Landships II

The drawing is scanned from Tank (1970) by Kenneth Macksey and John Batchelor. The text says it was supposed to have been steam-powered. The model is the one at Bovington, scanned from a photo I took in 1990. I have no information about dimensions, armament etc. I think to call it a 'project' is pushing it - more like a fanciful and idle doodle by the Kaiser, much like the fanciful sketches he also drew of 'ideal warships'.

Looks like a steam-punk version of a tram.

Ah, thanks James. Several hits for Kriegsstellung and Zerstörer but not put together in that splendid construction, so no help to this particular inquiry.

Andy Dingley? - "Special Effects: Dr. Psycho's Chamber of Sadism 1: Sado-Nurses in Heat." I'm warming (as it were) to the man already and had never heard of him before. Danke schön.

Ah, an infinity of Andy Dingleys perhaps, and I looked at the wrong one - a tyro's error.

Infinity makes my brain hurt - it must be essentially indivisible (half of infinity is still infinity else the fraction has number - so then would the whole - which defies the definition). The ramifications are boundless but include an infinite number of the complete works of Shakespeare, produced every instant, by those d*mned monkeys, similarly an infinite number of copies misplacing but a single punctuation mark at a specific location, plus infinite numbers of every other possible permutation of the 5,721,664 characters, spaces and marks of the Concordance edition and, as a bonus, all repeated for every other edition. And infinite numbers of "near misses" omitting just one or a few characters. Not to mention all of Barbara Cartland's novels (sans pink covers). And every other writer, past, present or future, published or unpublished. And utter gobbledegook, also in infinite quantity, each and every instant.

Somewhere in that lot is everything Marienwagen wants to know about the "Kaiser Steam Mobile fortress". But lacking all those monkeys ... perhaps one of the Andy Dingleys. Or the internet, somewhere. But I can't find it. Now I need a Bex, a nice cuppa and a good lie down.

Glad I could help! Unfortunately, I only photographed a few of the models, mainly of subjects which, at the time, I hadn't seen anywhere else (or if I had, not very clearly). There were many models which charted the pre-history of AFVs as well, so they took you from ancient carriages through mediaeval siege-towers, Da Vinci's design, Indian war elephants(!), various paper schemes, nineteenth century tractors and on to early twentieth century vehicles, such as the Simms War Car, and unbuilt machines such as the Flying Elephant (it's what sparked my interest in that machine). I've attached all the models I photographed; you can see in some of them other models which I failed to photograph. All were built by a Mr J P Pickering Esq. I've not been to Bovington for some years so I don't know if the models are still on display. If they are no longer on display I would consider that a great shame.

Hi Roger,

Many Thanks for the pictures ! It is a pity that these models are no more displayed today (perhaps that these will be displayed again as they have renewed the museum).

Do you know what is the white armoured wagon below the Foster tractor ?

I have the book "Tank" from Mister Batchelor (a good refence about the history of the tank), note that a book covered "prehistorical" designs of tanks doesn't exist unfortunately ; I will be very happy to see something on that subject !

All the Best,

Marienwagen

 

As it happens, and if all goes well, I shall be at Bov next week and shall enquire about the models.