Landships II

Well, is it wooden? Why would you section a wooden model? Indeed, is it the Oberschlesien at all? Is there anyone living who knows?

Gwyn

I dont think this is a WW1 era photo this is really because of the raged edges and overall format, pictures like this seem more typical of the WW2 era, a private pic perhaps taken by a german in russia in the 1930s or later, perhaps a mock up of a BT type tank or something used for training purposes....

 

Cheers

With all due respect to contrary opinions, I don't agree it is likely to be a training aid for something known. It's the wrong size and shape for any real/common tank - which means it was useless as a trainer (the point to my mind being that any trainer has to be as cramped and awkwardly shaped as the real thing).

It's too elaborate in irrelevant areas (e.g. front idler areas) to be a sort of demonstration tank for new recruits/open days. I think it is a serious design with the open holes left for inspection by high-ups and perhaps also for access while sorting out the mechanical runs, stowage, etc., always an important part of a mockup.

The castings could have been done by clay over a wooden or wire armature - or just carved wood. And the frontal MG is obviously moveable if pivoted very close to the aperture, as for instance to minimise splash.

What I do notice is the apparent construction - double armoured side inner and outer vertical plates, each side of the tracks, just like a Churchill (imagine you had a Churchill with an auxiliary turret on the front, and a KV-2 turret on top). This is an archaic design feature as seen also on Matilda (Infantry Tank Mark 2, not the earlier one), and indeed on their progenitors the rhomboids and the Whippets. I can't tell if it has sponsons overlying the tracks to allow a wider turret ring. But the whole thing looks to me like a heavily armoured assault/infantry support vehicle like Churchill or KV-2. Perhaps specifically for trench warfare - like TOG as well. Pity we can't see the rest of the main gun barrel to judge if it was a high velocity anti-tank piece or a howitzer.

Also, has anyone else noticed/does anyone agree with me that the frontal MG turret is offset from the midline. I wonder if that slot is just a viewing hole cut in front of the driver's position, or if it is intended for a Char B style howitzer?

Who the designer, constructor and client were - and they were not necessarily of the same nationality - I do not pretend to know and won't suggest. But Sweden may be worth thinking about.

-- Edited by Lothianman on Saturday 15th of September 2012 05:25:09 PM

Lothianman wrote:

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Also, has anyone else noticed/does anyone agree with me that the frontal MG turret is offset from the midline. I wonder if that slot is just a viewing hole cut in front of the driver's position, or if it is intended for a Char B style howitzer?

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I agree, it does look off-centre. Also, I wonder if that's meant to be a flamethrower rather than a machine-gun? The rest seems so elaborately built that to use what appears to be a featureless (and apparently quite wide-bore) tube in the secondary turret strikes a false note.

I've just had a look at some pics of the Oberschlesien tank, and I'm thinking that this actually is one of them being built. True, there aren't many good pics of the Oberschlesien, but the details that can be made out can be seen in the photo in Gwyn's post.

And these are only artists' renditions, so some details are bound to be off. But, to me, it looks like the genuine article.

Thanks - yes, it's a short but fat turret gun which reinforces the 1919-1920s feel even more ...

On the need to cut holes in a wooden model - I am reminded of the frequent inability of senior management of any kind to read a plan or to visualise a complex structure from drawings. Astounding, I know, but some people just can't do it. It's one reason why architects spend so much money on models to show their clients what the building will look like. In this case, I would expect the "crew" to be manning the "vehicle" when the Kaiser, or whoever the client was, came round ... hence the holes so the All-Highest could see what they were "doing" ...

On Roger saying that the tank bears very little resenblance - I agree that it is not the same as in the drawing - but it is structurally very similar. I also note, in particular, the way in which the track emerges from under armour on the front part of the top run but set some way back from the idler itself (like Matilda or, if memory serves, TOG but not Churchill - NB those are only comparisons, no suggestion it is any of those). That is a most unusual design feature.

Ignoring matters of detail, the only really serious differences from the side profile drawing shown above seem to me to be

1. The mockup (etc) has the lower front side armour cut away.
2. The mockup does not seem to have the side superstructure over the tracks fitted - but that could have been still to be added.
3. Ditto driver's little cupola - but ditto.

Looks to me like a variant of the Oberschliesen but not the one in the generally knonw plans?

Roger Todd wrote:

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Until then we may as well all argue over the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

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 What sort of dance?

Oooooh dear! I didn't mean to start arguments of any kind. But thanks all for the very intelligent discussion.

Gwyn

Citizens,

I've been observing this discussion from afar, and trying to decide it it is the Oberschlesien.

(BTW, if you search Oberschlesien on the Forum, some v interesting stuff that I'd completely forgotten about comes up.)

There are some very detailed technical descriptions of this vehicle knocking about, and I've never known where they originated. All I can offer (and sorry if it's not new) is this drawing from British & German Tanks of World War 1 by Ellis and Chamberlain. It doesn't scan very well, and I've tried cleaning it up, but I could spend many hours doing that. The point is, I've posted it to see if it throws any light. Exasperatingly, to the right of the side view is part of what seems to be a front view which would probably be far more helpful. Has anyone ever seen the rest of this drawing?

This is it, I was too lazy to type it all out before:

Sturmpanzerwagen A7V: Vom Urpanzer zum Leopard 2

Just another guess: could this be a mockup of a Polish tank? I have read about an unfinished Polish multi-turret tank project called 25TP or something, of which various different designs existed.

-- Edited by kkfj1 on Friday 29th of March 2013 03:06:21 AM

Helen, coaxial is indeed the right word, but I don't see one next to the main barrel. The earliest coaxial fitment was probably in the Vickers Medium of the '20s, but I'm not quite sure that the MG was fixed in the mantlet: it may have been free to pivot vertically, independently from the 2pr barrel.

I think someone has written that at least one Oberschlesien was built/started, but if this was it, then where is the curved frontal armour, and what has happened to the twin cupolae for driver and, perhaps, commander at the front? The manlet also does not have a WW1 appearance, so interwar seems most likely.

It might be an experimental design indeed, perhaps one of the multi-turreted ones as seen here:

http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/72234-the-multi-turreted-tanks/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20/25TP

http://ww2drawings.jexiste.fr/Files/1-Vehicles/Allies/5-Others/01-Poland/04-HeavyTanks/25TP.htm

It might as well not be a real tank at all but something built for a fairground. Sounds absurd? Well it could explain the "windows" cut into the plates and the odd look of the gun barrel, and then the following did / do exist as well:

http://www.gizmology.net/tanks.htm

http://lesemaschine.de/index.html?nr=20100716200518

http://www.mdr.de/blog/frankreich/panzer-im-parc-de-la-villette

http://www.flickr.com/photos/michimaya/6370752223/

http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/HU016505/boys-in-model-tank-on-merrygoround-1944

http://www.paintingsoncanvas.net/print-108214-7117771/czechoslovakian-children-playing-tanks-planes-merry-go-round-premium-photographic-print/

http://www.panzerbasics.com/index_files/90-john/john-01.htm

Regards, Pat

No, but Wikipedia (help me - am I really relying on Wikipedia) says that a wooden mock-up was built of the PZInz version.

Gwyn

I wondered about the Japanese OI as well, but the illustrations I've seen online do show a reasonable difference, so it's hard to say.

No, it's not the FCM F4, I've got drawings (Steel masters No 15) and it's not that. I still think it's a variant AMX Tracteur C design.

I would say, Roger, that the mock-up looks more like the FCM F4 you have posted than the Tracteur C designs on the Chars Francais site, which are two-turret designs. Nonetheless, as you say, the F4 looks different.

Fair enough. I still think it would be a fair deviation from the Tracteur C designs, though. It occurs to me that there appears to be a long vertical slot at the right side of the glacis plate, as though for a Char B1-style hull gun that had not been fitted. That however would raise the question, "where does the driver sit?", so it may be a red herring.

The position of the barrel at the front left of the hull would suggest that the driver ought to sit behind the slot, but if so why have such a strangely-shaped cut-out on the mock-up if it is presumably there to show inside the design?

More to the point, the norm for post-war French tanks was left-hand drive, so it would be strange to put the driver on the right - unless, that is, the photograph was printed from a back-to-front negative and we are seeing it the wrong way around?

Incidentally, in Chars de France (Jeudy) the Char de Forteresse project of 1939, from which the FCM F1 and AMX Tracteur C designs originated, is discussed. Jeudy notes that six designs were ordered, two each from FCM and AMX (which in general we vaguely know about) but also two from Rueil. I've never heard of Rueil, but it appears there was (or is, and even then I don't know if it existed before 1939) a Renault plant in the area of Paris know as Rueil, so I wonder if Jeudy used Rueil as an alternative for Renault?

-- Edited by Roger Todd on Friday 28th of March 2014 10:38:52 PM