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Post Info TOPIC: Tanks that might have been


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Tanks that might have been
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I thought it might be interesting to start to assemble in one place some images of projected but not built tanks.


Firstly the Russian Land Cruiser of 1915


http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/russo1.jpg


Makes the A7V look elegant. My personal soubiquet for this is the Vogon wagen (see page 1,294,123,563,457 of the Hitchhikers Guide )



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Centurion wrote:


Firstly the Russian Land Cruiser of 1915 http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/russo1.jpg Makes the A7V look elegant. My personal soubiquet for this is the Vogon wagen (see page 1,294,123,563,457 of the Hitchhikers Guide )


But as long as you don't feed the driver's grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, you should be okay...


Meanwhile, having distracted the driver, we have the Macfie Landship design of August 1915 (no armament specified):




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Roger Todd wrote:


we have the Macfie Landship design of August 1915 (no armament specified):


Excellent stuff - 2 questions. What is the propellor like object at the rear? Do you know if those struts on thich the tracks run had rollers, wheels or what?

I enclose the Russian 20 ton tank design of 1915.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/20ton.jpg


When I was making sense of those drawings that are on a Russian web site it dawned on me that some one had adopted the St Chamond design principle - take take a couple of Holt track units, stick a steel box on top and poke a field gun out through one end. Its actually a more likely design than the Land Cruiser  (that has a track set that looks too small for the job). Whilst it would have been horribly cramped inside and no trench crosser the 20 ton might have made some sort of useable assault gun.



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Glad you like it Centurion! Now, there you've hit on a real minor oddity - as far as I can make out from the original drawings (and discussing it with David Fletcher), that 'propellor-like' object really is a propellor, absurd as it may seem! Frankly, I think it would have been completely useless (I don't believe the machine would have been bouyant, and the shaft is so long it would have suffered appalling whiplash). But Macfie seems to have been obsessed with giving his machines an amphibious capability (see http://www.landships.freeservers.com/new_pages/macafie_landship_rtodd.htm which also features some of his patent drawings). In fact, it wasn't until seeing an old Tankette article about Macfie and his some-time collaborator Nesfield (thanks Tim!) and finding the patent drawings that I had to accept that it was a prop and not, say, an oddly placed fan for a radiator that wasn't drawn on or something equally unlikely.


The track frames (which really are frames, as they're completely open!) were smooth, and the track shoes had built-in rollers, rather like a couple of German designs (e.g. the K-Wagen). The plans I drew are faithful copies of the original drawings (which, for copyright reasons, I can't reproduce directly) and feature some cross-sections: http://www.landships.freeservers.com/jpegs_new/number_two/Fig%202.pdf Being a PFD-file of a vector graphic, you can really blow it up for clarity.


I like your Russian tank drawings - is the first one the Mendeleyev? I have to say the 20-ton tank looks better than the St Chamond and Schneiders, because at least it doesn't have the terrible hull overhang they had at the front.



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Thanks Roger
I'm glad I'm not going crazy and it realy is a prop.


First Russian is indeed the Mendeleyev. I understand that construction of the 20 ton was actually initiated but there was not enough budget to finish it.



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OOOHPS! My previous 20ton tank was incorrect. I've updated the picture thanks to info supplied by Roger Todd. I hadn't realised that the gun faced to the rear (just like the British Archer SP 17 pdr anti tank gun of WW2).


http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/20ton2.jpg



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Legend

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Nice one. It's definitely more of an assault gun than a tank. It would make quite a neat little model...

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Heres a version of the LK series that didn't get built


http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/lkxx.jpg



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And a 2nd version of the unbuilt variety of LK


http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/lkxxx.jpg



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Very nice, Centurion - they really flesh out these wonderful designs, keep 'em rolling!


Here's my latest, part of a series I'm working on, the Flying Elephant (final design):



I just cannot do shading the way you do...



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I've always thought that with a bigger gun the FE might have had a future. Nice drawing. I do mine in Power Point of all things and then convert to JPG on saving. Having the drawing in vector allows me to scale up and down easily and I use the PP shading facilities.

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Vector graphics are definitely the way ahead with these types of drawings. I do mine in CorelDraw, which I convert to pdf format for sharing (e.g. the Macfie drawing on Landships) and printing out, and jpeg, as you can see, for 'publishing'. It's very useful for modelmaking - not only can one simply print as many copies as needed, but that drawing of mine has some 'hidden' detail, which can be used when producing templates for making parts. I'm amazed at the results you get from Powerpoint, I've never really got on with it apart from the simplest bullet-point slides!


As for the Flying Elephant, the design was constantly evolving, although that shape seems to have been the final, settled form. Armament-wise it wasn't as bad as many suppose. Most sources claim the nose-gun was to have been a 6-pdr, but having gone through the Tank Supply Committee's memos and reports, it's clear that, although that may have been the case early on, they actually intended to use a 3-in gun (which more or less corresponds to a 12- or 13-pdr) by the time this design was drawn up.



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Here is a version of the A7V that didn't get off the drawing board. Looks like the Bison self propelled pill box used for RAF airfield defence in WW2!
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/a7vodd.jpg



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Another unbuilt A7V variant - this time an 'upgunned' type. A real nashorn.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/A7Vnashorn.jpg

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 Interesting variations on the A7V-the first looks like it might have been a bit less prone to 'nosing in' that I understand the production version had...where did you dig these up, Robert?



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Excellent drawings, as ever. Ugly brutes, but possibly not as abysmal as the final A7V.

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Craig York wrote:


 Interesting variations on the A7V-the first looks like it might have been a bit less prone to 'nosing in' that I understand the production version had...where did you dig these up, Robert?

Off a Russian web site, I'll retrieve and post link. I think that the second of these was intended as an upgrade that never got built.

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I knew I'd seen 'em before - they were discussed here, by Tim, on this thread:


http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=63528&subForumID=169814&action=viewTopic&commentID=5302804


Included are the links to the Kiev site drawings.



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Now follows my interpretation of the Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien, intended I think as a replacement for the A7V. Work had started on the first two prototypes when the armistice was declared. I'm a little tentative on this drawing as I can only find two soures  -one a slightly blurred drawing that looks as if it might be nearer the date of the tank than today and a much more recent drawing. Unfortunately the two don't agree in some respects so I've taken the lead from the older drawing and filled in details on be basis of what sems to have been German practice on othere tanks of the period. If any one has better info please let me have it.


http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/ober.jpg



-- Edited by Centurion at 21:22, 2006-03-22

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Which drawings are you referring to? I've seen a few - two sets come from Russian books, which someone scanned, one set being profile and plan cross sections in red outline; the other being a full-colour profile, with a cutaway beneath. All these show a very peculiar feature, which is that the drive sprocket was around halfway along the upper track, both ends being merely idlers! Another is Ed Dyer's in camo pattern; and the last one I've seen is a perspective sketch, monochrome, possibly in ink, scanned from a German source.

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Roger Todd wrote:


Which drawings are you referring to? I've seen a few - two sets come from Russian books, which someone scanned, one set being profile and plan cross sections in red outline; the other being a full-colour profile, with a cutaway beneath. All these show a very peculiar feature, which is that the drive sprocket was around halfway along the upper track, both ends being merely idlers! Another is Ed Dyer's in camo pattern; and the last one I've seen is a perspective sketch, monochrome, possibly in ink, scanned from a German source.

The two I've seen are Ed Dyers and the perspective sketch.

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Righto, I've attached the Russian drawings...

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Thanks Roger


Now I've got 4 drawings, all differing from each other
However I reckon there is enough to do a sort of Hegelian synthesis and come up with a better drawing - but "tomorrrow is another day" (S O'Hara). I'll have a go in the PM



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Ok here is a much better impression of the Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/ober2.jpg

It combines all four drawings refered to earlier but least of the Ed Dyer camo picture. Some of the original drawings contained contradictory features (for example a track tensioner that wouldn't have been possible with the arrangement of rollers at each end of the frames. I've tried to eliminate such inconsistencies. On thing I've left out was the maltese cross on the circular cover for the big drive wheel in the middle. This would have been like having a big shoot here sign for anti tank gunners as this would have been the one spot were a shot could have stopped the tank literally dead in its tracks. (However given that in WW2 early Short Stirling bombers had all the electrical and hydrauluc systems passing through a single control box exactly behind the centre of the big roundel on the fuselage thus guiding Luftwaffe pilots to the most vunerable spot on the aircraft one can believe any such folly).


 



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Very nice work, Centurion, excellent synthesis of the other impressions. Nice to see that you addressed something that troubled me, which was that on most of the drawings, the secondary turrets were too close, which would have made life damned difficult for the gunner in the main turret! He'd have had to have been a limbo-dancer or contortionist...








...given that in WW2 early Short Stirling bombers had all the electrical and hydrauluc systems passing through a single control box exactly behind the centre of the big roundel on the fuselage thus guiding Luftwaffe pilots to the most vunerable spot on the aircraft one can believe any such folly.  






Sheer genius, no wonder we won the war.

-- Edited by Roger Todd at 19:34, 2006-03-24

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Thanks Roger


Another problem that needed resolving was the rear mg turret, as shown on the cross sectional drawings the gunner could only have depressed his gun slightly before the rear of the tank would have been hit by its fire. As a result there would have been a very large area of dead ground at the rear of the tank that would have made it very vunerable to infantry attack. Moving and slightly raising the position of the mg largly overcame this.



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Good idea. A thought occurred to me when looking at the cross-sections again - what if the engine were rotated 90-degrees, so that it lay athwart the hull, rather than pointing fore-and-aft? Wouldn't that make a little more space to shift that MG turret back a little more?

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Yet another LKII variant
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/lk2x.jpg


This one  actually got built, in a way, as the Swedish STRV m/23 was very close to this - 10 serving in the 1920s and into the 30s



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Herre is another one. This it seems did actually get built but no photo appears to exist (UNLESS YOU KNOW BETTER).


Its the Medium C Male.


http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/mcm1.jpg


I've used the drawing posted elsewhere in this forum but had to some re-adjustment as the original drawing appears distorted. Some features would not have worked. After redoing the orthoganal projection (engineering drawing term) I think I've worked out how and where the distortion crept in and adjusted. Now if any one has a photo or a better drawing please post it.



-- Edited by Centurion at 19:09, 2006-03-28

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Looking at American tanks here is the Holt Special 18 Mk2


The Holt Special 18 Mk1 is better known as 'Scat the Kaiser' but this was just one of a series of prototypes and mock ups. Holt track units were used (and extended much as was done with the Schnieder, St Chamond and A7V) and allied with a high powered engine to produce a machine on which a number of mock up bodies were tried. The Holt Special 18 Mk2 was the first of these (and the only one I've managed to find any photographic evidence on). The mock up body was wood and canvas and I've tried to interpret this to show what the tank would have been like if built. The weird thing is the enormous turret. I wonder if it was meant to revolve or if it was a fixed barbette. If it revolved which gunner had priority? Or did they vie with each other like two men at one of those revolving book stands one gets in some airports? I've made the assumption that there had to be a rational reason for its height and provided vision slots at the top so it could be used as a commanders lookout.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/special182.jpg



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A French tank this time.


The Peugeot actually got built but almost no detail survives that I can find on the one prototype apart from two poor qualty photos looking from the front and some drawings from which I have made an impression. Even its date seems in doubt - three different sources give four different dates! One says 1918 or 1919, another says 1920 whilst the drawings have the date 1916 on them. Advice please
I can find no figures on dimensions, weight, power or performance but it looks to be a very small tank indeed - smaller that the FT 17. Its crew must have been very cramped having to manage a machine gun and a 37mm cannon in a space that was probably similar to that of a Ford 3 ton. As the engine was apparently in the front they must have had to sit side by side.
With a cast hull and a very low profile it might have been intended as some form of mini asault gun  - a sort of diminutive version of the German Hertzer that was so successful in WW2.
Any ideas gentlemen?
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/peugeot.jpg



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Improved impression of the Peugeot ( I found another photo!) This was dated 1918



http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/peugeot2.jpg


 



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Nice, I've always been fond of the little Peugeot. Did you use these sites:


http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/france/France-Other.html


http://www.chars-francais.net/archives/peugeot_1918.htm


Both sites claim the gun to be a 75mm job, which seems unlikely until one looks at these photos:


http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/france/imageDJN.JPG


http://www.chars-francais.net/images/archives/ft17_37mm/ft17-2_04.jpg


I know it's hard to judge from photos like these, what with angles, persepctive, etc. being hard to quantify, but to my eye the Renault's 37mm gun certainly seems to have a smaller bore than the Peugeot's, which looks more like the Schneider's howitzer...


http://www.chars-francais.net/images/archives/schneider/ca1-0035.jpg


...or, indeed, that of the Renault obusier de 75mm:


http://www.chars-francais.net/images/archives/ft17-75/ft17-75_006.jpg


Although I love this one, which would be a fun kitbash using the Matchbox or Hat kits:


http://www.chars-francais.net/images/archives/ft17-75/ft17-75_001.jpg



-- Edited by Roger Todd at 14:45, 2006-04-03

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Thanks Roger


I used the FSU sites but got the drawing from a site dedicated to providing scale drawings of cars! However it appears to be no different in essence from the one on the char francais site (and equally incorrect in some areas). The details of the recuperator on the cannon look different to both the 37mm and 75mm mounted on the FT. It looks big enough to be a 75 but given the confined space in such a small tank where would they stow the ammo? Still a 75 would lend credence to my idea that the Peugeot could have been intended as an assault gun.



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Centurion wrote:



I used the FSU sites but got the drawing from a site dedicated to providing scale drawings of cars!



How bizarre!


I agree about the gun recuperator not being the same - it has the four rivet heads on the front of the Renault gun recuperator, but lacks the other small cylinder on top; whereas the Schneider lacks the little cylinder, but also lacks the rivet heads!


On the other hand, always to be borne in mind is that the French seem to have been the masters of the Improvised Artillery piece! No other nation appears to have produced such a bewildering variety of guns, from so many sources, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was some kind of one-off.


I agree about space for ammo, but then they also produced the Renault variant with the 75mm obusier, which I imagine would have had much the same problem.



-- Edited by Roger Todd at 15:47, 2006-04-03

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Roger Todd wrote:


 I agree about space for ammo, but then they also produced the Renault variant with the 75mm obusier, which I imagine would have had much the same problem.-- Edited by Roger Todd at 15:47, 2006-04-03

But they did increase the turret size.
From memory I think that the French did have a 75 mm mountain or pack gun with a short barrel and round (and of course a shorter range). This could be a source.

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Centurion wrote:



But they did increase the turret size.


True - but then the Peugeot's fixed cupola looks somewhat more roomy than the Renault's old turret anyway. And the Peugeot's hull looks rather more broad and roomy as well.

-- Edited by Roger Todd at 17:47, 2006-04-03

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Roger Todd wrote:


Centurion wrote: But they did increase the turret size. True - but then the Peugeot's fixed cupola looks somewhat more roomy than the Renault's old turret anyway. And the Peugeot's hull looks rather more broad and roomy as well.-- Edited by Roger Todd at 17:47, 2006-04-03

But you have two men side by side in the Peugeot as the front of the hull is full of engine.

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But you have the same problem with the Renault, except in reverse: the rear is full of engine, with the rather narrow front and fixed cupola to accommodate the crew (of 3, according to the French chap!).



-- Edited by Roger Todd at 20:14, 2006-04-03

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Some real speculation this time. I've tried to visualise what McFie's l;ast landsghip design would have looked like if built as a tank. I've followed whats shown on the patent drawing  from Roger's article as far as possible but had to use some intelligent (semi anyway) interpretation when McFies plans and elevations don't quite match


http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/mcfiet.jpg

It would have been a beast to steer as the driver would be 'blind' to anything dead ahead or to one side or the other (depending on which side he sat).

-- Edited by Centurion at 14:05, 2006-04-04

-- Edited by Centurion at 14:06, 2006-04-04

-- Edited by Centurion at 14:09, 2006-04-04

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