{"product_id":"2940015107593","title":"Tanks, Caterpillar Tractor in World War I","description":"Nook version of vintage magazine article originally published in 1916.  Lots of great info and illustrations seldom seen in the past 100 years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRead excerpt -\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe body is supported by trucks with five wheels on each side, 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. The treads of these caterpillars are about seven feet long and average more than a foot in width, although for work in soft marshes, such as in the everglades of Florida, where one can impale a pole eight feet into the mud by mere pres¬sure of the hand, treads thirty inches wide are used, and in the big 120 horse-power caterpillars which weigh 26,900 pounds and are the type employed in the British army the length of the tractor is twenty-three feet. The machine is steered from the treads, each tread being steered separately.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe forty-five and the seventy-five horsepower types (the latter used by the French army) have four cylinders, and the 120'S have six.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the first years after they were invented, the caterpillars were used chiefly for agricultural purposes such as hauling plows, threshing machines, loads of hay, and soon replaced the horse in this branch throughout the west coastal states.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it was not long before they were put to other uses. In the South and West they were employed for clearing out irrigation ditches. The great engine (they can surmount a 48 per cent. grade hauling a load) would crawl down into the bottom of the irrigation ditches, scoop up a load of dirt, and clamber up the bank again just as easily as the hippopotamus taking its matutinal bath in the Nile. Up in Alaska as it laid and traveled upon its own rails it was found in many cases to be superior to the logging trains for hauling great logs, and as it could force its way through a five-foot snow bank its value was great. In Africa in many cases the caterpillars replaced the gangs of 100 to 150 husky Negroes hauling timber from the forests, and as it can pull down a tree by a direct pull it was of great value for clearing land of stumps for cultivation. Throughout the Gallipoli campaign and at Saloniki the British are said to have had at least one in use for hauling big guns and ammunition trains.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIndeed, before the outbreak of the war the majority of nations throughout the world possessed one or more of these caterpillars, but their significance as a weapon of war and then only as a motive power — was not discovered until after the war had begun, by Austria.","brand":"history-bytes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47147880808688,"sku":"2940015107593","price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940015107593_p0.jpg?v=1763618974","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015107593","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}