Does anyone know the armored car from photos 2 & 3? http://www.landships.info/landships/car_articles.html?load=car_articles/Early_German_Cars.html
Is it really German? Or foreign? Or foreign, but captured by the Germans? Is it possible to say which country is the crew from? What type are the machine-guns?
Cheers,
Albert
-- Edited by Albert on Friday 22nd of September 2017 06:25:35 PM
The crew look a bit Russian to me, but I was thinking the MGs might be Berthier 1908 or 1911. Which doesn't help.
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Albert, I don't know if you can read French, but this article is very interesting: http://fr.1001mags.com/parution/gazette-des-armes/numero-84-jui-aou-1980/page-34-35-texte-integral
Amongst other things, it says that, although a French design, the Berthier is better known in and was manufactured in Britain and Belgium. The man top left in the article appears to be wearing a Belgian uniform, probably cavalry. At bottom right you can see the dangling pipe which was part of the cooling system and can also be seen on the guns in the armoured cars.
I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I think they're Berthiers.
__________________
"Sometimes things that are not true are included in Wikipedia. While at first glance that may appear like a very great problem for Wikipedia, in reality is it not. In fact, it's a good thing." - Wikipedia.
Albert, I don't know if you can read French, but this article is very interesting: http://fr.1001mags.com/parution/gazette-des-armes/numero-84-jui-aou-1980/page-34-35-texte-integral
Amongst other things, it says that, although a French design, the Berthier is better known in and was manufactured in Britain and Belgium. The man top left in the article appears to be wearing a Belgian uniform, probably cavalry. At bottom right you can see the dangling pipe which was part of the cooling system and can also be seen on the guns in the armoured cars.
I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I think they're Berthiers.
This suggests that the armoured cars are Belgian and in some way connected, but I cant get any further. The Berthier was tested by the US in 1917, I gather.
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It is indeed a Belgian armored car, built by Auto Mixte in 1911.
I just got an article about the vehicle published over at tanks-encyclopedia.com. This forum thread was also helpful since James correctly identified the machine guns in question as Berthiers, many thanks!
Congratulations, Leander, I also correctly identified this armoured car (but forgot about this thread) and I wrote about it in a general book on WW1 armoured cars of which I’m a co-author, published a month ago in Poland (the book is in Polish). Until now this vehicle was correctly described only in a few Belgian books and magazines, nothing outside Belgium! There are many myths regarding WW1 Belgian armoured cars, a lot of what’s been written in books, magazines and on the Internet is wrong. If there will be interest, maybe in the future I will write something for Tanks Encyclopedia.
-- Edited by Albert on Wednesday 2nd of December 2020 11:26:27 PM
-- Edited by Albert on Wednesday 2nd of December 2020 11:27:07 PM
Well done, gentlemen. I am very pleased to see this. Excellent detective work.
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That's amazing Albert. Does the book include more of these obscure vehicles? If so, I would be interested in acquiring it if that's possible :)
I am aware of the myths about Belgian vehicles. A while ago we removed an article about the Minerva from the site for that very reason. Unfortunately I haven't yet been able to get my hands on some decent sources myself. It would be amazing if you could write something in the future, all help is very much appreciated! Especially on topics related to WW1 since most of our current articles tend to focus on other eras.
This is the first rather detailed general book on WW1 armoured cars in any language. Of course some monographs on WW1 armored cars of specific nations, or even a few existing monographs on specific types, are more detailed, which is natural.
I co-authored this book with Witold J. Ławrynowicz, some of you probably know his books, especially one on Schneider and St. Chamond tanks. Witold wrote around 65% of text, I wrote around 35%. Did we describe every single obscure WW1 armoured car? No, but some we did. And near the end of the book there is a 16-page long table showing every known armoured (and some armed unarmored) car of every nation (built, bought, tested, captured). We wrote about every country (included neutral ones) which had at least one armoured car up to 1918. Did I write everything I know? In some cases yes, in case of Belgians surely not, I know more, but in the future I want to write a book on WW1 Belgian armoured cars.
It is possible that the book will be translated to English in the future, but we’ll see.
I also co-authored (with Henk Devos) an article on Minerva armoured cars, published in instruction manual to 1/35 scale Minerva by Copper Stare Models.
Leander, I like your article on Hotchkiss HtK46 and I used it while writing the book.
-- Edited by Albert on Thursday 3rd of December 2020 05:35:36 PM
Hi! In an old Polish book, I found such a Russian cannon armored car. I've never heard of such a thing, what is this armored car? Maybe someone has additional information? Best regards!
-- Edited by kapitan on Tuesday 27th of April 2021 07:27:56 PM
The chassis could be from a Hansa-Lloyd truck - there some images of an H-L truck at: https://landships.activeboard.com/t64758121/hansa-lloyd-truck/
(these were taken post-WW1 of a WW1 truck). The armoured body looks a bit like the Garford-Putilov armoured car which had also had a turreted 76.2m gun.
"According to the Russian book on WWI armoured cars by Baryatynski and Kolomiets, it can be positively identified as a single Russian armoured car built in August 1915 on "Loyd" chassis according to Cpt. Bylinski's design. The original model was twin-turret. In 1918 it was in Petersburg and around that time it was rebuilt with after (rear) 37 mm gun.
I don't know details about Cpt. Bylinski - his name might suggest Polish descent, but he served in Russian Army during WW1."
My guess is that "Loyd" is a mangled translation of Lloyd - not many European languages use the "Ll" form so it's understandable that would happen. It seems a reasonable hypothesis that the chassis was from a Hansa-Lloyd truck - possibly a pre-war model.
Charlie
-- Edited by CharlieC on Friday 7th of May 2021 11:58:03 PM
"Sometimes things that are not true are included in Wikipedia. While at first glance that may appear like a very great problem for Wikipedia, in reality is it not. In fact, it's a good thing." - Wikipedia.