The physics of swamp transport is governed by a single exact equation. Ground pressure equals weight divided by surface area.
A four-wheeled heavy freight wagon carrying twenty tons of rock concentrates that massive dead load onto four narrow iron tires, each making barely ten square inches of contact with the ground. The resulting pressure exceeds five hundred pounds of pressure—punching through frozen turf like a chisel through soft cheese.
A human foot, by contrast, exerts roughly six pounds of pressure.
If you wish to drive an eight-ton machine across liquid peat bogs without sinking to the axles, you must design a running gear that spreads the vehicle’s mass across thousands of square inches of soil contact.
Giles stood on the concrete apron of the heavy vehicle shed, his hands resting on the track-tensioning turnbuckle of Haven-Hold’s newest civil creation.
Behind his eyes, the test model screen was certifying the running gear of the Clockwork-Golem Trench Tank.
Before him sat an eight-and-a-half-ton tracked crawler, low-slung, compact. Then he armored in three-quarter-inch hard dark metal steel plate.
Its running gear was a marvel of civil movement. Two nonstop track belts formed of fifty linked cast-hard dark metal shoe plates, each shoe eighteen inches wide and ribbed with heavy grouser cleats. The tracks wrapped around front idler wheels, rear drive sprockets, and five heavy bogie rollers mounted on spring-dampened rocker arms.
