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Flettner tank...
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Flettner 's tank ????????

I found a curious mention that before designing choppers Anton Flettner had designed a ship (that I knew) and a tank ...in 1913 in Berlin. Can someone shed some light on this one ? I have various books on WW1 German tanks and I have never seen the name Flettner quoted in them...

(PS : don't ask me where I saw this...I had posted this question on an aircraft forum years ago and visiting this very same forum today I see this question rested unanswered so I thought why not asking on Landships ?)

JCC

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Legend

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Flettner's field was aerodynamics and fluid mechanics, and he did design a rotor-driven sailing ship and believed that cylindrical rotors were superior to aerofoil rotors for helicopters. Something to do with the Magnus Effect, the principle that causes a cricket ball to swing. He actually built a helicopter for the Germans during WWII, as early as 1941.

Anyway, he's mentioned in a book on fluid dynamics as having demonstrated some sort of Tank, but details are vague.

"Flettner became known in his country and abroad in the summer of 1915, when a curious, clumsy vehicle made its appearance in Berlin; a tank which could move in any direction without a crew. The whole programme of the tank's manoeuvres was being directed from an unknown spot in the distance. The era of remote control had begun."

How this was achieved is not described. I can't imagine it was radio-controlled in those days. His company (which invented those fans you see on the top of vans) was involved with fly-by-wire technology, but I can't see that in 1915, either.

It's also claimed that during WWI he "also made several improvements to military tanks", but, again, no details.

The company is still in existence; they might have an archive or something.

-- Edited by James H at 17:05, 2008-05-16

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Thank you James H. This is very interesting. Having worked with Steve Coates on the book "Helicopters of the third Reich" I am well aware of Flettner's helicopter work and I knew of his rotor-ship (tried by Cousteau during the seventies I think) but the tank is completely unknown to me. Thank you for the information you bring. I would not entirely dismiss radio-control as there were experiments on R/C torpedoes (actually mini-subs) at the time . I have a report in "La Nature" 21 April 1906 of "a new application of Hertzian waves : a submarine with no crew on board".

I'll check the patents base to see if A. Flettner had any non-chopper patent during WW1

JCC

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Captain

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I checked the patent base : nothing on AFV or R/C

JCC

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Legend

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James H wrote:
...I can't imagine it was radio-controlled in those days.

It's possible. Although much nonsense has been written about the great pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, it is beyond dispute that Tesla built and demonstrated a radio-controlled boat as early as 1898.

Never heard of the Flettner Tank, though.



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Captain

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We are veering off topic but here is some info from la Nature, roughly translated in real time :
"In 1898 attempts were made at Stockholm and at Portsmouth to use Hertzian waves to control self-propelled torpedoes (torpilles automobiles) but without results.
Those trials were re-attempted by a young company created to exploit the works of a young french engineer, Mr Lalande, helped by the electrician ingeneer Mr Devaux..... trials made in Antibes [in 1906?] , have , we have been told proved the theories[of the inventors]...one of the problems tackled by the inventors was to protect their device from interference by waves emitted by an enemy ship. It has been seen that the [radio] messages exchanged between the various ships of the Mediteranean Fleet [Escadre de la Méditerranée] moored in Juan gulf, 3 kilometers away and the Dreadnough St-Louis which was watching over the experiments, did not trouble the working of the equipments of the submarine torpedo-ship."

This seems to show R/C worked with positive results in a naval context in 1906. So it could well be possible to imagine the same thing being attempted on ground vehicles in 1915 ?

JCC

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Legend

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JC Carbonel wrote:

We are veering off topic but here is some info from la Nature, roughly translated in real time :
"In 1898 attempts were made at Stockholm and at Portsmouth to use Hertzian waves to control self-propelled torpedoes (torpilles automobiles) but without results..."


At the risk of veering yet further from the subject, I have an old volume of Pearson's Magazine from 1899 (Vol.VII, Jan-June) which has an article on, I think, this very subject: Axel Orling, a 28-year old Swede, was working on wireless guided torpedoes, assisted by an Englishman, J T Armstrong.

The article is rather confusing, in that it states that the torpedoes are steered variously by X-rays or invisible light (in fact, the article is titled, 'Torpedoes Steered By Light'), but also notes that the 'light' can pass through obstacles, such as hills - which is doubly confusing, seeing as the apparatus is supposed to operate only along line-of-sight between the transmitter and torpedo. In the article, Orling claims to have tested the device successfully in Sweden.

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Legend

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JC and Roger; once again, I have underestimated you both. I do apologise.

I've seen a pic of Mr. Tesla's remote-control device. There are conflicting accounts as to whether it worked and it would look at home in a sci-fi B-movie, but he was undoubtedly an original thinker.

I shall keep digging.

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Legend

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It seems that the Japanese built two examples of a radio-controlled Tank in the 1920s or 30s. The pic is a Major Nagayama at the controls. It looks somewhat amphibious, but apparently wasn't. The running gear is that of a Fordson tractor. No further details.

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I am returning to the main subject. I found my source. THis comes from "les Rayons de la Mort" a German book by M Seydewitz and K. Doberer (but I only have the French version).
"the German war ministry had this weapon [R/C Tank] during the last war [WW1, this book is undated , probably 1938] but did not estimate it efficient enough for combat use. In 1913 Anton Flettner , the well-known enginneer who later did the turbine boat, patented a first R/C tank in cooperation with the Felten-Guillaume_Lahnmeyer factory at Frankfurt am Main. Two years later, in 1915, in the middle of a world war, the Berlin streets saw a strange vehicle : that was the Flettner tank. It ran by itself, control being from a car which followed it. During tests , the tank crossed over obstacles, cut through wire. A demo was done in front of military officials. They refused the machine"

JCC

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Legend

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Radio control was certainly around. For example in 1912 Professor Anthony and a Mr Leo Stephens "gave an exhibition of starting, controlling, turning and stopping an unmanned blimp by wireless which was quite a long distance from the station which controlled its action" The biggest problem was the lack of suppression on spark plugs at the time that created a lot of 'noise' that could interfere with the incomming signal. Possible this device was a wire controlled demolition vehicle and not a tank as we know it

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Apparemently Felten-Guilleaume-Lahmeyer was an important electrical company based at Francfort am Main. AEG took control of it in 1910. However I could not find any radio-control related patent from them. They were more cable people. So may the Flettner tank was remote(wire) controlled and not radio controlled. Naturally this theory would conflict with the context of the Seydemitz/Doberer book which was mostly about "rays".

JCC

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A new find :
http://books.google.fr/books?id=ZmgJDgkDx8UC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=Flettner+remote+control&source=web&ots=PmZnPoEvtj&sig=kJpt0yNm6U3PSz8XAI9RQnvmmRg&hl=fr&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA141,M1

A History and Philosophy of Fluid Mechanics
De G. A. Tokaty

see page 141 :
"the success [of the 1915 tank demo] was so impressive Flettner was soon appointed to the scientific staff of the Luftwaffe"

But unfortunately the verifiable part is just wrong : there was no Luftwaffe during WW1 , and after WW1 , Flettner went to the Netherlands and dealt with ships (hence his turbo-sail) and as far as I known Flettner was always a private entrepreneur.

So this lead me to believe the first part about the success of the R/C tank is wrong too.

JCC

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Legend

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As you no doubt noticed I'd already suggested that it might be wire guided.
Luftwaffe does not necessarily invalidate this reference. I've seen copies of WW1 German posters referring to displays by 'der luftwaffe' (note no capitals) as a sort of generic for military air craft (after all it literaly means air force). Moreover the reference is to the "Luftwaffe department" presumably some technical department in a German ministry or other establishment that handle things to do with military aviation ( perhaps both army and navy). The mistake (easily made) would be to have used a capital letter

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Sorry, that explanaiton doesn't quite work. "Luftwaffe" is a noun in German in any case. You can construct an adjective with "luftwaffen-", like "luftwaffeneigentümlich", but "die Luftwaffe" always starts with a capital L in German, be it the organisation created in the 1930ies or a more generic expression of air power in WW1.

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There is some suggestion in both the German book and the Fluid Mechanics book that the 1915 experiment was a kind of publicity stunt which made Flettner known from the public (and maybe this contributed to the rejection of the idea by the military). the point is : maybe looking through Berlin newspapers archives would yeld some results ? However my knowledge of the german language is insufficient to do that (I don't even know if some german newspapers have made the archives accessible on line)...That's just a track someone with more skill than myself could follow

JCC

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tank versus demolition vehicle ?

in a post-1916 world any military thing with tracks would be a tank isn't it ? (On TV I have seen anchormen commenting on african or sudamerican troubles call a Panhard AML a "tank" and this does not even have tracks).

The "tank" word questions the original source for the whole story. IF the story first came from Seydewitz and Doberer circa 1938 then it could be anything (but probably with tracks). IF we found a 1915 story we would probably find another word describing it (Panzertraktor ??)
Anyway most of those pre-1916 vehicles from any country could hardly be called "tanks" in the meaning of "armored, piloted, tracked combat vehicle carrying guns"

JCC

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To continue (sorry about cutting the thoughts in many messages , that's the way they comes to my mind) . I think that whatever the purpose of the vehicle we are being told of a man-sized vehicle. A "Goliath" sized machine would probably not be very impressive for a demo in the streets of Berlin, too toyish. So wether it is a gun-tank or a demolition device (trench destroyer) it is my impression this must have been at least FT-size.

JCC

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Legend

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mad zeppelin wrote:

Sorry, that explanaiton doesn't quite work. "Luftwaffe" is a noun in German in any case. You can construct an adjective with "luftwaffen-", like "luftwaffeneigentümlich", but "die Luftwaffe" always starts with a capital L in German, be it the organisation created in the 1930ies or a more generic expression of air power in WW1.



All I know is that at least one poster I saw had no capitals - possibly a stylistic bit of artists license. Whatever, the general idea still hilds water in WW1 luftwaffe could be used without necessarily referring to a specific organisation.



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