Landships II

Weird and wonderful! I would settle for a kit of the tractor only, but with the turret - WOW!

- Ron

Yes the Killen-Strait armored tractor developed by Richard Hornsby & Sons is very interesting. But more so is a bit of information I have in an odd little Russian book (type written with a very poor binding looking sort of amateurish) called �The Dawn of Armor: 1901-1921" by Georgii Narochnitskaya which covers lots of strange vehicles like the Fowler land locomotive. The book has very few photos (nothing new that is not of very bad quality) and a few decent drawings. I started to pay to have it translated a few years ago but ran out of money so I can�t give a lot of details.

Basically, it has a chapter of written memoirs by a Russian Colonel that are mixed with summaries/comments by the author (because of they share the same the officer seems to be an ancestor of the author) who was charged with getting four unarmored Killen-Strait tractors ready for combat starting in early 1917. The author affirms the tractors did have a turrets taken from Lancasters armored cars changed to use captured Schwarzlose M7/12 MGs but apparently the armor itself was shipped to his unit based slightly to the North of Riga from the Pulitov Works. One unit was left with an open top and arrangements were made to equip it with a Rosenberg m/15 but for some reason it was instead changed to use the 37mm Infanteriegesch�tz M.15. It seems that while two units had seen action a couple of weeks prior to Russia withdrawing from the war the cannon equipped unit had mechanical problems and parts shortages that prevented it from being used during the First World War while one of MG equipped units broke down to often to see combat till the civil war.

The author further reports that two of the MG equipped Killen-Strait armored tractors were captured by the Germans at the end of hostilities but only one was in working order. Apparently,
conflicting reports exist as to what the Germans did with them as some of the author�s sources indicate it was used on Western front and destroyed while others say that it was never used in combat. Apparently, the second unit the Germans had was repaired but stayed in Russia and somehow wound up in the Hands of the Finns although no knows what happened to it. Apparently, the last MG equipped and one mounting the cannon were used by the Soviets during the civil war in the Ukraine but no seems to know what happened to them.

If anyone wants more info from the book I�ll see what I can find out.

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. After reading the thread I recalled my involvement with the book and some of what it said on the topic.

I picked up the book about ten years ago and I’ve not had a lot of luck finding out much about the author although I may be able to reach the daughter of the author via a friend in Latvia. Judging from the look of the book I’d say the publishing job was very amateurish and I wonder if it was simply run off by some cut rate vanity press. The book was apparently made in the ‘50s and not in the greatest of shape but fully readable. It lacked an ISBN or copyright statement so half wonder if it was “properly published” rather then just a manuscript.

According the translator I hired the book concentrated mostly upon the personalities of the designers (which has no interest to me) and accounts of vehicle crews in battle without much attention to technical matters (which is what I care about most) so I can’t say it’s a good resource in a lot of ways.

The first chapter apparently dealt with a bit of background on “road locomotives” and the motor industry from the turn of the century based on the photos and drawings which were nothing special. The second chapter was some contemporary accounts about the Fowlers use in the Boer war. After that was lots of talk about the pre-war Mineras and various french makes of armored cars that I never had translated but hoped to have done so one day. A chapter about Burstyn was next followed a lengthy chapter on the British Mk.I , an American rhomboid tank I never heard of (the photos of that tank were the best in the book) and the A7V-U. A chapter of war stories about Czechs and Finns using armored vehicles in Russia and Finland and looked overly sensationalistic. The rest of the book covered the Killen-Straits, a Russian half-track, the Vezdekhod (I can’t remember which one), the LK II & III and some obscure German light tank prototypes from 1918.

I had around 20 pages translated from various parts of the latter chapters dealing with Killen-Straits and other strange AFVs. Unfortunately, my translator moved away and everyone else I talked to wanted too much to translate it so it just gathered dust for a couple of years.

I sold recently to an armor enthusiast who plans to translate and republish it.

If you want more info I’ll dig up the translations and see if I can answer them.

I am so amazed to have found this site! Until a couple of days ago I had no idea so many people care about the this stuff. The odd thing is that it seems everyone but me is a modeler rather then a mechanical type so I guess I�m the odd man out.

Basically, I�m into this stuff as I had a family member that served and died with the Freikorps so I�ve got a bit of person interest. Beyond that, a friend of mine is very into restoring old locomotives but for a couple of years his chief interest has been in building a running replica of both the Kraftprotze and the Hessen-Cassel. He is well along on both projects as a result of getting partial blueprints.

I am not familiar with any of the tanks mention regarding the American rhomboid. The one in the book had a bunch tubing like framework shown in one picture with two more of the inside and one of the drive train. The photos were all from some sort of trial grounds during the war. In any case, the odd American tank is the second one shown in the post before this one.

As to the Russian Killen-Strait stuff I was very excited until the translations were done. Basically, what I wanted was detailed descriptions of the mechanical layout, performance data and armor data so I could figure out how to model (in math terms) the effectiveness of the design. Unfortunately, the story of the men who fought in them is what the book focuses on ans gives almost no coverage to what I wanted.

In any case, if anyone is interested the story of the tractors I�ll do my best to answer any questions. Also, I should be hearing from my friend in Riga about his meeting with the daughter of the author.

Ummm... I don't want to seem like an idiot... But I have never heard of the Kraftprotzeor the Hessen-Cassel. What were they... ???

---

Hello Obscurata

   Is there any way you can post the pictures of the blueprints for the Kraftprotze, and Hessen-Cassel, It would be most helpful

All the Best

Tim R.