michael adams wrote
harry wrote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3p55J-VA5k

1770 French Cugnot (Repro)(1), first self powered Military vehicle

Fark. Unlikely to have won many wars with that.

Its a modern demonstration in a park somewhere of a steam driven vehicle.
Basically its a large boiler on wheels but its a rounded shape like the
base of a turnip.

And a tad vulnerable out in front like that.

quote

First self-propelled vehicle
French Army Captain Cugnot was one of the first to successfully
employ a device for converting the reciprocating motion of a
steam piston into a rotary motion by means of a ratchet arrangement.
A small version of his three-wheeled fardier à vapeur ("steam dray")
was made and used in 1769 (a fardier was a massively built two-
wheeled horse-drawn cart for transporting very heavy equipment,
such as cannon barrels).

https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Nicolas-Joseph_Cugnot

/quote

As they say "not a lot of people know that".

It shows why the French Revolution was necessary.

Yeah, can't have the aristos running people over with those.

Looking into a lot of things it appears the French got there first.

Yeah, like having a revolution.

Accurate screw cutting lathes are another which are usually
attributed to Jesse Ramsden a precision instrument maker,
and Henry Maudeslay machine tool maker and engineer.
When in fact a French bloke got there first. However all the references to
him are in French and never show up on Google.

Even after the buggers paid for the statue of liberty.

This is because the French system of govt and administration wasn't
conducive to the development of industry

Must be why they never had Mirage fighters,
or the best nukes in the world, or Airbus.

- also they didn't have Protestants

Corse they did, they just killed theirs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism_in_France

or Quakers.

Wrong, as always.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers_in_Europe#France