Landships II

Apparently, Triumph, the company that makes motorcycles, decided to get in on the One-Man Tank idea in 1943, producing a prone-driven motorcycle style grip-controlled one-man tank.




In case the text is too hard on the eyes, it says:
"Triumph Engineering Company was headed by innovative Edward Turner. In 1943 he
dreamed up a proposal for a one-man tank. The extraordinary tracked vehicle had a
height of no more than 16 inches, so the occupant drove it, voa motorcycle tpe controls,
from a semi-prone position. Development engineer Frank Baker had a lot to do with the
steering arrangement, but I don't think it was his fault that the demonstration
of the prototype as unsuccesful and the observing Army brass fell out and filed away."

Centurion, once you said "the prone driven one man tank concept just keeps popping up"... Quite right you were!

And what is really laughable, is that the text refers to it as an "extraordinary tracked vehicle". In fact, it is nearly identical in concept to several other one-man tanks, and appears to be near identical to Carden and Loyds first conveyor-chain driven prone-man vehicle.

---Vil
P.S. Credit is due where credit is due, I founds those pictures while doing a google search, and they came from this forum thread, so they are courtesy of the poster "merlin".
http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=98075&sid=0d51dda36f611c036a136641ae259fad

-- Edited by Vilkata at 06:37, 2007-02-04