----- Original Message -----
From: "Pete & Renee Davis" <pandr@cybertours.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 3:16 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] Overseas purchases?
>
> Thanks for the link to your Belorus Files! Looks like some fun hardware. That
> BT7 really is the spitting image of J. Walter Christie's T3 tank that the US
> Army turned down in the thirties. It seems to be in amazing condition, too.
>
That's because that is _exactly_ what it is !
The irascible Christie hawked his suspension method all around the world
alienating himself with everybody except the Russians who put up with him,
although we used the idea in part on the Crusader.
True to the full Christie design the BT7 could run trackless on its roadwheels
at almost 50mph but there is no evidence that the feature was ever used other
than in training.
The Crusader was fast for its day and the Cromwell, then Comet followed with
variations on the Christie theme, all very quick tanks. I'm theorising now but
the development of the Christie design seems to have retained large road wheels
in paired bogies with small return rollers being the Horstmann system and
traceable through the Centurion, Chieftain to the current Challenger. The true
Christie system runs into mechanical strength/weight difficulties as vehicle
weight increases enforcing speed limitations and therefore defeating the object.
For ride quality and speed the big road wheel idea is the way to go, the
Russians followed the Christie principle with the T34 and later standard types,
America adopted it with the Chaffee and then followed through to the current
Abrams.
The Christie system does live on to today, the Scorpion family uses the design
where its applicable for high speeds in a light vehicle, fast these things are.
Richard
Southampton - England
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 06 2002 - 11:49:31 PST