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At the beginning of every month we will post the 5 best suggestions and give you the chance to vote for your favourite. New Vanguard. Armored Car No. Rather than shorten the chassis to in as was done with AMC No. The turret on the AMC No. Construction of this vehicle did not begin until May due to the various changes. The armored car based on the Reo Model F was deployed with the Machine Gun Company of the 33rd Michigan Infantry, possibly during their tour of duty on the Mexican border.
The armored motor cars built for the 1st Armored Motor Battery of the New York National Guard were constructed on different truck chassis. This displays the special searchlight that folded up from within the engine compartment. The AMC No. In most cases, commercial firms donated their armor cars to local National Guard units after the European market disappeared in — The New York National Guard NYNG deployed the largest single armored-car contingent, based on a mixture of local design initiatives and donated armored cars.
In , Captain Henry G. Allen planned to build armored trucks for the export market. He claimed to have a contract for 12 of these armored trucks, but apparently only a single example was built. As a result, this particular The Revolving Turret Armored Motor Car was another speculative venture built in for the export market. This unit had a peacetime complement of seven officers and 78 enlisted men.
The plan was to construct 40 armored cars and 60 motorcycles with machine-gun armed side-cars. The total number of armored cars actually constructed for the unit is not definitely recorded and various histories place the number at 7 to It is possible that the unit acquired additional commercial armored cars at a later date, but the records are scanty. Montgomery tried to interest the Regular Army in the armored-car battery for service in the Punitive Expedition, but transfer to federal service floundered when the National Guard troops refused to cooperate.
A number of other states received armored cars from local automobile companies that had been involved in the speculative construction effort in The Reo F served with the 3rd Motor Troop while the other troops used six Studebaker cars that had been fitted with machine guns and armored shields. Other state National Guards probably had armored cars as well, but comprehensive records are lacking. Besides the Regular Army units mobilized for the Mexican Punitive Expedition, Wilson also mobilized the National Guard on June 16, , adding about , troops to the operation.
These forces were used to patrol the Mexican—American border and to defend Texan towns from 13 This armored car built on the Reo Model F chassis in was intended for export. It had a prominent wire cutter on the front and was armed with the. The National Guard troops began to arrive in Texas in July Their armored cars were mainly used on patrols on the Texas side of the border, and there is no evidence that any of the National Guard armored cars fired their guns in anger. By late summer, it was becoming clear that so many National Guard troops were not needed.
Although some units were taken into federal service, many were relieved of duty and returned to their home states. Their armored motor cars became a popular fixture at War Bond drives in New York City in —18 and so are probably the most famous American armored cars of this era. The Marines had staged an amphibious landing at the Mexican port of Veracruz in April during the Mexican civil war.
The Veracruz landing party lacked any vehicles and after this incident, there was some interest in acquiring vehicles light enough to be deployed off craft to support future amphibious operations.
The Marines turned their attention to the offerings of the Armored Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan a different firm than the New York based company mentioned above in spite of the common name. The Detroit company offered the designs of Waldo A.
Its machine-gun turret was reminiscent in shape to the British Rolls Royce armored cars. The Ross Landing Transport was a foot boat, fitted with a unique treadmill system for propulsion. The armored car would be lowered into the boat by crane with its rear wheels fitting into the treadmill system.
For the landing, the armored car carried a set of landing ramps on either side of the body that could be dismounted and used to transfer the armored car from the boat to the shore. In August , the Marine Corps put the pilot King armored car through extensive trials including a test of the Landing Transport. One of the officers involved was Capt Earl H. One of the armored cars was driven to RIA in September for further trials that raised several concerns about some of its technical features.
The army preferred the AMC No. This unit did not see combat service in World War I, but the King Eight armored cars were used in various overseas deployments after the war as detailed below. The American Expeditionary Force did not deploy any armored cars in France in — However, the Quartermaster Corps suggested that armored cars would be valuable for convoy protection and base security and built a wooden mock-up of a suitable design in The Army request for the FY17 appropriation bill anticipated the purchase of 58 armored cars but instead, most of 15 Even though the US Army did not procure any significant number of armored cars during the war, development continued by several automotive firms.
Aside from the lengthened hull, it had a modified turret compared to the earlier RIA designs. It is seen here in Washington, DC. One of the most curious wheeled armored vehicles to emerge in was a Holt Tractor vehicle based around a three-wheel steam traction engine.
Unlike agricultural tractors, the two main wheels were in the front of the vehicle and the small steering wheel was located at the rear. The two eightfoot sieve-grip tractor wheels were manufactured by the Hart Parr Company and were powered by two Doble steam engines using a drive train developed by the General Engineering Company of Detroit. The principal armament was a 75mm M pack howitzer, based on the Vickers 2. There were machinegun barbettes on either side of the hull. This armament arrangement was apparently reconfigured at a later date, as a postwar Ordnance report describes the Monitor being armed with two 6-pdr guns and two machine guns.
Although impressive in size, the design was mechanically feeble. During its first and only test at Aberdeen Proving Ground APG in , the front wheel bogged down after the vehicle had moved barely 50 feet. This variety of olive drab was lighter than the more familiar olive drab adopted in —20 and used through World War II. Photographs of this vehicle show no evidence of any markings.
There was familiarization training beforehand between Italian and American troops at the Italian machine-gun school near Barbarano, Italy, as seen here in early September This is a rear view of the vehicle and shows its large tractor wheels. The 75mm M pack howitzer, seen here in the left foreground, was its principal armament along with machine-gun barbettes on either side. This was the largest and heaviest wheeled combat vehicle built in the United States until the s.
When the United States entered the Great War in , it had only a handful of armored cars along the Texas border, a scattered assortment of types with various state National Guard units, and a few more in testing establishments. In , the Allied Commission discouraged the American Expeditionary Force from acquiring armored cars since the British and French armies had found them useless for trench warfare.
Early armored cars had inherent mobility problems since they were usually built on commercial automobile or truck chassis. They had poor off-road mobility as a result of the high ground pressure of their narrow tires, worsened by the several tons of armor added to the chassis. High ground pressure meant that armored cars became quickly bogged down in soft soil such as mud, and so were road-bound for much of the war in Europe in — Besides the problems with the narrow tires, the spring suspensions on trucks of this period were inadequate when trying to cross shell-torn terrain.
The French and British views were reflected in US Army plans, which reduced the plans for armored-car production from previous years. It has no place at all in the present situation on the Western Front, and consequently we are merely making the models and being ready to build them if they want them. A mock-up was constructed in France using wood rather than steel for the body. The Westervelt Board of examined future Army equipment needs and completely ignored the need for armored cars.
Since there was no American experience with armored cars during the war, the board turned to the experience of Allied armies. British use of armored cars in Palestine and Syria was noted, and the board visited the French 5e Division de Cavalerie at Vincennes.
The French divisional commander enthusiastically predicted that armored cars would be the future of the cavalry. However, the report also noted the British argument that favored the use of a light cavalry tank instead of armored cars as it gave better cross-country performance. Maj George S. Movement, not fire, is its primary weapon. The armored cars were in poor mechanical condition and the engines quickly overheated in the tropical conditions, forcing the crews to operate them without their armored engine covers.
With no spare parts available in the Caribbean, the armored cars became decrepit; the squadron was disbanded on May 4, Five armored cars remained on Haiti at least until before returning to the Marine barracks in the Philadelphia navy yard. This montage shows the Ross patent drawing for his Landing Transport above, and a photo of the trial of the pilot of the King armored car on the Landing Transport on Chesapeake Bay in September Art Loder 20 remained poor.
The King armored cars were so unsatisfactory that instead a platoon of Six Ton Tanks was borrowed from the Army for the China mission. The King armored cars were finally authorized for disposal in Marine detachments overseas continued to request armored car support, for example requesting the dispatch of three armored cars to the Philippines in However, the Marine Corps budget did not permit such luxuries and no replacements for the King armored cars were forthcoming.
A similar problem afflicted US Army units deployed overseas. The 15th Infantry Regiment, protecting the concession at Tientsin Tianjin China, was unable to obtain armored cars to help patrol the city. Two of these were constructed at a local Chinese iron works. Although they could be armed with four machine guns and rifles, as often as not they were used to rescue missionaries and other civilians trapped by irate Chinese citizens throwing stones.
Local American consular officials warned the garrison not to overreact to the Chinese actions, and the armored cars provided a method to carry out their missions without resorting to gunfire. They were painted with a disruptive pattern of rectangles to hide the actual location of their view slits and firing ports.
On his return, he instructed the US Army to conduct a similar exercise, and this began in the summer of at Camp Meade, Maryland. This revived interest in armored cars for the cavalry, primarily to conduct reconnaissance. The intention was to create an armored-car squadron for each cavalry division for a total of Each squadron consisted of a headquarters, HQ troop and three line troops each with 12 armored cars for a total of 36 per squadron.
However, because of a lack of funding and lack of armored cars, only two squadrons were activated and these had only a single active troop. It disappeared in —33 after its equipment was absorbed into the new 7th Cavalry Brigade Mechanized.
The 3rd Armored Car Squadron was organized as a Regular Army Inactive formation with only a skeleton structure and no equipment. In , the cavalry proposed activating seven more armored-car The T1 light armored car was a simple modification of a Pontiac automobile with the added protection of an armored windshield and armored cover over the radiator.
The original configuration was fitted with two. It was redesignated as the T1 Scout Car. The original LaSalle T2 medium armored car was an unsophisticated design with a simple structure. The armored roof folded into the insides of the fighting compartment. It was armed with a pintlemounted weapon in the fighting compartment, in this case, an air-cooled.
This is the second pilot and it is seen here after its deployment with Troop A, 1st Armored Car Squadron. The two active armored-car troops in the late s were usually understrength and consisted of three platoons with a total of eight armored cars; personnel strength was two officers and 50 men each. In , the Rock Island Arsenal began development of both a light and a medium armored car.
The T1 was not an armored car in the contemporary sense, since its protection was limited to an armored plate over the radiator and an armored shield in place of the usual windshield. It was armed with two. The Army designation practice emerging at this time was to identify a test vehicle starting with a T Test prefix.
Variations of the basic design could be further identified by an E Experimental suffix such as T1E1. Finally, when the vehicle was standardized for army use, it was given an M prefix such as M1. The system was confusing since many weapons would receive the same T1 or M1 designation.
For proper understanding, the designation had to be employed along with the class of weapon such as M1 medium armored car or M1 rifle. This was a fully armored vehicle weighing 4, pounds.
There were folding panels to cover the roof, but in practice these were left open to permit the use of the vehicle armament. The vehicle weapon was mounted on a pedestal in the rear fighting compartment. Of the four original vehicles, two were armed with. In August , the crews of the Provisional Platoon picked up two T1 light armored cars and four T2 medium armored cars in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and drove them to Fort Leonard Wood to take part in the maneuvers by the newly formed Experimental Mechanized Force.
In the wake of the initial Experimental Mechanized Force maneuvers, the T2 medium armored car went through evolutionary development. The T2E1 of introduced an open-top turret and the T2E3 was a redesign to lower the overall height of the vehicle.
The cross-country performance of the T1 light armored car was inadequate because of high ground pressure and, as a result, RIA built a modified version in with thicker armor plate and larger tires, originally called the T3 light armored car. The T2E2 variant aimed at reducing the height of the series by lowering the rear roof as seen in this overhead view.
C needed: a light armored scout car for uncontested shallow reconnaissance and liaison missions, and a better-protected armored car for contested deep reconnaissance missions. As a result of this change in doctrine, the T3 was redesignated as the T1 scout car. In practice, the armored cars were assigned to the armored-car squadrons of the cavalry divisions while the scout cars were assigned to the cavalry regiments.
Organizational responsibility for armored-car development was ambiguous. Ordnance was the recognized authority for tracked combat vehicles.
It had been involved in the earliest armored-car designs from , but had shown little interest in the concept since On November 28, , the Quartermaster Corps released Specification which depicted olive drab as one of 24 standard colors for US Army use. Some accounts indicate that the Quartermaster Corps derived it from the commercial Panama Pullman Green railroad color. The Spec. Through the inter-war years, US Army armored vehicles officially were finished in the same lusterless flat olive drab.
However, in practice, they were usually finished in a gloss version of this paint. Unit markings at the time were prescribed in Army Regulation AR This consisted of the cavalry crossed sabers as the branch insignia, the squadron number above and the troop number below.
Cavalry units often used chrome yellow for these colors rather than the more common white, presumably because this was the branch color. In the case of this vehicle, the number was repeated on the upper right corner of the rear superstructure. They had two. The T6 was a reconstruction of one of the T7 medium armored cars with a reconfigured hull and new turret shape.
It served with the 1st Cavalry Mecz at Fort Knox. The controversy over control of armored cars raged for about five years. Rather than acquire completed vehicles from industry, DeWitt favored the acquisition of major sub-assemblies such as engines, transmissions and frames from the automobile industry and assembling complete vehicles at the Holabird QMC Depot. The QMC planned to develop a family of standardized armored cars based on components being acquired for the QMC military trucks. The T7 medium armored car, often called the Franklin Armored Car, was built in on a 4x4 chassis using a Franklin 95hp engine.
It was armed with a watercooled. On at least one occasion, the T7 was fitted with two additional Lewis machine guns on pivoting mounts on the hull side.
The T7 was one of the few Holabird designs manufactured in any quantity, with six completed. A single T7 armored car was rebuilt in with a substantially modified hull; confusingly it was designated as the T6 armored car even though it followed the T7 design.
Holabird also built a trio of small, sleek armored cars very similar in design except for their automotive chassis. Two T8 armored cars were built in , powered by a 46hp Chevrolet engine. They were armed with a single. The T9 armored car was built in and was essentially the same as the T8 except for its use of a Plymouth automobile chassis. The T10 was the third of these small Holabird armored cars, with three built on Willys-Overland chassis with modest 19hp engines.
This unit took part in the next phase of exercises by the Experimental Mechanized Force at Fort Eustis, Virginia, in the summer of McCarl, concluded that the QMC policy excluded competition in government contracting, a violation of existing practices.
One of the two Chevrolet T8 light armored cars built at the Holabird Depot. The T8, T9, and T10 armored cars were all very similar except for the chassis and engine. An interesting overhead view of the T10 light armored car built on a Willys-Overland Whippet chassis. This provides a good impression of the layout of the vehicle as well as showing the large floatation extensions on the wheels that were tested with this armored car in the hopes of improving crosscountry travel in soft ground conditions.
The Experimental Mechanized Force maneuvers made it clear that medium armored cars needed lower ground pressure and a better suspension to operate effectively off-road.
James Cunningham and Sons hired a former Pierce Arrow engineer, David Fergusson, who developed a four-wheel articulating bogie system for the rear wheels. This system served as the basis for the T4 medium armored car, also designed by Fergusson. The T4 armored car was fitted with a fully enclosed turret, developed in conjunction with Rock Island Arsenal. The turret was armed with a T5 combination gun mount consisting of a. At the time, the.
For antiaircraft defense, the turret had two bracket mounts on the roof for use with a. The construction of this turret was unusual. To permit ventilation, it was fitted with a mushroom cover that provided air circulation under the periphery while at the same time preventing hostile fire from entering the turret. A total of 12 of these were funded in Fiscal Year and eight in FY33 for a total of Most of these were assembled at RIA in The plan was to equip each of the two armored-car squadrons with 36 armored cars, but manufacture during this period was far too modest to accomplish this, largely due to the crippling financial effects of the Great Depression.
This is amplified by the unit identification on the bumper in white. The traditional combat arms such as the Infantry and Cavalry opposed this plan, seeing this as the first step in the creation of a rival combat branch. Instead, in May , he authorized both the infantry and cavalry branches to begin to mechanize rather than to create a separate mechanized force. Instead, it created a new rival to the armored car. The combat car program is described in more detail in the first volume of this series on tanks.
The army budget saw little growth during this period, because of the lingering effects of the Great Depression. This was replaced by spare tires on the T11E1 production version.
There was also a 6in ball-mount in the hull front for another. The pilots were used for operational trials with the 1st Armored Car Squadron during the Fort Riley maneuvers in the summer of where they performed well.
Although the Cavalry generally preferred the overall design of the T11 over the existing M1 armored car, several technical problems were uncovered during testing at APG including a weak rear suspension and faulty engine cooling.
After these problems were rectified, Ordnance put out a request for bids for the manufacture of six improved T11E1 armored cars. The original T11 had a set of caster wheels on the hull side between the main wheels to prevent bottoming out, while the new T11E1 had spare tires instead. The formation of this firm was one of the consequences of the feud between the QMC and Ordnance. Herrington had been an engineer serving with the Quartermaster Corps at the Holabird depot, designing their standardized trucks, and left the service when the QMC was pressured to abandon the design of their own trucks in favor of acquiring available commercial trucks.
When the Army put the T11E1 contract out for bid, Marmon-Herrington put in a bid that was several thousand dollars lower than the Front-Wheel Drive bid. It later became apparent that the Marmon-Herrington bid was in fact below cost, and intended to give the company an initial toe-hold in army procurement. FWD refused to work with the army for many years afterward because they felt the choice had been made due to cronyism among present and former army employees.
A final vehicle was built in the T11E2 configuration in This used a new turret patterned on the type used on combat cars. Although the new powerplant improved torque and low-speed acceleration, the vehicle suffered from poor engine cooling and only a single pilot was completed. Ordnance drew up a plan for a half-track armored car called the T12, but this did not progress to assembly. The Marmon-Herrington T11E1 medium armored car can be distinguished by the spare tires carried on the center of the sides.
The usual turret armored cover has been removed to give the turret crew some relief from the hot Texas sun. The Chief of Cavalry recommended abandoning the plan to organize and equip seven armored-car troops. The lighter scout cars, described below, had proven to be more than adequate for the reconnaissance needs of the cavalry regiments. The new combat cars had been found to be much more effective for the long-range reconnaissance needs of the cavalry divisions, the traditional role for the armored cars.
Another important consideration was cost. As a result, the Chief of Cavalry recommended that the scout car become the standard cavalry wheeled armored vehicle and be substituted for armored cars and half-track cars.
On January 14, , Ordnance canceled all requirements for further armored cars in favor of scout cars. The armored-car designation was eliminated from the Book of Standards; development of armored cars did not resume until He had collaborated with the well-known automotive designers Harry A. Miller and Wesley Casson to develop this armored car. The prototype was manufactured by the American Armament Company at its Rahway, New Jersey, factory, best known for its aircraft gun turrets.
This resembled an aircraft machine-gun turret rather than a conventional armored car turret. Besides the turret armament, there was a. The hull was constructed from conventional steel armor ranging from 7 to 14mm thick. It was powered by a hp Packard engine, which Tucker claimed would offer a top speed of mph. The APG tests reached 74mph but the army report admitted that they had not fully opened the throttle. The report indicated that the speed, power, and riding qualities were superior but that the 4x2 configuration with only one set of powered wheels was unsatisfactory, especially when operating in sand.
After being rebuffed by the US Army, Tucker began a major promotional campaign in the automotive press portraying the Tucker Tiger Tank as a futuristic design that would rule the battlefield. He tried to drum up political support for his design with various American politicians without notable success, and also attempted to interest the Dutch Army.
In the event, only a single prototype was built. Mack Truck in the early s demonstrated a set of temporary tracks that could be placed around the double rear wheels of larger trucks when ground conditions were poor, such as snow or mud.
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