Chapter 31: Wheels


    ke sat on his office chair and went through all the reports sitting on his work desk. Food and water supplies, ammunition consumption, crew morale, and more. Luckily the giant horned wolves donated over 4 tons of meat, helping them greatly with their food supplies.


    How am I going to solve the ammunition problem? Over 30% used up in the defense against the wolves, if they attack constantly, they will be down to sticks and stones. ke held up Lt Frank''s report and skim through it.


    ck powder? Hmm, we need a saltpeter source if we need potassium nitrate. ke makes a reminder to get survey teams to head down south along the cliffs and hills to see if they can find any "bat" caves


    Senior Chief Petty Officer Gale knocks sharply at the open hatch of ke''s office, "Permission to enter, Sir?" He stood at parade rest outside the office.


    "Come in Chief." ke nces up from his stack of paperwork, d of the interruption. He pushes back on his seat, thinking even if stranded on an unknown, trying to survive, yet paperwork never dies. "At ease, Chief and take a seat."


    Chief Gale pulls the chair out and sat down heavily, before handing over a tablet to ke. "Sir, the vehicle designs are done."


    "Oh? That''s fast." ke raised his eyebrows as he scrolls through the designs.


    "Yes Sir, the past 2 days due to the wolf raids, we are mostly on lockdown, so theds had plenty of free time toe out with something." Chief Gale exins. "We also built a couple of prototypes to test."


    "What? Really?" ke''s eyes lit up, "Can I see them?"


    "Sure you can sir!" And they set off towards the flight decks. Along the way, Chief Gale exins the design they came out with to ke.


    "This way," Chief Gale leads ke to makeshift garage housed inside the flight deck. "We built up this garage so that it is easier for us to create and test the vehicles."


    Sitting in the middle of the garage were 2 vehicles with several mechanics working on them. "Captain on the deck!" Chief Gale bellows. The mechanics instantly stop work and stood at attention.


    "At ease," ke enters the garage and looks with approval at the 2 vehicles sitting there. One is a 4 wheeler while the other was a half-track design, both still looking very barebones, with cables and gears exposed.


    Chief Gale points to the 4-wheeler and points out its characteristics. "We took an old jeep design as it was the simplest to build with what we have. It is powered by an overclocked 50kW electric motor salvaged from the auto doors, providing 67 horsepower."


    The 4-wheeler has no doors, just a simple car body frame with a driver seat, front passager seat and bench bolted to the back for 2 more passengers. "Of course, since the terrain here has no proper roads, it has 4 wheel drive capability, able to hit speeds up to 110 km/h with a max load of 450 kg and a range of 520 km on a full battery charge."


    "Tested?" ke sat on the driver seat, holding onto the steering wheel. He looks at the primitive design of the steering wheel, gearbox and foot pedals. "How do you drive this thing?"


    Chief Gale gives a brief run-through of how the steering wheel, gearbox, and foot pedals work. "This turns the direction of the vehicle, while this controls the speed and this is the elerator, brakes, and clutch."


    After 30mins of exnation and learning, ke turns the power key on and steps gently on the elerator. The jeep rolls forward smoothly and exits the garage to the joy and excitement of the mechanics. ke drove several rounds inside the flight deck before returning to the garage. "That was fun!" He grins at the excited mechanics and Chief Gale. "Very good work! Now we just need to do some outfield trials! What''s next?"


    "This is the half-track design we came up with. We actually wanted to use 8 wheels to give it good off-road capabilities but we are kindacking in rubber." Chief Gale pats the steel hull of the half-track. "For the engines, we pulled severalrge electric motors off the st doors. The 200 kW motors provide as much as 260 horsepower, allowing it to transport over 2 tons of load while keeping its top speed at 78km/h."


    The half-track looks like a tbed trailer truck with 2 front wheels while the rear is a caterpir track, instead of having wheels. "For it''s maxed range, the batteries are also good for roughly 480 km on a full charge."


    "Why a half-track?" ke asks, curious. "Shouldn''t a 4 or 6 wheels at the rear be better?"


    "A few points, Sir. One is due to the cement of the tracks, it spreads the vehicle''s weight over arger area, which gives it greater mobility over soft terrains like mud and snow." Chief Gale ticks off his fingers as he continues. "Relying instead on their front wheels to direct the vehicle, they do not require theplex steering mechanisms of fully tracked vehicles. Next, it is easier to learn to operate than fully tracked vehicles."


    "Last of all, rubber. We do not have enough of it to produce enough tires for all the vehicles, thus we opt for tracks, using modr steel tes as we have plenty of steel."


    ke nods before asking, "How long do you need to finish it before starting trial runs?" ke stands next to the half-track. "And how many can you build and how fast?"


    "The jeep is almost done, just needs some finishing touches." Chief Gale rubs his chin as he mentally makes some calctions. "Probably can squeeze out 2 jeeps per week."


    "As for the half-track. 1 per week or up to 10 days to produce it. Also same as the jeep, rubber iscking, unless we change all to tracks, like a tank." Chief Gale looks at ke. "Including the needs of rubber for the jeeps, I say 12 jeeps and 20 half-tracks is all we can produce."


    ke nods. Once the survey teams have jeeps, they can expand out to find more resources easier. "Alright, that sounds good. Quickly finish the prototypes and run trials, once all tested to run fine, I want production of the jeep and half-track to begin."


    "Yes, Sir. Also if you can assign people to start stripping the ship of rubber and other parts, it will help a lot." Chief Gale gave a suggestion.


    "Got it, I will assign people to work on it." ke agrees and continues. "We also need a manual for maintenance and driving, start getting some of your guys who know how to drive to be prepared to teach others."