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Already in 1909 had the director of the Tsars garage in Tsarskoye Tselo, Francis a Kegresse, designed a light track system to be used with the Russo-balt automobiles - not to be confused with the Russo-Balt Armoured Cars - and in 1913 this system was used with big success on a number of vehicles. (The Russian Army ordered a whole series for their own use.) In 1915 the order came to use the Kegresse system on the British designed Austin armoured cars. The trials with these vehicles started in August 1916, and as this went very well this, 50 vehicles were ordered. This means that the Russian Army was the first to use Armoured Halftracks operationally. They were employed with sucess during the Great War, and after the revolution they were impressed in Trotskijs Red Army, who used them in the Civil War, the War against the Allied Interventionsist Forces and also in the Russo-Polish War of the early 20-ies. The Polish Army also used some captured vehicles. |
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is a result of a kit-bash: the wheels and drive train of the Reviresco Austin-Kegresse, was mated with the chassis of the Cromwell Austin. The Cromwell Austin is FAR superior in detailing, and the Reviresco kit is pretty poor in most respects, except - funny enough - the tracks, so the decision was easy. The job wasn't too tough, either. Among the things done, except from the actual mating of parts, was the adding an extra wheel skid UNDER the front bonnet, behind the front wheels, facing backwards, detailing the MG protection "wings", and some other detail work.
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It is interesting to note, that some of the best and most interesting WW1 AFV:s were produced by others than the major
Powers. As mentioned elesewhere, the russians were in the forefront when it came to Armoured Cars, which they used in fairly large numbers from 1914 on. One of the drawbacks of all WW1 Armoured Cars, was that they were underpowered and pretty
heavy, which made it difficult for them to move beyond the roads. This was of course noticed by the Russian Army as
well, and they started thinking about ways of overcoming this.
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