MILITARY ARMOURED CARS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1614, 23 September 1916, Page 4

MILITARY ARMOURED CARS.

“CATERPILLAR” TRACTORS

VERY POWERFUL MACHINES

According to Mr W. A. Ilyslop, managing director of the Tourist Motor Company, Ltd., of Hastings, who is at present in Christchurch and who possesses a fund of unique information concerning the military use of automobiles, the armoured

cars now in use in France possess many' excellencies, hut speed is nol one of them.

Mr Hvs lop this week expressed the opinion that the armoured ears to which- the cable messages refer are of a type known as “caterpillar" tractors, made by an American company. This linn has for some time been declining orders for farm tractors, op the score of having to fulfill large contracts for the British War Office, and when Mr McLean, engineer to the Tourist Motor Company, recently made a visit of inspection to all the large automobile manufacturing plants in America he wits told at the linn’s works that SO tractors a month were being despatched to Europe to the order of the Allies. British illustrated periodicals of recent date gave photographs of these tractors in use at Salonika and elsewhere, and the cabled description of the motors used seemed to leave little doubt that-they were of identical pattern. In these circumstances the description of these strange vehicles which Mr Hysldp was aide to give is ot topical interest. METHOD OF PROGRESSION.

The bask- principle of the ‘‘caterpillar” tractor" is that it negotiates difficult country hy. laying- its own line of rails and running- over them. The ■ driving gear consists of a couple of endless hands ol jointed steel plates, 2ft. wide, presenting a .surface to the ground about Oil. long. This endless hand runs over a couple of large toothed wheels, the rear one being the driver, while the weight of the tractor is taken on each side by a series of lour-llanged wheels, bearing upon rails on the inner surfaces of the endless band. In effect, therefore, the machine runs on a pair of four-wheeled bogeys, travelling on the set of rails carried on the inner side of the jointed plates, which grip the ground. The “caterpillar” running gear is well to the rear of the chassis, and in front is a single pilot wheel. 'Phis is not used for steering, and need not necessarily he in contact with the ground at all. It is merely there to prevent the nose of the car dipping down too far when descending a sleep grade. CLIMB ALMOST ANY GRADE.

The engine is an exceptionally largo four-cylinder one of Tin. bore and Din. stroke. For farming purposes it can be run on distillate, but in military service it is fed on the best of petrol. It develops 75 horse-power American ra ting—and consumes a gallon of petrol an hour! It is [torched in the frontpart of the chassis, as jjx the ordinary touring car of commerce, and Is set very high, with an enormous radiator. There are two speeds forward and one reverse. The lop gear gives a speed of six miles an hour, and the second and reverse 'are each good for about two and sx-half miles an hour. The car will climb almost any grade short of perpendicular, will pull through loose sand, clamber over trenches, amble serenely through barbed wire entanglements, and break its way through fences. There is one of these tractors in use in Hastings to-day, which has hauled (50 lons of xoad metal in one train. DIGGING AND FI LIANG THEN- • - CHES. In addition to its enormous tractive powers and its adaptability to any sort of country, the “caterpillar” has distinct military uses in the matter of digging trenches. It will dig a trench “in ils stride,' find, .with equal facility, without another set of tools attached, it will lill up a trench it I ready dug. Regarding the method of armouring the cars, of course, nothing can be syid. The tractor weighs tons without armour, and ;i dozen ton* or so ol armour would only improve its tractive capacity. The plnMorm on (lie chassis is a huge and roomy owe, and should provide accommodation for one or two fair-sized machine guns, with adequate squads oi men to serve them.

Mr Hyslop staled that one oil these tractors hud just liecn delivered in New Zealand io the order id ibis firm, and he, personally, considered that it woiild he considerably more useful at the front, now that the day for using this class of tractor had definitely arrived in France. The cost of the machine was £2,000, and if three other donors would provide £SOO each, his firm would be prepared to allow (he tractor to he sent to France as New Zealand’s gift.