Landships II

This is from an article written by the distinguished Colonel Robert J. Icks, Ret'd. It appeared in a journal called AFV-G2 Magazine, in 1975. The article was actually about how steam power can be used with tanks, but he begins with several paragraphs on the origins and early use of tanks in general, this being one of them:

In the meantime, the Allied plans for using tanks in large numbers in 1919 included provisions for keeping up the momentum of attack by means of thousands of unarmed tracklaying tractors. The British took up the responsibility for furnishing these and adopted a British Ford design known as the Newton Tractor. In addition to production in England, the British contracted with Buick and Studebaker in the United States to build these tractors, known here incorrectly as Buick and Studebaker tanks. Only the Studebakers could have been so called, because that firm also built for the British an experimental armoured cover which could be dropped over the tractor and bolted to it. The resulting vehicles resembled a miniature British heavy tank.

Now, the late Col. Icks was not infallible. I think he's wrong to say that the Newton was a Ford design (perhaps a misunderstanding arising from Percival Perry, the head of Ford UK being also part of the British Tank Mission in Washington that is believed to have commissioned the Studebaker Tank and some others). He also seems to have believed that the Holt one-man replica and the G-9 were real tanks, and also that the Italian Pavesi was a tracked tank rather than a tractor. However, he generally wrote with great authority, so he could be right about this. It would certainly have been handy in 1919 to have a fleet of "convertible" supply/fighting tanks. I know that some consider the Studebaker tank to be a completely different machine from the Studebaker Newton, but I offer the topic for discussion.