Landships II

Vilkata · Brigadier

'Tanks And Armored Vehicles' Book - Char 3C? Renault One Man?

Vilkata · Brigadier

Another interesting note....

"In January 1917 work begun at the Holt Factory at Stockton on a tank designed by Messrs. Pebble, Patterson, Weeks, and Wickersham. This vehicle we know as the Special 18, or "Scat the Kaiser". Later, several types of hulls were proposed for the tank, one of which was built in mock-up. When a Cadillac engine was substituted for the previous tractor engine, the tank developed a speed of 20 miles an hour."

Could the Wickersham mentioned in the text be the same man who developed the Wickersham Land Torpedo?

Furthermoore...

"One of the most interesting of these early experimental tanks was the HA 36, a one-man tank very similar in appearance to, but much smaller than, the British heavy taks. Constructed under the supervision of L.H. Thoen at the Stockton plant of the Holt Company, it was powered by a motorcycle engine operating through a special transmission. The tracks were made of Link Belt 44 chain on which were bolted wooden cleats. Although the tank gave the appearance of being armed and armored, it was neither."

This is one in a nearly never ending line of documents that seem to imply the HA36 was designed as a serious fighting vehicle! In the above paragraph, the author seems to imply the vehicle was produced in mock-up form - he never says that it wasn't a serious vehicle.

Could the HA36 have been part of a Misinformation Campaign? Or perhaps just a silly stunt by Holt? We have it on good authority the HA36 was just a gimmick designed for Swintons visit ot the stockton plant - so why then, has virtually every publication including the 1918 Popular Mechanics issue claimed it was a serious vehicle? A misinformation campaign really might be the answer.

---Vil.

Arie Dijkhuis · General

I am not too sure about the other tanks, but the FT17 Kegresse could be this tank. I doubt wether this was a one man tank, as it is basically a ordinary FT with new tracks. According to my information, there was only one built. The concept was abbandoned due to the short life-span of the rubber tracks.

Centurion · Legend

Icks is usually (but not always) right on the money. However the naming (or rather numbering)of the French FMC Char de Rupture tanks is a thing of wonderous mystery as different sources give a range of numbers from Char 1C (a different tank from the Char 1A) through to the Char 3C Different sources often apply a different no. to the same photo and French sources are no more consistant than British or American ones. (Actually I sometimes think that the numbering system for all of France's tanks 1916 - 1950 was composed by a confirmed absinth drinker). However there was definitely a tank armed with a short 155 mm gun (photo enclosed) which is sometimes defined as a Char 2 Bis and sometimes as a Char 3C. This was in fact a Char 2C modified with a completely new turret and a new commanders position behind the turret. I guess it ceased to be a Char 2C after the mods and there was some confusuin as to what to call it. There was only one built C 1923.

Centurion · Legend

Arie Dijkhuis wrote:

I am not too sure about the other tanks, but the FT17 Kegresse could be this tank. I doubt wether this was a one man tank, as it is basically a ordinary FT with new tracks. According to my information, there was only one built. The concept was abbandoned due to the short life-span of the rubber tracks.

A squadron of FT17 Kegresse were tried in Morroco. However the tracks wore out too quickly and the rubber had problems in the heat. These were definitely 2 man BUT photogaphs of the prototype show it with the turret empty (no gun) and swung away from the front. This may have been driven as a one man (there would be no point having the gunner in place.

A genuine 1 man Renault FT was the amunition carrier version - however this had no armament and only the tracks and the engine in common with the gun tank. There was an experimental amphib tank based on the FT which also appears to have been one man (no turret at all, but no armament or top either)

Vilkata · Brigadier

The bulldozer, cargo carrier, prototype amphibious vehicle, and the bridge layer variants of the FT-17 all seem to be one man vehicles. None of them appear to have ever been fitted with weapons however. And all of the Kegresse variants are clearly two-man vehicles aswell. So I am going to assume that the "Renault One Man" entry in the book is a mistake.

Thanks again folks!

---Vil.

Pody · Lieutenant

Hello Vil !

I have some details from "Heigl's Taschenbuch der Tanks" on the 3C Tank.
The 2C has the entry hatch to the rear and 3 "grenade-ports" at each side
while the 3C has entry hetch at the front inside the track suspension and four
"grenade-ports" to throw hand-grenades alongside the tracks to keep
enemy infantry off the sides to avoid mounting the tank.
Bright idea.

Hope this helps.

With best regards,

Pody

Roger Todd · Legend

Interesting stuff, Pody. However, the pictures you attached just seem to show bog-standard 2Cs. If you look at this page...

http://www.chars-francais.net/archives/fcm_2c.htm

...you'll see that the 2Cs have three grenade-ports and a rear hatch on their starboard side, and four grenade-ports and a front hatch on their port side. They aren't even different configuration on different machines, as I originally thought.

I would say Centurion is correct in identifying the one-off 2C ('Champagne') armed, for a time, with a short 155mm howitzer as the so-called 3C.

-- Edited by Roger Todd at 16:01, 2006-10-29

Roger Todd · Legend

Vilkata wrote:

Could the Wickersham mentioned in the text be the same man who developed the Wickersham Land Torpedo?

There are several Wickershams holding patents for various devices through the years if you check the Patents database. However, the Land Torpedo patent is under Elmer Wickersham's name, in conjunction with the Holt Manufacturing Company of Stockton, California, so yes, I would say that it is the same Wickersham (there are several patents for tracks and track-laying vehicles in Elmer Wickersham's name, all of them in conjunction with Holt as well, so clearly Wickersham was a Holt employee).

Centurion · Legend

Found a one man Citroen Kegresse armoured mg carrier C 1927- 30. A Half track not unlike a reversed Martel. Will post photo tomorrow.

Centurion · Legend

Shots of the Citroen Kegress one man. It seems 3 were built. It carried an mg but whether the driver could fire it from the vehicle I don't know. His vision slot was big enough by the look of it. It appears to have had some form of automatic transmission to make life eaier for the driver but it didn't work very well.

Also the Renault one man supply tank. I think that this is as much an AFV as the Mk IX supply tank.

Vilkata · Brigadier

Thank you very much for those images!! That is a very very interesting vehicle. I am not familiar with that style of Kegresse track assembly. I believe I have seen it before, but I am mostly familiar with the 4 bogie wheel type.

Usually a "Machine Gun Carrier" mounts its machine gun in a way that the crew can fire it from the vehicle - I usually call this an "integral weapon", although Im not sure if thats the correct use of the word, in an AFV context. It would be a serious deviation from pretty much every MG carrier I've ever heard of for this to not be the case. But, with that said... The frontal vision port does indeed seem big enough for most machine guns to fit through, but there are no noticable mounting systems for it. I wonder if what we see is a prototype, before even the mounting assemblies had been installed? Or if, by "Carrier", it simply meant it could haul a machine gun in its trailer?

Thank's again for sharing that!! I appreciate it. It definitely adds a whole new question to "What is a One-Man Tank?". This vehicle could easily be called a Half Track. But, if it did indeed mount a machine gun so that the driver could fire it, then there are two arguments. It would either be an armed one-man half-track, or one could argue, like you mentioned, that its a one-man tank, because the Martel's are one-man tanks, and this vehicle has the same design, wheels, and tracks, except reversed. Interesting dilemma.

---Vil.