I love old popular science magazines, and have downloaded images and pages from the internet over the years on a very random basis. However, I've just discovered how to download whole pages from Google Books, and what a treasure trove of old popular science magazines it is!
Here, for example, is an article from Popular Science, April 1918: Why Tanks Are Giant Caterpillars. It takes the term 'caterpillar track' as its starting point and then runs rather too far with it...
You're not far wrong! Browsing through Popular Science and Popular Mechanics (which appear to be the only ones with 'full view' capability on google books) is hilarious! I've attached another wacky invention just to give an idea...
It's like a motorised version of that German spotting tower/ladder contraption - I can't find it to check the title, but you'll hopefully know the one I mean; the one that looks really unstable, as it's on two cart wheels.
Somehow this also reminds me of Wallace and Gromit - yes! I know why, isn't there one where gromit is up a ladder that's standing in a motorbike sidecar? (on the move, naturally)
Ah yes, the insane idea of sending men up towers in potentially contested terrain is not necessarily restricted to enthusiastic non-combatants.
The first Australian conscript to die in the Vietnam war was allegedly sent/allowed up a (static) tower by his platoon commander (or company commander, I forget which) where he was promptly shot at close range. All reports now, almost 46 years later, (including that of at least one fully-credible eye-witness) say it didn't happen at all that way - but it is interesting that the notion had some credence at the time, and for some time after. The black-out on detailed information at the time with the real possibility of "friendly fire" no doubt contributed if it was just a furphy, as indeed seems the case. Requiescat in Pace 4717546 Private Errol Wayne Noack, 5 Platoon, Bravo Company, 5RAR (5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment) 28 March 1945 - 24 May 1966.
Memo to those of military tactical genius - men on towers in the battlefield is a weapons-grade STUPID idea unless running very short of rations.
Browsing through Popular Science and Popular Mechanics (which appear to be the only ones with 'full view' capability on google books) is hilarious! I've attached another wacky invention just to give an idea...
