderately more expensive, which might favor more precision weapons and small group infantry maneuver combat than the mass artillery of WWI and tanks and bombing of WWII. Still, communications technology and advancements in gunpowder and artillery would still mean spread out forces and not massed units, with major goals to be taking/defending rail lines and hydro stations. Advancing a front in a large state on state warfare situation would probably involve the rapid construction/deployment of electrified rail lines to provide material to the front, with something like blitzkreig warfare and rapid advances and the modern US's massive air-based operational cabalities being much more difficult to pull off.
That was a lot of random pondering and rambling. But hopefully some of it gives you ideas!
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:53 PM on September 25, 2022
So a lot of technology is going to be path dependent, so it's good to think of how society would have gotten to where they are. So the big change is going to be that there are less fossil fuels, which means they are going to be harder to get and more expensive.
The huge change between pre modern and modern warfare isn't armored vehicles and planes, but railroads. Well, motorized transport in general, but railroads were the first thing that allowed you to ship vast quantities of supplies and materiel over land cheaply, and meant armies could be supplied centrally without pillaging and looting the fields ("foraging") as they went. And you can easily make electrified rail transport. It's actually better than internal combustion, just with more up front capital cost.
No this might be straying from the premise you want to investigate a little, but with rarer and costlier fossil fuels, there is far less incentive to invent combustion based engines, steam boilers, turbines, internal combustion piston engines or any of it. And also noted, a lot of chemistry gets a lot harder. Not impossible, but harder. For example, creating modern fertilizer takes hydrogen and carbon dioxide, which is really easy to create by stripping the hydrogen off natural gas and fully burning the leftover carbon, but you can also get the hydrogen by electrolysis of water, and burn charcoal for the carbon dioxide.
I think the big society-changing power source would likely be hydroelectric power. It is a relatively abundant, and easily exploitable resources once you realize you want to make things spin and create electricity from it. If wikipedia is accurate. hydro power still provides about 7% of the world's total energy (not just electricity.) That can get you a good way towards a modern society similar to today's without any fossil fuels.
From there, it seems like once electricity had a foothold, exploiting wind resources would be the next step, followed by solar thermal. Honestly solar thermal is the step that would likely result in heat engines being researched and worked on and lead to stuff like proper combustion engines for specialized tasks.
Overland transport in that case might overtake sea transport for a long time, with ships remaining sail based for a much longer time.
Nuclear power is, well, it's another depletable resource, so depending on your worldbuilding, the easy to get uranium may have already been used up. But if you want your society to have split the atom, massive nuclear powered battleships are a definite possibility.
So with thoughts on the energy technology out of the way, what implications does that have for how wars are fought?
The biggest thing would probably be that any sort of combustion based engine steam or otherwise will remain much more primitive and underdeveloped without cheap coal to jumpstart industrial and commercial use. Mechanized transport outside of electrified railway will be much more costly and therefore more rare, though there's likely some level where charcoal steam power or biofuels become cheaper and better than horses. It will just take a lot longer than it did in our history.
Still you are unlikely to see specifically tanks be developed, because hauling around a lot of steel armor is expensive, but minimally/unarmored self propelled artillery is almost certainly going to be a big deal if you have at least a minimally viable biofuel engine.
Planes, too, are going to be relatively extremely difficult/expensive to run, but also dirigibles because helium comes from natural gas deposits, and hydrogen is most cheaply created from natural gas. And they also still need some engine power. But aerial surveillance is just so useful, it's likely that aerial warfare becomes a thing, less for bombers, but more for scouting/denying the enemy scouting opportunities. If science proceeds apace as far as aerodynamics goes, balloon launched scouting gliders would probably end up common before biofuel engines got good enough for truly powered flight. Aircraft carriers would likely never develop as a major component of warfare.
In general, transport and maneuvering would be much more expensive outside of electrified rail lines. Explosives and such would be moderately more expensive, which might favor more precision weapons and small group infantry maneuver combat than the mass artillery of WWI and tanks and bombing of WWII. Still, communications technology and advancements in gunpowder and artillery would still mean spread out forces and not massed units, with major goals to be taking/defending rail lines and hydro stations. Advancing a front in a large state on state warfare situation would probably involve the rapid construction/deployment of electrified rail lines to provide material to the front, with something like blitzkreig warfare and rapid advances and the modern US's massive air-based operational cabalities being much more difficult to pull off.
That was a lot of random pondering and rambling. But hopefully some of it gives you ideas!
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:53 PM on September 25, 2022
A lot depends on assumptions about coal and natural gas along with oil. The industrial revolution and development of rail started with coal. If you still have abundant coal then there are various options for gasification and use to convert or produce into other chemical energy dense materials.
If coal is similarly scarce (whole mountain ranges long gone), then the other major question is where would high quality refined metals come from. Without energy sources you don’t have extensive steel and have almost no aluminum. Cement will also be far more variable and expensive as well.(Likewise glass, although less relevant to war making specifically). If you have energy sources to make society and landscape changing amounts of those materials you also have energy to drive the processes needed to generate hydrogen, synthetic fuels, and the like, particularly given the importance of military security.
I’d expect nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, biomass power sources and a more electrified society.
posted by meinvt at 1:13 PM on September 25, 2022
If coal is similarly scarce (whole mountain ranges long gone), then the other major question is where would high quality refined metals come from. Without energy sources you don’t have extensive steel and have almost no aluminum. Cement will also be far more variable and expensive as well.(Likewise glass, although less relevant to war making specifically). If you have energy sources to make society and landscape changing amounts of those materials you also have energy to drive the processes needed to generate hydrogen, synthetic fuels, and the like, particularly given the importance of military security.
I’d expect nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, biomass power sources and a more electrified society.
posted by meinvt at 1:13 PM on September 25, 2022
I remember a scifi story I read, may have been edited in a collection by Jerry Pournelle, where some "benevolent" aliens, arrived in time for one of the world wars, decided Terrans are way too violent for their own good, and dropped some sort of "inhibitor" on Earth that turned off ALL high-pressure chemical reactions such as guns and cannons, as well as all internal combustion engines. They came back like 50+ years later, and while on the surface the whole place do look a lot more peaceful, this time, this time the Earthlings has plans for these aliens, who must be stopped from playing God ever again... (If someone remembers this story's name and author, please post it)
The story basically postulated that most transportation became steam powered, and trains (both on rails and on large wheels became the norm. Sailing ships again cross the oceans, and blimps do the intercontinental routes. I believe one of the weapons used by US Army against the barbarians was a marble thrower that is powered by a stream-driven centrifuge. Most of the effort has been put into both tactical and strategic planning where every contingency can be planned for and overcome. I think it was said that when the means of travel was curtailed, the human mind turned inward and sharpened itself into the ultimate instrument or war, or something like that.
Seem to recall one of the more dystopian RPGs in the 1980s was Twilight 2000, where it was postulated that WW3 had occurred, and a last-ditch weapon from the Soviets got loose: a bug that eats fossil fuel. One of the scenarios you can play was basically the last steam train to leave Poland to the west and you have to be on it.
So, yeah, more steam.
posted by kschang at 1:39 PM on September 25, 2022
The story basically postulated that most transportation became steam powered, and trains (both on rails and on large wheels became the norm. Sailing ships again cross the oceans, and blimps do the intercontinental routes. I believe one of the weapons used by US Army against the barbarians was a marble thrower that is powered by a stream-driven centrifuge. Most of the effort has been put into both tactical and strategic planning where every contingency can be planned for and overcome. I think it was said that when the means of travel was curtailed, the human mind turned inward and sharpened itself into the ultimate instrument or war, or something like that.
Seem to recall one of the more dystopian RPGs in the 1980s was Twilight 2000, where it was postulated that WW3 had occurred, and a last-ditch weapon from the Soviets got loose: a bug that eats fossil fuel. One of the scenarios you can play was basically the last steam train to leave Poland to the west and you have to be on it.
So, yeah, more steam.
posted by kschang at 1:39 PM on September 25, 2022
Before we were digging our hydrocarbons out of the ground, we were extracting them from fatty living creatures. I've always wanted to read some kind of alternate-reality sci-fi that followed that track to its logical conclusion, wherein whale husbandry becomes a de facto military operation because crushing the great behemoths into a pulp is the only viable source of portable power generation. (See also: the Dishonored series of games)
posted by Mayor West at 5:05 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 5:05 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm reminded that Mythbusters did a piece on a steam powered machine gun that the Confederates thought up during the Civil War. Terrifying!
posted by SemiSalt at 4:18 AM on September 26, 2022
posted by SemiSalt at 4:18 AM on September 26, 2022
> Zalzidrax: "So a lot of technology is going to be path dependent, so it's good to think of how society would have gotten to where they are."
I'd like to expand on this point. If oil has run out in this timeline's version of the 1950s -- and if we're not just going to hand-wave in something like an equivalent algae-based biofuel -- you might need to ask yourself if cars (as we know them) would even exist in widespread usage in this universe. I've sometimes imagined a world where cars evolved more like airplanes and trains; namely, instead of everyone being expected to own and operate their own vehicle, it's just kind of assumed that ground transportation would be large, communally used things like buses/trains/planes. In particular, I could maybe imagine a world where instead of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System being established in the 1950s, you have the Eisenhower Interstate Railway System which converted and expanded the older US highways into railroads.
To flesh this out further, I think I would push the transportation options in this alternate reality into things that are both bigger and smaller than we're currently used to. Without the high energy density of petro-products, you either have to make do with less (e.g.: bicycles, motorcycles, trolleys/streetcars, maybe even horses) or use economies of scale to make effective use of lower-density energy sources like coal (e.g.: trains, battleships).
So, here's how I would probably sketch things out:
posted by mhum at 3:44 PM on September 26, 2022
I'd like to expand on this point. If oil has run out in this timeline's version of the 1950s -- and if we're not just going to hand-wave in something like an equivalent algae-based biofuel -- you might need to ask yourself if cars (as we know them) would even exist in widespread usage in this universe. I've sometimes imagined a world where cars evolved more like airplanes and trains; namely, instead of everyone being expected to own and operate their own vehicle, it's just kind of assumed that ground transportation would be large, communally used things like buses/trains/planes. In particular, I could maybe imagine a world where instead of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System being established in the 1950s, you have the Eisenhower Interstate Railway System which converted and expanded the older US highways into railroads.
To flesh this out further, I think I would push the transportation options in this alternate reality into things that are both bigger and smaller than we're currently used to. Without the high energy density of petro-products, you either have to make do with less (e.g.: bicycles, motorcycles, trolleys/streetcars, maybe even horses) or use economies of scale to make effective use of lower-density energy sources like coal (e.g.: trains, battleships).
So, here's how I would probably sketch things out:
- Land: Trains for most long-distance, big cargo hauls (think Russia's military logistics). For war purposes, maybe they've developed some kind of rapid temporary track laying technology to maneuver in un-tracked ares. Or maybe because of everyone's dependence on rail, everyone just sticks to the established railways. For individual maneuvering, maybe electric motorbikes or ATVs, and maybe even horses are still used for cavalry. My point is that there may not be an equivalent of APCs or tanks or self-propelled howitzers in this world. You might only have huge artillery pieces that are either pretty stationary or limited to train-transported movements or small, human-portable mortars with not much in between.
- Sea: Nuclear power or coal-fired steamships should probably work here. You might be able to draw some lessons from the steam age to work out what this might look like in detail. Smaller landing craft could be electric battery powered or possibly even human-powered rowboats.
- Air: Blimps, blimps, blimps. If you're in an alternate reality, you're gonna have blimps. Them's the rules. And yes, they could also be dirigibles or zeppelins which I know are different than blimps but whatever, it's much funner to say blimps blimps blimps than dirigibles dirigibles dirigibles. Oh and you could maybe also have battery-powered drones.
posted by mhum at 3:44 PM on September 26, 2022
Nuclear reactors are big and need a lot of management, including cooling
Not only that, but they need reliable cooling for a significant amount of time after you've shut them down, which rather limits portable non-nautical operation.
could you really build a jetliner, or a bomber, that runs on steam
Unlikely to be practical - there are alternatives with much better power to weight ratios. For example gasified biomass or plant based oils fueling internal combustion or gas turbine engines.
For added fun don't forget the Me 263, which ran on a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine hydrate [do not try this at home].
I once read a science fiction series where warfare was conducted by a small number of aircraft powered by vegetable-oil derived bio-diesel.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 7:04 PM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
Not only that, but they need reliable cooling for a significant amount of time after you've shut them down, which rather limits portable non-nautical operation.
could you really build a jetliner, or a bomber, that runs on steam
Unlikely to be practical - there are alternatives with much better power to weight ratios. For example gasified biomass or plant based oils fueling internal combustion or gas turbine engines.
For added fun don't forget the Me 263, which ran on a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine hydrate [do not try this at home].
I once read a science fiction series where warfare was conducted by a small number of aircraft powered by vegetable-oil derived bio-diesel.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 7:04 PM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
In The Windup Girl they use massive springs for power.
posted by gottabefunky at 7:59 PM on September 26, 2022
posted by gottabefunky at 7:59 PM on September 26, 2022
A couple extra thoughts.
This alternate society would likely require building upwards and downwards, resulting in much denser population centers, due to lack of private transportation except the very elite. One reason gasoline (and diesel) became the choice for vehicle fuel is its relative ease of creation, packaging, transportation, storage, and distribution, compared to its alternatives, such as electricity, LNG/CNG, Hydrogen, and so on. Without it, the market would have to settle on an alternative that made sense for that world.
Can you make an "atomic powered plane"? The main problem is shielding (and the associated weight) and lack of research. Both US and Soviets had researched this heavily during the early days of Cold War before ICBM became the weapons "du jour". In the 1950s US did test several "nuclear jet engines", and in 1957, even a nuclear ramjet engine, but as those were really for bombers, and ICBM rendered them obsolete, they were quickly cancelled. No flying aircraft was ever powered by one in our world.
If you can handwave some sort of ultra-light radiation barrier for your world (maybe left by that previous civilization) then it is definitely possible to create a large aircraft powered by nuclear reactor. It will, by necessity, be huge, due to all the plumbing and shielding, that essentially made it into a giant crash-resistant structure that won't spew radiation all over the place even if the airplane crashes. Maybe even some sort of ejection mechanism to make sure it lands safely even if the aircraft doesn't.
Which in turn suggests that something that's naturally buoyant, like an airship, or something that doesn't go up very high in the air, like an ekranoplane, are probably a better better platforms to carry a nuclear reactor.
posted by kschang at 7:09 AM on September 27, 2022
This alternate society would likely require building upwards and downwards, resulting in much denser population centers, due to lack of private transportation except the very elite. One reason gasoline (and diesel) became the choice for vehicle fuel is its relative ease of creation, packaging, transportation, storage, and distribution, compared to its alternatives, such as electricity, LNG/CNG, Hydrogen, and so on. Without it, the market would have to settle on an alternative that made sense for that world.
Can you make an "atomic powered plane"? The main problem is shielding (and the associated weight) and lack of research. Both US and Soviets had researched this heavily during the early days of Cold War before ICBM became the weapons "du jour". In the 1950s US did test several "nuclear jet engines", and in 1957, even a nuclear ramjet engine, but as those were really for bombers, and ICBM rendered them obsolete, they were quickly cancelled. No flying aircraft was ever powered by one in our world.
If you can handwave some sort of ultra-light radiation barrier for your world (maybe left by that previous civilization) then it is definitely possible to create a large aircraft powered by nuclear reactor. It will, by necessity, be huge, due to all the plumbing and shielding, that essentially made it into a giant crash-resistant structure that won't spew radiation all over the place even if the airplane crashes. Maybe even some sort of ejection mechanism to make sure it lands safely even if the aircraft doesn't.
Which in turn suggests that something that's naturally buoyant, like an airship, or something that doesn't go up very high in the air, like an ekranoplane, are probably a better better platforms to carry a nuclear reactor.
posted by kschang at 7:09 AM on September 27, 2022
Response by poster: Thanks for all the answers! If anyone is curious, the world is this one, though the 'future' stuff mostly isn't there yet.
The people of this world are no smarter than ours, so as it happens they saved up all their oil for one last WWII-style war— which ended in a stalemate as the stockpiled oil ran out. But they have been developing alternative energy sources, and they didn't make civilian automobiles.
Dirigibles would be fun, but surely they would be too vulnerable to drones.
posted by zompist at 2:59 PM on September 28, 2022
The people of this world are no smarter than ours, so as it happens they saved up all their oil for one last WWII-style war— which ended in a stalemate as the stockpiled oil ran out. But they have been developing alternative energy sources, and they didn't make civilian automobiles.
Dirigibles would be fun, but surely they would be too vulnerable to drones.
posted by zompist at 2:59 PM on September 28, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
And aircraft carriers.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:38 PM on September 24, 2022 [2 favorites]