Go Back   Kampfgruppe Forums > Military History > Rocks to Rifles

 
We are happy to announce open registration on the KG forums has begun! Welcome everyone!

Reply
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Unread 09-11-2009, 02:10 AM
KG_Jag's Avatar
KG_Jag KG_Jag is offline
Vice Kommandir
Generalfeldmarschall
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: New Braunfels, TX & Reno, NV
Posts: 3,762
Default Beginnings of Mech Warfare

From last month's edition of Shrapnel Games Frag! Newsletter:

The development of the tank is fairly well known. What tends to be lesser known is the mechanized road up to the tank.

The first mechanized vehicle for military use was developed by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1769 when he built a steam carriage to pull artillery for the French army. The idea was the French Commissioner-General of Artillery was looking to replace horse teams pulling his guns.

Unfortunately, Cugnot's carriage ended up as a better concept than a reality. Steering was difficult, it could only run for about fifteen minutes at a time (not a good quality in a machine that would be on the field of battle), and the first test run had the carriage crashing into a wall. Did I mention that steering was tough?

It was not until almost a hundred years later that the first vehicles truly entered military service. In 1857 the British army used steam traction engines to pull large artillery pieces at Wollwich Arsenal. The steam traction engines used a "footed wheel" (wood and iron slats hinged on the rims to allow good traction in mud and rough ground) which would later be seen-at least conceptually-in the development of treads for tanks.

During the Crimean War one officer had the idea of armor plating a steam traction engine and adding blades to it, so that one could drive into a mass of enemy troops and cut them into bits and pieces. Called a barbaric idea the blade tractor never materialized and the British simply continued the less barbaric practice of dismembering, disemboweling, and decapitating with a variety of rifles, cannons, and swords.

The first combat action a mechanized vehicle took part in was the Franco-Prussian War. Prussia purchased eight traction engines from John Fowler and Company in England for use as ammunition wagons during the siege of Paris. Fowler engines also saw use in South Africa, where the British created armored road "trains" by enclosing the vehicle in armor. These were created to provide some protection against the Boer habit of attacking supply columns in hit and run raids. While each "train" could carry up to 12,000 pounds of ammo and mount guns within, in actuality little was done with them. Eventually some were stripped of their armor for other uses.

Between the last decade of the 1800s and the early years of the 1900s, many nations began to look towards mechanization thanks to improvements in the internal combustion engine. In France a fleet of tractors were purchased for the express purpose of artillery towing. In England the motor scout was developed by Frederick Simms. The motor scout was a motorized quadricycle mounting a forward Vickers machine gun. At the same time in the United States Major R.P. Davidson built a tri-car with a Colt machine gun mounted on it. Both men foresaw a future in which mobile warfare would rule the day. In this they were correct, though no army ever invested in hordes of machine gun armed bikes, opting in the later decades for the more feasible tank.

The years leading up to World War One saw a continual array of armored fighting vehicles. The first time an armed motor vehicle actually was used to fight was in 1907 when the Panhard armored car was used against Moroccan tribesmen.

When war broke out on the European continent it was actually the Royal Naval Air Service that led the way with armored cars. They used armored cars to patrol their airbases, and eventually the armored car was used more and more on the front lines. Belgium armored cars had great success against the Germans in the early years due to German reliance on horses still. Like most weapons as the war progressed all sides constantly improved and upgraded their platforms, and so the armored car of 1918 was a much better vehicle than the armored cars of 1914.
__________________
“A government big enough to give you everything you need is strong enough to take everything you have.” Thomas Jefferson--the first Democrat President
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:48 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.3
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.