Hi I found yet another russia narmroed car this one is simply called red petrograd
not much info on it and only a drawing does nay one have any info on this it must be tsarsit since it is unlikely that the bolsheviks made this themselves
Great I should have look at kiev.armor.ua its a great site in the mean time i foudn more info the body was made of austin-putilov scraps, like turrets and such mounted on the chassis they had
Central revolving turret, with rear-mounted turret with cannon? What a peculiar setup to have. It's like an improved halftrack version of the Putilov-Garford!
This is another vehicle I had never seen before... I learn something new every single day on these forums.
Clayton tractors were one of the standard vehicles used by the RFC/RAF for towing big bombers (eg Handley Page 0/400) around the airfield. Post WW1 they were used for launching and retrieving lifeboats across beaches. They were fairly conventional twin track jobs with a single drivers seat at the rear. Looking at the photo the tracks (what I can see of them) appear to be those of a standard Clayton. The single wheel at the front seems like an add on and not part of the original tractor (unlike the front wheels of Best and Holt armoured tractors). The roundel on the side of the vehicle could be the Imperial Russian Flying Corps. One guess would be that it was an IRFC airfield tractor (used for the big four engined Sikorsky bombers) turned into an improvised armoured vehicle, used by the White Russian forces and captured by the Reds.
Thinking more about this and looking at the photo some more I can't see how the driver could see how to steer. The driving position on a Clayton was to the rear of the tracks so how on earfh could he see forward out of those tow small windows? Unless of course we are looking at the rear of the vehicle and there is a better window at the front (which would compromise the armour protection.
Tim, good luck with the article, I look forward to it!
Robert, many thanks for the info. It's amazing how many early tracked tractors there were. It certainly makes sense that they'd have used them for the big Murometz bombers, seeing as we used them for the 0/400s.
As a general observation, seeing as so many early leads take us to tractors, have you (any of you, that is) looked at this magazine?