Landships II

Centurion wrote:

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Firstly the Russian Land Cruiser of 1915 http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/russo1.jpg Makes the A7V look elegant. My personal soubiquet for this is the Vogon wagen (see page 1,294,123,563,457 of the Hitchhikers Guide )

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But as long as you don't feed the driver's grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, you should be okay...

Meanwhile, having distracted the driver, we have the Macfie Landship design of August 1915 (no armament specified):

Glad you like it Centurion! Now, there you've hit on a real minor oddity - as far as I can make out from the original drawings (and discussing it with David Fletcher), that 'propellor-like' object really is a propellor, absurd as it may seem! Frankly, I think it would have been completely useless (I don't believe the machine would have been bouyant, and the shaft is so long it would have suffered appalling whiplash). But Macfie seems to have been obsessed with giving his machines an amphibious capability (see http://www.landships.freeservers.com/new_pages/macafie_landship_rtodd.htm which also features some of his patent drawings). In fact, it wasn't until seeing an old Tankette article about Macfie and his some-time collaborator Nesfield (thanks Tim!) and finding the patent drawings that I had to accept that it was a prop and not, say, an oddly placed fan for a radiator that wasn't drawn on or something equally unlikely.

The track frames (which really are frames, as they're completely open!) were smooth, and the track shoes had built-in rollers, rather like a couple of German designs (e.g. the K-Wagen). The plans I drew are faithful copies of the original drawings (which, for copyright reasons, I can't reproduce directly) and feature some cross-sections: http://www.landships.freeservers.com/jpegs_new/number_two/Fig%202.pdf Being a PFD-file of a vector graphic, you can really blow it up for clarity.

I like your Russian tank drawings - is the first one the Mendeleyev? I have to say the 20-ton tank looks better than the St Chamond and Schneiders, because at least it doesn't have the terrible hull overhang they had at the front.

OOOHPS! My previous 20ton tank was incorrect. I've updated the picture thanks to info supplied by Roger Todd. I hadn't realised that the gun faced to the rear (just like the British Archer SP 17 pdr anti tank gun of WW2).

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/20ton2.jpg

Heres a version of the LK series that didn't get built

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/lkxx.jpg

Very nice, Centurion - they really flesh out these wonderful designs, keep 'em rolling!

Here's my latest, part of a series I'm working on, the Flying Elephant (final design):

I just cannot do shading the way you do...

Vector graphics are definitely the way ahead with these types of drawings. I do mine in CorelDraw, which I convert to pdf format for sharing (e.g. the Macfie drawing on Landships) and printing out, and jpeg, as you can see, for 'publishing'. It's very useful for modelmaking - not only can one simply print as many copies as needed, but that drawing of mine has some 'hidden' detail, which can be used when producing templates for making parts. I'm amazed at the results you get from Powerpoint, I've never really got on with it apart from the simplest bullet-point slides!

As for the Flying Elephant, the design was constantly evolving, although that shape seems to have been the final, settled form. Armament-wise it wasn't as bad as many suppose. Most sources claim the nose-gun was to have been a 6-pdr, but having gone through the Tank Supply Committee's memos and reports, it's clear that, although that may have been the case early on, they actually intended to use a 3-in gun (which more or less corresponds to a 12- or 13-pdr) by the time this design was drawn up.

Another unbuilt A7V variant - this time an 'upgunned' type. A real nashorn.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/A7Vnashorn.jpg

Excellent drawings, as ever. Ugly brutes, but possibly not as abysmal as the final A7V.

I knew I'd seen 'em before - they were discussed here, by Tim, on this thread:

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=63528&subForumID=169814&action=viewTopic&commentID=5302804

Included are the links to the Kiev site drawings.

Which drawings are you referring to? I've seen a few - two sets come from Russian books, which someone scanned, one set being profile and plan cross sections in red outline; the other being a full-colour profile, with a cutaway beneath. All these show a very peculiar feature, which is that the drive sprocket was around halfway along the upper track, both ends being merely idlers! Another is Ed Dyer's in camo pattern; and the last one I've seen is a perspective sketch, monochrome, possibly in ink, scanned from a German source.

Righto, I've attached the Russian drawings...

Ok here is a much better impression of the Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/ober2.jpg

It combines all four drawings refered to earlier but least of the Ed Dyer camo picture. Some of the original drawings contained contradictory features (for example a track tensioner that wouldn't have been possible with the arrangement of rollers at each end of the frames. I've tried to eliminate such inconsistencies. On thing I've left out was the maltese cross on the circular cover for the big drive wheel in the middle. This would have been like having a big shoot here sign for anti tank gunners as this would have been the one spot were a shot could have stopped the tank literally dead in its tracks. (However given that in WW2 early Short Stirling bombers had all the electrical and hydrauluc systems passing through a single control box exactly behind the centre of the big roundel on the fuselage thus guiding Luftwaffe pilots to the most vunerable spot on the aircraft one can believe any such folly).

 

Thanks Roger

Another problem that needed resolving was the rear mg turret, as shown on the cross sectional drawings the gunner could only have depressed his gun slightly before the rear of the tank would have been hit by its fire. As a result there would have been a very large area of dead ground at the rear of the tank that would have made it very vunerable to infantry attack. Moving and slightly raising the position of the mg largly overcame this.

Yet another LKII variant
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/lk2x.jpg

This one  actually got built, in a way, as the Swedish STRV m/23 was very close to this - 10 serving in the 1920s and into the 30s

Looking at American tanks here is the Holt Special 18 Mk2

The Holt Special 18 Mk1 is better known as 'Scat the Kaiser' but this was just one of a series of prototypes and mock ups. Holt track units were used (and extended much as was done with the Schnieder, St Chamond and A7V) and allied with a high powered engine to produce a machine on which a number of mock up bodies were tried. The Holt Special 18 Mk2 was the first of these (and the only one I've managed to find any photographic evidence on). The mock up body was wood and canvas and I've tried to interpret this to show what the tank would have been like if built. The weird thing is the enormous turret. I wonder if it was meant to revolve or if it was a fixed barbette. If it revolved which gunner had priority? Or did they vie with each other like two men at one of those revolving book stands one gets in some airports? I've made the assumption that there had to be a rational reason for its height and provided vision slots at the top so it could be used as a commanders lookout.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/special182.jpg

Improved impression of the Peugeot ( I found another photo!) This was dated 1918

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/peugeot2.jpg

 

Thanks Roger

I used the FSU sites but got the drawing from a site dedicated to providing scale drawings of cars! However it appears to be no different in essence from the one on the char francais site (and equally incorrect in some areas). The details of the recuperator on the cannon look different to both the 37mm and 75mm mounted on the FT. It looks big enough to be a 75 but given the confined space in such a small tank where would they stow the ammo? Still a 75 would lend credence to my idea that the Peugeot could have been intended as an assault gun.

Roger Todd wrote:

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 I agree about space for ammo, but then they also produced the Renault variant with the 75mm obusier, which I imagine would have had much the same problem.-- Edited by Roger Todd at 15:47, 2006-04-03

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But they did increase the turret size.
From memory I think that the French did have a 75 mm mountain or pack gun with a short barrel and round (and of course a shorter range). This could be a source.

Roger Todd wrote:

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Centurion wrote: But they did increase the turret size. True - but then the Peugeot's fixed cupola looks somewhat more roomy than the Renault's old turret anyway. And the Peugeot's hull looks rather more broad and roomy as well.-- Edited by Roger Todd at 17:47, 2006-04-03

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But you have two men side by side in the Peugeot as the front of the hull is full of engine.