Steam Dragon by Cybertenko
Steam powered mechanical Rifle model 1889 Steam Dragon is most famous weapon produced by Scott Calaghan´s Steamwork Enterprises. Calaghan´s Factory was until the year 1899 the second largest producer of steam machineries. Calaghan was not that good inventor and construor is his main competitor John Hartwig, but he was definitely better merchant and vendor. Although his product was not taht good as Hartwig´s he managed to persuade many goverment to purchase his products as main state army weaponry. So this was the case also with Steam Dragon, interesting concept, but poor construction and realization. The main downside of this weapon was badly done inner mechanism and steampressure pumps which took so much inner space, that water boiler need be moved aside from weapons axis. That caused significant instability of the gun and further its considerable imprecission. Although the gun had big punch and long effective range, it can hardly hit anything for such a distance. The former targeting telescope was totaly useless and was early chamged for simply targeting cross which was far more effective and much cheaper. Steam Dragon was used mainly on tripod or bipod supports, since it can helped to better handling and therefore for better accuracy. The second main downside - imperfect heating system caused a lot of thick smoke which gave away soldiers location quite easily. For that some other smoke dispension was searched until smoke diffuser was invented as good method how to get rid of unwanted smoke columns. Further was Steam Dragon equiped with Hartwig´s steam condenser, which consumed most of steam vapors bscuring soldier´s vision after the shot. Calaghan´s Steam Dragon uses Gatling´s principle of rotating barrels as well as for synchronizing loading procedure and building steam pressure before each shot. After several years in service soldiers found better use for troubled weapon and this weas as closequarter heavy duty weapon. It was used by stromtrooper units for clearing trenches, bunkers, ship decks and so on. It was often equpied with various kinds of bayonets, various capacities of magazines and other modifications. It was used even ater purchase of Calaghan´s Factories by John Hartwig, which made several improvements to this popular but controversial weapon. Hartwig produced even hybrid variant with steam powered loading procedure but conventional chemical ammunition, but this variant was not that successful.
