Author: Andrew Hills

Ford 3-ton Special Tractor M1918 Prototype

Post author By Andrew Hills
Post date March 11, 2024
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Ford 3-ton Special Tractor M1918 Prototype. Illustration by Z3nsiter.

United States of America (1918)
Artillery Tractor/Light Tank – 1 Built

The First World War broke out in 1914, dragging into the maelstrom the major powers of Europe and beyond. As early as 1915, faced with the carnage wrought by the industrialization of war and the machine gun, men were being killed at enormous rates on the battlefields of Europe. Different armies took different approaches to resolve this problem. For Britain and France, this took the form of ideas for armored machines to clear a path through or convey troops across enemy barbed wire. This resulted in tanks such as the British Mk.I and the French Schneider CA1. The Germans and Italians were not far behind with their own programmes, yet the United States, having isolated itself from the fighting in WW1, had no development programme of its own. Despite seeing these allied machines go into battle, the Americans took relatively little notice of this new epoch in warfare.

This article originally appeared in the Tank Encyclopedia Magazine #Issue 8. You can get a free download here.

When the United States did finally enter the war in April 1917, it did so with a naive and mostly untested military, resembling European armies of 1914. One thing it certainly lacked was the tank and, for a while, it would have to try and get hold of some where it could, first from the French, in the form of their own FT, and later with the British as a joint programme to develop the Mk.VIII heavy tank.

In the middle of this was an automotive manufacturer, the Ford Motor Company. Ford clearly took a hefty amount of inspiration from the Renault FT tank and put it into a diminutive package weighing just 3 tons (2.7 tonnes). This resulted in the Ford 3-ton, America’s first truly independently-designed tank, although the initial prototype was somewhat of a problem.

Renault FT at the Brussels Army Museum
Source: wiki

The concept of such a small, lightly armored and lightly armed tank is questionable, especially with the benefit of hindsight over a century later. In 1917, however, there was little to go on for inspiration from a design point of view and even less in the form of combat experience on which to base a decision. The British had employed quasi-rhomboidal tanks at the end of 1916, but, whilst successful in the context of previous infantry attacks, the deployment was still not the giant breakthrough that was hoped for.

Those British tanks were large and slow, weighed over 30 tons (27.2 tonnes), carrying bulletproof armor and, carrying either machine guns or 6 pounder guns or both, were at least well-armed. The French had pursued their own tank programme and would deliver an equally slow but less well armed Schneider CA1. The French would, on the other hand, produce a far more effective tank in the form of the Renault FT, and the trend therefore suggested smaller vehicles may be more effective as well as cheaper and lighter. A lighter tank was easier to move both by train and on a road, with the Renault FT moveable on the back of a truck.

The Ford Motor Company, it seemed, wanted to not only emulate the small tank concept, but take it further. Their idea was to ditch the turret, which added height and complexity, and move the machine gun into the hull. This would allow the same crew with the same firepower in a smaller and lighter package. Furthermore, besides the combat roles, the same vehicle was also proposed as an off-road artillery tractor, being able to haul light guns and other supplies in places where no wheeled truck could access. This would be most important during offensives, when having artillery keep up with the infantry across a shell-cratered and swampy no-man’s-land was of the utmost importance.

Small and light also meant advantages in both production and use. For a major car manufacturer, the opportunity of mass producing a tank made from straightforward components, like those already known to be successful on the Renault FT, was clearly the inspiration for the new 3-ton. However, these features clearly came from confusion over the real tactical necessities of the battlefield, which may have been in part due to unclear or absent instructions and cooperation from the US Army added on top of the lack of experience in tank manufacture and use. This perhaps answers in part why Ford worked on this new very small vehicle as both an artillery tractor and a tank, hedging their bets as to its potential use and utility.

The Design

Work in the US on a domestic tank had started late and progressed slowly. The Americans had wasted valuable time converting the French FT design from metric to imperial measurements to suit American manufacturing equipment, delaying introduction of the tank. As a consequence, from March to April 1918, little progress on any tanks had been made, although the first prototypes of Ford’s 3-ton vehicle were at least finally ready.

The French Renault FT light tank. Armed with either a single machine gun or a 37 mm cannon, the tank was characterized by the large front wheel raised off the ground, a horizontal beam with the road wheels and a low rear idler, with the track’s return run carried in a curve across the top. At the rear is a large skid to assist in crossing gaps.
Source: Craig Moore

The shape of the Renault FT has become iconic since the end of WW1, with its egg-shaped track run, the small drive sprocket at the narrow end of the ‘egg’ at the back, and large idler wheel at the big end at the front. The large front wheel assisted with climbing obstacles and the top of the track run was held in place by means of springs, providing track tension for the whole system.

The Ford 3-ton track system was a close copy of the Renault system, once more with the small sprocket at the rear and large idler at the front.

April 1918 and the Ford 3-ton takes shape, showing a very basic arrangement from the front. This version has a plain plate across the front, but since this would not allow any access to the tank, it is more than likely that this simply was a blank plate rather than an actual design feature.
Source: US National Archives Reference 165-WW 313-63

Armor

At just 3 tons*, the vehicle was less than half the weight of the 6.5 tonne French Renault FT, but this came at a price, specifically in armor. Despite being smaller, at just 4.1 m long, 1.65 m wide, and 1.60 m high (compared to the Renault FT at 5 m long, 1.74 m wide, and 2.14 m high, respectively), the vehicle carried armor just ½” (12.7 mm) at the thickest, down to ¼” (6.35 mm) for the floor.

The Renault FT had up to 22 mm of armor on the front and, whilst this made the Renault proof against German anti-tank rifles at combat ranges, the same was certainly not true of the Ford. With just 12.7 mm, it was very much vulnerable not only to anti-tank rifles, but also potentially to concentrated machine gun fire and the ‘reversed’ German rifle bullets. This sort of armor was acceptable for a small artillery tractor, which may only have faced shell splinters or the occasional stray or ‘spent’ bullet, but it was certainly not enough for direct combat.

Ford 3-ton tank during testing, as it tows what appears to be a small field gun and limber. Note the Holt Petrol-Electric tank prototype in the background.
Source: Hunnicutt.

(* A US ‘Short’ ton is just 2,000 lbs, so 3 tons is 6,000 lbs. The tank actually weighed 6,200 lbs (3.1 US tons) when it was complete.)

Automotive

Powered by a pair of Ford 4-cylinder petrol engines taken from the Model T car, spares for the 3-ton would not have been an issue. Furthermore, the engine was already in mass production, and was known as a reliable and robust unit, albeit an anemic one. Indeed, the engine had first been introduced in October 1908 and it would stay in production until May 1927.

Each engine consisted of a cast iron block with 4 cylinders and 2 side valves per cylinder. These were reliant upon splash lubrication and were cooled by water. With a capacity of 2.9 liters, each engine could deliver between 20 and 22 bhp at 1,600 rpm and 112.5 Nm (83 ft/lbs) of torque.

The 2.9 liter Ford Model T petrol engine, as fitted to the motor car, showing the positions of various component parts. Source: Model T info.net

The solution to improve the power was not to develop a new and improved version but to stick to what was known and to simply pair two of these engines to form the electrically-started powerplant, for a combined output of 34 hp at 1,700 rpm. At 3 tons, this would mean a calculated theoretical power-to-weight ratio of around 11 hp/ton, although the actual measured ratio was just 9.4 hp/ton due to the inherent power losses due to the mechanical transmission system. Nonetheless, the power plant selection made a lot of sense on the face of it, but the selection of two engines made their combination difficult, so the outcome was that they would have to drive half of the vehicle each.

Arranged alongside each other, these engines each had their own Ford planetary transmission and final drive. Thus, the left engine drove the left track and vice versa. This was not the first armored vehicle to use this idea. As early as 1915, this type of arrangement was proposed in Britain by Colonel Crompton and Lucien Legros in their design that they baptized an ‘Emplacement Destroyer’, and one which was later adopted by Sir William Tritton for the Medium Mark A Whippet.

The basic arrangement of the British Medium Mark A Whippet used a pair of Tylor engines side by side, with each driving the track on that side of the tank.
Source: Graphic modified by the author from an original drawing.

Combined together like this, the Ford 3-ton could achieve a top speed of around 8 mph (13 km/h) on a good hard surface, which was plenty for WW1, where the primary role for tanks was one of infantry support. For reference, the French Renault FT could achieve just 7 km/h and the British Whippet 13 km/h. As a tractor, this speed was also perfectly adequate and on par with horse-drawn guns.

The transmission provided for 2 forward and a single reverse gear, meaning the vehicle could have one engine put into reverse and the other forward to spin on the spot, although the official technique was to put one into neutral and the other into drive. The commander drove the vehicle using hand levers (one lever controlled each transmission). A brake pedal, one for each track (left foot pedal braking the left track, and right foot pedal braking the right track), added to the steering system, so that a sharp turn was to be done by braking one side and putting it into neutral, whilst the other side went ‘forwards’ or into reverse to turn the tank.

A fuel tank containing 17 US gallons (64.4 liters) of petrol provided an operational range of just 34 miles (55 km), assuming it was operating on flat and firm ground running at a fuel consumption of 2 miles per gallon (0.85 km per liter). Those figures were just for the vehicle. Were it to be towing a field gun, limber, men, or other equipment, especially off-road, then this fuel consumption figure would be substantially higher and, consequently, the operational range would be much lower. However, given the speed of western WWI-era frontlines, this was plenty.

Air for cooling and combustion purposes was drawn in through a raised rib on the rear spine of the tank and the exhaust was vented out of the back downwards through a small ‘step’ in the rear plate. This feature would be changed for production vehicles to individual exhausts venting out of holes in the rear plate and the removal of this ‘step’.

Experimental double ‘A’ frame type track on the prototype Ford 3-ton. Note the absence of exhausts and skids at the rear, and the small ‘step’ in the back plate. The towing eye is also notably absent, a problem for a vehicle meant for towing.
Source: US National Archives

Rear view of the production-standard Ford 3-ton tank, providing an excellent study of the rear end, with the tail skids and exhausts. Note the simple towing eye at the bottom between the skids.
Source: US National Archives

The powerplant for the Ford 3-ton, a pair of Model T Ford 34 hp petrol engines, each driving its own side of the tank.
Source: US National Archives reference 165-WW303-116

The complete power plant for the Ford 3-ton combined a pair of engines, two transmissions, two final drives, and the radiator and fan.
Source: US National Archives.

Crew

A crew of two could be carried but, if the vehicle was operating as an artillery tractor, just a single crewmember would be required. This man would operate as both commander and driver and he would be sat on the right side of the vehicle. To his left was a space in which another crewmember might be carried, although, with no way of looking out and with nothing to do, it seems more likely that this space would simply be occupied by some more stowage. Whether a second crewmember was to be carried or not, access to the vehicle was solely by means of a pair of sideways-opening steel access doors in the front.

Seen from the front during trials, the prototype has been camouflaged with a simple double curve of a light color (probably yellow or tan) across the pair of front opening doors. The only visibility from inside to the exterior is the commander’s cupola.
Source: US National Archives.

View inside a Ford 3-ton tank from the front, looking backwards. The engines have not yet been fitted and the incredibly tight space inside is readily apparent already. Note the two oval view holes provided in the back of the crew compartment (just in the shadow created by the roof), which are absent on the prototype, and the lack of a divider between the crew space and the engine bay.
Source: US National Archives Reference: 165-WW-313-A-61

Armament

No armament was carried on the prototype tractor. It would not need any if it were used as a mechanical mule to haul guns and other equipment around a battlefield. The space in the front left of the vehicle, alongside the driver, did, however, leave open the opportunity to create a fighting space of some limited utility.

Ford 3-ton tank mounting a 0.30 calibre Browning in the front left, in the space alongside the driver. Note that, on the ‘tank’ version, the access door opens vertically rather than side to side.
Source: US National Archives Reference 165-WW-313-A-4

Suspension

There were two different versions of suspension trialed on the prototype tractor and it is not clear which preceded which or if both were tested at the same time.

The first notable type of suspension used a highly unusual steel double ‘A’ frame skeleton type track using steel pins, with a timber track shoe fitted into and bolted with a pair of simple bolts to the angled steel foot of the link. At the top of each double ‘A’ was a second pin that linked both A’s together, but was not connected to the track link either ahead or behind. The drive sprocket was around ⅔ of the size of the front jockey wheel and both were skeletonised. Both were little more than an open framework of connected braces attached to the steel rim. Between a pair of these rims were a series of horizontal bars forming ‘teeth’ on the drive sprocket, which engaged with those pins at the top of the track link’s double ‘A’ and dragged them around. Also notable in this experiment was that the large front idler was no longer raised but was flat and in contact with the ground. This system is most noteworthy for the total absence of either roadwheels or return rollers.

Experimental double ‘A’ frame steel track with timber shoes tested on a Ford 3-ton.
Source: US National Archives

Seen during testing, the highly unusual double ‘A’ frame track appears surprisingly rigid even without any road wheels.
Source: US National Archives Footage 7418174

Prototype 3-ton tractor during trials, driving over a series of wooden railway sleepers. The vertical deflection of the track is marginal, indicating the double ’A’ frame system was more rigid and less flexible than might be expected.
Source: US National Archives Footage 7418174

Seen up close from the front is the cramped driving position for the commander operating the control levers and pedals. The prominent studs from the bolt heads holding the timber track pads in place are evident. Note that the front door for the commander opens out sideways, but is clearly missing, as it would be unable to open flush to the side of the tank due to the position of the track.
Source: US National Archives Footage 7418174

Close-up of the inside of the track, with the top connecting pin missing from the double ‘A’ frames.
Source: Gregory Heuer via FaceBook

It is unclear how track tension might have been maintained on this version as the pins wore. The use of timber shoes would likely not have produced good traction when traveling over soft ground and was perhaps not very robust over hard ground either, where the timber could have broken away.

For these reasons, if one system predated another, then it appears that this system probably predated the second suspension system tested on the prototype.

Photographed at the Ford plant, Detroit, Michigan in April 1918, the simplicity of the design is readily apparent, with the side armor consisting of just two plates. Note that the front idler is made from individual steel stays riveted together and that the common axle they share is exposed across the front exterior of the tank.
Source: US National Archives Reference 165WW-313-A-64

The second type of suspension system retained the skeletonised nature of the sprocket at the back and idler or jockey wheel at the front, but included some key changes. The first was that both of those wheels were raised off the ground, creating a small incline for the track at both ends and increasing its vertical climbing ability. However, it appears that a full idler was substituted during testing, as evidenced by photographs. Moreover, this system dropped the complex double ‘A’ frame track and adopted the French-style simple steel plates with a built-in spud protruding from one edge, just like the Renault FT. Measuring just 7 inches (178 mm) wide, the tracks were connected using single steel pins, with 40 track links on each side and a ground contact length of 56 inches (1.42 m per side) for a ground pressure of 9.2 pounds sq. in. (0.063 MPa).

The track was also driven conventionally, like the French FT, with a shoe on the back of the link into which teeth on the sprocket would mesh to drive it around. The shoe on the back would also fit into the center recess of the 5 steel road wheels on the bottom. None of these wheels were fitted with a rubber tyre to provide some cushioning or silencing and the wheels were rigidly fixed to the hull on the inside, and then covered with a steel supporting beam on the outside, which was also fixed to the hull. Track tension was provided by a single steel wheel, matching the design of the road wheels, that was fixed above road wheel 4 on each side, although it does not appear that this wheel could be moved to maintain tension as the track wore.

This style of track and the shape of the track run emulated the Renault FT system and provided much of the same benefit of improved step climbing. It was not as advanced as the French system, since it lacked an effective system to tension the track across the top.

Side view of a newly completed American-built version of the Renault FT known as the M1917 coming out of Van Dorn Iron Works in 1919.
Source: US National Archives

Tail

The final notable suspension feature for the prototype was the tail, or rather the lack of it. The tank was rather short, and crossing even a standard trench proved impossible during trials. Footage of the trials clearly shows that the weight distribution of the vehicle, with the engine at the back, served to drag the tank backwards into the trench as it reached the other side. The solution to this problem was a simple one and once more copied a significant element from the Renault FT, its tail. The tail on the FT was a single large skid, but the Ford 3-ton adopted a split tail like a pair of water skis. Nonetheless, the purpose was an identical one and the tail would become a standard feature on production vehicles.

The hazard of trying to cross a trench which is too wide in a vehicle with too much weight in the rear is evident here, as a Ford 3-ton tank has slipped awkwardly into the trench. Note that no armament at all is fitted and the front is provided with just a pair of simple doors opening outwards. Also of note is that this vehicle has the single track return roller rather than the double return rollers on a leaf spring.
Source: US National Archives

Testing and Adoption

Both of the variants of the 3-ton prototype had their mobility tested. While not much information has surfaced from these tests, several things are clear.

The A-track variant, which had no road wheels, fell to the side and was not pursued further. While doubtlessly attractive due to simplifying production, there were several clear problems with it. There was no way to tension the track, the ground pressure distribution was bad, obstacle crossing abilities were severely limited and the direct contact between the drive sprocket and the ground transferred shocks into the drive train. The traction of the track was also questionable and the system impeded the full opening of the driver’s hatch.

The Renault FT-style suspension was more successful. While the lack of springing and the lack of a way to tension the track remained clear problems, this conventional system was preferred and would remain, albeit with some modifications, on the later production versions. The vehicle did however exhibit limited crossing abilities, leading to the adoption of the tail skids.

The Ford 3-ton piqued interest in the US and, with US forces in Europe lacking tanks, except those handed over by their allies, and the M1917 production still lagging, there was a certain desperation to get armored vehicles into production and to the frontline. The vehicle was accepted into production with 15,000 ordered, but also some changes for the final version. The most important of these was the addition of a machine gun and a second crewmember, highlighting the Americans’ pressing need for fighting vehicles outweighing the need for logistical mobility.

Conclusion

There was a definite need identified by all the main protagonists in WW1 to move guns around a battlefield more easily than with horses. Various options were tried, from steam traction engines, to trucks, to mounting guns on tracked chassis. It would be the latter which found success and the US would go on to pursue tracked artillery extensively during the interwar years.

However, while the idea was sound, this tiny 3-ton tractor was not a success and was only ever going to facilitate the movement of a light field gun anyway. The track system was clearly inadequate and had to be revised multiple times as the vehicle entered production. The idea of an unarmed tracked vehicle also seemed redundant when, with the addition of a gun, you could get a ‘tank’ for the same price. Just one or two of these prototype tractors were made, but the ‘tank’ version would go on to receive substantial orders from the Army. No examples of this prototype vehicle survive and neither the artillery tractor nor the tank version would ever see combat.

As close to combat as the Ford 3-ton was going to get, although the soldiers may jest that the field kitchen being towed was more dangerous than German bullets at times. This version is using the later suspension from the production vehicle and is notably lacking both front access doors, probably for the benefit of the deafened and hot men operating the vehicle. Note that the trench-crossing tail appears to have been removed.
Source: US National Archives.

Ford 3-ton Special Tractor M1918 Prototype. Illustration by Z3nsiter.

Specifications Ford 3-ton Special Tractor M1918 (Ford 3-ton)
Dimensions	4.1 m long (including the tail), 1.65 m wide, 1.6 m high
Crew	1 (driver/commander) or 2 (driver/commander, and ‘other’ crew member with no clearly defined duties within vehicle)
Weight	6,200 lbs. (3.1 tons) / 2,800 kg (2.8 tonnes)
Armament	none
Armor	12.6 to 6.35 mm
Engine	2 x Ford Model T 4-cylinder petrol engines delivering 35 hp at 1,700 hp
Speed	8 mph / 13 km/h
Fuel	Petrol 17 US gallons (64.4 liters)
Range	34 miles (55 km) (less if towing)

Sources

Aberdeen Proving Ground Series: Tank Data 1. WE Inc., USA
Alexander, J. (2015). Briefly Famous. Self Published, USA
Crismon, F. (1992). US Military Tracked Vehicles. Crestline Press, USA
Ford Model T.net. https://www.fordmodelt.net/specifications.htm
Hunnicutt, R. (1995). Stuart – A History of the American Light Tank Vol.1. Presidio Press, USA
Jarret, G., & Icks, R. (1971). Portrait of Power. Normount Publishing, USA
Jones, R., Rarey, G., & Icks, R. (1969). The Fighting Tanks 1916-1933. WE Inc., USA
Mroz, A. (2009). American Military Vehicles of WW1. McFarland and Co. Inc., USA

WW2 British Prototypes

M.O.I. ‘Moveable Maginot’

M.O.I. ‘Moveable Maginot’. Illustration by Henry Aponte.

United Kingdom (1941)
Mobile Fortress – None Built

In 1941, Britain had just dodged the bullet of a German invasion. The fears of an invasion peaked after defeat in France, but gave way in July and August 1940 to a sense of national defiance with air superiority over the UK maintained in the Battle of Britain. Although unable to return to France in 1941 to open a second front, Britain instead waged its war in North Africa.
At this time, Britain stood alone in Europe. France had collapsed, America still sat across the Atlantic watching, and the whole of Britain, its Empire and Dominion, had to be brought to bear to continue to war and fight it successfully.

To do this, a renewed national effort was needed in the UK, along with new weapons. What could embody this national need more than a new giant tank? To this end, in 1941, the Ministry of Information published some ideas for this renewed national drive to win, and it included possibly the most preposterously large and unwieldy tank imaginable – a literal ‘moving Maginot’.

Origins

The vehicle in question was pictured by an artist within a small pamphlet published by the Ministry of Information (M.O.I.) in 1941. The Ministry of Information was formed directly after the declaration of war on 3rd September 1939, with an official inception date of 4th September, and the first minister to oversee the department, Lord Macmillan, was appointed the next day.

The somewhat innocuous name belied its true significance and power. This Ministry had direct oversight over all news, censorship, and publicity with a goal of promoting the national case for war to the public. This was not a new idea. An M.O.I. had existed in WW1, but in this new war, its role under MacMillan was criticized. It was duly scaled back in 1940 with Macmillan being replaced by Sir John Reith, who in turn was replaced by Duff Cooper in May.

Cooper was replaced in July 1941 by Brendan Bracken, under whom it settled into its routine work with the same oversight but less direct censorship of the press. Under Bracken, the M.O.I. became less of an arm of state propaganda and instead, more towards a department focusing on ensuring secret information was not printed by mistake and on providing technical publications. The M.O.I. would be disbanded in March 1946.

The Pamphlet

Published by the M.O.I., ‘The Brains to Win’ was just 20 pages long and it was filled with photos and artwork. Artwork for the M.O.I. was produced mainly by a relatively small number of experienced artists, including Eric Kennington, Paul Nash, and William Rothenstein. Exactly which artist or illustrator was behind the Moving Maginot or from whose febrile imagination it was spawned is not known.

Title Page of the Ministry of Information pamphlet.
Source: The Brains to Win

Two examples of other developments shown in ‘The Brains to Win’. A model of a new aircraft being tested in a wind tunnel (middle) and a concept for a new type of ‘streamlined battleship’ replete with guns big and small (bottom).
Source: M.O.I.

Although the pamphlet is undated, there are certain events mentioned inside which assist in dating it. For example, there is mention of the sinking of the Graff Spee (December 1939), and the battles of Britain (July-October 1940), Taranto (November 1940), and Cape Matapan (March 1941). Also mentioned is the raid of the Lofoten Islands (March 1941). The latest identifiable date is the mention of the sinking of the Bismarck. As that ship was sunk in May 1941, it means that the pamphlet cannot have been published before that date.

Not mentioned, but events which could have been referenced, would be the defeat of Italian forces and their surrender at Jimma (July 1941) and Gondar (November 1941), or the Relief of Malta (August 1941). Certainly it would be expected that the expansion of the war following Japanese attacks on British and American possession in the Pacific region in December 1941 would have been noteworthy.

A copy of the pamphlet held by Yale University is stamped as having been received into their collection on 1st October 1942, meaning it cannot have been published after that date. The omissions for other events in the second half of 1941, however, would tend to indicate that it was put together in the summer of 1941 and published before the end of the year dating the ‘design’ of the Moveable Maginot to 1941.

The zBrains to Winx covered aspects of aircraft development, promoting the Spitfire in particular, naval development, even advances in chemistry, and what we know today as RADAR. One of the small images in the pamphlet also provided a rather fantastical view of a giant tracked armored vehicle.

The Moveable Maginot.
Source: The Brains to Win

Design

It is difficult to adequately describe and convey the true scale or weapons on this colossal machine. There are plenty of clues to its scale from the tiny trees, to the silhouettes of the men on the ramp in the front, and aircraft on the roof. Suffice to say that such a vehicle conceived and constructed to such dimensions would be well beyond any capacity anywhere for transportation by train or road. It was wider than any road of the day, too high to fit under any bridge, and too long to negotiate any route through an inhabited area without causing untold damage to people, houses, livestock, and infrastructure. Assuming each of those silhouettes on the ramp is meant to represent an adult about 2 m high, then this machine could easily be 50 m high and 50 m or more long.

Operating on two pairs of tracks on each side, these tracks would ellipse the largest tracks ever built, those of the NASA crawler tractor measuring around 2.3 m wide per 5.5 tonne link or from the Bagger series of excavators at 3.8 m wide.

NASA Crawler Tractor CT-2. Built in 1967, this machine is the largest tracked vehicle ever made.
Source: NASA

Bagger excavators in use, the size is put into context by the front loader next to it looking more like a toy than a large industrial machine in its own right.
Source: Wiki

The tracks as shown on this ‘Moving Maginot’ would appear to be in the 4 or 5 m wide range per link and there are two sets on each side. Even assuming just 10 tonnes per link and what appears to be around 80 links per set, meaning 800 tonnes just for one set of tracks. This vehicle has two on each side, meaning more than 3,000 tonnes just for the tracks alone before any consideration to the wheels, suspension, engine, armor, men, fuel, ammunition, or anything else.

The Moveable Maginot which, as drawn, despite its huge bulk, has not sunk into the ground at all.
Source: The Brains to Win

The general shape of the vehicle is little more than a gigantic brick. The entire body is roughly rectangular with a projection in the lower half of the front. In the bottom of that projection are a series of rectangular ramps, presumably to allow troops, guns, and maybe vehicles to be embarked/disembarked. On the front of this projection are three of the gun positions, each consisting of pairs of half-drum-shaped mounts with a pair of guns each. The central of these drums is positioned vertically for side to side rotation and is larger than the horizontally arranged drum-shaped positioned on each side of it allowing for elevation and depression. Above this projection on the front are four large circular structures which appear to be vents, but which are actually loudspeakers.

These would allow for both the broadcast of propaganda for anyone still in earshot or just to create “such a hideous din that the nerves of the opposing army will be shattered”. Above these noise-weapons was a vertical step surmounted by a smaller rectangular casemate from which presumably some command of the vehicle was meant to be exercised. On top of that was another turret and there was another turret on each side of this casemate. These three guns are pointed upwards in the picture to indicate a probable attempt to display some means of air defense for the vehicle.

Along each side of the rectangular hull was another projection reaching out part way over the top of the first set of tracks and somewhat reminiscent of the sponsons used on ‘Little Willie’ in 1915. On this projection, there would be four enormous drum-shaped turrets with the ones furthest fore and aft being larger than the central pair. Each turret had multiple guns and could rotate horizontally with some vertical movement allowed from the guns within the drums.

There is no view of the rear of the vehicle. There is also no view of the roof but there are two features drawn on top. The first most obvious one is the use of a pair of ramps from which aircraft are launched. Despite its leviathan size, the width would have been nowhere near sufficient for a conventional take off for an aircraft and the description provides the answer:

“… has aeroplanes which can be catapulted from the roof.”

This would be a steam catapult system as used on aircraft carriers and could accelerate the aircraft so that it would obviate the need for a runway. Lacking a runway, there would be no way to land back on the roof and this might be the reason for feature 2 – the large crane which could lift a landed aircraft back onto the roof. Whatever the thinking was, it was a poor scheme and an overly complex one, but it did, at least, look good as an illustration.

The final feature for description is the track unit. The huge tracks, as previously described, formed a simple rhomboid shape and extended in height to around half way up the machine. Each unit was made up from a pair of tracks and multiple road wheels and return rollers are evident reminiscent of some interwar medium tank designs. The road wheels were attached to a large spar across the bottom of the track unit which appears to have been drawn in the manner of such a unit holding individual springs etcetera as part of the suspension. Above this spar and covering the majority of the sides of the track run was a large armored panel which, thanks to the proportions of the tank, was big enough to house another pair of the large drum-shaped turret as mounted on the projection above them. Multiple rectangular portholes are provided on all faces of the vehicle and the entire structure is shown as being riveted or bolted together.

Propulsion

Moving a vehicle weighing several thousands of tonnes on land, even on its huge tracks, would be a challenge. There was no single land-engine which could possibly power such a machine. Weighing more than a naval destroyer, it would have to have reverted to using some naval system of propulsion like a steam boiler to enable it to move. Even then, this large mass, once moving would be a substantial problem to stop, especially on a slope so the engine would have to be extremely powerful to provide both control and a speed above that of a walking man. For reference, the NASA CT-2 moves at just 3 km/h. It is perhaps ironic that low speed and maneuverability were probably the only thing it would even have had in common with its namesake – the French Maginot Line.

Armament

A veritable Woolwich Arsenal on tracks , this machine is covered with guns and turrets. Command and control over so many guns would have been extremely complex as well as difficult and whatever crew such a machine would have needed just to move would be expanded by the crews for so many guns. The addition of guns and turrets everywhere and anywhere, the lack of centralisation of armament, is a characteristic often seen on these great idea-tanks.

Conclusion

This is quite obviously not a serious vehicle design. At the time of going to print in 1941, the new heavy or infantry tank was going to be a lot smaller in the form of the A.22 Churchill, but it would not be a legitimate expectation to see the next new tank published into the public domain where the Germans might be able to get hold of it.

Instead, this drawing was simply a vehicle to convey to the public that Britain was not standing still, it was no passive layer in the war and was instead, putting its full resources to work to design and develop new weapons with which to win the war.

Rather thankfully, this monstrous machine was not a real project. It was never going to get built and even if someone in government or even the Army had seen it with a real Archimedesian ‘Eureka’ moment, there is no plausible reality in which the Ministry of Supply would have authorized tens of thousands of tons of valuable steel, hundreds of guns, and planes for such a project.

Nonetheless, despite not being a ‘real’ project, this machine is still an interesting look at the portrayal of a new heavy tank at a period in the war when Britain was genuinely struggling to get new tanks made and when its industry and cities were still being bombed and battered by the Germans. The war would drag on for four more years and the sort of inventiveness and plucky resolve as a desire to resist and win as promoted by the pamphlet would come true in the end. This vehicle was simply a stepping stone on that journey for the public.

M.O.I. ‘Moveable Maginot’. Illustration by Henry Aponte.

Sources

Ministry of Information. (1941). The Brains to Win.
Ministry of Information (A History). (2014).
Longstreet typepad, December 2013
NASA, Exploration Ground systems https://www.nasa.gov/content/the-crawlers
Seale, R. (2020). Art, Propaganda and Aerial Warfare in Britain during the Second World War. Bloomsbury Academic, UK

WW2 French Prototypes

Maubaret’s War Machine

Maubaret's War Machine. Illustration by Esteban.

France (1925)
Ball Tank – None Built

There have been numerous ideas for ball-shaped tanks, either as spherical or as oblate spheroids, drums, cylinders, or other such shapes, and none have gotten very far. The inherent problems of steering and control, the difficulties of combat from such a shape, and the not inconsequential oddness of a vehicle of that shape all stand against them, especially in light of ‘conventional’ designs being more plausible as options. The earlier one goes, the odder some of these ideas get and one of the earliest of these ‘ball-tanks’ was from Albert Maubaret of France and was designed just after the slaughter of WW1.

Submitting his design for a new machine of war in December 1925, Albert Maubaret cannot have been unaware of the incredible damage brought to his home nation of France in WW1 – a globe-spanning conflict that claimed millions of lives and for which the guns had only gone silent 7 years prior. That war had started with no tanks on any side and had ended with tens of thousands of armed machines – predominantly used by Britain and France. For these nations, as both had suffered terrible casualties to beat the Germans, the tank had offered a sign of not only the success of technology in war, but also the movement from an attritional type of warfare dominated by machine guns and barbed wire to a new form of mobile warfare dominated by armored vehicles.

In 1925, the French tank fleet was dominated by the diminutive but successful Renault FT. At just 6.5 tonnes and armed with either a single machine gun or small cannon, this two-man tank was well protected, with armor up to 22 mm thick, and could manage a top speed of around 7 km/h. Any new tank would clearly have to offer something beyond this existing vehicle, either more armor, more firepower, more mobility, or maybe more of everything. On top of those over-simplified tank-elements, it would also have to be cost-effective for a nation still reeling from the cost of war and have to be so much better in order to justify replacing the thousands of tanks already in service. Or, if intended for export as a design, it had to offer something to a nation where simply buying FTs from France (or building them under license) was not an option.

Origins

The design of this particular vehicle is contained in French Patent FR610930 by Albert Maubaret. Filed on 9th December 1925 in the town of Agen in the Lot-et-Garonne region in southern France, this was an area which had been spared the horrors of trench warfare but was one from which thousands of men had gone to fight and not come home. The patent would eventually be granted on 21st June 1926 and published on 16th September 1926.

Front view of Maubarets design – like a giant walnut rolling slowly and incongruously forwards, the axle stubs projecting from the ends are the only means of seeing ahead.
Source: French Patent FR610930

Design

The shape of this machine was the most important single feature of the design. It was a simple oval in shape when viewed from the front, forming a hollow shell. From the side, the vehicle provided a circular silhouette with an axle in the center of the circle. This axle point was repeated on the other side, forming the point around which the central part of the vehicle, inside the shell, would be carried.

Side elevation of Maubaret’s War Machine. The central access point is at least 30 meters above the ground.
Source: French Patent FR610930

As the vehicle moved by rolling, this central carriage would simply rotate on those axles so that it was always at the bottom of the shell and always vertical. It was also going to be huge.
Maubaret provided approximate dimensions for the vehicle and it was by no means a competitor to the FT as a result. Instead, this vehicle was to be potentially 60 to 80 m in height (30 times taller than the FT) and around 100 m wide (nearly 60 times wider than the FT) from axle to axle.

The reason for this huge size was essentially the same reason why so many wheeled vehicle designs ended up with gigantic wheels – they had to so that they could cross soft ground and obstacles. Instead of a vehicle formed from giant wheelies, however, Maubaret had simply created a giant single oval-shaped wheel. As the vehicle rolled forwards, the size and inertia would allow it to easily climb an obstacle like a 2 m high wall which, after all, would be less than 1/30th of the overall height. In fact, assuming it could actually move and function, the theoretical height for climbing could be in the region of a step or wall perhaps as high as 10 m. This was plenty to climb even small buildings and crush them under its bulk.

Maubaret saw this too and pictured this ball rolling over rivers, forests, and crushing villages. His assumption that it could climb over mountains, however, seems more than a little optimistic. This was not only because mountains are a lot higher than this or because the width of the vehicle was ludicrously wider than mountain roads, but also because the entire concept was fundamentally flawed.

Armor

Maubaret suggested armor protection made from iron or steel 3 – 4 cm (30 – 40 mm) thick. Given the dimensions of a vehicle at 60-80 m high and 100 m wide, this guaranteed a giant weight. Maubaret did not state the proposed weight other than to say it would crush everything beneath it, obviating the need for armament, although he speculated that a couple of machine guns might be useful in the axle ends.

Assuming the minimum proportion of a 60 m high vehicle with 3 cm thick walls and using the formula:

Volume = 4/3 * π * A * B * C

(where: A, B, and C are the lengths of all three semi-axes [the distance from the center-point to the outside] of the ellipsoid) the volume can be calculated to be 188,496 m3. With a wall thickness of 3 cm, the internal volume would be 188,006 m3.

Cross-section of Maubaret’s design showing the large torpedo-shaped counterbalance in the center for steering, the large rotating platform, and the huge outer shell of the design.
Source: French Patent: 610930

Therefore, the volume occupied just by the armored shell would be 490m3. The density of steel is approximately 7.85 g/cm3 (7.85 tonnes per m3), so if the shell were solid steel the mass of alone, ignoring any of the crew, engine, counterweight, platform, or reinforcing, was at least 3,847 tonnes. The drawing would seem to indicate that the shell was not meant to be solid but some form of lattice work to support an outer skin.

Assuming the maximum proportions of an 80 m high vehicle with 4 cm thick walls, the complete volume would be 335,103 m3. The internal volume would be 334,166 m3 meaning the volume of the shell would be 937 m3. This works out to be 7,355 tonnes of steel.

The internal platform, counterbalance, and engine added onto this. Even if they only doubled the overall weight, it would have meant a ball of anywhere from nearly 8,000 tonnes to nearly 15,000 tonnes. This was certainly enough to crush anything it traveled over, but also a complete disaster to your own nation if you were trying to get it from wherever it might be built to where it might need to be used.

Motion

Making the vehicle move was a complex affair. Motion would have to be provided not only forwards or backwards, but some measure of steering would have to be planned as well, otherwise the ball would simply be deflected by the terrain. Given the inherent buoyancy of the vehicle as well, the method of movement would have to be one suitable for use when floating as well.
To this end, Maubaret used the platform inside the shell in two ways. The first was a rocking motion forwards and back to generate that forwards or backwards motion, and the second was a moving ballast weight to create a lateral force.

The platform was triangular in profile with a rounded base to match the inner profile of the shell and occupied around half of the total width of the vehicle when viewed in cross-section from the front. The width of the vehicle would be taken up with the massive reinforcement it needed so as not to fall apart under the stress of movement and to support the pair of large hollow axles connecting the platform to the outer points of the shell.

Side-elevation cross-section of Maubaret’s design showing the triangular platform suspended on the hollow axles. Large fuel tanks on the platform, the motor, and the giant drive wheel running on the internal row of teeth can also be seen.
Source: French Patent FR610930

Between these two hollow axles was a large lateral runner into which a large counterbalance was supported on a pair of wheels. Controlled movement of this weight was afforded by means of a cable pulling it one way or the other, dragging it left or right and thus creating a sideways force that would cause the whole vehicle to move one way or the other. Furthermore, moving the weight to one side would make the vehicle tilt that way due to the ellipsoid shape. This would also tilt the axis of rotation and all these effects would create a lateral force turning the vehicle.

Forwards or reverse motion was different. Instead, a moving counterbalance was a single large drive wheel. This wheel was anchored to the platform and ran around a large toothed section running around the inner circumference of the shell.

A large petrol engine of unknown power using a pair of huge petrol tanks held low down on the platform would drive this wheel, which would engage on the teeth. By ‘climbing’ the toothed gear with the platform in the manner of a mouse trying to climb his wheel in a cage, the entire shape would be pushed forwards. Likewise, to go backwards, the drive-force on the wheel was reversed and the platform would ‘climb’ backwards up the gearing teeth and pull the vehicle backwards. Combined with the lateral motion of the counterbalance, in theory, the vehicle would be able to rock back and forth whilst slewing sideways, enabling it to turn in a relatively short area. Albeit an area utterly crushed and ground to a pulp beneath the vehicle.

A strong clutch or braking system would have to be provided to prevent this shape from simply rolling backwards down a slope it was trying to climb, or perhaps more dangerously, simply rolling uncontrolled down a hill creating a washing machine effect for the hapless crew inside.

The Axles

The pair of axles are noteworthy in the design as they served three important functions. Not only did they perform their stated job of providing support for the platform about which it could rotate, but they were necessitated for two other reason as well. Firstly, the crew of unknown number would need to get in and out of this enormous vehicle by some means and, being hollow, they would allow a passageway within them. This passageway allowed for men to enter but also for air for ventilation (and presumably exhaust from the engine) to be exchanged with the outside as well.

Once in motion, the hatches on the end would be closed up but, with a small window, a man in each end would be able to see ahead to command/steer the vehicle, assuming they both agreed on which way it was meant to go.

Maubaret made no comment on the ease of access to the vehicle through these hatches which would be between 30 and 40 m off the ground, equivalent to a 10 or 11 story window on a building, but some kind of rope ladder might have been in order. As long as you did not need to get in or out in a rush or under fire, such a system would have been awkward but not impossible.

Conclusion

It is hard to take such ideas seriously. Maubaret submitted no other patents or designs and perhaps that is a good thing. This design might have had some small value as a concept for a small vehicle intended for a very limited role not performable by the Renault FT, such as perhaps patrolling a very marshy area where wheels or even tracks would not work well. It was certainly not well suited to warfare, especially one such as had just taken place, in which France had been invaded. Deploying such a weapon, ignoring the enormous damage it would do on its way to its own country just to get to the battle, would then be crushing a swathe of damage across towns, villages, forests, rivers, and infrastructure to ‘liberate’ it. The scale of the war made such a weapon wholly useless. Even if it could be built and used, even if none objected to destroying your own country to free it from the occupier, then it could simply not do enough damage to make a difference to the war. Assume it could get to the German trench lines and assume it was driving lengthwise up them, destroying a line of defenses 50 or so meters wide at a time would need half a dozen passes to create a gap while the line of defenses was tens of thousands of miles long. Even with a bottomless fuel tank, the Germans would not just sit there to be crushed. The vehicle would be virtually impossible to miss and 40 mm of armor was not going to be much protection from heavy artillery which could easily smash the vehicle.

Like Humpty Dumpty, this egg, once broken, was not going to be put together again and if it was going to be this useless in the war they just had, and for which they had the answer (the regular tank), then it was going to be even less useful in a new type of more mobile war.

Quite rightly, this idea never went anywhere.

Maubaret’s War Machine. Illustration by Esteban.

Specifications Maubaret’s War Machine
Crew	unknown
Dimensions	60 to 80 m high, 100 m wide
Weight	Thousands of tonnes
Armour	30 – 40 mm steel
Speed	unknown
Engine	Petrol
Armament	Machine guns / its huge bulk

Sources

French Patent FR610930, ‘Machine de guerre’, filed 9th December 1925, granted 21st June 1926, published 16th September 1926.

WW1 Austro-Hungarian Patent Designs

Alfred Kubin’s ‘Der Staat’

Post author By Andrew Hills
Post date January 29, 2024
No Comments on Alfred Kubin’s ‘Der Staat’

Alfred Kubin’s ‘Der Staat’. Illustration by Esteban.

Austro-Hungarian Empire (1901)
Artistic Representation – None Built

Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? The answer is that both are true to one extent or another. In the age before tanks and at a time when even armored cars were very much in their infancy, there were many ideas about new weapons of war and armored vehicles. Some of these were serious ideas submitted to governments and armies, some never left the patent office, others were the whim of newspaper artists. One particular writer who gets a lot of attention is H. G. Wells, who wrote ‘The Land Ironclads’ in 1903 and has been seen by many as somehow predicting armored warfare. Two years before Wells, there was another fantastical creation for a war machine, one submitted without publication in a popular periodical of the day and without a back story. This was a simple drawing of a vehicle and might just be ‘art’ to some, but in 1901, this was also a vision of the direction warfare would be heading in just a few short years. This is Alfred Kubin’s ‘Der Staat’.

It is difficult, maybe impossible, to accurately catalog every single concept, idea, design, plan, or suggestion about armored warfare prior to 1916 – the year the first tanks appeared in war. Certainly, there had been plenty of such ideas going back over the preceding century and they exist in various degrees of seriousness as designs. The first real ‘modern’ armored vehicles would, however, not appear until the turn of the century with vehicles such as Simms’ War Car (1899 – 1902) and the Fowler B5 Armoured Road Train (1899 – 1901).

These vehicles, however, would not capture the public imagination for armored warfare quite like H. G. Wells managed with his short story ‘The Land Ironclads’ in 1903. Published as science fiction, it is seen by many as popularizing the ideas of armored warfare. If, however, any credit can be given to Wells for what was just a short story, then the same courtesy and attention needs to be extended to other artists and writers. One to meet that criteria was Alfred Kubin, who drew an armored fighting vehicle in 1901.

The Man

Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (1877 – 1959) was an artist and writer. Born in Leitmeritz, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the town is today known as Litoměřice and is part of Czechia. By age 3, he was living in Salzburg, Austria, and then moved to Zell am See.

Alfred Kubin (1877 – 1959)
Source: Wiki

Throughout his life he produced art, although he is considered an important figure primarily in the fields of Symbolism and Expressionism. Kubin in many ways epitomizes the idea of the tortured artist. His work is often dark and brooding with a focus of distorted twisted animals, female sexuality, and imagery of death and suffering. He even attempted suicide at his mother’s graveside in 1896 during a mental health crisis which led to him being invalided out of the Austrian military in 1897.

After this short stint in the Austrian military, he went to the Munich Academy to study in 1899 but still struggled with his mental health, suffering a breakdown in 1903. Despite these health problems, he would go on to be part of the Avant-Garde art movement and exhibited work in Berlin and Munich prior to World War 1, as well as providing illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Despite his brief time in the military, Kubin served in neither WW1 nor WW2 and his contribution to military matters appears to consist of a single image he produced in 1901, titled ‘Der Staat’ (English: Government).

Alfred Kubin in later life at home drawing.
Source: artofericwayne.com

During WW2, Kubin found himself on the wrong side of the Nazis with his artwork determined by them to be ‘entarte kunst’ (English ‘degenerate art’). Nonetheless, he managed to avoid being persecuted and he continued to work. He died in 1959.

The Illustration

Just one of numerous illustrations he did around this time, ‘Der Staat’ was produced using a combination of ink and watercolor on paper measuring 28.5 cm x 37.3 cm. The original is currently housed at the Museum of Modern Art (M.O.M.A.) in New York. Drawn in 1901, this was an early work by Kubin who did not even have his first exhibition until 1902 in Berlin.

‘Der Staat’ 1901 by Alfred Kubin
Source: MoMA

Where Kubin may have got his inspiration for this fantasy is unclear, and it could easily be decided that as a work of art it could be discarded as unimportant in the history of the development of armored vehicles. Certainly, the design as shown has some serious deficiencies, and without delving into art-criticism the image is essentially an allegory of government.

What Kubin shows, however, in an age when the concept of a self-propelled armored war machine was still very much a novelty, is an interesting insight into an amateur’s idea of what such a machine might look like.

The Machine

The basic shape of Kubin’s machine was a giant box. Four gigantic wheels dominated the sides of the box with the front pair smaller than the rear pair, and all four being of a substantial diameter. These wheels, without any apparent ability to steer them, are attached to the sides of a large metal body.

The front of this body is dominated by a naval-style prow. On top of this prow is a single cannon manned by what appears to be a 15th Century Spanish Conquistador. Above him, on the vehicle’s front, is a semi-circular balcony with a staircase leading from it to the flat roof of the machine. Numerous figures can be seen milling about on the roof putting into scale the enormous size of such a machine, although the drawing is clearly not to scale.

In the center of the roof are a pair of projections with one large domed structure of unknown purpose, and the second being a huge smoke stack belching an enormous cloud of black smoke behind the machine.

Small rectangular windows can be seen on the front and side of the hull along with rectangular panels bolted together. A flagpole sits atop the hull on the front right corner but the only obvious armament is that odd cannon on the balcony at the front over the prow.

As an allegory for the state, the machine is a large, simple and warlike one, but as a real weapon of war, it would be very poor indeed. Assuming steam power would have been the power plant of choice, then there is no logical reason such a machine could not be built and made to move if there was a bottomless budget to draw from and some kind of need to make the machine necessary.

Even without the scale being accurate, the size was massive. If the dimensions were based on that Conquistador at the front, the vehicle would still be in the region of 8 – 10 meters high. If instead it was scaled off the stick figures on the roof, then perhaps 100 m. At a minimum, the weight of such a vehicle would be in the hundreds of tonnes, perhaps thousands of tonnes. As a viable machine, it would have already been burdened by both its size and weight. These two factors would severely hamper its ability to move from one place to another, whilst providing an almost unmissable target.

Something weighing in the thousands of tonnes and yet born on just 4 wheels, albeit very wide ones, would also produce a lot of ground pressure and a great deal of sinkage. Perhaps the biggest flaw of the vehicle is the armament. A single gun on the front with at best 180º of coverage from the front would have left this massive target vulnerable to enemy artillery.

Conclusion

Kubin did produce some other military themed drawings, such as ‘War’ (1901-3) and ‘Army’ (1903). However, this vehicle, the state and war combined in one, is perhaps the most interesting from the perspective of what it preceded.

‘War’ by Alfred Kubin, 1901-3.

‘Army’ by Alfred Kubin. Circa 1903.

As a design, the vehicle is severely lacking. As art it maybe has more value. As an artifact showing the necessary elements for mobile armored warfare, it may provide yet more value. Kubin’s military career was brief at best, so it is not possible to infer any great military knowledge applied to the design. In 1901 he would also have had no real frame of reference for his design either, so some of the failings may be forgiven from a technical perspective.

Perhaps though, that is the point. Maybe Kubin was trying to convey the pointlessness of such a vehicle or parody the ridiculousness of it all. Art critique may provide the answers as to why, but what matters in terms of tanks is a different question.

What Kubin produced does not need to be a practical or even a viable armored vehicle in any sense. What it was, was an alternative vision of an armored machine, maybe purposeless, and maybe useless, but one predating the origins of tanks in 1915 and even before his more famous Austrian forebear, Günther Burstyn.

Alfred Kubin’s ‘Der Staat’. Illustration by Esteban.

Sources

Mitchell, J. (1969). Alfred Kubin. Art Journal, Vol. 28 No. 4 (Summer 1969).

Gallery Henze , Ketterer, & Triebold, Bern. http://www.artnet.fr/galeries/henze-ketterer-triebold/traumgestalten-und-nachtmahre-/

Museum of Modern Art https://www.moma.org/collection/works/33912

History of Art http://www.all-art.org/symbolism/kubin1.html

Art Encyclopedia http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/kubin_alfred.html

Art of Eric Wayne.com https://artofericwayne.com/2018/01/29/eerie-alfred-kubin-forgotten-pioneer-of-symbolism-expressionism-and-surrealism/

WW1 US Patent Designs

Paré’s Engine of War

United States of America (1918)
Ball Tank – None Built

The wheel is perhaps the second greatest of mankind’s accomplishments. Perfect, simple, and utilitarian, it takes an act of magnificent hubris to try and perfect such an already flawless instrument. However, not one to shirk a challenge, Arsene Pare, a magnetic healer from Canada living in Massachusetts, took up the challenge in 1917, creating what he hoped would be a weapon of war, but in fact was yet another failed idea of how to perfect a rolling vehicle to combat. Instead, he created yet another failed ball-type tank design.

Arsene ‘Andre’ J. Paré of Taunton

The man behind this ball tank was Arsene ‘Andre’ J. Paré of Taunton, Massachusetts, and he has one of the more unusual backgrounds for a tank designer. Arsene Paré, the son of Phillias and Ogelle Roy Paré, was a Canadian by birth, having been born in Quebec in 1876 (he was a US citizen by 1917). That means that, when he submitted his engine of war in 1917, he would have been around 41 years old.

He emigrated from Canada to the United States and by 1915 was living at 113 Wheeler Avenue, Brockton, Massachusetts, with his wife Goldie Pare (neé Dunbar) (b.1886, d.1964), whom he married in 1912. He worked as a masseur until progressing to the occupation of ‘magnetic healer’ by 1920, working in private practice. He would still be working in the role of ‘magnetic healing’ even through 1940, as recorded on the US Census that year.

It is unclear when Paré died, but his wife would later remarry and take the name Weinburg, passing away in 1964. With her, he had 3 children, two sons, Wynford (b.1914, d.1957) and Alfred (b.1919, d.1920), and one daughter who died at birth in 1915.

Purpose

Paré‘s stated intention was to produce a vehicle suitable for combat on both land and water and one which presumably had advantageous features over wheeled or tracked vehicles in either environment. Quite what the vehicle might have offered in terms of water passage can only have been for ease of travel, for the armament was so light, and the size so small, it would have been of no use as a combat vessel. On land, however, Paré was clear that its potential uses were that it “may be used for destroying hydrants, telegraph poles, poles for supporting trolley wires, railway cars, and small frame buildings by collision”.

Design

“A self propelled and armored engine of warfare”

The relationship between ‘magnetic healing’ as quack medicine and his design is unclear, but the vehicle design submitted by Paré at least has some science and rational thought behind it as a concept. Indeed, the general idea of a shell-type vehicle propelled from within has occurred several times for a military vehicle, but none proved successful. At the time of submission of his patent for this design on 1st May 1917, this was still a relatively novel concept.

Importantly, however, May 1917 was several months after the first use of tanks in September 1916 by the British in France, an action which gained considerable global attention and demonstrated the utility of a tracked vehicle over a wheeled one.

The form of the vehicle in the patent drawings only appears as a cross-section, but in real life, would have been spherical in shape. A pair of spheres in fact, with one rotating within the other. The outer spherical shell would be the protection and tractive part of the design, whilst the inner shell would house the crew and automotive components.

A driver’s position was located low down in the rear of the vehicle, directly behind the engine. On top of the engine and flanking the driver’s position was a horizontal platform just below the center line.

The outer shell, made from two hemispherical sections, had “knobs or protuberances” around the outside to press into the ground, providing grip. It was also pierced in multiple places coincident with the knobs, creating an open form of outer shell. These holes would allow water to enter the vehicle but, as the inner hull was watertight and so to were the drive shafts to the wheels, then the vehicle would also be able to operate on water as well as land. Those openings could be closed automatically when on the water as well for additional buoyancy but, when on land, should be open so that weapons could be fired from within the inner ball to an enemy outside through the small loopholes and also to provide ventilation.

The inner shell had 7 wheels which served to hold the inner shell off from the inside of the outer shell and provided the steering and propulsive action of the vehicle. One wheel ran within a recess at the top of the inner shell, another directly behind the driver, and another directly in front of the engine. Two more wheels, positioned between the engine and the driver’s controls, were arranged perpendicular to the sides on the inner shell. Together, all these wheels ensured the gap between the shells was maintained. The double-skin structure of inner and outer shells allowed them to rotate independently of each other and meant that the inner shell was inherently self-leveling, i.e. the inner shell would naturally remain vertical regardless of the orientation of the outer shell, although some rocking would certainly take place when the vehicle moved.

Internals

The engine was placed in the bottom of the inner shell, from which watertight shafts went to the front wheel of the inner shell to provide movement. Even if the external ports leaked, the mechanics would not be affected. The seat on which the single occupant would sit to operate the vehicle was directly behind the engine and fuel tank for the machine. This meant that not only was the weight of the engine below the center line of the vehicle but so was the driver.

Seen in cross section, the small driver’s seat can be seen in the bottom left quadrant of the interior shell, directly behind the large rectangular shape in the bottom right-hand corner outlining the engine. The positions of the wheels between the inner and outer shells are also shown. Source: US Patent US1265496.

Drive from the engine went forwards to a small gearbox and turned a pair of toothed gear wheels, each driving a chain that was connected to the primary drive wheel, being the wheel attached to the inner shell but running on the inside of the outer shell. The primary drive wheel was directly behind the driver, who would be able to control speed and braking by use of foot pedals. Steering for the vehicle was done by means of an awkwardly positioned handwheel descending from the roof of the inner shell towards the vehicle operator. Exhaust from the engine was vented backwards and to the left, being emitted into the gap between the two shells.

Plan view of the vehicle showing the driver’s seat with drive wheel directly behind it and engine in front. The exhaust is shown coming backwards and to the left from the engine.
Source: US Patent US1265496.

Although no dimensions were provided within the patent for the size of the vehicle, the cross sections provide a good indication of how big it would be. In the image with the side view of the driver’s position, it can be estimated that an average man of about 170 cm might reach around a third of the way up the vehicle. This would mean a diameter of perhaps 6 m or so.

The platform on which the driver was seated was therefore large enough, as alluded to in the patent, to operate as a firing position for additional crew members who would fire weapons out of the small loopholes in the inner shell. The platform, being above the level at which the driver sat, would impede his view of where he may be going, so he would have to have relied on some instructions as to which way to go and how fast. The raised platform would, at least, enable soldiers within the vehicle to provide fire in an arc around the vehicle, although in such a confined space, on the move, and using something like a bolt action rifle, the firepower would not have been impressive.

Seen in cross section from the front/rear, the top supporting wheel used for steering, can be seen with a pair of small horizontal wheels. Together, these wheels controlled the steering of the machine.
Source: US Patent US1265496.

Steering

It was the large ‘top wheel’ and two smaller wheels perpendicular to the line of it, at the top of the vehicle, which were responsible for the steering of it. The two smaller wheels were also spring loaded – fitted into a cylinder so as a turning force was imparted on them they would connect to the inside wall of the outer shell and, once the steering force was removed, the spring would retract the wheel.

The action of these small wheels would be to shift the inner shell laterally within the outer shell. This would have the effect of moving the weight in that direction and cause a moving force upon the outer shell like a hamster in a ball.

Conclusion

The wheel is a perfect shape. The sphere is the ultimate shape of natural form and yet, despite trying to combine the simplicity of the wheel and the symmetry and prediction of the sphere, Paré achieved neither.

The design is perhaps unusual for combining some novel elements of engineering design, beyond those of the everyday man in the street, such as the steering system, but with incredibly naive military considerations. Not the least of those problems are expounded by the ideas of a simple platform from which to fight with basic weapons, like a rifle. No machine guns, no cannons, no proper gun mountings – just a rudimentary platform. The most useful part of the concept might have been the use of it for ramming items of infrastructure to destroy them, like telegraph poles, as this would have required the least skill by the operator to perform. It would, however, have caused grievous risk to the soldiers standing on that platform trying to fire outwards.

The utter lack of visibility for the driver was also a problem, not to mention any practicalities of this machine actually getting to the battle in the first palace without crushing its own infrastructure or its knobbly protrusions tearing up the roads on the way. Too many questions are left not only unanswered but also seemingly not even considered at all. These would indicate a project which might have been designed with good, honest, and noble intentions to create a weapon to fight the war in Europe. However, what was produced was very naive and illustrated the designer’s lack of knowledge of how the war was being fought with the new ‘tanks’ the British were using. Quite what Paré thought his design might genuinely offer over other vehicles is unclear and the design went nowhere.

Paré’s engine of War. Illustration by Esteban.

Specifications Paré’s Engine of War
Crew	>2, driver plus soldier to operate weapons.
Dimensions	~spherical approx. 6 m diameter
Engine	unknown
Speed	unknown
Armour	unknown
Armament	Soldier’s personal weapons fired from within

Sources

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/119769172/wynford-arsene-pare
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/119767628/alfred-dunbar-pare
Manifests of Passengers arriving at St. Albans Vermont, District through Canadian Pacific and Atlantic Ports 1895-1954.
Massachusetts Marriages 1841-1915, Sheet 176, Page 18.
US Census 1930 S.D. 14, E.D. 18-29, Sheet 14B.
US Census 1940 S.D. 15, E.D. 12-38, Sheet 1A.
US Patent US904146, Steering mechanism for motor vehicles, filed 2nd April 1908, granted 17th November 1908.
US Patent US1265496, Engine of Warfare, filed 1st May 1917, granted 7th May 1918.

Cold War Polish Tanks

T-34/SU-76 Hybrid

T-34/SU-76 Hybrid. Illustration by Rolan Reboso.

People’s Republic of Poland (1955)
Self-Propelled Gun – Probably Fake

The release of declassified historical documents from the archives of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has produced some interesting, unusual, and often rather odd intelligence reports relating to tanks. With much of what was happening behind the Iron Curtain, especially in terms of military developments, being beyond the reach of agents and aerial photography, the CIA was often dependent on reports by intelligence operatives. Sometimes, these human intelligence sources were often untrained and unskilled reporters who may or may not even have had first hand experiencew wih what they reported onwards. The shady world of covert human intelligence operations is rife with misunderstanding and mistakes, and the more technical the topic, often the greater the mistakes. One report of exactly this type came out of Poland in May 1955 through the CIA, presenting some kind of SU-76/T-34 hybridized vehicle – whether the vehicle existed or not, is however, entirely speculative.

The Document

Any contemplation of the existence of this vehicle or what it might even have looked like begins squarely with the originating document from the CIA. Under “Tanks, Tank Equipment, and Other Equipment of the Polish Army” came a note on the SU-76 saying that lecturers at OCS (Officer Candidate School?) stated that the SU-76 was no longer in Soviet use and remained only in OCS-use as a training aid.

The mention that this information came from lecturers at OCS in Poznan almost certainly shows that this is first or second hand eyewitness evidence rather than just rumors. In other words, the information appears to have come from a lecturer at OCS or someone who spoke to one and then reported to the CIA.

Source: CIA Reading Room available online at https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00046R000400490004-0.pdf

The second part of the all too brief SU-76 bit mentions that there are two different types of SU-76 in use there for training. One was a standard SU-76 and the other is the oddity – an SU-76 mounted on a T-34 chassis.

“[Redacted] two types of the SU-76, one conventional and one mounted on a standard T-34 chassis. [Redacted] the latter was not a T-34/76 tank because it had an open fighting compartment”

CIA Information Report 50X1 CIA-RDP82-00046R000400490004-0,
dated 9th May 1955

The first part is simple enough. Retaining a vehicle which was still in service in one form or another for training or even just as an educational tool is perfectly normal. The SU-76 was no longer in production, but the T-34 was just entering Polish service at this time, providing an interesting crossover between the vehicles.

SU-76M

The SU-76M (the M is often dropped nowadays, as the original SU-76 saw little production and use) was quite a small vehicle, just 4.97 m long and 2.10 m tall, weighing under 11 tonnes. The vehicle only required 3 crew to operate it (commander, driver, and gunner), although two loaders were also usually present, and was really little more than a lightly armored platform (35 mm front armor on the gunshield and hull nose and 26 mm on the glacis) carrying the 76 mm ZIS-3Sh gun along with a single 7.62 mm DT machine gun. Widely produced and exported, the SU-76 was a common, simple, and effective mobile field gun which, thanks to its gun, also provided potent tank-killing capability.

The vehicles themselves first saw service with the Polish 1st Armoured Brigade in 1943 in the fight to drive out German forces with the help of the Soviet Army.

Polish SU-76M.
Source: unknown

Firing a range of ammunition, from Armor Piercing High Explosive (APHE), Armor Piercing (AP), High Explosive (HE), and even High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT), the gun was still a potential threat on a Western European battlefield in the 1950s, even though it was, in all practical terms, an obsolete platform.

T-34

The T-34 is possibly one of the most famous tanks ever made and was produced in enormous numbers. This tank, perhaps more than any other, won the war for the Allies by providing a rugged, simple, well armored tank often superior or equal to the German tanks it faced on the Eastern Front. The subject of innumerable production changes, upgrades, modifications, and variants, the T-34 was, like the SU-76, widely exported both to Soviet satellite countries as well as countries outside Europe. Predominantly seen in two variants, the early 76 mm gun-armed version and, by 1945, predominantly the 85 mm gun-armed version with a larger and rounder turret, this tank was still a capable weapon system well after the war, although by the 1960s, it could be considered obsolete for frontline duty. Nonetheless, it would still be in many reserve units. In addition, it would also be a necessary and logical tank to have available at a training school.

T-34 armed with 85 mm main gun in service with Polish troops during WW2.
Source: unknown

Using a 38 liter water cooled V12 diesel engine developing 520 hp, the tank could manage up to 55 km/h on a road. Armament was concentrated in the turret with the 85 mm ZIS-S53 or D-5T gun and a 7.62 mm DT machine gun, with an additional 7.62 mm DT machine gun fitted in a bulge on the front right hand side of the hull, alongside the driver’s hatch. The vehicle reported in the CIA document is clearly turretless, so this would mean just a single machine gun was retained. The hull of the T-34 was both larger, heavier, and better protected than that of the original SU-76.

Polish units fighting under the command of the Red Army started receiving T-34s in 1945, with more arriving post-war and local production taking place between 1952 and 1956.

Comparison SU-76/T-34
Comparison SU-76/T-34	SU-76	T-34	Su-76/T-34 hybrid
Crew	5	4-5	est. 4-5
Length	4.97 m	6.68 m	6.68 m
Width	2.71 m	3.00 m	3.00 m
Height	2.10 m	2.45 m	2.45 m
Mass	10.5 tonnes	26.5 tonnes	est. 23 tonnes
Turret Armour	(casemate only – no turret)	Enclosed turret	(casemate only – no turret)
Front	35 mm rounded mantlet, 35 mm at 55º	60 mm (rounded)	35 mm rounded mantlet, 35 mm at 55º
Side	16 mm @ 65º	52 mm @ 30º	16 mm @ 65º
Rear	15 mm @ 70º	30 mm	15 mm @ 70º
Top	0 (open)	16 mm	0 (open)
Hull Armour
Front	25 mm @ 60º	45 mm @ 60º	45 mm @ 60º
Side	15 mm vertical	45 mm @ 40º	45 mm @ 40º
Rear	15 mm vertical	45 mm @ 48º	45 mm @ 48º

With no turret or gun, the T-34 would weigh substantially less than 26.5 tonnes, and even if the casemate from the SU-76 was added, it would still be lighter, as there was simply less added mass going back on. Depending on the variant of the T-34 and what motors, fittings, or other parts would be removed or modified during a creation of this type, the weight loss from a T-34 would have been up to around 5 tonnes. However, much of this weight would be added back on with the casemate and gun of the SU-76.

So What Was It?

The SU-76 and T-34 were substantially different both in stats and appearances. It is hard to imagine how someone with a modicum of knowledge on the subject could mistake the two. The SU-76 hull was small, with 6 small wheels, compared to the much larger T-34 hull with 5 large wheels.

If the report is taken at face value, and the vehicle was at least similar to the T-34’s hull with this open-topped SU-76-like feature added, what could it have been?

One possible explanation is the SU-100, a vehicle clearly visually the same to the T-34’s basic hull lines and dimensions. It had the same large 5 road wheels as the T-34 and a casemate built up over the hull. The Polish army had received some during April of 1945, with more arriving after the war. They were in service until the ‘60s.

Early production SU-100, October 1944.

On the face of it, this is perhaps the best candidate for mistaken identity, and the basic hull is as close as the report gets to a match. The casemate in no way looks similar in shape or style to that of the SU-76 and neither does the gun mount, as it lacks the large rectangular projection at the base. On top of this, the guns are wildly different. The SU-100 used a 100 mm D-10S gun over 5.6 m long with no muzzle brake, compared to the roughly 3.4 m long 76 mm ZIS-3sh on the SU-76, with a large and distinctive muzzle brake. There is also the obvious problem of the casemate not being open-topped on the SU-100, effectively ruling it out.

It is possible that it was something much more obscure, like the SU-100P, an open-topped vehicle on a vaguely similarly shaped hull. It had a different number of wheels (6 instead of 5), but at least had a muzzle brake. However, that vehicle was just a prototype, and it is hard to imagine why it might have randomly popped up in Poland long after it was redundant, not to mention the fact the gun was too long once more.

The final possibility is that this was a real vehicle, with a T-34 hull with a damaged turret being mated with a SU-76M superstructure, possibly from an SPG which had its hull damaged or destroyed. Such Frankentanks have appeared numerous times throughout history, and the construction of such a vehicle was definitely not outside the realm of posibility even for a regular tank batallion repair workshop. However, the question of what value such a contraption might have had for a training school remains unanswered.

Conclusion

Replacing the 85 mm gun from a T-34, a gun a field of fire of 360º thanks to being mounted in a turret, with the 76 mm ZIS-3Sh gun in a fixed casemate makes little sense from a combat point of view. Certainly, the gun switch would be a downgrade, adding nothing to the capability of the T-34 as a tank.

It would, however, be an upgrade for the SU-76. This would have been a bigger, heavier chassis on which to base the gun with more stowage space for ammunition, more armor (on the hull), and a top speed increased from around 45 km/h for the SU-76 to around 53 km/h for the T-34, and in this case, a slightly lighter T-34, so probably a little quicker still. Even so, there is no logic to try such an upgrade, and in fairness, the report does not discuss the vehicle as a combat vehicle, but as a training aid. As a training aid, maybe such a conversion made sense. It would have allowed tank driver training to be done with an actual tank whilst, at the same time, allowing for the basics of artillery training to be done with the SU-76 parts. Further, being open-topped would be more conducive to a school environment, whereby trainers could observe students, and indeed, the CIA report even confirms SU-76s being used for training roles at the school despite already having been withdrawn from service.

There is no good candidate for what the vehicle may have been, which leaves open the question of whether this SU-76 casemate on a T-34 hull really existed or was something else entirely. There are, of course, two simple answers, both of which meet the demands of Occam’s Razor. Either it never existed and the intelligence was wrong, or, the intelligence is correct and this was a simple training tool inside the OCS in Poznan. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in the 1990s, and the lack of subsequent corroborative documentation or photos of this vehicle, all that might be said of it currently is that it is conceivable that it existed.

T-34/SU-76 Hybrid. Illustration by Rolan Reboso.

Specifications T-34/SU-76 Hybrid
Crew	4-5
Dimensions	6.68 m Long, 3 m Wide, 2.45 m High, est. 23 tonnes
Armament	76 mm ZIS-3Sh gun along with a single 7.62 mm DT machine gun
Armor	Hull 45 mm, casemate, 35 mm at 55º on casemate front
Engine	38 liter water cooled V12 diesel engine developing 520 hp
Speed	est. 55 km/h

Sources

CIA Information Report 50X1 CIA-RDP82-00046R000400490004-0, dated 9th May 1955 https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00046R000400490004-0.pdf

Cold War French Prototypes

Giacomini Tank

Giacomini's patent tank, illustration by Relan Reboso.

France (1956)
Tank – Patent Only

Post-World War Two Europe was a continent rich in the legacy of the war. A legacy which took the form of an abundance of tanks, both in the form of legacy leftovers of the war, and a ready supply of new tanks from Britain (Centurion) or the United States (M47). The only thing matching this ready supply of tanks was an absence in the availability of foreign capital with which to purchase new tanks.

Yet new tanks were needed. The French had the remains of an empire to defend and there was also the very real threat of the powerful Soviet Union to the east, occupying much of what was left of Eastern Europe and Germany, along, of course, with the emergence of nuclear weapons.

Into this strategic mess of bankruptcy, an attempt to reassert an old order, and a new and assertive European land power, came the unassuming George Giacomini. In 1956, Giacomini submitted his concept for what was needed: a modern tank for these new and most dangerous times; a multiturretted, front-engined giant capable of preparing its own defenses. Whilst his design was not practical and was never built, it serves to illustrate one of the few ideas for new battle tanks in Europe at this time.

Novelty

The point of patents is to protect an element of novelty. Ergo, something new to an existing item or product or system. The novelty at play in Giacomini’s design was not strictly just the tank, although it is an odd design for the time in its own right. Instead, the novelty was that this tank should be equipped, as standard, with trench digging/earthmoving equipment with which it could provide its own defensive structure. The fact that he decided to show it on such an odd platform, one so out of keeping with the tank trends prevailing for in-service vehicles of the time, was perhaps the most novel aspect of the whole design.

The Man

Georges Giacomini is also an enigma. His location on the patent application was Bouches-de-Rhône, an area on the south coast of France, close to Italy, where there was a significant Italian population. His nationality is not given as ‘Citizen of the Republic of France’, but, instead, as a “residant en France” – in other words, merely living in France and not French.

The only additional clue is also a patent. In March 1974, a man called Georges Giacomini, a resident of ‘Quartier Bel-Air 13300 Salon de Provence’ applied for a patent in France for a type of power generator using water pressure. That patent was granted in 1975. This location is within the province known as Bouches-de-Rhône. Whoever he was, whatever his background or nationality, he appears to have remained in the area for some time and continued to put his mind to ideas of technology and engineering, even if his tank never left the patent office.

The Tank Described

Giacomini provides no dimensions for the tank, but it is clearly a large vehicle. Suspension consisted of 8 road wheels on each side supporting a high track run, presumably running on some return rollers under the side plates out of sight.

The engine and automotive elements which are undescribed would clearly be fitted into the front of the vehicle, leaving a space at the back on which to mount the turret with the primary armament.

Side elevation of Giacomini’s tank showing the rather large body, mini-turrets, and an awkwardly placed rear turret. The half-moon-shaped device on the front is the special digging attachment and the primary purpose of the entire patent.
Source: French Patent FR1151425
Note: image has been digitally cleaned by the author.

The body, large and cumbersome, is taller than most tanks, with the bulk of the hull rising above the level of the track run. The front of the tank is not sharply angled to meet the glacis but instead comes up vertically until it is level with the top of the tracks. After this vertical section it is followed by a short nose angled back at around 45º before the sloping glacis begins. This glacis extends back to a point level with around the second road wheel at around a 25º angle before meeting the flat top of the hull.

Immediately behind the intersection of the glacis with the hull top are a pair of small hemispherical turrets. Behind these mini turrets, the hull roof is flat covering an area under which can only be assumed to be the engine and other power components, vents, radiators, etcetera, needed to move the vehicle.

On the back half of the hull is a raised platform with a sloping front on which the main turret (carrying the primary armament) is mounted. This section is actually misdrawn in the plan view of the patent where the primary gun is shown in the plan-view as protruding from the front of the platform rather than the turret itself. The side elevation view is much clearer showing the gun attached to the turret instead.

Plan view of Giacomini’s tank showing the main gun redrawn to correctly show it attached to the primary turret rather than the raised platform.
Source: French Patent FR1151425
Note: image has been digitally cleaned and altered by the author.

The turret itself is of a well rounded form in plan view but which has vertical sides all round. The front slopes back from the rounded mantlet presenting a small and well shaped profile to an enemy vehicle. On top of the turret is a large square hatch and another square hatch is drawn on the rounded rear of the turret.

The back of the hull has the same 45º angled short ‘nose’ from the front, before becoming a vertical flat back plate. Over the vertical sides of the vehicle are a set of side skirts covering the running gear just just below the top of the road wheels.

It is onto these side skirts that the clever digging gear devised by Giacomini is attached.

Armament

Regarding the arrangement of the tank with its tall hull and mini turrets half-way down the length of the body, it is unclear if these turrets were just there for show in the patent, or if Giacomini genuinely thought these might be useful. Their placement certainly allows for depression of their guns down over the glacis to fire forwards, covering the blindspot which might otherwise be a problem in a rear-turreted tank, but Giacomini put the rear turret’s main gun so high up that it could itself depress to cover the same area. Quite what benefit these mini-turret guns could add is unclear. They are not drawn as some small gun either, like a machine gun, but something more akin to a small caliber cannon. As previously stated, the arrangement shows a vehicle with the engine and transmission-type components in the hull front and/or middle, so these turrets would potentially be crewless in order to save space inside for the machinery.

The gun in the primary turret is unusual in its own right. The curved mantlet is more than simply a protective cover over the front of the turret. Here, instead, the mantlet is also a mount for the gun itself. Formed in a circular shape, the mantlet is a letter ‘C’, with the breech of the gun attached to the base of the open face of the ‘C’ and then poking out through the back of the letter. With the trunnions, the bearings and point about which the whole piece rotates, in elevation mounted centrally within the ‘C’. The whole affair rotates as a wheel around a much larger arc of rotation than with a normal type of gun mounting, both in elevation and depression. Control of this rotation is done by means of a planetary gear affixed to the turret which engages with gearing on the mantlet to cause it to rotate up to “90 [degrees] with absolute accuracy”.

Side elevation of the primary armament in the turret on Giacomini’s tank showing the relative proportion of the armor in the almost circular mantlet with the gun attached to it in two places. A second gun is attached below the main gun. This method of mounting allows both guns to achieve a high angle of elevation.
Source: French Patent FR1151425
Note: image has been digitally cleaned by the author.

The patent clearly explains that the turret is expected to be able to rotate around a full 360º. With this gun mounting system as previously described, the vehicle is thus able to provide fire around a substantially wider area than a conventional vehicle. The primary gun is not identified or speculated about. However, the secondary gun is described and known to be an undisclosed type of heavy machine gun. This gun was not only for engaging targets in its own right but was also intended as an aid to aiming of the main gun.

Entrenching

The primary purpose of the patent, and rather overshadowed by the tank he provided as a carriage for it, was the earthmoving blade. This was no mere bulldozer blade. Such things had already been in widespread use for years, and Giacomini’s vision for an improvement was something quite different. Shaped in the manner of a half-moon in profile, his blade curved inwardly towards the vehicle unlike a conventional blade which curves away from the vehicle to act as a scoop.

Side elevation of Giacomini’s entrenching blade in use.
Source: French Patent FR1151425
Note: image has been digitally cleaned by the author.

The purpose of this earthmoving device was specifically for mobile and static use, something a normal type of blade could not do. In motion, the power of the vehicle could be used to push with the blade, but also, by dropping it, to scrape out an entrenchment for the vehicle.
When static, the same could still be done. I.e when the tank might have stopped to engage in combat it could deploy its entrenching device to build up earth or debris in front of the hull to help provide additional protection.

The way this worked was by virtue of the mounting system. On a conventional blade, it is usually attached to either mounts on the front of the tank, or onto pivots on the side and can be moved hydraulically. It operates just as a ‘pusher’ to move earth in front of it. On Giacomini’s design, the vehicle, even when stationary, could rotate the large mountings on the side skirts to lower the blade. The blade itself, mounted on a pair of horizontal tubes attached to that large mount could then propel the blade forwards as it gets dropped onto the ground, and then retract it back towards the vehicle to create a scrape in front of the vehicle. By repeating this extend/drop, retract and scrap technique several times the vehicle could thereby create a substantial berm in front of itself for protection.

Conclusion

The patent is surprisingly brief, at just 3 pages long. For such a complex device of earthmoving equipment, or the unusual gun mounting system, a longer description might normally be expected. In fact, he provides so much visual information in terms of the drawing of the tank and an unnecessary addition of those mini-turrets on the hull that it overshadows both of the really innovative elements and for no additional benefit.

As a tank, the design is certainly unusual. Front engine tanks were not new, there had been designs prior to Giacomini’s in 1954. Probably the most famous of these, and a vehicle with an equally hefty and brutalistic hull shape, was the German Maus. Giaocomini’s design of a tank is somewhat annoyingly vague on technical details despite him clearly having given some thought to layout and how a vehicle could work in combat. The ability to fire the tank’s main gun vertically and the ability to dig itself in were things nobody else had managed prior to that date, and yet those mini-turrets were a retrograde element in the design, adding no combat power and replacing them instead with added complexity, cost, crew, and weight.

As drawn and described the tank offered little for militaries. The lack of detail and the ‘regression’ to an earlier era of tanks with multiple turrets was unlikely to find interest. As such, the design stayed a patent and appears to have been quickly forgotten.

Giacomini’s patent tank, illustration by Relan Reboso.

Giacomini Tank Specifications Giacomini Tank
Crew	u/k
Dimensions	u/k
Armour	u/k
Armament	one primary gun and coaxial gun, two mini-turret
Engine	u/k
Speed	u/k

Sources

French Patent FR1151425, Disposif de terrassement adapte a un char de combat. Filed 14th June 1956, granted 19th August 1957, published 30th January 1958.

French Patent FR 7411006, Disposif generateur de puissance. Filed 26th March 1974, granted 24th October 1975.

Modern British Armor Modern US Prototypes

Alvis Shadow ‘Offensive Action Vehicle’

Post author By Andrew Hills
Post date October 25, 2023
1 Comment on Alvis Shadow ‘Offensive Action Vehicle’

Alvis Shadow ‘Offensive Action Vehicle’. Illustration by Shreyas Das.

United Kingdom/United States of America (1998-2000)
Reconnaissance Vehicle – 2 Built

In the late 1990s, the specialist versions of the Land Rovers used by British Special forces and other reconnaissance troops were showing their age, with some units still using Series III vehicles – a vehicle which ended production in 1985. With an eye to a contract for replacing these vehicles, the British firm of Alvis, in conjunction with the American firm of AM General, developed their own vehicle. This vehicle was to compete for this small but lucrative market of specialist high performance off-road vehicles intended for special forces use on the international market and for which the UK and US were prime potential customers. The result was an unusual hybrid idea to make use of the British familiarity and experience with Land Rovers. The potential contracts for vehicle production and spares parts was huge and, if either the UK or US placed an order, then there was a good probability that other nations, particularly in the Middle East, would follow suit.

The Bidders

Alvis was formed in Coventry in 1919, the heart of the British motor industry, and over the following decades, produced a large number of civilian, and from 1939, military vehicles. Some of their most famous military vehicles were the Stalwart and the Saracen. By the late 1990s though, the changing face of the international order, with the Cold War over and defence budgets being slashed, led to a sequence of mergers in the defence sector. In 1997, Alvis purchased the firm of Hägglunds Vehicle AB, and the year later merged with GKN.

In a similar vein, the American partners in the Shadow project, AM General, had been through the merger process back in the 1990s. AM General had developed the vehicle which had won the contract for the US Army’s HMMWV program and had even made a civilian version, known as the ‘HUMMER’ in 1993 for a primary domestic American market for whom a jeep with the doors taken off and big tires was neither huge, unwieldy, uneconomical, or sufficiently pretentious enough. A ‘HUMMER’, therefore, offered all the practicality of a garden shed on the road with that all important pseudo-military look. Shortly afterwards though, all of the rights to the name ‘HUMMER’ were transferred over to General Motors (of whom AM was a subsidiary), along with all civilian marketing rights. AM General did, however, retain the military marketing rights for what was a well regarded if somewhat oversized military vehicle.

Alvis Shadow – a Land Rover/HMMWV hybrid.
Source: AM General

Teaming Up

With AM General having the rights to exploit the HMMWV for military use, and Alvis looking for a military contract, the two firms worked together to develop this new vehicle. Combining elements of the HMMWV and a Land Rover under the design management of Alvis, the new vehicle was a hybrid of British and American vehicles, hoping to get the best of both worlds. Specifically, it was intended to have the size and off-road ability of the HMMWV with the reliability and ease of maintenance of the Land Rover. Based on a M1113 Expanded Capacity Vehicle (HMMWV) chassis, the vehicle looked substantially more HMMWV than it did ‘Land Rover’, but was also very much a cut down vehicle, providing an open space on this rugged platform, on which a variety of options could be developed, depending on role.

A second project run in conjunction with AM General by Alvis was looking at using Mercedes components, but the scale of involvement, if any, with Mercedes is unknown. It could well be that the project was simply to use commonly available Mercedes components parts, such as those for their G-Wagon range of vehicles, rather than a co-production. Either way, offering a second hybrid platform for the Shadow concept would serve to widen the potential market appeal to foreign forces which may already have been operating the Mercedes G-Wagon platform and wanted some degree of commonality in their forces.

In the Shadows

In June 2000, Alvis released this new design. Named ominously as the ‘Shadow’ to hint perhaps at the murky world of special forces operations, the vehicle was first shown publicly at the Eurosatory defence exposition that year. Following this, it was exhibited on the AM General stand as the ‘Alvis Shadow Offensive Action Vehicle’ (A.S.O.A.V.) at the Association of the United States Army (A.U.S.A.) exhibition in Washington D.C. in October that year.

Alvis Shadow at Eurosatory 2000, demonstrating the value of Cacti in a vehicle display. Source: Carl Schulze

The Mercedes-based vehicle does not appear to have been on display at all and seems in fact more like a side project or off-shoot of this primary AM General project instead. By the time the whole work would be terminated, the Mercedes project would remain substantially less refined in design and unfinished, indicating that the AM General co-production was Plan A for Alvis.

Layout and Weaponry

The Shadow was of a conventional layout, with the engine forward, followed by a driver (on the left) and front-seat passenger (on the right), behind which was a space for storage, other weapons, kit, and crew. The body of the Shadow was based on that of the M1113 HMMWV (High Mobility Multi-Role Wheeled Vehicle) Extended Capability Vehicle (E.C.V.) fitted with various Land Rover parts. Just two Shadows were made: one based on Mercedes components and the other on GM components. Power for the latter was provided by a General Motors 6.5 litre V8 turbo diesel producing 190 hp. This power was delivered via a General Motors 4 speed (plus torque converter) hydromatic gearbox. The suspension was provided by way of AM General double-wishbone suspension.

The technical details of the Mercedes-based component vehicle are unknown. In 1998, when the Shadow work began, the G-Wagon had already been in production for nearly 20 years by Daimler-Benz. The primary model in production and use in 1998 was the Model G vehicle featuring locking differentials, a fully automatic 5 speed transmission, and improved brakes. Engine options for that vehicle ranged from the modest 2.3 litre M 102 E 23 4-cylinder petrol to a 2.9 litre OM 602 D29 diesel or the 3.0 litre OM 642 DE 30 V6 turbodiesel.

On the exterior, the most obvious feature of the Shadow was the large box-type roll cage covering the whole of the cab, on top of which was a ring-mount on which a weapon could be mounted. The roll cage and this weapon mount were made from stainless steel. A further weapon mount was provided on the front right to be operated by the front right passenger. The Shadow was very well armed, with a 7.62 mm General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) mounted on the front passenger side (the right) and an M621 20 mm cannon on a P20 mount on the roof, although other weapons could also be mounted on the fully traversing turret ring. Such weapons could include another 7.62 mm GPMG or a heavy machine gun, like a 0.50 (12.7 mm) calibre M2 Browning heavy machine gun, automatic grenade launcher, or even an Anti-Tank Guided Missile (A.T.G.M.) system like the MILAN ATGM. What weapons were selected to be used would be down to the eventual user and the need to fulfil whatever role was needed at the time.

Heavily armed with a 7.62 mm GPMG on the dashboard and an M621 20 mm cannon on a ring-mount, the Alvis Shadow was a large and heavy special forces vehicle, but one which offered a high degree of mobility for the military. The lack of protection for the crew was, however, a severe handicap of this type of vehicle and one which no amount of weapons could allay.
Source: Pinterest

The rest of the space within the roll cage area was large enough for a significant amount of kit and stores, including at least one spare tire and a fourth operator carried in the back to make a maximum complement of 4 troops, although an additional folding section at the back provided additional, albeit not very secure seating or even a stretcher. The body was completely open, no doors, no roof, and importantly, no armor at all. The body, made from aluminum panels to save weight, offered no protection whatsoever from direct enemy fire from small arms or even shell splinters. Protection for the crew would, therefore, be limited to whatever personal protective gear, such as helmets and body armor, they would wear and, of course, to not being seen in the first place. This most important factor in the protection of the crew stood in direct contrast to the heavy weaponry on offer for combat.

The entire vehicle had to be light and it also had strict size limitations, as a pair of them would have to be able to fit within the hold of a CH47 Chinook, and three of them within the hold of a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. It was also air-droppable on the standard Medium Stress Platform.

Even unarmored, the Shadow struggled in the weight category, coming in at a rather chunky 4,800 kg. On top of that 4,800 kg weight, was a load capacity of 1,200 kg, for a total load of 6,000 kg. With the 190 hp engine, this meant a power to weight ratio of 31.7 hp per tonne.

Conclusion and the End of Alvis

The Alvis Shadow was not the first unarmored high mobility scout concept by any means and it certainly was not the last. As a design, it does, however, illustrate the problem of such vehicles. Either they have to be light enough to obtain good mobility, operational range, and discrete reconnaissance, or be protected sufficiently in order to survive a firefight with an enemy force.

In 2002, Alvis bought Vickers Defence Systems from Rolls-Royce, but, by 2004, Alvis itself was gone, bought out by the defense giant British Aerospace (BAe Systems), which combined Alvis with Royal Ordnance to create a new land systems unit. The Shadow had failed to gain any orders, although at least one example had been trialled by members of the British Army. The Shadow is no longer offered for sale.

AM General, for their part, now offers the M1165 Special Operation version of their HMMWV catered to the special forces market which does offer a vehicle with basic ballistic protection (fragments) on a heavier (5,488 kg) chassis with a lower payload (1,102 kg).

No orders were ever received for the Shadow from Alvis but the market was a proven one. The USMC, for example, purchased a version of the Mercedes G-wagon as their ‘Interim Fast Attack Vehicle’. This was an altogether simpler ‘off-the shelf’ type of vehicle and offered a similar capability in terms of an open and capable off-road platform which could mount weapons. However, based on the 4.6 m long, 3-tonne Mercedes Geländewagen 290 model with a diesel engine, the vehicle was smaller than the Shadow and could carry a payload of just 730 kg compared to the Shadow’s 1,200 kg.

It too has now been replaced by the even smaller (4.14 m long) 2-tonne M1161 ‘Growler’ Internally Transportable Light Strike Vehicle, which is transportable by the V-22 Osprey. That vehicle has a payload capacity of just 900 kg, more than the G-Wagon-based IFSV but still substantially less than the Shadow.

IFAV in use by the USMC in 2003
Source: SSG M. Picklo (DoD) via wiki

Surviving vehicles

Both of the Shadow prototypes built (the AM General-based one, and the Mercedes-based one) survive and were last known to be in private hands in the UK.

The AM-based Shadow in private hands at the War and Peace show 2018.
Source: Thundershot at serpentorslair.info

Also currently in private hands, the Mercedes-based Shadow features a modified front end with chequer plate replacing the original HMMWV bonnet and wheel archtops. The reason for this is not known.
Source: Pinterest

British forces shown in promotional material testing the Shadow. The armament on top is just a single 7.62 mm GPMG.
Source: Pinterest

Alvis Shadow ‘Offensive Action Vehicle’. Illustration by Shreyas Das.

Specifications AM General/Alvis Shadow Offensive Action Vehicle
Crew	Up to 4
Dimensions	4.87m long x 2.06m wide x 1.8 m high.
Weight	4,800 kg, up to 6,000 kg fully laden
Engine	6.5 litre General Motors turbo charged diesel delivering 190 hp at 3,400 rpm.
Armament	various as needed
Armour	none

Sources

Alviscarcompany.co.uk
Alvis Plc. (16/10/2000). Press Release: A Shadow is Cast on AUSA
Brochures.slosh.com
Defense and Aerospace Companies Volume II – Alvis Plc. Forecast International.com December 2004
Munroe, B. (2003). HMMWV. Crowood Press. UK
Samochod terenowy HMMWV Hummer, Dom Wydawniczy
Schulz, C. (2002). HMMWV – Workhorse of the US Army. Concorde Publications, Hong Kong.
Zaloga, S. (2006). HMMWV 1980-2005. Osprey Publishing, UK

WW2 Australian Prototypes

Bloomfield’s ‘Tortoise’ Single Track Heavy Tank

Post author By Andrew Hills
Post date September 25, 2023
1 Comment on Bloomfield’s ‘Tortoise’ Single Track Heavy Tank

Bloomfield’s ‘Tortoise’ Single Track Heavy Tank. Illustration by Esteban.

Commonwealth of Australia (1942)
Heavy Tank – None Built

Post WW1, most tanks follow a common enough shape, with a rigid armored body, a pair of track units, with one on each side, an engine located within the body, and either a fixed casemate gun or a turret with some secondary guns in the hull. When a vehicle diverts from this common type of layout, it stands out and few designs could be seen as diverting from the norm as much as the triangular multi-tracked tank from the pen of Lance Bloomfield of New South Wales, Australia in 1942. In this design, Bloomfield diverted from the norms of tank design in virtually every conceivable way.

The Men Behind the Design

The designer behind the vehicle was Lance Bloomfield who, in signing the letter which accompanied the sketches, was sure to add that he was an “Old Digger”, meaning he had formally served in the Australian forces previously, most likely in WW1, which might partially explain the general shape of the primary drive unit.

Providing an address at Roslyn, Garland, in New South Wales, he came from a very rural area West of Sydney and appears to have led a rather uneventful life. However, his design and letter were not sent in by him, but on his behalf by Mr. W. Bloomfield, also of Garland, New South Wales, with instructions to send all return correspondence via W. Bloomfield. The family name matching suggests a direct relative but there is no mention of the exact relationship. The date on the design, as drawn by Lance Bloomfield, was 1st July 1942, but it was not submitted until 13th July. The submission was left with the Army Office in Sydney and then sent on to the Army Inventions Directorate on the 18th.

Design

Layout, Engine, and Suspension

The general layout of Bloomfield’s design was a triangle with a primary caterpillar to be made from 2 or 4 separate tracks, forming a single 4’ (1.2 m) wide contact surface which was the forward point of the triangle. A pair of secondary tracks were each connected by a beam coming from the rear third of this central primary track unit and were held level using a trailing wheel between these two secondary units and which was itself held in place by an arm coming from the center of each of the beams from the primary to secondary track, forming a diamond shape within the overall triangular shape of the machine. The single track unit at the front was to provide the primary propulsion for Bloomfield’s “very heavy tank” and to contain the engine in the rear half, along with the gearing behind it and driving a rear track sprocket with the power transmitted by means of a gearbox to a crown wheel and pinion with no differential.

Side view of the primary drive unit of the design with the beam drawn, shown connecting it to the secondary unit. Note that the design is facing left to right here.
Source: Australian Army Inventions Directorate file 4932, 40.

Unusually, the sprocket was to be in contact with the ground at the back. No particular engine or even type of engine (petrol or diesel) was specified by Bloomfield. With no engine shown in the secondary units, it is likely that he was proposing some kind of power take-off from the gearbox to be taken out to these secondary units. Such an arrangement of power transfer would be complicated but would allow for easy steering of the machine given how far apart the two units were, alluded to in his description stating that the design would be able to turn within its own length.

The overall shape of the primary drive unit under the armor was similar in some respects to the quasi-rhomboidal shape of British tanks in WW1, with the exception that the front was formed in a sharp triangle shape. Large wheels were positioned at the change in angle of the track as it ran around the circumference of the body and held off by means of 17 small wheels or rollers, for a total of 22 wheels or rollers to support the track.

Within this body, the power and transmission would all be at the front and extending to around the halfway point with the turret, with the remainder of the space behind it all assigned for stowage and fuel.

Plan view showing the triangular shape of the ‘tank’ with the tracked outriggers and trailing wheel.
Source: Australian Army Inventions Directorate file 4932, 40.

Armor

Bloomfield neither specified nor drew a thickness of armor for the design, but he did draw and describe the shape. He specifically wanted armor sufficiently thick to deflect “all field artillery that is used with open sights” and drew an armor layout consisting of a large upturned shallow oval bowl with the armor held off from the body of the vehicle and projecting beyond the vehicle on all sides and curving down to just above ground level to provide complete sheltering for the main section.

Whilst this shape did provide a very curved slope which would improve the chances of causing a shell deflection, it had the serious problem that it would hinder the mobility of the vehicle. Projecting as it did so far fore and aft, the shielding would inevitably foul on the ground or on obstacles such as tree stumps or rocks or embankments, despite his idea that hydraulic joists would be able to raise it slightly.

No armor is shown or mentioned for either of the two supplementary tracks connected to the main vehicle. Neither, for that matter, is any mention made of protection for the primary vehicle itself. Whilst the vehicle’s full width would be covered by the moving tracks, the sides would not and it can only be assumed that some sort of protection was envisaged here as well, or else it would lead to a very poorly protected and vulnerable vehicle inside.

Firepower

Bloomfield wanted the vehicle to “carry a gun that will blast anything on the battlefield” and, to this end, he noted the primary weapon located centrally in what appears to be a turret on the primary track unit as a “4 or 6 inch” naval gun”.

In the front of the hull of this primary unit were a pair of holes through the armor for a pair of ‘lighter guns’, followed by a row of three more holes marked for machine guns. This would mean the ‘lighter guns’ were envisaged as something between a machine gun caliber weapon (the standard British Empire machine gun of the day being .303) and a 4” naval gun, which left a lot of room to select an armament.

This was not the end of the firepower for Bloomfield’s design either. On the rear of the hull, facing backwards, was a single, centrally located ‘light gun’ followed by two more machine guns lower down. This meant a grand total of one main gun, 3 intermediary guns, and 5 machine guns. It is wholly unclear whether these lighter guns or machine guns were to be operated directly or by some remote firing device or if the method of operation was even a consideration, but the combat value of fixed weapons like this is very limited, especially fixed in position to the rear. The turret-mounted primary weapon, on the other hand, would have been a monster. The monobloc 4” QF Mk. XIX gun of the era weighed well over a tonne on its own and was capable of firing a 15.9 kg High Explosive shell at nearly 400 m/s out to nearly 9 km. The 6” BL Mk. XXIII was even larger, weighing nearly 7 tonnes, and was capable of firing a 50 kg High Explosive shell at 841 m/s in excess of 23 km.

4” Mark XIX gun mounted on HMAS Geelong. Note this gun is being serviced by 6 men, as the provision of ammunition to it occupied at least 3 of those men to keep up with the maximum rate of fire of 15 rounds per minute.
Source: Australian War Memorial

Both of those guns saw service with Australian forces during the war. However, the servicing of such guns was a huge task. The 4” Mark XIX required 6 men to operate it properly, with 3 men needed to keep bringing the ammunition to the gun to keep up with the maximum rate of fire of 15 rounds per minute. Each shell with its propellant weighed over 22 kg, meaning a single minute’s ammunition at the maximum rate of fire meant ⅓ tonne of ammunition being spent. Estimating perhaps 50 rounds provided for the gun to be a useful combat load, this would still mean over a tonne of ammunition. The situation would be even more extreme using a 6” gun, like the Mk. XXIII, as each complete round weighed over 60 kg including propellant, meaning that 50 rounds would mean 3 tonnes of ammunition along with the nightmare of moving such a heavy shell by hand in the confines of a tank turret.

Whilst a 4” gun might be a little excessive for dealing with enemy tanks and positions, it was still viable as a hand-loaded weapon for the vehicle, but the 6” option was a step too far and both impractical and unnecessary.

Labeled as an “alternative birdseye view” to a plain armor covering, this plan view provides a glimpse of the firepower proposal, with a centrally mounted and rotating main gun with fixed guns to the front and rear.
Source: Australian Army Inventions Directorate file 4932, 40.

Rejection and Conclusion

It is perhaps not a surprise that the vehicle design did not reach the level of approval or production. It was too different and too flawed. The rejection process only took a few days, with a formal reply on 25th July 1942 saying that “..after thorough investigation by our technical officers, the decision has been reached that the suggestion submitted by you cannot be accepted”. Perhaps it was just due to the overall concept of a three-hulled vehicle which would mean too much design and testing work to carry off during a war.

The design was seriously flawed too, for a variety of reasons, some of which no doubt the Inventions Directorate considered and some others which maybe are clear only in hindsight. Whatever their reasons were, the Army did not expand on them, just thanking Bloomfield for his suggestion and closing the file on it.

The single front unit provided little effective fighting space for the crew, the fixed weapons were adding weight but little combat potential. The three hulls attached to each other the way that they were, added enormous complexity to the vehicle, but would also seriously hinder maneuverability of the vehicle off-road, through trees, or past other obstacles but much more than that in terms of moving along roads or being hauled by railway.

The armor too was an obvious problem and let the whole design down. The concept of connecting the individual parts of the vehicles together in such a way and balancing them with the trailing wheel was sound enough, although whether a system of powering them could be installed is another issue. The armor, however, formed as it was in that large shallow bowl shape, meant that the vehicle would inevitably foul on even modestly undulating terrain and it was not efficient either. So little of it overhung the sides that it left the vehicle underneath less well protected than it would be if the armor had simply been concentrated on the body of the track units instead.

Bloomfield’s ‘Tortoise’ Single Track Heavy Tank. Illustration by Esteban.

Specifications Bloomfield’s Tortoise Single Track Heavy Tank
Crew	unknown
Dimensions	main caterpillar 4’ (1.2 m wide)
Armour	heavy
Armament	5 x machines guns, 3 x light guns, 1 x 4” or 6” naval gun
Engine	unknown
Speed	unknown

Sources

Australian Army Inventions Directorate file 4932, 40. Dated 16th October 1942
Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales 6th December 1940
Navweaps.com

Modern Hungarian Armor

Goede’s New Tank

Goede's New Tank. Illustration by Esteban.

Hungary (2002)
Tank – Patent Only

Dr. Gabor Goede (Hungarian: Gábor Göde), a resident of Budapest, Hungary, filed a patent for a ‘New Type of Tank’ on 16th July 2002. In it, Goede was clear that in his view tanks would “continue to act [as] an important and indispensable part in modern warfare”, but that as the development direction of vehicles was to increase performance in every aspect of design from mobility to protection, that the weight of vehicles was growing rapidly.

Problems

Weight, according to Goede, was the biggest enemy of a tank’s mobility, reducing its operational range and necessitating larger automotive plants, more fuel, and a cycle of more weight used to armor them, and so on. So too was the growth in ‘special’ armor, such as what he described as “weakened uranium covered with steel” requiring new technological innovations.

The next issue was volumetric increase. Specifically, as vehicles improved protection, then so too were vehicles developing improved firepower to counter the enemy’s armor and this, and the ammunition to serve the guns, took up more space inside a vehicle. This means more internal volume for the vehicle around which to provide armor. Not only would a volumetric increase lead to more weight as more armor was needed to protect it to the same standard, but this bigger size would present a bigger target as well.

Solutions – Firepower and Turret Volume

Goede’s solutions to this problem were multi-layered. First up was the issue of firepower, and rather than adopting a new larger caliber gun or missiles or something more conventional, Goede instead proposed the use of a laser. The laser he proposed would be a “high performance laser gun that is able to destroy the armour protection of a traditional tank, but especially by damaging the tank’s gunbarrel and track” to immobilize the vehicle from both fighting and moving.

There was no practical laser weapon capable of defeating tank armor in 2002 any more than there was for the lesser-goal of a mobility-kill on a tank. It is unclear therefore, if he was simply speculating or had something else in mind. He did not, however, simply speculate on a random undisclosed laser-system, but was specific that it had to be a system with “preamplifiers” and a “high-performance generator” connected to “high-performance batteries” forming an electrical power unit for the vehicle.

Goede’s New Tank showing a small vehicle with a low frusto-conical turret mounting his high-powered laser gun.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

The adoption of a high-powered laser would potentially (notwithstanding the need for some kind of power source) provide the vehicle with a gun of substantially lower weight and with no need for ammunition stowage, a much safer weapon system for the vehicle in contrast to the adoptions of a conventional gun. This, in turn, meant a substantially smaller turret could be adopted. One further note in favor of the laser-option for Goede was that it allowed the tank to engage enemy airborne assets as well.

Goede’s tank shows off its main weapon by destroying a land mine.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

The laser was just one weapon on this tank. Also proposed was a “missile-holding mechanism” to be attached to the rear of the tank. Stored in the tank, when required, this missile battery could be deployed by opening the rear of the tank and these missiles being pushed out and then elevated into position. A degree of rotation for these missiles in their pod was also mentioned.

Rear view of Goede’s design showing how a battery of 16 missiles could be deployed from inside the rear of the hull.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

Within the turret there would be three more weapon systems to complement the laser. Two of these were machine guns with both 12.7 mm and 7.62 mm calibers provided for. The third was a mortar mounted on top of the turret. The mortar was operated on an unusual rail system which could be varied in elevation and which was loaded automatically when the launching rail was rotated to retract the rear inside the turret. To complete the armament, two banks of three smoke grenade launchers are clearly visible on the sides of the turret.

Close-up view of the rail-mortar system having been reloaded and moving back out of the turret ready for use.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

Solutions – Armor

Just as Goede considered the size of conventional guns a problem for which he proposed a solution, so too did he propose an alternative to ‘traditional’ armorings. Goede’s armor solution involved steel as part of a composite package consisting of “multi-layers…the outermost steel armour plate is covered by wolfram [Tungsten] or another similar hard metal layer or plate. By modifying the crystal structure of the steel armour plates and by yoking of multi-layer thin plates made of steel armour, a more solid, stronger and better resisting armouring can be constructed”.

In other words, he proposed using steel armor made from multiple layers of different types of steels with a harder metal such as tungsten on the outside. This armor scheme would, he proposed, be suitable for both hull and turret and could be varied in thickness depending on exactly where on the vehicle the protection was being provided as an obvious weight-saving measure.

Cross-section of Goede’s proposed armor layout consisting of a hard outer layer with following layers of steel, “panoplast”, and aluminum as required.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

Large side skirts covered the sides of the tank outside of the tracks, providing some additional protection for the hull. Goede also proposed mine protection for this tank in the form of a mine detection system:

“the … tank is equipped with … a pneumatically or hydraulically moveable mechanism that extending in front of the nose part from the chamber surrounded by the hull, is equipped with a wire lath, on which wire lath soil detectors, explosive material detectors, electromagnetic sensors, metal locating detectors and microwave receivers are installed”.

Extending mine detection gear in front of the tank.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

Design

Goede’s ideas for reduction in volume and weight might have been unconventional, but his design drawings (computer renders) delivered with his patent application were of a much more ‘normal’-looking vehicle than might otherwise have been expected.

The closest looking vehicle to Goede’s is probably the ‘ancient’ Soviet-era BMP-1 APC and his vehicle shares a few similarities. The most obvious of these is the low frusto-conical turret roughly in the middle of the hull. The hull for Goede’s New Tank was equally low, but instead of being angular like the BMP-1 was, it was more curved and characterized by large full-length side skirts covering the whole of the top of the track run and extending down to cover the tops of the 5 well-spaced open-web road wheels.

Also unlike the BMP-1, Goede’s design had the top of the hull, not flat, but sloping slightly upwards, creating a raised central portion onto which the turret was placed. At the rear of Goede’s vehicle were not the twin doors of the BMP-1 either. Instead, this tank (rather than APC) had the rear hull well rounded and below it a pair of propellers for motion in the water.

Designed by the Soviet-Union the BMP-1 is a thinly armored amphibious armored-personnel carrier.
Image: tanks encyclopedia

Mobility

Not content with completely reinventing tank firepower or providing a vehicle made from steel armor in a novel way, Goede also had substantial improvements in mind for mobility.
The weight of current tanks (he specifically referenced the American “M1A2 tank … [at] 68 tons”) prevented them from being amphibious. His new, improved tank would also solve this apparent problem.

Underneath Goede’s design would be large balloons, presumably inside some chambers, which could be opened to allow them to fall out. These balloons would then be filled with compressed gas and attached to the underneath of the hull which somehow would provide the buoyancy it needed to float. Propulsion in the water was delivered by the pair of built-in propellers at the back of the tank.

Two views of Goede’s tank embarking on amphibious operations where it is seen from behind about to enter the water, and then traveling through the water supported by its balloons underneath.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

In the water, Goede’s design is shown producing a small target above the waterline.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

Amphibious capabilities were by no means the least of the mobility advantages proposed by Goede. When it came to crossing obstacles, here too would his vehicle offer a capacity beyond that of existing machines. For example, his machine could climb a slope beyond a 60º angle. This was because his design could tow itself forwards up the slope by means of wire ropes attached to ground-anchors fired by rockets on the front. Eight such rocket-launched ground anchors were mounted on the front of the tank in two banks of four. Each set could be launched a set distance ahead up the slope or perhaps over soft or marshy ground. As the tank wound up the wire cable, the anchor remained in place and the tank would creep forwards. Once in place, the process could be repeated as many times as needed to cross wide barriers or slopes beyond the capabilities of other tanks.

Goede’s tank crosses a wide gap using four of its eight rocket-propelled ground anchors fired ahead of it to haul itself forwards.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

There was one other trick with Goede’s design offered as well. This too, was related to crossing obstacles and is the most dramatic feature of the vehicle – hydraulic legs. Contemporary tanks were, according to Goede, limited to crossing a gap no wider than 3.6 m and climbing a step no higher than 1.5 m. This is generally correct and tanks will get around such issues by means of coordination with engineering vehicles creating bridges, ramps, or cutting gaps, or with fascines to fill in a ditch, etcetera.

Goede would not need any of these things for his tank, as by means of its Inspector Gadget-style telescoping legs, it could both climb and cross barriers in excess of any other tank. Four such legs were provided for underneath Goede’s tank with two at the front and two more at the back. These legs were not suitable for either bipedal or quadrupedal motion but were effectively stilts by which the tank could elevate or support itself.

For example, when approaching a wall or embankment higher than itself, a tank would normally be unable to cross it without engineer-vehicle support. Goede’s tank, on the other hand, could approach the bank, activate its electric motors and deploy the front pair of hydraulically (or pneumatically) telescoping legs to lift up the front and then move itself forwards against the top of the bank at an angle. Deployment of the rear pair of legs at this point would then lift the rear to the same level and the tank could then proceed to drive forwards whilst retracting first the front legs and then rear legs as it surmounted the lip of the bank.

Goede’s tank approaching a bank which would be otherwise too high to climb and with its front legs extended to start the process of climbing it.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

Just as these legs would allow the tank to climb a bank, they could also allow it to cross a wide gap. In this circumstance, the front legs would be extended into the ditch from the approach-side, finding a point at the base of the opposite face rather in the manner of a pole-vaulter about to launch themselves into the air.

As it drove forwards, these legs supported the front as it became suspended over the ditch and the rear pair would be deployed into the bottom of the approach-side of the ditch where it met the bank. As a result, the tank would be completely supported in the air on four legs and by progressively extending the rear legs and shortening the front legs the tank crosses the ditch.

Sequence showing Goede’s tank using its legs to cross a wide ditch. Note the wire cables are in use to help pull the vehicle over the ditch.
Source: International Patent WO2004008061(A2).

As ludicrous as this leg system might look, it is hardly new. Back in 1915, Colonel Crompton had tried ‘elephant’s feet’ on the side of the Bullock tractor he was trialing for the Pedrail. They did not work and were dumped but the principle was not much different. Even Nicholas Straussler had considered legs on a tank to help cross obstacles in 1935. That idea too did not find any success either.

The ‘elephant’ feet during testing in 1915. They were meant to aid the vehicle in crossing a gap. In practice they were worse than useless.
Source: Hills (2019)

Idea for trench crossing assistance device to be added to a light tank in 1935.
Source: US Patent US2012090.

Engine

In order to provide power for the vehicle, this tank would need an engine or motor. It had batteries for the laser and presumably this could be recharged by a dynamo from the main power supply if it needed to. Once more, Goede proposed a novel power plant for the vehicle to provide for both motion and for this possible recharging work. This was to consist of an engine running on hydrogen.

Compressing hydrogen gas into a liquid would allow for a compact power source for the engine whereby the chemical reaction of burning it produces not only power but also the output as just water. Not only was this cleaner fuel source a benefit for not producing harmful emissions, but also, Goede suggested, a useful tactical addition. Goede stated the reason for using a hydrogen engine was because “… thermal emission is completely missing at this mode of propulsion” rendering the tank harder to detect through thermal imaging.

This is not strictly correct. Hydrogen engines do produce heat, they just produce less heat than an equivalent petrol- or diesel-powered internal combustion engine due to the low ignition temperature of the fuel. There are some key disadvantages of adopting this type of engine such as the relatively high volume required within the vehicle to store it. The only other clues from Goede regarding his choice for a hydrogen power plant was that it would consist of a “metal-hybrid hydrogen reservoir, ceramic combustion chambers, one or more turbines and cooling systems and gearbox”.

If the hydrogen engine was not viable, Goede also suggested a ‘gas-turbine’ would suffice along with the required technical components needed by both engines viz. “Hydrodynamical torque transformer, automatic gearbox, hydraulic main clutch, differential, [and] hydrostatical steering”.

Crew

As another partial solution to the problem on internal volume, something which his tank containing various complex leg, balloon, and missile mechanisms would only make worse, Goede proposed simply removing the crew. Here, instead of a manned tank, the vehicle would be operated remotely by means of a “high capacity computer” transmitting messages by microwave to the tank. One ‘commander’ operating from an undisclosed and presumably safe distance away could control and operate several such tanks at the same time.

Conclusion

Was Goede really proposing this particular vehicle as a machine in its own right? Well, maybe yes and no. What he did, by way of a series of ‘improvements’ specified in the design was effectively provide himself some claim to any or all of those tank features alone or in conjunction with others. Whether it was the laser gun, the automatic rail-mortar, or the lamination idea for armor did not matter. He could, in theory, have used his design, protected by the patent, to assert some claim over any of those systems in use on a vehicle. It is highly unlikely that most of what he was suggesting was going to get used at all and the idea that fixed propellers on a tank might be a new or novel idea was obviously incorrect.

However, he was right when it came to some ideas about unmanned tanks. Whilst there is a strong likelihood of more unmanned tracked vehicles being used (whether armed or not), it is hard to foresee a future where his ‘Inspector Gadget’ legs might ever find a viable use. Today Dr. Goede is the Director at Invention and Production 2011 Ltd. in Budapest, Hungary. He has 20 patents in his name since 1988 with inventions ranging from those relating to solar power to a sleeping bullet launching system to prevent hijackings.

Goede’s sleeping bullet launcher gun of 2001.
Source: International Patent WO03/035471(A2)

Goede’s New Tank. Illustration by Esteban.

Goede’s New Tank showing its battery of 16 missiles. Illustration by Esteban.

Goede’s New Tank extending mine detection gear in front of the tank. Illustration by Esteban.

Goede’s New Tank firing a rocket-propelled ground anchor. Illustration by Esteban.

Specifications Goede’s New Tank
Crew	Unmanned
Dimensions
Armor	composite/laminated steel and tungsten (or other hard metal)
Armament	High-powered laser, missile battery, mortar
Engine	Hydrogen engine / gas-turbine

Sources

Blackmore, D. (1998). Handbook of air pollution from internal combustion engines.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/hydrogen-engine
Hills, A. (2019). Col. R.E.B. Crompton – Pioneers of Armour Series). FWD Publishing, USA.
International Patent WO2004008061(A2) The new type of tnk supplied with the mechanisms and equipment improving armour protection, firepower and mobility. Filed 16th July 2002, international filing date 15th July 2003, published 22nd January 2004.
International Patent WO03/035471(A2) The protection of airplanes against terrorists and hijackers. Filed 24th September 2001, international filing date 24th September 2002, published 1st May 2003.
US Patent US2012090, Trench Crossing Device for Vehicles. Filed 1st July 1932, granted 20th August 1935.

United States of America (1918) Artillery Tractor/Light Tank – 1 Built

The Design

Armor

Automotive

Crew

Armament

Suspension

Tail

Testing and Adoption

Conclusion

Specifications Ford 3-ton Special Tractor M1918 (Ford 3-ton)

Sources

United Kingdom (1941) Mobile Fortress – None Built

Origins

The Pamphlet

Design

Propulsion

Armament

Conclusion

Sources

France (1925) Ball Tank – None Built

Origins

Design

Armor

Motion

The Axles

Conclusion

Specifications Maubaret’s War Machine

Sources

Austro-Hungarian Empire (1901) Artistic Representation – None Built

The Man

The Illustration

The Machine

Conclusion

Sources

United States of America (1918) Ball Tank – None Built

Arsene ‘Andre’ J. Paré of Taunton

Purpose

Design

“A self propelled and armored engine of warfare”

Internals

Steering

Conclusion

Specifications Paré’s Engine of War

Sources

People’s Republic of Poland (1955) Self-Propelled Gun – Probably Fake

The Document

SU-76M

T-34

So What Was It?

Conclusion

Specifications T-34/SU-76 Hybrid

Sources

France (1956) Tank – Patent Only

Novelty

The Man

The Tank Described

Armament

Entrenching

Conclusion

Giacomini Tank Specifications Giacomini Tank

Sources

United Kingdom/United States of America (1998-2000) Reconnaissance Vehicle – 2 Built

The Bidders

Teaming Up

In the Shadows

Layout and Weaponry

Conclusion and the End of Alvis

Surviving vehicles

Specifications AM General/Alvis Shadow Offensive Action Vehicle

Sources

Commonwealth of Australia (1942) Heavy Tank – None Built

The Men Behind the Design

Design

Layout, Engine, and Suspension

Armor

Firepower

Rejection and Conclusion

Specifications Bloomfield’s Tortoise Single Track Heavy Tank

Sources

United States of America (1918)
Artillery Tractor/Light Tank – 1 Built

United Kingdom (1941)
Mobile Fortress – None Built

France (1925)
Ball Tank – None Built

Austro-Hungarian Empire (1901)
Artistic Representation – None Built

United States of America (1918)
Ball Tank – None Built

People’s Republic of Poland (1955)
Self-Propelled Gun – Probably Fake

France (1956)
Tank – Patent Only

United Kingdom/United States of America (1998-2000)
Reconnaissance Vehicle – 2 Built

Commonwealth of Australia (1942)
Heavy Tank – None Built

Hungary (2002)
Tank – Patent Only