![]() Reduced to the same ratio as the “wheeled battleship” (for example the Virginia class), this would have been at best 1.2 to 1.8 kph. Let’s remember that the heaviest German Tank of WW2, the self-propelled gun Jagdtiger own ratio was 9.8 hp per ton and yet its V-12 Maybach HL 230 P30 making 700 PS allowed it to reach a top speed 34 km/h (21 mph), meaning around 10 kph cross-country. This was a power-to-weight ratio of just one horsepower per ton. A standard pre-dreadnought displacement was about 16,000 tons, and the VTE steam engines were fed by 12 Babcock and Wilcox boilers for a total of 16,500 hp. ![]() These were mock-up armored vehicles with little military value.Īs for putting pre-dreadnoughts on wheels, and see them run in the no-man’s land it’s downwards absolute fantasy. Both homegrown vehicles served from 1917 as bond risers, and were seen on the Fourth of July celebration in San Francisco in 1917, training later with 5th Infantry, California guard Regiment. The French FCM were for example built in a naval yard.Īmerican landship: The CBL 75, with its remarkably “boat-like” hull and specific turret. Both allies were looking forward naval fleets and classifications to find an equivalent on land, from the “cruiser tanks” to the massive breakthrough tanks assimilated to battleships. In the UK, Winston Churchill was first lord of the admiralty, but after he was demoted after the disaster at Gallipoli and served for some time on the western front, came back through the “land battleship committee” with tank projects that were essentially driven by the navy, including by the use of barbettes (Mark I and successors) and light naval guns. The relations between the navy and first tanks is going a long way and particularly strong during WW1. After all, the only significant fiction about the matter has been HG Wells famous “land ironclads” that our friends at Tanks Encyclopedia already treated in HG Wells Fictional Tank and the famous German ww2 “Land Kreuzer” designed by an U-Boat officer. We must remember that the idea was not that outlandish back in 1917. As USA entered the war and lacked everything including tanks, PopSci published an article about the idea of… putting old pre-dreadnoughts on tracks (or wheels in this case).
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