It would be wrong to call the Second World War a "war of motors", although they played a very important role both on land and on water and in the air. But before the Second World War there was also the First, and it was then that the motorization of the armies of the belligerent countries became a truly factor of victory. Suffice it to recall the famous "Marne Taxi". After all, it was thanks to this car that the French were able to detain the German troops in the Battle of the Marne and did not allow them to take Paris. But, besides them, there were also heavy transporters carrying such cannons and howitzers that otherwise no horses would have taken away, and trucks carrying soldiers and ammunition, and chassis for the first armored cars. Moreover, it was during this war that the number of vehicles in the armies increased hundreds of times, from tens to thousands!
Austria-Hungary, in alliance with Germany, took an active part in this war against the Entente member states.
Already in 1916, the Austro-Hungarian troops started looking for an artillery tractor to use it to carry heavy 30.5 cm mortars from the Skoda company. After disappointments with other manufacturers, the military once again chose the Austro-Daimler automobile company and made the right choice. To begin with, the car he proposed had four-wheel drive and a winch and was able to tow a load of 24 tons. Four large wheels with a diameter of 1.5 m were made entirely of steel, and had tractor lugs. However, rubber tires were also provided. The four-cylinder engine had a capacity of 80 hp. with. There was room in the back for eleven 305-mm shells. Other shells could be transported on a large wheeled trailer with a carrying capacity of 5 tons, on the same steel wheels. The new tractor could also be used for towing other heavy implements, such as the 15 cm Autokanone M. 15/16.
The exact number of vehicles produced is unknown and, according to various estimates, could reach from 138 to 1000. At least some of them also ended up in the German army. After the war, the Austrian army continued to use them almost until the Anschluss.
When Škoda began work on a new generation of super-heavy guns such as the 24 cm, 38 cm and 42 cm M. 16, it became apparent that they also needed new vehicles to be as mobile as their famous predecessor. 30.5 cm M. 11. And the man tasked with creating the new transporter was none other than Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, who at the time was working for Daimler's Österreicher in Wiener Neustadt. And what do you think he proposed as a propulsion system? Diesel-electric motor of course! A six-cylinder gasoline engine rotated the generator, and the generator in turn powered two electric motors, one for each rear axle. The whole design was rather complicated, perhaps even too much, especially in the eyes of a modern person. But it worked. B Zug - this is the name given to this tractor, on a good road with a gentle slope, it could pull two trailers with a maximum speed of 12 km / h. The speed increased to 14 km / h if the number of trailers was reduced to one. With one trailer, he could move forward with a tilt of 26 °, with two trailers, the tilt was reduced to 20 °. In general, for that time it was a very perfect mechanism, which, moreover, had quite decent reliability. But its maintenance gave the mechanics a lot of trouble. The fuel filter had to be changed every 2-3 hours, and every 10 km the engine valve gears had to be lubricated! But when these cars appeared, they were all admired as clear evidence of the power of the Austrian auto industry! Well, during the Second World War, these tractors were used in the Wehrmacht in order to carry heavy guns of the same Skoda company!
Wheels were good for everyone, but since the war at that time was usually fought off the roads, and there were few roads themselves, the German command in 1917 ordered 100 A7V chassis, and precisely as tracked transporters for heavy guns. Of these, 20 were completed as tanks and about 56 as Überlandwagen tracked vehicles.
In the A7V, two Daimler engines were installed side by side in the center of the chassis. The suspension was taken from the Holt tractor, which at that time inspired all the "caterpillars" - both the Americans themselves and the British, and the French, and the Germans!
Above the control post - and this was a real "post", you cannot say otherwise, an awning was installed to protect from the sun and rain. Everything is so simple and no more convenience for the driver and his assistant. The maximum speed was only 13 km / h. Tow hooks, as well as cargo platforms, were installed on both ends of the chassis, since the car could move back and forth without turning.
By the end of September 1917, an experimental unit was formed, equipped with eight vehicles of this type, with chassis numbers from 508 to 515, and in November it was already sent to France. From there, it was reported that the "vagens" work with good efficiency. However, the Überlandwagen had the same defects as the A7V tank, that is, low ground clearance and poor cross-country ability. Fuel consumption was excessive compared to wheeled vehicles (10 l / km versus 0.84 l / km for a 3 ton wheeled truck).
Another "designer of war" was Heinrich Bussing, who set up his company in Braunschweig in 1903, where he built his first truck - a 2-ton car with a two-cylinder petrol engine and a worm gear. The design turned out to be successful and other companies in Germany, Austria, Hungary and even England began to produce the car under license. Before the outbreak of the war, Bussing had advanced so far in the development of heavy-duty vehicles that it could produce vehicles with a carrying capacity of 5 to 11 tons, equipped with six-cylinder engines. Work on the new vehicle, designated KZW 1800, began even before the war, with the result that the German army received a powerful new truck as soon as it needed it. And she needed it at the end of 1915, when the German military decided that all heavy guns, such as 21 cm mortars, and not just super-heavy guns, should be transferred to towing by road.
It was then that Bussing offered them KZW 1800 (KZW - Kraftzugwagen), equipped with a six-cylinder 90-horsepower Otto engine. The vehicle was equipped with a front winch and a dedicated bench seat at the rear of the large cockpit. Some cars had small ammunition bodies in the back. They were actively used by the troops, and were produced until the end of 1917. It should be noted here that the degree of motorization of the German army was very high. On average, it involved about 25,000 trucks during one day of the war. Moreover, in the period between 1914 - 1918. about 40,000 new trucks were produced.
The Daimler trucks from Marienfeld were also very popular. The first machine of modern design, which went into production in 1914, was a 3-ton truck with a chain drive and a 4-cylinder gasoline engine that gave it a top speed of about 30 km / h. Over 3,000 of these vehicles were built between 1914-1918. Many of them survived the war and were used by civilian companies or in the German Reichswehr in the twenties and thirties, replacing old tires with pneumatic tires.
The command of the German army was very conservative (which was very wittily ridiculed by the French in the comedy film "Air Adventures"), which is why they looked closely at technical innovations for a long time, even in those cases when the benefits from them were obvious. That is why, when the war began, there were only a few staff cars in the army. The lack of motor resources was made up for by the sequencing of private cars. As a result, the army received an impressive fleet of assorted cars from companies such as Adler, Orix, Bergmann, Lloyd, Beckmann, Protos, Dixie, Benz, Mercedes and Opel. ". The most popular among them was the famous Mercedes М1913 37/95. At one time, this car was considered the most powerful production car in the world. It had a powerful engine with two blocks of two cylinders, each with three overhead valves per cylinder and a displacement of 9.6 liters, which produced 95 horsepower. There was only one carburetor. The gearbox is four-speed, with a double chain drive of the rear axle. The maximum speed was approximately 110 km / h. The car turned out to be convenient and was used as a staff car in both the German and Turkish armies.
