|
|
|
|
|
The extreme and chocking lethality of fire during WW1 soon gave birth to notions of some kind of mobile protection for the "Poor Bloody Infantry". For instance, all armies sooner or later used small portable one-man shields, with loop-holes. From the portable infantry shield, there is not such a big conceptual leap in order to reach the next step: the mobile infantry shield on wheels. A number of armies used such, for instance the Russian and the Turkish, and it seems like most other at least tried the concept. One Army that actually used mobile Infantry Shields in great numbers was the French. The French Army had several variants. The most important was a one-man mobile shield, used mainly to protect individual men sent out on wirecutting duties (using either wire-cutters or explosives) in no-man's-land. And at least in some specialized situations it must have been an asset. For this they employed a mass-produced design, a box mounted on an axle with two big metal wheels, with steel sides that protected the man on four sides, including the top, but left the legs free – as was necessary for the “propulsion” of the whole thing. Hence the nickname: creep tank. It had a small platform inside on which the user could lie with only his legs exposed. It had a V-shaped front, in order to better deflect incoming bullets and shrapnel. It was also saw some use by British forces. Another variant, less useful for obvious reasons of mobility, was a sort of mobile pill-box, that like the one-man creep tank ran on wheels, and was propelled forward by the occupants. For more info on these machines, click here! Above you can see both this one-man "creep tank", and the bigger, mobile pill-box. The small creep tank has been built by the white metal kit made by FSF, with only some small additions, namely the back flaps. The big mobile pill-box is scratch-built, and is modelled after the specimen that can be seen in the Army Museum in Paris (Les Invalides). Click on the thumbnails to see more photos of these models:
|
Gallery | Reviews | Disclaimer |Kitlist
Guest Book | Vote! | Search | Back to Index | Contact