Landship

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This article is about a method of transportation. For the Barbadian cultural tradition, see Landship (Barbados).

3 types of landships (top-bottom): sail, wheeled and caterpillar.

A landship is a vessel or vehicle designed for travel over land. They can be of various sizes, shapes, made of different materials and have different methods of propulsion. Landships are differentiated from automobiles by their larger sizes and complexity.

Most landships travel over roads and trails, and can cross plain fields, streams, deserts and snow fields. However, due to their relatively low power-to-weight ratios, they cannot climb hills, cliffs, mountains or other steep slopes, and due to their large sizes they cannot cross forests, jungles or other high obstacle-density areas.

Landships are mostly used for exploration, trade, transport or war. They may or may not be armed, usually with cannons, turrets and large-caliber guns.

The most popular landship is the battle tank.

[edit] Methods of propulsion

Self-propelled:

Combustion engine + wheels: Like an automobile, the ship has an engine that transfers its power to the ship's wheels to make it move.

Combustion engine + caterpillar: This engined ship has multiple solid wheels wrapped with a flexible tread, and offers more traction than its simple-wheeled counterpart.

Reaction engine: This ship applies Newton's third law of motion to make it move. One or several rockets, jets or ion drives eject hot gases or other particles in the opposite direction that the ship wants to move to make it in motion.

External source of motion:

Separate motor vehicle: A tug, separate from the landship, attaches to the ship and pulls or pushes it.

Sail power: One or many sails captures the wind, which drags the ship along. The ship usually made of wood, and has large cartwheels.

[edit] In fiction

Hannibal-class heavy land battleship Bonaparte, Cosmic Era, Gundam anime metaseries

Due to their large sizes, landships are impractical in real life (except tanks and other armored fighting vehicles). However, they are featured in works of fiction, as land-based counterparts of water ships and airships.

Super Mario 3 had large landships, hybrids of pirate ships with caterpillar tracks.
Heavy Gear has large factions who maintain entire navies of landships, ranging from the size of a tugboat to twice the volume of a Nimitz class carrier.
Landships are featured in animes and mangas such as:
- Secret of Cerulean Sand (anime)
- The Gundam metaseries of anime and manga: Land mobile aircraft carriers
- Now and Then, Here and There
- (anime/manga 4)
In Supreme Commander, the UEF Mobile Factory is a prime example of a Landship.