Landships II

Nailcreek · Captain

Ebay photo ID Question?

mad zeppelin · Commander in Chief

Not an easy one... - The officers are German, wearing winter garb. The small truck looks French - without that I could identify the brand; it's just an impression. The inscription, or rather that what I can discern of it, may be in English. It's "...??e??ed L?...", perhaps "...methed L..." or "...nelted L..." or "...rrethed L...".

Guess: Western Front winter of 1914/15, most probably Flanders, near the coast. Improvised armoured car of 1914 make, captured by the Germans in October/November 1914, shown here with new owners in January/February 1915.

James H · Legend

Well, that was a struggle. It's not often we're stumped here, but I think we've cracked this.

I looked everywhere logic would suggest, and am very grateful to the WWI Armored Cars site where I managed to track it down.

The text is in Spanish, so that's me hors de combat, but a Spanish speaker will be able to help. I'm guessing that it was captured somehow, although I can't imagine the circumstances.

If I'm wrong, please say so.

-- Edited by James H on Friday 24th of October 2014 03:37:30 PM

mad zeppelin · Commander in Chief

Argh, I knew I had seen the vehicle before... Dörffer's "Technische Mitteilungen" of 1922 have it as Peugeot armoured car, with same picture.

James H · Legend

mad zeppelin wrote:
Argh, I knew I had seen the vehicle before... Dörffer's "Technische Mitteilungen" of 1922 have it as Peugeot armoured car, with same picture.

It does look kind of French - I was toying with the idea of a De Dion. I'm reading the google translation, and it seems there were quite a few of these, maybe 15. François V has written about them, but Jose at the website seems to disagree with him about something. Still reading.