When the Americans read about British tanks in the newspapers and saw their photographs, their country had not yet been at war. But everyone was well aware that sooner or later, they would have to fight, that they would not be able to sit out overseas, and if so, then you need to take care of real superiority over the enemy. Therefore, the US military was quick to start developing their own tanks. Moreover, they did not see any particular difficulties in this. After all, someone who, and they already knew for sure that the basis of all British and French developments is the chassis of their own tractor "Holt". And if so, what is it that prevents them, the Americans, from repeating the experience of the British: take a tractor and put it in armor ?! This solution seemed so simple and obvious that no one really tried to come up with something else - both "Holt-gasoline-electric" and a number of other experimental ones were built on its basis or on the basis of similar machines.
Tank Best 75 on the street of San Francisco.
So the firm C. L. Best also decided to try its luck in the field of creating a new type of weapon. In 1917, the company started developing its own tank, and on the basis of the tractor it produced … the Holt 75 rail-layer! This tractor was the same well-known 1909 Holt 75 tractor, which this firm produced under license. This model was popular, and not only among railway workers, but also among the military, who noted the unpretentiousness of this machine and its good cross-country ability. The tractor itself was used in both the American and British armies up to and including 1919, and during the Civil War in Russia it was supplied to the armies of the White Guards. The last samples of these machines, of course, are no longer army, but purely commercial, were written off only in 1945 - that's what a wonderful story they had! And one of the reasons for such a long service was a very important circumstance, which is also important for the military machine - it was simple in all respects! It had two driving tracks and a steering wheel in front, controlled by an ordinary car steering wheel. Therefore, they did not think for a long time, but simply weighed their rail-laying tractor with sheets of ordinary iron (the CLBest engineers simply did not have time to produce armor), installed a gun in the nose, and two machine guns on the sides, and called it a "tank" …
C. L. Best - 1915 patent.
Then they offered "it" to the military, but they resolutely refused it, rightly pointing out, first of all, a disgusting view, which would have made this machine almost useless on the battlefield. However, an unfortunate result is also a result!
In order to still get a lucrative contract, the engineers decided to redo the project and soon offered the US Army a second prototype of their tank under the designation Tracklayer Best 75 (aka CLB 75). Now the car looked like a boat turned upside down by the keel, which, as the designers believed, would allow the tank to easily break the lines of wire obstacles. Unlike the British, they did not alter the chassis. That is, the steering wheel remained in front, and the tracks were in the back, and the armor covered them almost to the very ground. The guns were installed in a cylindrical turret, shifted to the stern, but the view from the tank remained almost as bad as it was. As a result, even the futuristic appearance of the Tracklayer was not saved and the military never adopted it. But … nevertheless, the tank came in handy: they began to use it for propaganda purposes, showed it at exhibitions, and even printing its photographs - that's, they say, what a miracle of technical thought we have in the USA!
The device of the Tracklayer Best 75 tank.
The tactical and technical characteristics of the tank were as follows: combat weight of the order of 13-15 tons, the power of a gasoline engine with a working volume of 1440 cm3, 75 hp. at 550 rpm Nevertheless, the speed was low, only 3-5 km / h, but the crew was 5 people, then the question involuntarily arises, where did they all fit in it? The armament consisted of two 37 mm cannons at once, and (possibly) 7, 62 mm machine guns. In total, two cars were produced and for purely propaganda purposes this turned out to be more than enough!
Tractor Best 75 - side view.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the design is the "tank" - its tower, most of all reminiscent of the war machine of the Martians from the novel War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Probably, for the first and last time (not counting the "Lebedenko tank"!), Portholes, similar to those of a ship, were installed on a ground combat vehicle, and for some reason the guns looked in different directions …
Due to the tractor layout, the control compartment had to be placed in the rear of the hull, and the turret had to be placed there, in which both the driver and gunners were located at the same time. Even with six viewing windows, the future tank's view was still disgusting, because the forward view was obstructed by the ship's nose of his car.
Best 75 "in battle".
As for the device, technologically the entire tank could be divided into four large structural units:
- tracked undercarriage (three road wheels on each side, and two supporting wheels, front steering wheel and rear driving wheel);
- the wheel part (control, since there were no side clutches on the tracks);
- rectangular chassis frame riveted from T-beams;
- power plant (located in the front of the tractor and on it, as a rule, it was not closed with a hood)
- governing bodies.
Since the engineers did not make any changes to the chassis, due to the specific placement of the radiator, two air inlets had to be located on the top of the case. For the same reason, the control of the "tank" also remained purely for a tractor - with the help of the steering wheel, which was mounted inside on a long bracket from the cab to the steering wheel. Interestingly, no attempts were made to "unfold" the hull and swap the "front" and "back" positions. This could somehow improve its visibility, but … for some reason, it did not occur to its creators.
"Tank" tears barbed wire.
The first example of the CLB 75 was riveted from regular iron and completed by mid-1917. However, it immediately became clear that even a completely reliable chassis for a tractor was not suitable for a tank on the battlefield, and moreover, more successful tank models had already appeared in the USA at that time.
"Our forts on wheels" - article from the magazine "Modern Mechanics"
And yet, since the prototype was available, it was used in the propaganda department of the American army, where there were very sensible guys who began to photograph it in different forms and write “downhole” articles about it in various magazines. So, for example, the magazine "Modern Mechanics" wrote that America has armored vehicles with armor worth $ 1 per pound of manganese armor steel, reliably protecting their crews from bullets! In one case, these are trucks covered with quarter-inch plates of armor, in the other it is a "fort" with a tower, which can move at a speed of 25 miles per hour! The prices for these "cars" were also indicated - 5 and 8 thousand dollars, and the latter have two turrets with machine guns. That is, it was clearly about wheeled armored vehicles, but the photo depicted the first version of the Tracklayer Best 75!
"Our forts on wheels" - an article from the magazine "Modern Mechanics" (continued).
Then the "tank" was involved during the California National Guard maneuvers, which were carried out in the same 1917 near San Francisco, about which even a booklet was published with pictures depicting the CLB 75 as a real combat vehicle. Well, then the car, most likely, was dismantled for metal, and the undercarriage, as "well-worn", was sold to some farmer on the cheap.
It is surprising, however, that the Americans, having obtained such a "futuristic tank", regretted the money to … make … a lot of them! Well, let's say, about 12 or 20. And from the cheapest metal, that is, at the lowest price. But having driven them through the streets of San Francisco or New York, one could get an incomparably greater PR effect than what they got from one car. Well, for the German General Staff it would be excellent disinformation!
California National Guard maneuvers.
