Holt Military tractors.

[chriscokid]

I found this pics of a holt military crawler and thought I would share it with you. Looks like a tight fit for the driver, I guess he has to drive and shoot at the same time.

[chriscokid]

I was reading the lastest acmoc mag, last nite and noticed a disclamier on the article about holt being involved in tank design. Maybe the above picture can prove that they were involved in tank design.

[Jason 10/D4]

That does look like a miniture tank. Sure would be neat to find one of those!! Doubt there is any in existance though. Jason

[edb]

Hi Team,
the motor cycle engine powered mini-tank pictured was built specially for the visit of the British Colonal E.D.Swinton to the Holt plant after the end of the war to thank the company for its WW1 efforts and credit the Company with inventing the tank. Other literature I have read gives credit to influencing the design by way of the Tracks, I tend to believe this and not the invention story.
Further research on the net will find more data on the origin and concept of the tank in England.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

[OzDozer]

Eddie is correct. Colonel Ernest Swinton is credited with the idea of the armoured military tank, after having seen Holt Caterpillars in action (possibly in the early stages of WW1, from late 1914 to early 1915).

He pursued the idea with relentless drive, and despite being rejected by General Sir John French (Chief of Staff of the British Army) and his technical advisers .. Swinton pushed on, and bypassed Gen. French by going almost directly to Winston Churchill, then Minister for the Navy, and First Lord of the Admiralty.
Churchill had a lot of "pull" and was also extremely taken with many ideas that now rate as standard military thought. Churchill was the gentleman who converted the British Navy over to oil from coal, around 1911-12, and he also saw the huge value in aircraft, starting up the Royal Naval Air Service.

Churchill was impressed by Swintons idea, and set up the "Landships" Committee to produce the first tank .. which was then produced jointly by Lieutenant W. G. Wilson of the Naval Air Service, and William Tritton of William Foster & Co. Ltd., of Lincoln.
The first prototype, "Little Willie" was demonstrated to the Landship Committee on 11th Sept 1915.

The little tank above, was a wooden mock-up, powered by a motorcycle engine as Eddy states .. and I understand the Haggin Museum in Stockton, CA, has numerous pics of this event, when Gen. Swinton visited the Holt factory in April 1918.

Ernest Swinton - http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWswinton.htm

Holt & Swinton with tank & Holt tractor .. http://www.firstworldwar.com/photos/...on_holt_01.jpg

Armoured Tank development history .. http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/tanks.htm

[chriscokid]

it is truly amazing the wealth of knowledge worldwide that is BB can provide.
Thanks for the info and I am sure others will enjoy it also.

[CR]

This very same picture is in the Libary at University of the Pacific, Stockton CA...or at least was when I was there last.

[OzDozer]

This article in the first link below .. provides the interesting, and minute fine detail (from an entirely British perspective), of all the events surrounding the development of the British tank.

There are two other American Tractors that played a part in the British tank development. One was the very interesting, and almost completely forgotten, Killen-Strait tractor .. a setup that used triple tracks, with a single steering track .. and which had a hightrack undercarriage design .. and the Bullock Creeping Grip .. which appears to have contributed more to the early British tank track design, than the Holt did.

"Lincoln No. 1" and "Little Willie", the two first tank prototypes, both used Bullock Creeping grip undercarriage. Lincoln No 1 used a lengthened Bullock track .. and Little Willie used a further extended and modified Bullock undercarriage.
The final design of the production WW1 British Tanks, used an extensively lengthened and highly modified version of the Bullock track.

Development of the British Tank - http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n22/woll01_.html

The Killen Strait Armoured Tractor - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...len-Strait.jpg

The Bullock Creeping Grip Tractor - http://www.higginscrane.com/OldSite/BullockTractor.html

The Bullock Undercarriage shipment - 1915 - http://military-machine.blogspot.com...tank-1916.html

One of the more intriguing (and relatively unknown) stories, is the development of the French Renault Tank .. apparently instigated by Louis Renault himself. There appears to be little information on where Renault got his undercarriage design ideas from.

Even more interesting, is that the Americans in WW1 were more greatly impressed by the speedy French Renault tank, than the slower, bigger and more cumbersome British Tank. As a result, the Americans greatly favoured the Renault Tank, and based much of the American Tank design of the 1920-1930's period, on the Renault ideas.
I understand that Gen. Patton is reputed to have been the one who almost single-handledly, set down many of the principles of American tank design, and the American Armoured Corp, in the period between WW1 and WW2.

The Renault Tank .. http://www.geocities.com/witekjl/renaulteng.html

[Deas Plant.]

Hi, OzDozer.
From the book, "Great Tractors", by Michael Williams, it appears that Renault developed their WW1 tank during the course of that war for the French apology for an army. Where their track technology came from is not mentioned. They went on to produce a couple of models of crawler tractors and at least one wheeled tractor. The crawlers were around the 30 hp range while the wheel tractor was said to be around the 20 hp range. The photo that I have of the wheel tractor does not lead one to believe that it would win many beauty contests. In fact, I suspect the designers may have OD-ed on 'fugly' pills and they worked.

[tanker]

That does look like a miniture tank. Sure would be neat to find one of those!! Doubt there is any in existance though. Jason

Looks a lot like ford model T tank of which there is @ least 1 working one @ Fort Knox [armor ctr] they used to bring it out during firepower demos- mostly to contrast how far tanks have come- I last saw it in 92 & it had muddy tracks so I guess they were still doing it..