Landships II

don't think it'll - help site doesn't respond anyway!

Pictures have been published in one of the Russian magazines for fans of tanks ("Тankomaster"). (I suspect, that they have been taken from other sources). Clause considered not carried out improvements of tanks which could be made practically at once, even during designing.
 
For a discomfiture with pictures I apologize, of this resource has taken advantage for the first time and, probably, unsuccessfully. Tomorrow them I shall lay out still time, for now only a tractor:
 

The three-wheeler I first saw in an old Kenneth Macksey book about tanks. I've never been able to find out who built it, but the wheels are Boydell wheels. There's a sharper photo on the Science Museum's site:

As I said earlier, most famously early Burrell engines used them. There's a good page about Burrell, with a couple of drawings of Boydell wheels, here:

http://www.aonx97.dsl.pipex.com/TE-page/Town/thetford.htm

The British Army bought a couple around the time of the Crimean War and carried out experiments in hauling artillery. It was even intended to use them for transporting Mallet's giant 36" mortar (http://www.palmerstonforts.org.uk/fortlog/mallet.htm), but the relative failure of the latter, and the termination of the Crimean War before either the mortar or the engines was ready put an end to what was a quite forward-looking scheme. The engines the Army bought were likely to have been Burrells:

And this is my impression of Cowen's (or Cowan's, the spelling differs in publications) AFV, based on his drawing and using the Army Burrell-Boydell for the proportions:

In practice, the Boydell wheels were only used for a few years as, although excellent at spreading the load of the engines and allowing tractors to operate on soft and muddy fields, they shook themselves to bits when travelling along any hard surface, such as a decent road. The links to the wheel rims were also very prone to twisting. And the noise was said to be horrific! At home I have a photo of a Burrell-Boydell tractor with huge mudguards over the main wheels - they look just like ships' paddle-boxes! With those on, the engine was even noisier...

-- Edited by Roger Todd at 12:37, 2006-07-19

Nice big picture of the first one! What publication is it from?

Which one? Actually, that's an academic question as neither was built...

The colour drawing Vad26 attached is a 'what if' drawing - it's nicely drawn but anachronistic, as the engine dates from the late 1850s, but the gun looks like a Hotchkiss 5-barrel job from the 1880s (http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRussian_37mm_Hotchkiss.htm).

The 'helmet-on-wheels' is James Cowan's proposal from 1855 which legend has it was rejected by Lord Palmerston as 'barbaric'! I say 'legend', because he obviously didn't think a 36" mortar lobbing one-ton shells was barbaric... In reality, I suspect the Royal Engineers took one look at his drawing and (rightly) saw it as impractical.

-- Edited by Roger Todd at 22:40, 2006-07-19

Roger Todd wrote:

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 The 'helmet-on-wheels' is James Cowan's proposal from 1855 which legend has it was rejected by Lord Palmerston as 'barbaric'! I say 'legend', because he obviously didn't think a 36" mortar lobbing one-ton shells was barbaric...

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Ah but Cowan's machine was an uncoventional weapon and deeply untraditional whereas men had been merrily blowing each other to pieces for centuries so that was enshrined in custom and quite proper.
Palmerston it seems also regarded a scheme for a poison gas attack on Russian fortifications as equally barbaric - possibly with some justification.

Ok Vad

  That is awesome, what is it??, I know what the tank is that this thing is designed on, but who designed this version, and what is it called.

All the Best

Tim R

Vad,

have you ever come across a design were a MK.V would be fitted with both a male and a female sponson on each side?

i think so

vad, no

a Mk.V with 4 sponsons! a gun and machine gun on BOTH sides

no its a strange modification to a Mk.V that the Russians supposedly did, which is double up the sponsons on each side or something like that, Tim told me of it, but none of us have any drawings of it, so I am wondering if Vad has anything on it.

It, possibly, only the project. I shall search....

vad26 wrote:

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Here one more development. As they say in the text is the unique constructed variant gun MK.C   

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Yes but unfortunately the drawing is distorted in the side view. I've posted on this before. Its due to an draughting error in the orthoganal projection from the plan and end elevation views (in my dim and distant past I was trained in engineering drawing). The superstructure does not lean forward ( laying the gun would be very difficult if nothing else). I posted a corrected and coloured version - here it is again

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-11/1114252/mcm1.jpg

-- Edited by Centurion at 18:10, 2006-08-02

-- Edited by Centurion at 18:12, 2006-08-02

vadim,

thank you very much for the photos, can you give me an email that I can reach you, I have some more questions on the armored tractors but it doesnt fall into the "wwi" era.

by the way what is that armored tractor that you posted called?


Спасибо!

vad26 wrote:

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Interestingly. In "my" text to be spoken about a corner of an inclination of a gun = 8 degrees.  

 

I assume you are refering to the medium C. Even without resorting to the drawing board and redoing those projections its easy to see that there has been distortion. Take a look at the commander's rotating cupola - if the drawing was correct, as it revolved he would either be looking up at the sky or down at the ground. Even worse  a gunner trying to track a target in the horizontal would keep having to adjust his elevation as he traversed the gun as that sloping shield would cause it to rotate in a tilted plane.

As I've said, if you put the diagram on a drawing board (physical or electronis) and re do the orthogonal projections from the side and end elevations the error becomes apparent (its actually an easy mistake for some one to have made). Unfortunately doing this and producing this with plann and end elevation showing the projection lines takes time. I did it to produce the corrected elevation as shown but didn't retain the working drawings necessary to produce this. Bear with me and I'll try and produce a simpified drawing thatr shows how the error occured.

Hello vad26!
The design of the third picture in your enhancements must be ofmuch later design as it incorporates a feature belonging to the FSCM french tank series with a running-around
visor-slit to give a 360° vision without being hit through the visioning slots of the commanders copula. I've got detailed construction pic's from the Seaumur Museé des Blindes, a custodian sent to me.

Best regards,

Pody

Hello Centurion!

I'm still learning.....didn't mean to misinterpret vad's data.

Best regards,

Pody

Its a Holt G9 - basially a Holt tractor with an armoured body. Like the Best in a recent posting it took part in National Guard manouvers