Good Photos of WW1 Trucks

[Olham]

WW1 Trucks - Great Photos here:

 

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82060

[Flyby PC]

It must be you get so used to vintage vehicles being rare, but when you see 25000 Berliot delivered to the French during the war, you think again. That makes 25000 separate stories of "what happened to that lorry?" and I've heard none of them. And that's just one type of lorry.

 

I don't refurbish vehicles, but these old things would be amazing for their engineering, and judging by the tank on the back of one, could certainly carry a load.

 

You never stop to think how all those 100's of tanks made it to the front.

[Flyby PC]

I missed this last year....

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311867/Hero-soldier-Kenneth-Woottons-amazing-diary-drawings-WWI-horrors.html

[Olham]

Damn good drawings there, Flyby. Thanks for sharing.

[Hasse Wind]

That Renault tank weighs 6.5 tonnes, so that's a powerful truck carrying it. Very interesting pics.

 

It took until WW2 for warfare to become really mechanized though, and even then only two armies, the British and the American, were truly completely mechanized, ie. not relying on draught animals for transportation of men and equipment in the front. The German and Soviet armies were famous (and for good reasons) for their mechanized forces, but they still had a large number of horses for moving guns and supplies. (And in the harsh weather conditions of the Eastern Front, horses were often more reliable than machines.)

 

When WW1 broke out, most armies had a very limited number of trucks available to them, and because they came from so many different manufacturers and had so many mechanical problems, it was truly a logistical nightmare to keep all of them in working order. For example the German army had most of their trucks out of action after the first couple of months of offensive warfare in 1914. But just like aircraft, trucks and cars were greatly improved during the four years of war, though the progress was perhaps not as dramatic as in the field of aviation.

 

It would be fun to drive one of those ancient trucks. Must be quite different from the modern high-tech vehicles.