Old time forwarder

[firewood]

Its not really that amazing, ice has a very low friction coefficient like steel wheel on steel rails and ~5 tonnes of horses with studded shoes and a high ground pressure on ice would have more grip to pull than on almost any other surface, so 6 big horses would be able to get over 100 tonnes moving on rails or ice.

 

Be it animal or mechanical HP it takes very little power to move massive weights at low speed, its more about having enough weigh & traction for the power you do have.

 

Look at it another way I weight just under 100kg and I can just about push my Unimog that weighs 6.1 tonnes on flat ground a cupple of meters, that just over 61 times my weight, or look at it another way a land rover road railer will move 300 tonnes and a Unimog road railer will move over 1000 tonnes both at over 15mph

 

 

 

I was thinking more of the effort required to cut the timber and load up the sledge.