Yes, tankgeezer - bang-on. As far as I understand it, this strange beast - trialled early in 1915 - in effect carried its own trench-crossing bridge of girders on a circular chain “road”. One half (the one with huge wheels) was supposed to span and cross the trench (braced by the rear secion), then circulate the girders to the rear, where they would be placed in the trench and allow the rest of the vehicle to cross. And so on. At least that is how I think it was supposed to work. The big wheel/power plant element of the vehicle was a standard agricultural tractor/traction engine - not surprising, as its main designer, William Tritton, Chairman of the engineering company William Foster & Co., Lincoln, England, was a skilled agricultural engineer and a member of Britain’s secret “Landship Committee”, sponsored by Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. Two trials in the early part of 1915 indicated that, while the concept basically “worked”, the vehicle was very clumsy to operate, very slow and incapable of clearing barbed wire - an important consideration at the time. Also, it was not much help to the crew and Poor Bloody Infantry required to operate it against enemy fire when encountered. As a result, the project was abandoned. However, its importance in the development of the early tank was to persuade Tritton and other members of the Landship Committee that the various projects already considered for wheeled “trench crossers” and “wire clearers” were a dead end. The future was in enclosed, armed, tracked vehicles. I am really out of my league here. In any event - over to you, my friend. Best regards, JR.
Thanks JR, I remembered that Rube Goldbergish machine from a book I have packed away someplace. Here is the next one.
That would be the French “Fortin Aubriot-Gabet” fro 1915, one of the early experimental tank wanabees from WW1.
It’s interesting that it’s electric, and it was based on the Gruson “Fahrpanzer”, an earlier, unpowered, attempt by Germany to create a mobile fortification system…
Amusingly, my country was one of the largest pre-ww1 users of the Gruson system and I’ve just finished illustrating a book on the subject (it will be published early next year, most likely)
How right you are Wings. The Battleship Car was an interesting idea, but was more likely to defeat the enemy by inducing paralytic laughter than anything else. The Sword passes to you, neighbor. (And keep us all up on the book, would be good to get a copy, hope it’s published in English too) 
Thank you!
The book is part of a series published by the Military Museum of Bucharest in the style of the Osprey Publishing “Man at Arms” or “New Vanguard”, and this issue will be about the Sereth Fortified Line built by Romania to defend against the looming Russian threat on the eve of WW1, the only large scale application of the Shumann fortification system.
It will be in Romanian, with bilingual Romanian-English caption on all the photographs and on the eight full colour plates, which is the bit I’ve worked on. This would be the second such book I’ve worked on, the other being about WW1 Austro-Hungarian Siege Artillery in the collection of the Military Museum of Bucharest.
But coming back to the subject of this thread, here is my little offer for tonight:
An interesting but apt combination, it is described as theM3A3 « Stuart-PaK » - field modification of captured Stuart tank armed in 7,5 cm PaK 40 L/46 .
Right you are!
It is indeed one of the five American M3A3 Stuart light tanks belonging to the Yugoslav 1st Tank Brigade that were upgraded by mounting a captured German 7,5 cm Pak 40 anti tank gun in a casemate made from the armour of destroyed SdKfz 251s.
The Sword passes back to you yet again.
Thanks Wings!! I’m going to get out my Crystal Ball to find something so arcane that only someone with good scrying skills could find it… I’ll post it later today.
Alright, after much and furious searching, here is the next entry.
No luck I’m afraid, that’s another one I can identify on sight - it’s the Japanese “Experimental Amphibious Armoured Car Sumida AMP” built by Ishikawajima in 1931. One was built, but performance was very poor, so it was abandoned and the Ishikawajima company moved on to developing the Type 92 tankette instead.
EDIT: I am pretty sure of my identification, so, in order to keep this rolling, here is the next mystery tank… err… thingie:
Well Great Jumpin’ Jehosaphat… it’s the Baker 8 x 8 “Jumping Tank” armored car!
Designed to use high speed and highly sprung running gear, the vehicle was to literally leap over various obstacles and other impediments that would bring more humdrum fighting vehicles to a halt. Armament was to be a 3" (75 / 76mm) gun. A 4 x 4 version was also "imagined. Neither version made it past the model stage, however the basic concept was supposedly “proven”.
WoW’s picture shows it crouched for a jump, here it is in normal drive height:
heheh. I didn’t know Jehosaphat liked to jump - that side of him never made it into the scriptures XD
But yeah, mr. malarz, you are most certainly correct, so the board belongs to you.
heheh. I didn’t know Jehosaphat liked to jump - that side of him never made it into the scriptures XD
But yeah, mr. malarz, you are most certainly correct, so the board belongs to you.
You are correct Wings , it is the Sumida AMP. Sumida was the name of the producing Company before it became Ishikawajima (assuming that what I read was correct) I think my Crystal Ball needs a fresh battery
Thank you sir!
Keeping with the “too many tires” theme, what is this lil’ honey?
That, my dear Mr. Malarz is the Cook Brothers Experimental Desert Vehicle from 1942, also known as “Cook’s Cozy Cabin” because of its box-like shape.
Interestingly, it had two Cadillac eight-cylinder water-cooled engines, one for each four wheeled bogie, and pivoted the front bogie in order to steer, something that can be discerned from the picture.
It was never produced in quantity and it served as the basis for another experimental vehicle, the T55 Gun Motor Carriage, which was roughly the same thing, only shorter and with a 3-inch AT gun at the front
You are CORRECT sir!
Not a bad looking vehicle, the T55E1 was a little more menacing with its gun barrel protruding from the front end like a unicorn horn. Here it is…
Take it away WoW!
Thank you, Mr. Malarz.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I think its time we kicked things up a notch, since the last few enigmas I proposed were all found out in, quite literally, five seconds flat.
For this I am delving deeper into my files and bringing to you a vehicle which should prove suitably elusive. Good hunting!
If this is the medium level quiz, I would hate to see the hard one!!!
This has become the hard quiz, joke is on you! ah hah hah