Australian Archives II

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As before, all the credits go to Vollketten – here, we have another hilarious project from the Australian archives. This time, it’s nothing less than a land battleship by Mr. F.B.Puckridge.

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And this is a “Crowther Land Fortress Tank”…

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28 thoughts on “Australian Archives II”

  1. wut…
    wut…
    WUT?!
    That really does look like something you’d get from a kindergardener, not from some official archive. Are you sure they’re not just messing with us?

    • It’s real. Not that uncommon – in Russia, citizens submitted their designs to the invention committee too, also pretty retarded stuff. Keep in mind that these were made by “enthousiastic” patriotic civillians, not engineers. There is better (serious) stuff coming later on.

    • Actually you’d be surprised how common such drawings are for real technology, typically just quick sketches drawn up by an engineer in order to give a basic illustration of a concept, in which case the intent isn’t to make a blueprint (that’s what drafters are for) but merely to give other people an idea of what exactly it is they’re working on.

        • An elongated T-54 chassis could have worked (with improved suspension to handle the extra weight, and perhaps a more powerful), but not as proposed in the drawing.

        • Not sure what T-60 has to do with T-54 but I don’t see anything wrong with trying IS-8′s turret on it…just like T95E6 case.

  3. Australia at that time was threatened by Japan and did not have anywhere near enough troops and equipment to defend its coastline from even the most leisurely invasion the only thing they had was the natural barriers and hazards. Its as well that most of the Japanese army was tied up in China* from the Australian perspective, but they did not know what know that at the time so were up for anything that might be a force multiplier no matter how hair brained. They did not want to discourage any new ideas because there might be just one that could help and keeping the population war focused in a positive active way was good for morale.

    *By most accounts China suffered the second highest death toll in the second world war and it could be higher than the USSR. If you count the continuation of the civil war that also went on during WWII and was exacerbated by the actions of the allied nations then the death toll for China is certainly higher. For the Chinese civilians the war did not stop on VJ day.

    • And that’s why the Sentinal was built and this is just a piece of paper. Three tracks is a neat idea though, three 75mm forward facing guns is a little crazy though, not sure why he’d think that was a good idea except MORE DAKKA.

    • No kidding. The Sentinel (in its Mk.I form) would have been at least equal to the Crusader in performance (and as such could have handled any tank that the Japanese actually fielded in significant numbers during the war), and had they gotten the six-pounder gun that was originally specified rather than the two-pounder they got, the Australians could have had a tank comparable to the Cromwell. So much wasted potential…

  6. This reminds me of the tanks I used to draw when I was 10 and had no idea what a real tank looked like :-)

    • I think that I can rework the “Crowther Land Fortress Tank” into a drawing that makes a bit more sense (and doesn’t look like a child made it). It has some interesting (and unique) features like the 3 track suspension and the multigun setup. Let’s see what I can make out of it.

        • From the inside of the tank most likely.The transmissions and engines may have to be removed to change some of the suspension parts.
          Edit: It may require 2 engines to drive this crazy contraption btw.

      • Good luck with that, though I’ll admit that it’ll be quite interesting to see the result.

        Hell, I might make an attempt myself – I mean, I’ve come up with crazier ideas for tanks before, which from an engineering perspective are actually feasible (but not necessarily practical).

        Three-track suspension’s going to be quite difficult, admittedly, but I can see the merit of the idea: it would distribute the weight of the vehicle more evenly, yielding better cross-country performance, but the complicated maintenance process would be a pain in the ass.

        The feature that really comes across as the most stupid, however, is having a flamethrower sitting right on top of the engine, mounted in the front; that would have to go.