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Half-track
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Half-track
A half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with wheels at the front for steering and continuous tracks at the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. A half-track combines the soft-ground traction of a tank with the handling of a wheeled vehicle.
The main advantage of a half-track over a fully-wheeled vehicle is that its tracks reduce the pressure on any given area of the ground by spreading the vehicle's weight over a larger area, giving it greater mobility over soft terrain like mud and snow. A further advantage is that it does not require either the complex steering mechanism of a fully tracked vehicle or skill in tracked steering, relying instead on a familiar steering wheel connected to its front wheels to direct the vehicle; maneuverability is augmented in some cases by track braking tied to the steering wheel.
The main disadvantage is the increased maintenance to maintain track tension, and the reduced life span of tracks (up to 10,000 km) compared to tires (up to 50,000 km).[citation needed]
The French engineer Adolphe Kégresse converted a number of cars from the personal car pool of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to half-tracks in 1911. The Kégresse track used a flexible belt rather than interlocking metal segments. It was applied to several vehicles in the imperial garage, including Rolls-Royce cars and Packard trucks. The Imperial Russian Army also fitted the system to a number of its Austin Armoured Cars. From 1916 onward, Austin-Putilov model military half-tracks were produced along the same lines at the Putilov Plant using trucks and French track parts.
After the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union, Kégresse returned to his native France, where the system was used on Citroën cars between 1921 and 1937 for off-road and military vehicles.
The concept originated with log hauling in the northeastern US, with the Lombard Steam Log Hauler built by Alvin Lombard of Waterville, Maine, from 1899 to 1917. The vehicle resembled a railway steam locomotive, with sled steering (or wheels) in front and chain-driven rear tracked rear crawlers driven by chains instead of the driving wheels of a locomotive.
By 1907, dog and pony show operator H. H. Linn abandoned his gas-and-steam-powered four- and six-wheel-drive creations and had Lombard build a motor home/traction engine run by an underslung four-cylinder Brennan gasoline engine to travel the unimproved roads of the day, with wheels at the front and tracks at the rear: the first payload-carrying half-track. By 1909 this was replaced by a smaller machine with two wheels at the front and a single track behind, since rural wooden bridges presented problems.
Stability issues, together with a dispute between Linn and Lombard, led Linn to create the Linn Manufacturing Company, builder of the Linn tractor, for building and putting onto the market his own improved civilian half-track–style machines. Lombard attempted to follow but, for the most part, remained a pulling machine. Linn would later register "Haftrak" and "Catruk" as trademarks, the latter for a half-track meant to convert hydraulically from truck to crawler configuration.
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Half-track
A half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with wheels at the front for steering and continuous tracks at the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. A half-track combines the soft-ground traction of a tank with the handling of a wheeled vehicle.
The main advantage of a half-track over a fully-wheeled vehicle is that its tracks reduce the pressure on any given area of the ground by spreading the vehicle's weight over a larger area, giving it greater mobility over soft terrain like mud and snow. A further advantage is that it does not require either the complex steering mechanism of a fully tracked vehicle or skill in tracked steering, relying instead on a familiar steering wheel connected to its front wheels to direct the vehicle; maneuverability is augmented in some cases by track braking tied to the steering wheel.
The main disadvantage is the increased maintenance to maintain track tension, and the reduced life span of tracks (up to 10,000 km) compared to tires (up to 50,000 km).[citation needed]
The French engineer Adolphe Kégresse converted a number of cars from the personal car pool of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to half-tracks in 1911. The Kégresse track used a flexible belt rather than interlocking metal segments. It was applied to several vehicles in the imperial garage, including Rolls-Royce cars and Packard trucks. The Imperial Russian Army also fitted the system to a number of its Austin Armoured Cars. From 1916 onward, Austin-Putilov model military half-tracks were produced along the same lines at the Putilov Plant using trucks and French track parts.
After the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union, Kégresse returned to his native France, where the system was used on Citroën cars between 1921 and 1937 for off-road and military vehicles.
The concept originated with log hauling in the northeastern US, with the Lombard Steam Log Hauler built by Alvin Lombard of Waterville, Maine, from 1899 to 1917. The vehicle resembled a railway steam locomotive, with sled steering (or wheels) in front and chain-driven rear tracked rear crawlers driven by chains instead of the driving wheels of a locomotive.
By 1907, dog and pony show operator H. H. Linn abandoned his gas-and-steam-powered four- and six-wheel-drive creations and had Lombard build a motor home/traction engine run by an underslung four-cylinder Brennan gasoline engine to travel the unimproved roads of the day, with wheels at the front and tracks at the rear: the first payload-carrying half-track. By 1909 this was replaced by a smaller machine with two wheels at the front and a single track behind, since rural wooden bridges presented problems.
Stability issues, together with a dispute between Linn and Lombard, led Linn to create the Linn Manufacturing Company, builder of the Linn tractor, for building and putting onto the market his own improved civilian half-track–style machines. Lombard attempted to follow but, for the most part, remained a pulling machine. Linn would later register "Haftrak" and "Catruk" as trademarks, the latter for a half-track meant to convert hydraulically from truck to crawler configuration.
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