Landships II

Flettner's field was aerodynamics and fluid mechanics, and he did design a rotor-driven sailing ship and believed that cylindrical rotors were superior to aerofoil rotors for helicopters. Something to do with the Magnus Effect, the principle that causes a cricket ball to swing. He actually built a helicopter for the Germans during WWII, as early as 1941.

Anyway, he's mentioned in a book on fluid dynamics as having demonstrated some sort of Tank, but details are vague.

"Flettner became known in his country and abroad in the summer of 1915, when a curious, clumsy vehicle made its appearance in Berlin; a tank which could move in any direction without a crew. The whole programme of the tank's manoeuvres was being directed from an unknown spot in the distance. The era of remote control had begun."

How this was achieved is not described. I can't imagine it was radio-controlled in those days. His company (which invented those fans you see on the top of vans) was involved with fly-by-wire technology, but I can't see that in 1915, either.

It's also claimed that during WWI he "also made several improvements to military tanks", but, again, no details.

The company is still in existence; they might have an archive or something.

-- Edited by James H at 17:05, 2008-05-16

I checked the patent base : nothing on AFV or R/C

JCC

We are veering off topic but here is some info from la Nature, roughly translated in real time :
"In 1898 attempts were made at Stockholm and at Portsmouth to use Hertzian waves to control self-propelled torpedoes (torpilles automobiles) but without results.
Those trials were re-attempted by a young company created to exploit the works of a young french engineer, Mr Lalande, helped by the electrician ingeneer Mr Devaux..... trials made in Antibes [in 1906?] , have , we have been told proved the theories[of the inventors]...one of the problems tackled by the inventors was to protect their device from interference by waves emitted by an enemy ship. It has been seen that the [radio] messages exchanged between the various ships of the Mediteranean Fleet [Escadre de la Méditerranée] moored in Juan gulf, 3 kilometers away and the Dreadnough St-Louis which was watching over the experiments, did not trouble the working of the equipments of the submarine torpedo-ship."

This seems to show R/C worked with positive results in a naval context in 1906. So it could well be possible to imagine the same thing being attempted on ground vehicles in 1915 ?

JCC

JC and Roger; once again, I have underestimated you both. I do apologise.

I've seen a pic of Mr. Tesla's remote-control device. There are conflicting accounts as to whether it worked and it would look at home in a sci-fi B-movie, but he was undoubtedly an original thinker.

I shall keep digging.

I am returning to the main subject. I found my source. THis comes from "les Rayons de la Mort" a German book by M Seydewitz and K. Doberer (but I only have the French version).
"the German war ministry had this weapon [R/C Tank] during the last war [WW1, this book is undated , probably 1938] but did not estimate it efficient enough for combat use. In 1913 Anton Flettner , the well-known enginneer who later did the turbine boat, patented a first R/C tank in cooperation with the Felten-Guillaume_Lahnmeyer factory at Frankfurt am Main. Two years later, in 1915, in the middle of a world war, the Berlin streets saw a strange vehicle : that was the Flettner tank. It ran by itself, control being from a car which followed it. During tests , the tank crossed over obstacles, cut through wire. A demo was done in front of military officials. They refused the machine"

JCC

Apparemently Felten-Guilleaume-Lahmeyer was an important electrical company based at Francfort am Main. AEG took control of it in 1910. However I could not find any radio-control related patent from them. They were more cable people. So may the Flettner tank was remote(wire) controlled and not radio controlled. Naturally this theory would conflict with the context of the Seydemitz/Doberer book which was mostly about "rays".

JCC

As you no doubt noticed I'd already suggested that it might be wire guided.
Luftwaffe does not necessarily invalidate this reference. I've seen copies of WW1 German posters referring to displays by 'der luftwaffe' (note no capitals) as a sort of generic for military air craft (after all it literaly means air force). Moreover the reference is to the "Luftwaffe department" presumably some technical department in a German ministry or other establishment that handle things to do with military aviation ( perhaps both army and navy). The mistake (easily made) would be to have used a capital letter

There is some suggestion in both the German book and the Fluid Mechanics book that the 1915 experiment was a kind of publicity stunt which made Flettner known from the public (and maybe this contributed to the rejection of the idea by the military). the point is : maybe looking through Berlin newspapers archives would yeld some results ? However my knowledge of the german language is insufficient to do that (I don't even know if some german newspapers have made the archives accessible on line)...That's just a track someone with more skill than myself could follow

JCC

To continue (sorry about cutting the thoughts in many messages , that's the way they comes to my mind) . I think that whatever the purpose of the vehicle we are being told of a man-sized vehicle. A "Goliath" sized machine would probably not be very impressive for a demo in the streets of Berlin, too toyish. So wether it is a gun-tank or a demolition device (trench destroyer) it is my impression this must have been at least FT-size.

JCC