From: Gordon.W.I. McMillan (gwim2@student.open.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Jun 13 2002 - 01:14:15 PDT
As with most things German and WW2, the semi-tracks were more complex than
they looked.
The American halftrack was an armoured truck with two tracks on the back,
in fact I remember that one US general was quite scathing about them in
that he said that people using them thought they were in a tank but soon
found out they weren't ( I think he was talking more about the armour than
the mobility here) US halftracks were used in a variety of roles including
ambulance and command, but all of them were hard trucks for combat areas.
The German semitrack was a whole different ball game. Most of the running
gear appears to be full-track tank, and there seemed to be as many
non-armoured tractor units as there were armoured ones. The armoured ones
tended to be smaller too, and with the tracks running almost the full
length of the vehicle the mobility would be very good.
As for steering, the normal semi-track system is for the steering wheel /
column to turn the front wheels, but hooked to the column is a system
which means that if you turn more than 'x' degrees it brings on a track
brake on the inside track, so it turns pretty much like a tank. They also
produced these things in a heck of a range of sizes, from the Ketten
tracked motorcycle upwards, and it's not uncommon to see the little Ketten
running with no front wheel at all and just steering by track clutch /
braking.
There is probably no fair direct comparison, but in general the US
machines were less complex, easier to produce in quantity, pretty much all
one size, lots of interchangeable spares, etc, etc, and the German
machines were probably technologically superior but more difficult to
build and provide spares for, though to be fair some of the big tank
prime-mover versions probably shared a lot of engine and running-gear
spares with the tanks they hauled.
Gordon.
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