Renault FT-17 on a Renault FP artillery transporter by RGL - Meng/U-Models - PLASTIC/RESIN - diorama

[Egilman]

It's lineage runs to the Holt Tractors... the ideal was the holt artillery tractor, (which worked well in that capacity) would work a lot better with a light gun mounted directly to it, then the usual line of modifications chain took over, Armor, Revolving turrets, Machine gun mounts more than one gun mount, etc etc...

 

What eventually happens in these situations is they overload the load carrying capacity of the chassis itself... Or the power of the engine to actually move it...

 

That is what eventually happened to all the Holt/Catepillar line of armored vehicles, they couldn't get past ordinance testing under real life battlefield conditions... (mostly underpowered and very poor battlefield mobility) But they did learn a lot from them...

 

 

[RGL]

It ended up being a stopgap propaganda tool. Made for a movie in 1916. 

[Canute]

Like the Doughboys attacking in their campaign hats.😉

[wefalck]

It's all about finding the right configurations and writing the right specifications. Such experiments even date back to the Boer Wars in South Africa, where they began to armour traction engines, if I am not mistaken.

 

It's also about understanding the tactical possibilities and thinking beyond the then current engineering capabilities. It is clear that initially tanks were mainly conceived as infantry support vehicles, rather than a replacement of heavy cavalry (light cavalary in its reconnaisance role began to be replaced by armourd road vehicles). It wasn't until the late 1920s/early 1930s that IC engine and track engineering made fast tanks really possible. Until then tanks were seen as war-elephants, rather than chariots, hence the idea of converting crawler tractors.