The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1916-09-20
AMERICAN INVENTIONS
Auto Forts on the SOmme Front
Designed and Many Built
i'm Illinois
ASSOCIATED Press)


Washington, Sept. 20.-The British
tanks" the armored motor cars
used in recent assaults on German
trenches in northern France so sue
cessfully as to attract worldwide at
tention, were built for the most part
in Peoria, H., as caterpillar tractors
designed many years before the war
began to meet some of the difficult
problems of modern farming. Except
for their armor, their machine guns
and their crews, thousands like them
are in use today in the United States,
in blowing, digging bitches and other
labor less spectacular than war.
Nj. M. Baker, vice president of the
Holt Manufacturing company, ex-
planned here yesterday that machines
made by his company at its Peoria
plant had hurdled German trenches, |
walked through forests and crawled
over shell craters in the face of in
tense rifle and machine gun fire.
"We have sold about 1000 cater
pillar tractors to the British govern
ment," said Mr.. Baker. eve have
had nothing to do with putting armor
on them or placing machine guns, but
some of our men at Aldershot, Eng
land, recently were notified that the
British government intended to
armor some of the tractors and use
them for work other than the usual
towing Of big guns.
Germany Has Some
Germany had some of these trac-
tors before the war began, and al
though I do not understand just how
it occurred believe she may have
got others since then. We have sent
some to France and some to Russia.
So far as | know upon the recent ap-
pearance of the armored cars the
tractors were used to tow big guns.
I understand that Germany used
about forty of them in its work be-
fore Liege early in the war and re-
cent photographs show that the Brit
ish are using some of them for the
same purpose"
Mr.. Baker said he did not know
how many of the 1000 tractors sent
to England had been armored and
put in service as land battleships nor
did he know what equipment the
British war office had placed upon
cars to be used in this work.
"It is true" said Mr.. Baker, "that
these tractors can go ahead over al
most anything. They can straddle q
trench, go through swamp, roll over
logs or climb through shell crateBs. It
looks uncanny to see them crawl
along the ground, just like huge
i caterpillar. In a thick forest if they
encounter. trees they could not brush
out of their way, they could easily
uproot them and clear their own
path"
Mr.. Baker said the tractors sent to
England weigh about $4,000 pounds
/ each, develop 120 horsepower and
d are built of steel. The caterpillar
feature, he explained, is of the ut
most importance. Speaking broadly,
/ the tractor erawls on two belts, with
corrugated surfaces, on either side of
the body. The corrugated surface is
on the ground. On the inside of the
belts, on each side of the body, are
two lines of steel rails making four
lines in all. These rails are in short
sections, jointed, and operate over a
cogged mechanism that actually lays
them down with their belt attachment
as the tractor moves ahead and picks
them up again so that the car runs
on it's own self made tracks continu.
ously. The short joints in the rails
make it easy to turn to the right or
left.
The body is supported by trucks
with five wheels, something like small
railroad trucks. These wheels never
touch the ground, but run upon the
steel rails. In the ordinary tractor
about seven feet of belt and rails is
on the ground at one time.
| Mr.. Baker said that the machine
would bridge any trench that was not
wider than the length of track it laid
on the ground at one time. The show
might hit the far side of the trench
far below the top, and the "stern"
would undoubtedly sink little but
the tenacity of the tractor, he de-
ciared, would enable it to go ahead
and climb out.
The width of the truck used on the
machines sent to England, Mr.. Baker
said, was "a inches. He declared that
the ground pressure is about three
pounds per square inch where 30
inch truck is used or less than that of
| the foot of either man or horse. He
suggested that the British authorities
probably had heightened the track on
the tractors used in trench work, Civ
ing them even greater power to sur
mount obstacles.
/ We've been making these tractors
for the British government for long
time" said Mr.. Baker.."and have not
talked much about it."
Although Mr.. Baker would not dis
cuss the matter it was understood