Quote:
Originally posted by Bob C.
All farm tractors have split brakeing for the rear wheels which can make you spin in your own lentgh just like a tank which counter rotates the tracks .... real scary on my narrow front end 1950 Allis Chalmers.....
Seems to me I read somewhere that the Germans are recycled some left over Dunkirk UC tracks system on German trucks or even civvy model Chevs with some plywood cabs added for inclement weather..... or was that a Holleewood film????
Sure would like to know more how that odd ball was built.......
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To alleviate any possibility of an exciting moment in these half-tracks, the vehicle brakes are still the normal hydraulic all-wheel system with a single foot pedal and thus a bit more powerful than the mechanical operation which just helps the steering.
Counter-rotating tracks were and are done to this day with a Merritt-Brown controlled differential system, a truly fascinating device and worthy of an hours study of the outline drawing until the idea finally dawns. The key being the diff AND gearbox are driven in parallel, whereas everything else has the clutch then the gearbox and then the diff; plus the M-B box necessarily has the right brake steer the vehicle left and vice versa, the sticks being crossed into the steering brakes, reverse is fun though !
The German "Maultiers" (Mules) were simply half-track cargo trucks as opposed to the specifically built 3/4 track fighting vehicles. A potted history is well covered in the WWII Vanderveen "Bible" (P328), apparently the first being a field modification in Russia by SS Division "Das Reich" during '41/'42 using a Carden-Lloyd assembly, production versions used this in modified form (doubled road wheels) together with other indigenous designs but with Pz.I or II tracks.
It is perhaps not correct to assume all the assemblies were from vehicles captured at Dunkirk therefore; certainly, enough wheeled vehicles were taken there to be viable for re-manufacture into standard Wehrmacht types with specific bodies, the M-C PU and CS8 especially. My M-C friends here now have a growing archive of German prints showing formally converted British types and the current MVT "Windscreen" carries a fascinating article about one such example.
R.