See photos of America’s failed attempt to create a WWI tank out of a tractor

Tractor turned tank

A 1917 Holt gun tractor on display at a fair in Dorset, England. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Leveraging its domestic transportation industry, the US military partnered with Holt Manufacturing Company, known for its tractors used to tow artillery.

They developed a prototype built off of an existing Holt Model 75 tractor powered by a modified hybrid gas-electric engine. The four-cylinder gasoline engine supplied power to two General Electric motors that drove each track individually for improved mobility and had enough space at the front to accommodate its main cannon.

Tracked treads better distribute weight than wheels and allow a vehicle to cross more types of terrain — an especially important quality for heavy vehicles whose weight is measured in many tons.

Design

Sketches that detail the design of the Holt hybrid tank prototype. (miSci- Museum of Innovation & Science/Google Arts and Culture)

Protected by a layer of 15mm steel armor, the tank could accommodate a crew of six — commander, driver, two machine gunners, a main gunner, and a loader.

It was armed with a Vickers mountain cannon at the front and two machine guns on either side of the boxy tank.

The tank was a response to the annihilating firepower seen on the Western Front, where artillery barrages were commonplace and advancing columns of foot soldiers were mowed down by emplaced machine gunners.

The sheer scale of the carnage was shocking. In the Allied offensive known as the Battle of the Somme in 1916, an estimated 620,000 British and French troops were killed or wounded.

A shielded hull was intended to carry troops past deadly machine gun nests and target those positions with heavy fire, clearing the path for infantry.

Problems

The tank prototype rolls over a hill. (Landships.info)

However, its bulky armor and equipped weaponry made the prototype of the hybrid tank far too heavy, weighing about 25 tons. Its 90-horsepower engine struggled to propel the tank, which moved at a top speed of 6 mph and was practically immobile on an incline.

That was hugely underpowered. A modern M1 Abrams, the US Army’s main battle tank, moves its 68-ton bulk around with a 1,500-horsepower engine.

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