this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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A tank pre-steam power. The force of steam was known about long before, but not utilized. Maybe because the metals weren't good enough yet to hold pressure? Imagine a steampunk Rome.
Yes, the metal wasn't good enough, and the manufacturing tolerances weren't small enough to hold pressure.
Hero (a dude) of Alexandria made some steam powered stuff around the dawn of the 1st millenia, and some roman dude put steam powered doors in his house, I think some temples had steam powered doors to.
The emporer, I think Augustus the first one, had it presented to him to develop it further and he decided he didn't want to take jobs from the plebs or whatever, had to keep the beggars busy with something. So they dropped it.
Hundreds of years prior, a couple of hundred maybe, Archimedes theorized a steam cannon.
The principle of steam power was known, but the ancient steam engines could only move stuff against little resistance once, while releasing all steam.
It wasn't possible to build a steam engine that could build up pressure and do actual work, until metallurgy and precision machining were developed.
I think the first major application for a steam engine that could do real work was way into the 18th century or something, with the steam pump, to access coal seams deeper in the ground by pumping water out. Not sure entirely though.
Newcomen engine Thomas Newcomen
Taqi ad-Din was like: What else could it spin than a spit:
So what is this thing when?
It rotates meat so it cooks evenly on all sides.
But Davinci was Florentine...
Your mom's a Florentine.