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Comment by jcrawfordor | Hacker News Reader

Another unusual type of vehicle designed for arctic transport applications is the Rolligon: https://jalopnik.com/weird-tech-friday-the-rolligon-for-when...

Rolligon-type vehicles (mostly not under the Rolligon name today) are still used in mine and oilfield applications in the Canadian and Alaskan arctic. This is often motivated less by their snow/ice capability (which is similar to tracked vehicles), than by environmental regulations which specify a maximum ground pressure exerted by vehicles to prevent excessive damage to plant life. There's a whole world of "low ground pressure" vehicles for this reason, although in non-arctic situations they usually achieve this by use of exceptionally wide rubber tracks.

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Speaking of "low ground pressure' vehicles: if you have not seen it before, take a look at the Sherp!

https://sherpatv.com/

This is the only vehicle, besides a cruising yacht, that I truly desire to own.

My dream of journeying the worlds' swamps and river systems with a Sherpa is a tough one to shake. If only they'd made a fusion-powered version, hehe ..

What a delightfully odd-looking vehicle.

They look incredible but what are their downsides? Are they exceedingly expensive?

High Ground pressure is what destroys roads - road maintenance will be much cheaper if not for all the trucks. Does it make sense to require trucking to use such vehicles?

Also, these vehicles being all terrain why haven't millitaries shown interest?

I’d imagine the biggest downside is scrubbing while cornering on a high-traction surface.

The difference in distance covered by the inside and outside edges would be significant.

Few manufacturers mean that they are very expensive (generally custom made today, in one case I've seen by a shipbuilder), which limits commercial usage. Besides that simple issue though I think it mostly comes down to poor maneuvering on hard surfaces which somewhat limits them to snow/sand/mud, and the drivetrain is probably more delicate and difficult to maintain than tracks which discourages military use. One of the big advantages of tracked vehicles in a military context, for example, is that they do not get flat tires. A rolligon could easily lose an entire bag. I'd imagine they probably carry spares and tools to swap them but no one would want to do that on a battlefield.

From what I have read, they are, in general, not really designed for survivability like most off-road vehicles we think of, but rather for payload. So operators send them in groups of two or three because they do get stuck or require repairs en route from time to time.

> the Rolligon

Also used on the Moon (in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress").

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