this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2025
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The 'Snow Cruiser' for an abortive Antarctic expedition, US, 1939 (infosec.pub)
submitted 14 hours ago by PugJesus@piefed.social to c/historyphotos@piefed.social
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[–] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 10 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

That's a cool vehicle. I wonder what the supply chain for fuel and water would look like for this kind of vehicle.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 9 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

The nice documentary "The Snow Cruiser"-Antarctica's Abandoned Behemoth mentions that it should have had enough fuel in its tank for an entire mission. Yet, as it turned out to be practically immovable on the Antarctic terrain, it wasn't successful at all in achieving its mission goals.

[–] Lawnman23@lemmy.world 14 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] bmpvy@feddit.org 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing that! What an interesting wild ride

[–] INeedMana@piefed.zip 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

What an interesting wild ride

The large, smooth, treadless tires were originally designed for a large swamp vehicle; they spun freely and provided very little forward movement, sinking as much as 3 feet (0.91 m) into the snow.

The crew attached the two spare tires to the front wheels of the vehicle and installed chains on the rear wheels, but were unable to overcome the lack of traction.

The crew later found that the tires produced more traction when driven backwards. The longest trek was 92 miles (148 km) – driven completely in reverse.

Although, a rather short one

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 34 minutes ago

I've seen pictures of this vehicle long ago, I think it was on Reddit. Back then, the first thing that came to my mind is "why don't they have a proper profile, or chains, or spikes?" How the F did they think that slicks are good for ice?

Amazingly, concept drawings show the Snow Cruiser with a tractor-like profile on the wheels.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 4 points 12 hours ago

Inexistent.