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Post Info TOPIC: Russian WWI Tanks.
Vilkata

Date:
Russian WWI Tanks.
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Now, the Mendelejev and the Tsar tank are certainly good mind-candy, but were there any SERIOUS russian tank designs of WWI?

Yep!

The "Vezdekhod" was a very light pedrail tank, that was actually built in prototype form and worked great, but it was never put into production.

A pedrail is a full-vehicle-width track. The British had experimented with them a lot, but had never figured out a way to steer them. How do you steer a single track??

The russians solved this by using two simple outrigger wheels placed outside the track. by ramming these into the ground under motion, the direction of the vehicle could be affected. And of course, with a full-vehicle-width track, the ground pressure must have been exceedingly low. Great maneuverability! But in the end, the Russians realised there was no way their industry was advanced enough to start mass producing these things, so they canned it. Although there were talks of making a "Vezdekhod II", in which a strange double-turret was fixed aswell as a front fixed machine gun.

You can read more at Ed Dryers awesome site:
http://members.aol.com/sturmpnzr/rusosiwwi.html

Unfortunately, he doesnt have as great of pics as I do :D

There was also "The 20-Ton Tank", a strange box-like vehicle armed with a heavy gun at the rear, and machine guns at the front. It never left the drawing board, but its internal layout is quite interesting. Of the The 20-Ton Tank, the Vezdekhod, the Mendelejev, and the Tsar tank, I think I would choose Vezdekhod. Maneuverability man!

There is a possibility of a kit being made of these vehicles, but I am not sure how good it is. The Vezdekhod is fairly straight forward, and width, length, and height, are given for it. However, I have never seen proper multi-view drawings of it. You could always vaguely deduce this merely by the side view, and the length, width, and height however. But still, it is fascinating. A functional pedrail tank!! As far as I know, the only functional pedrail tank EVER built! Pretty significant!





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Vilkata

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By the way... Are you guys seeing these pictures?

Im using a free image hosting service, so I want to be sure.

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eugene

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yes we are, and the vezdihod was the closest thing the Russians got to as of actually producing a tank, if you dont count the Tsar prototype

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Peter Kempf

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Yes, we can see them. Great! Can't you start a brand new topic, on how you do to attach pictures to your posts? I think a lot of people would love to know!!!


TIA
/Peter K



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Vilkata

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Wait a minute...

Is a full-vehicle-widt track actually called a Pedrail?...

I know theres a name for it. It's a really tricky design because the entire frame of the vehicle must be held up by supports comming from the outside track-frame assembly.

I thought it was 'pedrail'... but I just looked it up, and the Dictionary.com definition seems to be entirely different:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pedrail

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Roger Todd

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From memory, seeing as I'm at work, the term 'pedrail' was first used by Diplock, who invented a footed-wheel in 1902 or so - H G Wells' famous Land Ironclads used Pedrail Wheels:




Later, though, Diplock designed a weird troop carrier with single full-width belted (caterpillar) tracks - it had two sections, each with one full-length, full-width track, articulated in the middle like a pair of railway carriages. I think one was built in 1915. I'll have a look in my books when I get home.


Nowadays, it seems to be a trade name for a lightweight caterpillar track used on tractors, small shovels and the like.



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Joseph E. Fullerton

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Vilkata,
Thank you for sharing those Vezdekhod images! I had seen some of them, but not the cross-section views. The hull looks like it wouldn't be too hard to scratch build, but I don't know about the rest. Was the turret offset, or did the MGer have to lean over the driver? Surely the track would had some sort of pattern to it for traction? Are there any photos of the prototype?

That Diplock Pedrail reminds me of one of the "angry" Tibetan deities!

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Vilkata

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The turret was off set, I am fairly sure. With the driver on one side, and the gunner on the other, much like the Ford 3-Ton.

However, on which side which was on... I have no idea. You will have to use an educated guess I think.

I know of absolutely no photographs, or indeed, any other pictures at all other than the ones I posted, of this design. Although, supposedly, it WAS actually built, and succesfully completed a large number of trials.

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Roger Todd

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Here’s a little sketch I found that fleshes it out slightly:




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Joseph E. Fullerton

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Can that be accurate? I imagined that it was built of flat plates riveted together (Ed Dyer seems to have thought so, too), not a rounded unibody. Where does that sketch come from, and who drew it?

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Joseph E. Fullerton

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Looking at it again, I don't think that can possibly be correct. For one thing there is no vision port for the driver!

Of the two cross sections above, the one in colour shows the space in front of the driver as empty, but the other one shows a flat vertical plate in front of him. My guess was that this was not internal, it was actually the outside front of the tank, and the areas projecting forward from it merely represented the left and right sponsons for the track mechanism. If so, there could be vision slits or hatches in the front plate, much less practical if the nose really went all the way forward.

Another possibilty is that the driver's head would have stuck slightly above the hull, in which case there should have been an extra (shorter) turret for the driver next to the Machine gunner's turret. This is not depicted in the sketch either, which makes me more skeptical of it.

If only there was a surviving photo!

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Roger Todd

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It comes from a Polish site, so I can't read any of the text. I should imagine it's a fairly modern reconstruction. However, while searching t'internet for info, more than once the Vezdekhod is described as having a curved, turtle-like hull. At the same time as he includes this drawing...



...Ed Dyer says of its shape:


The turtle-shaped hull was rounded...


An online pdf-file source on Russian tanks (http://www.irvania.com/downloads/TBOTRus1.pdf) says:


Vesdechod: Tiny eggshell-shaped vehicle, prototype built in 1915. Two man crew, armed with a single machinegun. The name apparently means either "attack driver" or "go anywhere".


Of course, these are all secondary sources, but they do rather point in the same direction.


I could swear I've seen a grotty, faded photo of one, but God knows where...



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Roger Todd

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Joseph E. Fullerton wrote:


Looking at it again, I don't think that can possibly be correct. For one thing there is no vision port for the driver! Of the two cross sections above, the one in colour shows the space in front of the driver as empty, but the other one shows a flat vertical plate in front of him. My guess was that this was not internal, it was actually the outside front of the tank, and the areas projecting forward from it merely represented the left and right sponsons for the track mechanism. If so, there could be vision slits or hatches in the front plate, much less practical if the nose really went all the way forward. Another possibilty is that the driver's head would have stuck slightly above the hull, in which case there should have been an extra (shorter) turret for the driver next to the Machine gunner's turret. This is not depicted in the sketch either, which makes me more skeptical of it. If only there was a surviving photo!

Ed Dyer says the flat plate in front of the driver is an armour plate, because the curved hull itself was not armoured. Also, don't forget that the Vezdekhod had a single, full-width track, so there were no sponsons for there to be any 'empty' hull in between.

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Roger Todd

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Here's a link to the Polish site I mentioned with the sketch above:


http://www.legionstratega.org/Zbrojownia/pojopan/ciezkieczolgirus.htm



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Joseph E. Fullerton

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The track was full width, but there were still two wheel assemblies (not sure what the correct term is) on either side of it.


I finally found a photo (I think) which is from this Spanish language page:
http://idd007kg.eresmas.net/art/sovpre/



So it looks like there was a gap in the nose for the driver to see through, but it also looks like it did have a rounded unibody after all, not flat plate construction. Strange.

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Roger Todd

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That’s the photo I’ve seen – fantastic!


 


Yes, you were right about a gap (there had to be one of one sort or another).


 

Amazing, well found!

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Roger Todd

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So in the second cross-section, the gap would look something like this:



And that's how the driver sees forward.


And yes, JEF, it's a strange design!



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Vilkata

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An actual pic proving its existence!!!

Thats absolutely incredible!

What a --STRANGE-- design!

Do you think the rounded frame was mock up wood? Could they really have built such incredibly smoothe curved armor plate back then?

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Joseph E. Fullerton

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I don't know whether or not the prototype was wood, but I do believe that it was possible to build armoured vehicles with rounded surfaces at that time. For one thing, the Russians certainly were able to make round turrets for their armoured cars, and the Garford (at least) had curved armour on other parts as well. So too did the Austrian Romfell.

But this little egg-shaped tank goes alot further in it's streamlining, while at the same time it has been stated that not all of the outer shell was actually armoured, hence the need for the inner plate in front of the driver (well, also so there could be a vision port close enough for him to reach).

It really baffles me. What possible reason is there for an unarmoured unibody hull? If it's not armoured, why even have it? And since the front part of the curved hull is unarmoured, does that mean the sides and back are, too? If not, how and why did they make the steel so much thinner at the front when it's all apparently one single piece? There are no visible rivets in the photo, though I think I see seams between the top and a strip along the bottom and front...possibly removable segments to afford access to the track? Perhaps there is a similar seam running along the top edge over the inside plate, but it doesn't show in the photo because of the lighting. The cross section that shows the inside plate also shows the nose hull as being much thinner than the rest (though the inaccurate colour cross section shows the nose with thick armour, and no inside plate), so maybe it isn't really a unibody, but constructed of a number of different curved plates that are fitted together extremely smoothly.

I wonder if it could been welded together? Are there any other examples of welded armour this early, or is it completely out of the question?

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Vilkata

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Also, this thing was never fitted with a turret, but 'privisions' for a turret were included in the design, and it was made to be a 2 man tank.

Look at how small it is! It's tiny! And with the vision port in the dead middle of the tank, with the driver sitting directly behind it, where in the blazes would the gunner be located? The idea of the turret being off set to one side in the hull, is also clearly flawed. There wuld be no place to put it, except in the dead centerline of the tank.

Remember also, that this was a prototype, and many changes would have been made to it if it ever entered production. For instance, im sure the entire 'turtle hull' would have been fairly thick armor in the production version. Just because the prototype may have been completely missing armor in many places, doesn't mean that was how the production version would be. And also, nearly every source is going off of mediocre data and simple side-view schematics. To the best of my knowledge Ed Dryer, nor many others, have actually seen that photo of the tank. And it's extremely hard to extrapolate what it would look like just from the side-view diagrams. So... I think there is a high likelyhood that some of the information you read online and in books about this design is just plain /wrong/.

Another little guess. I bet the open hole viewport between the front horns would likely be a full plate, with either a vision slit, or with a openable window with vision slit (like the Mk.I and other designs of the time) in the production version.

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eugene

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I think the photo clearly shows that it was wooden also from the view of the photo its questionable if the tank had any interior parts, it could have been just a wooden model and not a true prototype, I could be wrong though

it would be great if its a prototype because usally several photos would be taken that means there could be more.

and Vezdekhod means go anywere in russian

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eugene

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I also found this:
In the summer of 1914, an engineer named Porokovskikov designed a smaller tracked vehicle with Pedrail-type tracks and small jockey wheels to assist steering. It was called Vezdekhod (He who goes anywhere), and was intended to be an infantry support vehicle when crossing open ground under fire. Fitted with a machinegun-turret, it performed well during trials in 1915 but never came into production. It was a forerunner of almost all tanks to come with its turret (rotateable?) and pointed up front.

that means it was an actual prototype that worked, so it might have been metal

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Vilkata

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Eugene, you've been out of the loop apparently!

There are virtually dozens of publications stating that this design did indeed progress to the functional prototype stage, and it demonstrated very good cross country mobility and overall it was quite a sound design - the fact that Russia never put it into production was not related to the quality of the vehicle itself.

I speculate that maybe the superstructure was mostly wood however, because this was a technology demonstrator, designed to see if the single-track, outrigger-wheel steering would actually work, and stuff like that. The Marienwagon, for instance, was also a fully functional tracked vehicle with a /wooden/ mock up armor body on it.

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Joseph E. Fullerton

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The A7V prototype had a wooden body as well....If I recall correctly they used sandbags to simulate the weight that the actual armour would have, but this led to a miscalculation about the distribution of the total weight. Maybe I'm confusing things, but I agree that it is very possible that the vezdekhod prototype may have had a wooden hull. That the photo appears to show a seam separating the main body from a skirt for the running gear, but has no evident rivets might support the hypothesis that it is wooden. On the other hand, the A7V prototype did have some rivets, though far fewer than the real armoured versions.

I also agree that it is probable that the front plate probably consisted of a hatch that could be opened when driving in non-combat situations and a vision slit for combat.

However, I'm not so sure that the driver or the vision port would have been dead center in the tank (or the intended turret placement for that matter). The photo is difficult to judge in that respect, and the width is listed as 6'5" ( wider than the FT17's 5'7", and the FT17's hull was decidely narrower than the total width, unlike the Vezdekhod, whose track ran beneath the hull).

It is true that much of the information available on it could be wrong...after all three of the four drawings of it that we have seen have errors!


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Roger Todd

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But the problem with these ‘dozens of publications’ is that most of them appear to be web sources, and we all know how (in)accurate the web can be…

When the same information appears everywhere, it can mean either of two things:

- It’s basically correct, and accepted as ‘canon’.

- One ‘expert’ set out inaccurate facts, and all subsequent writers merely repeated his account, thus repeating the errors.

A case in point is the 42-cm Big Bertha. Most books repeat the same tired old story of only two guns having been built, neither of which survived the Great War. By dint of looking in some odd places over a long period, I found a very different story, which Peter incorporated into his excellent overview of the guns on this site.

So when it comes to something as obscure as this vehicle, I wouldn’t regard any account I’ve seen so far as anything other than provisional.

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theburk

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ah yes i had heard of this tank, oh and the pedrail was used on a german mine clearing vehicle in wwII during kursk. what i find very interesting about this tank is its sloped armor, while they probably didnt realise the novelty of it, it would have spurred tank design quite a bit. and i do have a source on this that is called i think "soviet tank development, 1914-1965" or something like that that is at my local library that i will take a look at and see about posting some information.



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Roger Todd

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Theburk, are you thinking of John Milsom's 'Russian Tanks 1900-1970'? It was in my local library when I was a lad, and I've now found it in the library at work.


I have also discovered the joys of good OCR scanning software...


Here is what Milsom says about Vezdekhod (remember, this was written in 1970):


Vezdekhod


 


In August 1914, a Russian engineer by the name of Porokovskikov approached the Russian War Department with a project for an armoured and armed fully‑tracklaying combat vehicle (this project deserves particular attention since it could well be classed as a tank, representing an idea which would be exploited later in Britain through the efforts of Carden and Martell).


 


Porokovskikov wrote:


 


“To the factor of mobility I took a fresh approach. Whilst observing a soldier crossing the line, it suddenly occurred to me that it is no joke running in to attack an enemy armed with machine‑guns. And so, why could we not send to storm a trench, not only infantry, but also men protected against heavy lead, provided with an engine, covered in armour and armed with machineguns? ... The design problems I contemplated to be in the production of an endless‑band, tracked running gear of the tractor type. The problem of steering with tracks also arose. An idea came to me: steering could be carried out on the spot by skidding, in braking one of the tracks. During the following days I thought of new considerations. In heavy conditions my vehicle should run on tracks, and along good roads it should run on wheels.”


 


Porokoskikov was a master machinist at a factory in Riga, and in August 1914 he presented his vehicle design to the authorities, the project being considered by the Deputy Chairman of the Air Fleet. This was for a fast‑moving fighting vehicle, capable of moving not only by road, but also across country. By virtue of its mobility it was called ‘Vezdekhod’ (‘Go Anywhere’). The inventor considered two possible types of running gear: in the first scheme it was proposed to have one wide, endless track mounted under the hull floor. For the second scheme it was proposed to employ two tracks on the American Holt principle.


 


Porokovskikov wrote:


 


“All these factors I incorporated in its design, and during mid August 1914, I handed this over to the HQ of the Supreme C‑in‑C. An expert colonel gave the conclusion that my vehicle was not feasible.”


 


The Main Military Technical Department did not approve the various drawings, documents, and estimated construction costs. On 21 December 1914, however, this material was submitted to the Chief Engineer Officer of the Army of the North‑Western Front, who after studying the project, compiled a special report for the Army Commander. In this report he expressed the necessity of constructing a Vezdekhod‑type vehicle and outlined how useful it would be in combat. At the Headquarters of the Supreme Cornmander‑in‑Chief, it was thought that the vehicle had great possibilities.


 


An official despatch dated 24 December (No. 6686) commissioned the Chief Engineer Officer of the Army of the North‑Western Front to construct a prototype of this new combat vehicle. Since in the design and construction of the prototype it would prove simpler to undertake the first scheme with one wide track, this version was approved. For a prototype, on which to test the inventor’s principles, it was not considered necessary at this stage to evaluate other than the running gear and automotive components, there being little doubt about the feasibility of the project, and resistance to the construction and testing of the vehicle being but very small.


 


On 13 January 1915 preparations were made for the construction of Vezdekhod. A workshop was hastily constructed in Riga, at the front of the Nizhegorod Regimental Barracks, and on 1 February work was begun on the construction of the first Russian tank. The workshops were provided with special equipment for carrying out this task, and actual manufacture was undertaken by highly‑skilled military technicians, especially appointed to this task by the Chief Engineer Officer of the Army of the NorthWestern Front. In order not to delay tests of the automotive components, the hull of the first prototype was produced of wood. with neither turret nor armament. The exceptional skill and enthusiasm of the personnel resulted in minimum building time, and the work was completed on 15 March 1915.


 


In parallel with the assembly of the experimental chassis, work was also undertaken on the construction of an armoured hull. Experiments were carried out with temperhardened stainless‑steel leaf, between which was sandwiched soft‑tempered mild steel (for absorbing the impact of bullets). Initial ballistic trials were carried out with separate plates of leaf armour, but later an armoured hull was constructed and attached to the chassis of a RussoBaltic lorry for testing its ballistic immunity. The vulnerable suspension was to be protected by armoured sides. It was planned to mount two machine‑guns located in a fully rotating turret.


 


The experimental chassis, utilising automobile components. consisted of a welded framework, on which were mounted four metal cylinders supported on ball‑bearings. On the external surface of each cylinder was attached three sprocket rings, in which engaged the guide‑horns of the track. At the front of the frame was a tension regulator which permitted the front axle, together with its cylinder, to move up and down in two forks. A similar arrangement for regulating the tension of the rear roller was also fitted. With the aid of these two tension regulators it was possible to control the tension of the single track under the hull floor. For steering the vehicle it was necessary to turn two steering wheels, placed one on each side of the vehicle. By means of a tiller‑bar, acting through a normal automobile steering system, the driver could turn the forks on which these wheels were mounted and thereby steer the vehicle. In the rear part of the hull was located the 20hp petrol engine which drove the rear cylinder via a planetary transmission and Carden shafts. The attitude of the track at the front of the vehicle aided in ascending obstacles, the track being raised slightly above the ground. The rear part of the track passed under the driving roller and rested on the ground. On good, hard roads the vehicle was supported at the front by the steering wheels, and the rear part of the track lay on the ground. When travelling across soft ground the steering wheels would submerge in the soil and all the weightbearing surface of the track came into contact with the ground, the wide track provided a low ground pressure. In the latter case the steering wheels could create sufficient torque to alter the vehicle’s direction. When moving along roads, therefore, the vehicle was practically wheeled, and across soft ground, tracked.


 


During the first preliminary automotive tests on 18 March 1915, it was found that the track shed during motion of the tank.


 


Porokovskikov wrote:


 


“To start the engine, I engaged the lever. The vehicle shook. I pressed the lever, to engage the clutch, and after a few turns ‑ I heard a shout: ‘The track has broken!’”


 


After a month of investigation the cause of track‑shedding was detected and overcome by the installation of cylinders with sprockets in place of those which were formerly smooth. On 20 June 1915, Vezdekhod was once more sent for trials, this time in the presence of an official committee. A series of trenches, pot‑holes, and other obstacles were laid out in the Regimental Barracks Square, across which Vezdekhod performed well. The vehicle also gave a display of turns, easily making rapid manoeuvres in a figure‑eight pattern, and very quickly gathering speed. The results of the test commission were outlined in Report No. 4563:


 


“It appears that Vezdekhod is a sound and practical idea; it can achieve a speed of 25 Verst/hour. In addition, Vezdekhod can ascend a slope of 40 degrees inclination, cross a trench three metres wide, and a vertical obstacle of 3/4 metre. All significant holes and rough surfaces were crossed wherever tests were carried out. Vezdekhod steers easily during fast motion, and turns very satisfactorily. In all, Vezdekhod crosses terrain and obstacles impassable to conventional motor vehicles.”


 


On 29 December 1915, during winter tests at Petrograd, Vezdekhod attained a speed of 40 Verst per hour, and generally performed very well. In order to deduce the speed which would be attainable by an armoured Vezdekhod, the prototype was ballasted to simulate the weight of the armoured hull‑total weight about 3.5–4 tons. It was further intended to adapt this vehicle to swim, but this part of the work was not completed. The peculiar feature of Vezdekhod was its wide, single track, occupying practically the entire width of the vehicle. Its large supporting surface provided good mobility due to the small ground‑pressure. It also had a high angle of approach for good obstacle ability.


 


It appears that a great deal of potential was exhibited by Vezdekhod during its final trials, and it should have attracted considerable attention in higher military circles. But this was not so: the Army expressed no interest in continuing work on the project. Even if they had the poor conditions of Russian industry at this time would have made manufacture of this vehicle, in any quantity, impossible. Out of 18,000 Roubles allotted for work on this project by the Government, only 9,660 Roubles were actually spent on the vehicle – the remainder was kept by the inventor. The famous Soviet tank historian Mostovenko has since stated:


 


“The original drawings of Vezdekhod have not yet been found [1958], but comparatively recently a document was discovered which contained basic drawings for its construction and also a photograph of the vehicle taken at the time of the tests… In spite of the successful results of the trials, work on improving Vezdekhod was discontinued. The Main Military Technical Department did all it could to discourage experimental work, and to frustrate the organization of the industrial production of tanks in Russia. To various suggestions for further developing Vezdekhod, the Chief of the Main Military Technical Department replied with the following typical statement: ‘Why should we meddle in this business? What is it to us?’ From December 1915 to October 1916 all further work on Vezdekhod was forbidden.”


So, make of that what you will... By the way, the photo of the turretless prototype is reproduced in the book.



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