<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > Archimedes spiral and early attempts</h1>
The mechanization of the Soviet army began as early as the late 1920s, which made the Soviet army realize early on that one of the purposes of mechanization of the army was to remove geographical obstacles and constraints. A prominent aspect of advances in military technology is progress in vehicles and other means of land transportation. They have significantly reduced the time required for the force to respond and have expanded the radius of activity. More importantly, technological advances have changed the basis of military assessment of regions, locations, or the environment. It has greatly increased the number of geographical factors that play an important role in regional analysis. Technological advances mean that military activities are becoming increasingly complex and place higher demands on speed, number and distance. In the mid-1950s, it was on the basis of this understanding that the Soviet army put forward the development requirements for multi-purpose military vehicles with strong traffic capabilities in cold environments.
ZIL-SHN-68 propeller snowmobile in the state of water navigation
After a decade of less successful attempts at traditional tracked and wheeled vehicle frames over the past decade or so from the 1950s to the mid-1960s, the Soviets believed they had found inspiration in Archimedes, an ancient Greek mathematician. More than 2,000 years ago, Archimedes had studied a farmland water extraction system designed on the principle of "Archimedes spiral" through meditation. This screw impeller with the closed long tube cylinder machinery is simply a long tube cylinder that is first placed obliquely between the arid highlands and the wet lowlands, and the opening at one end of the lowland is half submerged in water. A spiral rod impeller with a diameter equal to the inner diameter of the closed cylinder is then fed into the cylinder so that it fits together. Then, by shaking one end of the screw impeller—the wooden handle that was previously mounted on the high end—the water was lifted from low to high as the screw impeller rotated inside the cylinder, and finally to the farmland at a higher level with the conduit. This great invention is still in use today – our sewage treatment plants, reservoirs and coal mine sorting equipment have adopted similar operating principles. Inspired by the Archimedean spiral, the Soviets decided to give a whole new definition to this ancient invention, developing a special vehicle that uses the principle of rolling friction to travel in extremely harsh terrain such as snow and mud. However, it should be noted that the special off-road vehicles that use the principle of "Archimedes" are not original to the Soviets, and similar designs have been proposed as early as the middle of the 19th century, and by the beginning of the 20th century, they have been successfully applied to engineering practice by imaginative Americans.
In order to strengthen the traffic performance of vehicles in cold environments, it is necessary to get rid of the shackles of the original tracked or wheeled vehicles, find new theoretical breakthroughs and realize them in engineering
A cold environment is a desolate, icy terrain, or a terrain covered by tundra vegetation or a northern foliage forest (especially the deciduous forest in the Taiga community). These areas either freeze all year round, or freeze and thaw alternately. Therefore, the average temperature in the coldest month is -50°-0°Fahrenheit, and the average temperature in the hottest month is 1°-65°F. The warm season is usually the rainy season, with an average of 1-3 inches of rainfall per month. These areas are often overcast. The Arctic and cold regions are mostly hilly and undulating, with an altitude difference of 80-320 feet per square mile and an average gradient of 2°-8°. There are usually 1-2 drainage ditches per mile. Irregular water systems are a distinctive feature of the region, with lakes, acid marshes, herbaceous swamps and forest swamps everywhere. In this environment, even tracked vehicles known for their strong traffic ability are often helpless---- even if they do not consider rain, snow and mud, and carry out off-road sports in the non-icy tundra, the tracks will be worn by the gravel on the tundra, resulting in movement obstruction, and the march will be unusually slow and difficult. Because of this, in order to strengthen the traffic performance of vehicles in cold environments, it is necessary to get rid of the shackles of the original tracked or wheeled vehicles, find new theoretical breakthroughs and realize them in engineering.
An internal combustion engine-powered spiral tractor design appeared in 1899
Jims and Ira Pivi's "Big Screw for the Internal Combustion Engine"
In 1907, in order to transport the high-quality pine wood from Maine out of the complex terrain (Maine is sparsely populated, the least densely populated state east of the Mississippi River, mostly undeveloped, 90% forested), two American engineers, Jims and Ira Pivi, built a tractor with a strange structure in the mobile part—the body was no different from a regular tractor, but there were no wheels or tracks, only a pair of hollow cylinders with spiral flanges. It is actually a pair of "internal combustion engine screws" used to climb up and down on complex terrain. The car proved to work very well at the time, quite agile and powerful, as the spiraling vehicle could smoothly pass through any harsh conditions mixed with snow and soft mud. Don't worry about it getting stuck like a tracked car. And because this kind of car has very few moving parts, the reliability is very high. At this point, the spiral propulsion vehicle appeared in front of the world for the first time in the form of agricultural machinery. By 1929, the more complete "Fortson Snowmobile" was built again, and thanks to the enhanced horsepower, it was able to easily drag 12 tons of wood through the snowfields of the forest sea. Since the clouds of war were once again hanging over much of the world at this time, after seeing the potential military value of the "Fortson Snowmobile", some people began to wonder whether such vehicles could be developed into military machines. As a result, in the ensuing Second World War, a large number of ideas, including spiral-propelled tanks, were thrown out by engineers on both sides of the enemy, and some of them became a living reality. For example, one of the "light snow assault vehicles" designed in 1943 to raid a heavy water plant in Norway employed a spiral propulsion principle (but lost the competition with the tracked M29 "weasel").
Fordson Snowmobile prototype using the principle of spiral propulsion (above and below)
In World War II, a large number of ideas, including spiral-propelled tanks, were thrown out by engineers on both sides of the enemy (above and below)
Like similar attempts by the United States in the war, the Soviet Union also tried to produce a number of military vehicles using the principle of spiral propulsion in World War II, and even samples were captured by Nazi Germany during actual combat tests. However, due to the lack of technological maturity, such attempts in the Soviet Union, like those of the United States, were largely fruitless and quickly forgotten with the end of the war. However, as the "Cold War" based on the hegemony of the United States and the Soviet Union began to enter the "climax", in the game of pursuing all-round military superiority at all costs, the military vehicles of the spiral propulsion principle were once again remembered by the Soviet military to prepare for a possible war in the alpine region. Against this backdrop, a series of unforgettable mechanical monsters have emerged.