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INTRODUCTION 7

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION

BY THE EDITOR OF "THE AUTOCAR"

MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR

THE SCOPE OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE

Early History--The Industrial Motor--The Motor 'Bus and Motor Cab--Steam Lorries and Tractors--Petrol-Electric Vehicles--Daily Mileages and Fuel Consumption.

When we remember that the motor vehicle as we know it to-day is the result of a development not more than a quarter of a century old, its enormous influence upon the character of modern warfare must indeed be regarded as remarkable. Especially is this so in view of the fact that progress has not in the main been dictated by military considerations, but almost entirely by the requirements of private individuals and of peaceful trading concerns. The case is very different from that of the aeroplane and the airship, which from the very moment that they began to appear as practical possibilities, were recognised as having far greater potentialities in connection with warfare than in any other sphere. The whole science of flight has been studied to a great extent from this point of view, and the Government Departments concerned, in all civilised countries, have recognised the necessity of keeping in touch with and encouraging the movement, and have realised all along the nature of the work to be done by the flying corps.

On the other hand, the use of the motor vehicle was extended in the first instance mainly as a sport, and as a new occupation for well-to-do individuals of a mechanical turn of mind. There is an attraction about speed in all forms, and consequently, it was on this point that attention was for many years concentrated. Furthermore, developments were influenced to no slight extent by changes of fashion, and the need of satisfying the requirements of people who were not necessarily qualified to direct progress into the best possible channels. The motor vehicle was used as a luxury, and exploited as a means of bringing into being new forms of sport, for many years before it acquired sufficient reliability or worked with sufficient economy to justify its employment on economic grounds. The industrial motor industry is, in fact, at the present day only about ten years old. In the first instance, one of the principal factors in securing the occasional use of motor vans was the advertisement value of a rather unusual type of vehicle, which naturally attracted considerable attention wherever it went. A little later mechanical transport was adopted by a limited number of firms, not on account of any superiority in economy or reliability over old systems of delivery, but rather with a view to extending the area embraced, and so gaining an advantage over competing concerns more than sufficient to balance the increased cost involved by the employment of vehicles by no means cheap either as regards first cost or operating expenses. Once the industry was established, however, its rapid growth was inevitable, since it was found possible to construct vehicles the employment of which was more than justified on purely economic grounds. The line of least resistance was found in connection with public services and hackney carriages for the conveyance of passengers, while in the carriage of goods the new means of transport had to compete with cheap if slow systems of delivery by horsed vehicle, and with the railways which, if not offering a direct method, at least offered a very cheap one when a large volume of traffic had to be handled.

In the other sphere, competition was limited chiefly to the horsed 'bus, the horsed cab and the tram car, and the last named was under a disadvantage in some quarters, since conditions exist in parts of London and in various other cities extremely unfavourable to the complete employment of railed transport on the roads. The motor cab was assisted in driving the horse cab off the streets by the stupid conservatism of the old-fashioned cab driver, who refused point-blank to employ the taximeter, and so to forego the advantage which he had obtained by keeping his fare in a certain amount of ignorance as to the proper legal charges to which he was entitled. The promoters of the early motor-cab companies took advantage of this state of affairs, and introduced the motor cab and the taximeter simultaneously. The vehicle itself had the attraction of novelty and the advantage of greater speed, while its early popularity was still more directly due to the taximeter giving an accurate check of the amount payable on every journey. In this sphere, consequently, the victory of mechanical over horse transport was rapid and inevitable. Simultaneously, the motor omnibus made steady, if not quite such speedy, progress. Its advantage in speed over the horse 'bus was at first the determining factor, but after improvements in the mechanism, giving increased comfort and reliability, it was able to get the better also of the electric tram in spite of the advantage possessed by the railed vehicle of larger carrying capacity, which of course tends towards reduced operating costs per passenger carried. The inflexible nature of a tramway system has been the principal factor in securing the popularity of a free road vehicle, and at the present moment the motor omnibus is able to compete directly with great success against the electric tram car. So it came about that passenger transport was very rapidly converted to mechanical power. If London is taken as an example, we find that at the present moment over 95 per cent. of passenger transport is carried on by mechanical vehicles, while certainly not more than 15 per cent. of goods transport has yet been similarly diverted. Nevertheless, the motor vehicle for the carriage of goods has made great progress, particularly in this country.

Throughout its history, it has been greatly helped by the prior existence of the steam traction engine. From these heavy and slow machines, suitable only for limited use in particular spheres, have been developed two very useful classes of lighter steam-propelled machines coming under the provisions of the Motor Car Acts. The first is the steam tractor, which is merely a small edition of the traction engine, able, on account of its lighter weight, to travel at considerably higher speeds. The other is the steam lorry, which is an extremely valuable machine for the carriage of anything up to about six tons of goods at speeds of about five miles per hour. From the five-ton steam lorry there has more recently developed a lighter type of steam vehicle in the shape of the three-ton lorry, generally running on rubber tyres, and so entitled legally to travel at much higher speeds. The great economy of steam motors made it absolutely necessary for the makers of internal combustion industrial vehicles to study every possibility of reducing operating costs. They had on their side advantages as regards higher speed possibilities and more complete independence of fuel supplies. The steam motor of ordinary type cannot be conveniently designed to carry with it fuel and water supplies adequate for very long journeys. On the other hand, the steamer has the great advantage of being able to exert tremendous power at low road speeds. The steam engine is more flexible and more capable of standing a heavy overload than the internal combustion engine. Even if it is brought almost to a standstill, it can go on applying the full steam pressure behind its piston during every stroke. Given adequate supplies of fuel and water, it is an admirable and very economical machine for all sorts of rough and heavy work. Curiously enough, the steam lorry and the steam tractor have been essentially British developments, and as such they have done much to bring the British industrial petrol vehicle up to its present high standard of perfection.

Mention has already been made of the fact that, when a tractor is used, the load does not assist the adhesion of the wheels. This constitutes, as it were, an artificial limit to the tractive power, and has naturally caused some designers to consider methods by which the engine power of a tractor could be applied not only to one pair of wheels but to all the wheels, so that the whole weight of the engine itself can be used to secure adhesion.

The four-wheel drive is not common in commercial service, as it has only been found necessary under a limited number of very severe conditions. A good deal has been done, however, in this direction, particularly in France. The resulting vehicle need not be purely a tractor. In fact, we often find heavy lorries employed not only to carry a substantial load, but to haul an additional lighter load in a trailer. As a rule, these trailers have iron-tyred wheels, but for service in which economy of engine power is more important than economy of money, rubber tyres are usually fitted, since they have the effect of reducing the power absorbed in hauling the trailer by about 25 per cent.

Another development which is due mainly to the difficulties of adopting the internal combustion engine for the haulage of heavy loads without shock, is the petrol-electric system. In this system the power of the car engine is used to drive an electric dynamo. This dynamo generates current which is either supplied direct to electric motors or else stored in a battery of accumulators, the former method being the better and more likely to survive. Sometimes one electric motor is used, taking the place of an ordinary gear box, and driving the back wheels through a universally jointed shaft and a differential gear. In other cases, two balanced electric motors are employed in or near the driving wheels. In others again, two motors are used, each driving through shaft and differential gear to one axle of the vehicle, and so providing an electric four-wheel drive. Another arrangement is the provision of four electric motors, one for each wheel. The vehicle is controlled through the medium of a "controller"; that is to say, an apparatus which, by the movement of a handle, varies the electrical connections and so makes the installation suitable for providing either a big torque at low speeds, or a comparatively light torque at high speeds. Electrical machinery is also in a sense self-regulating, and consequently a well-designed petrol-electric transmission is tantamount to the provision of an infinitely variable change speed gear. One of the strongest arguments against the petrol-electric method is that, when the machine is running fairly light and fast, the electrical machinery involves certain unnecessary power losses. Consequently, systems have been devised in which mechanical and electrical drive are combined, the latter only operating the vehicle under conditions equivalent to an increase of load on the engine.

Efforts have been made for many years past to evolve a satisfactory internal combustion engine using paraffin or some other heavy and comparatively cheap oil in place of petrol. While these attempts have by no means failed, the practical results are up to the present more or less limited to the use of paraffin fuel in tropical or semi-tropical countries, where the higher temperature facilitates its employment. Among the disadvantages of paraffin are difficulties in starting up, a tendency to soot up the sparking plugs, the need of more frequent cleaning of cylinders, and a certain amount of disagreeable smell, partly due to the creeping of the liquid through every available crevice.

So far as the ordinary petrol van or lorry is concerned, various types have been developed to meet a variety of commercial needs. A certain number of light vans are run on pneumatic tyres, but the solid tyre is preferred wherever economy is more important than speed. It of course goes without saying that, if a chassis is to run on solid tyres, it must be of substantial construction, and so designed that its mechanism will not be injured by the fact that the solid tyre is not so capable as the pneumatic of absorbing small vibrations.

A very popular type of motor van is designed to carry about 25 or 30 cwt. These machines are capable of speeds up to about 25 or even 30 miles per hour in emergency, and can average comfortably 14 to 16 miles. Under reasonable conditions, they can cover daily journeys of 100 to 120 miles. Among larger types the 3-tonner predominates. This class of machine can be generally used for daily journeys of 70 to 90 miles, averaging perhaps 11 or 12 miles per hour. It usually consumes petrol at the rate of about 1 gallon to 8 miles, though better results are obtainable under good conditions. There are also a large number of 5-ton petrol lorries in commercial service. These can be advantageously used to cover 60 or 70 miles a day, consuming about 1 gallon of petrol to every 6 miles run. The motor cab runs about 20 to 25 miles on a gallon of petrol, and the motor omnibus about 7 to 10 miles. This question of fuel consumption is, of course, distinctly important in military service, when adequate supplies are only maintained at the right points with considerable difficulty.

In later chapters some account is given of the attempts made by various governments to influence the development of motor traction into the directions dictated by their military needs, but this brief sketch of the general trend of events will be sufficient to indicate the present position, and to provide the necessary knowledge for the appreciation of the facts and considerations to which we shall now turn.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MILITARY MOTOR

The Opinions of German and British Military Experts--The Old and New Methods of Transport and Supply--How Troops in the Field are Fed.

"In a future European war 'masses' will be employed to an extent unprecedented in any previous one. Weapons will be used whose deadliness will exceed all previous experience. More effective and varied means of communication will be available than were known in earlier wars. These three momentous factors will mark the war of the future."

From this statement it is clear that, even if only improvement in means of communication is considered, the motor vehicle forms one of the three greatest factors in moulding the course of modern warfare. Railways have been available in many previous wars, and there can be no doubt that the reference to more effective and varied means of communication is occasioned almost entirely by the development of motor vehicles suitable for use in the transport and supply columns. Simultaneously, both of the other prime factors are affected by the introduction of motor vehicles. Road motors can assist materially in massing men rapidly at any desired point, and mechanical power is absolutely essential for the transport of guns of enormous calibre, the employment of which in the field is only in this way rendered possible.

Quoting again from the same authority we get an idea of the bearing of our subject upon a military theory now universally accepted as true.

"The commander who can carry out all operations quicker than the enemy, and can concentrate and employ greater masses in a narrow space than they can, will always be in a position to collect a numerically superior force in the decisive direction; if he controls the more effective troops he will gain decisive successes against one part of the hostile army, and will be able to exploit them against other divisions of it before the enemy can gain equivalent advantages in other parts of the field.... If the assailant can advance in the decisive direction with superior numbers, and can win the day, because the enemy cannot utilise his numerical superiority, there is a possibility of an ultimate victory over the arithmetically stronger army."

Taking this statement in conjunction with the well-known German theory that safety only lies in offensive warfare, we realise immediately the incalculable importance of the introduction of any new system which will give to large bodies of men the powers of more free and more rapid movement. When armies are increased beyond certain numerical limits, it becomes absolutely necessary for them to depend upon supplies brought up regularly from the rear, and not upon the uncertainties of living upon the country.

"Improved means of communication facilitate the handling and feeding of large masses, but tie them down to railway systems and main roads, and must, if they fail or break down in the course of a campaign, aggravate the difficulties, because the troops were accustomed to their use, and the commanders counted upon them."

We have here a complete recognition of two most important points. The first is, that the use of motors in the transport and supply columns, if successfully carried on, represents an enormous advantage, which may even allow ultimate victory to come to a numerically inferior army. In the second place, we have the acknowledgment that any breakdown in the service for which the motor vehicles are responsible, will be fatal to success.

The use of transport and supply motors does not amount merely to the employment of a large number of these machines for miscellaneous duties, but rather corresponds to bringing into existence a new link in the chain of the main system of supply. The existence of railways behind the army is assumed. At some safe point along the railway is formed the base, and from this base stores are brought up to a point known as "railhead," This is the point where, for the time being, military rail traffic ceases. It is evident that railhead is a variable quantity, liable to move forward or backward from day to day. The main accumulation of stores is at the base, and the stock at railhead at any moment consists only of sufficient to meet one day's requirements. Before the introduction of motor transport, the whole of the supplies from railhead had to be taken by horsed vehicle, and subsequently distributed in the same way among the troops. Under the new method, motor lorries carry the supplies up to a place called "re-filling point," which is a movable point situated from day to day in the most convenient position possible to arrange, with a view to the distribution of supplies by horsed vehicle to the army.

The result is to facilitate operations of troops up to a distance from railhead represented by half of a full day's work for the motors. The simplest way of appreciating the result obtained is to take an actual example. Under the new system, on, let us say, Tuesday evening, the soldier at the front is provided with a hot meal of fresh meat, cooked by the regimental travelling kitchens on the march. This food had been handed over to the kitchens on Monday evening by the distributing horsed vehicles, which had received it sometime during Monday at the re-filling point a few miles back from the motor supply column, which had left railhead perhaps 50 miles from the front in the small hours of Monday morning. Previously, the supplies had been brought down by rail from the base, and in this way the food which the soldiers are eating on Tuesday night, was probably to be found in the neighbourhood of the base on Sunday afternoon in the shape of live animals.

Working out the scheme from a rather different point of view, the soldier on the Tuesday night is in possession of Wednesday's supply of bread and cheese, and an emergency ration of preserved meat in case of any delays or breakdown in the transport service. The horsed vehicles are at the time empty, and are returning to meet the motors at re-filling point. The motors by this time are back at railhead waiting for Wednesday's supplies to be discharged from the railway trains. At about three o'clock on Wednesday morning the motors will be loaded and ready to start. Their speed capacity will enable them easily to catch up with the distributing horsed vehicles before the end of Wednesday's march, and to tranship their supplies at re-filling point for distribution on Wednesday evening.

The whole system is, in reality, very simple, and it enables large armies in the field to be supplied daily with fresh meat and bread instead of being dependent on food brought up slowly and in many stages, and for that reason necessarily of a character less nutritious, and much more liable in the long run to cause illness among the men. At the same time, the big carrying capacity of the motor has served to clear the roads behind the army of an enormous block of vehicles essential in the past, but now no longer necessary. In connection with this point, Colonel R. H. Ewart, D.S.O., representing the Indian Office at the Imperial Motor Transport Conference of 1913, gave some very interesting figures, which may be quoted as an extreme case:

"Up to 1910 the reports show that there were nearly five-and-a-half million bullock carts in British India alone, and in all our wars up to date, we have had to mobilise a very large number of these carts for our line of communication work. We find that when moving in large bodies, the utmost speed we can rely upon is about one-and-a-half miles an hour. We have worked out that it takes six bullock carts to move in eighty days what one 2-ton lorry can transport in ten. The bullock carts take up twice the room on the road for a given load, and in the matter of establishment--a question which you will all realise in the time of war is a very serious one--it takes thirty-five men, drivers, artificers and supervisors to look after what one man could do with a lorry."

From these figures it will be seen what an enormous saving is effected by the use of motors, even if we only take the point of view of the feeding, maintenance and payment of the men actually employed in the transport columns themselves.

The class of vehicle most commonly favoured for the work of feeding troops in the field is the 3-ton petrol lorry, capable of covering eighty or ninety miles in a day, and if need be of travelling under fairly favourable conditions at twenty miles an hour. Behind very mobile troops, such as cavalry, preference is sometimes given to lighter lorries rated to carry 30 cwt. or 2 tons, and capable of rather higher rates of speed and rather bigger daily mileages. Some European Powers favour for general work lorries carrying 4 or 5 tons, and in addition capable of drawing an extra 2 tons or so upon a trailer. In every case, the internal combustion vehicle is preferred on account of its independence upon frequent renewals of fuel and water supplies. However, steam tractors are often used for various classes of specially heavy work, as, for example, for drawing the travelling workshops which have to be established at the movable base of the supply columns at railhead.

TRIALS AND MANOEUVRES

Early Tests of Steam Lorries--Lord Kitchener's Views on Motors in the South African War--British W. D. Tractor Trials--The Carriage of Troops by Car--The Army Manoeuvres of 1912--Recent Trials in England, France, and Germany.

Naturally, the motor vehicle could not be entrusted with work of the first importance in time of war without previously going through a period of encouragement and probation. Some fourteen years ago, motor cars and cycles began to be used in small numbers during military manoeuvres in Great Britain and elsewhere.

In the French manoeuvres of 1901, cars and motor tricycles were employed for transporting staff officers, and for scouting work. The motorists who lent the cars were entrusted with the duty of driving them, and were granted certain privileges on that account. Results were on the whole satisfactory.

In the same year, the British War Office, as a result of experience gained in South Africa, were encouraged to conduct trials of motor lorries. The entrants were five in number. Four of these were steam lorries, the makes represented being the Foden, Straker, and two types of Thornycroft. There was only one entrant of an internal combustion engined machine. This was a Milnes-Daimler modelled on the German Daimler cars, and having a four-cylinder engine rated at 25 h.p., with ignition by low-tension magneto. Fuel was supplied by pressure of the exhaust, and the car had a channel steel frame and large built-up steel wheels. Even at that comparatively early date, the Foden lorry was, in general appearance, very similar to the standard steam lorry of to-day. It was, of course, fitted with a locomotive-type boiler, this being a practice which has since been adopted by almost all manufacturers of this class of machine. The Thornycroft lorries had vertical boilers, and the one type was representative of standard practice, the other being rather a peculiar machine driven from the rear. The Foden and standard Thornycroft were most successful in carrying out the very arduous road tests imposed, which involved a large number of particularly steep hills. The Foden was by far the most economical in water and fuel. The trials ended by cross-country tests in the Long Valley at Aldershot, and during these the Foden was unfortunately driven by accident into a deep ditch, with the result that its front axle was broken. Consequently, the standard Thornycroft received the first award and the benefit of subsequent small orders from the War Department, although at the time there was a rather strong feeling that the Foden ought also to have been recognised.

It was not until about two years later that, in the publication of evidence given before the commission appointed to inquire into the conduct of the South African war, the opinion of Lord Kitchener on the utility of motor transport in its then state of development was made public. His views were expressed as follows:

"We had about forty-five steam road transport trains. As a rule they did useful work, but questions of weather, roads, water and coal distinctly limited their employment as compared with animal transport, to which they can only be regarded as supplementary. The motor lorries sent to South Africa did well. Thornycrofts are the best. They will in the future be found superior to steam road trains as field transport."

From this it will be seen that the main result of South African experience was to indicate the superiority of the comparatively light self-contained motor vehicle over the heavy traction engine.

In 1903, a considerable number of cars and cycles supplied by members of the Motor Volunteer Corps were used in the British manoeuvres. The cars employed numbered forty-three, and averaged about 12 h.p. They were used mainly for staff work, and were very fairly effective. The attempts to use them for the carriage of searchlights were not very successful. Some thirty motor cycles were employed for carrying despatches, and behaved on the whole splendidly. Mr. J. F. Ochs, in describing, during a lecture at the Royal Automobile Club, the results obtained, made a somewhat prophetic statement in his remark that, "If Mr. Marconi could perfect his invention, how useful a car fitted with it would be."

Arrangements had also been made for giving the drivers and mechanics some theoretical as well as practical knowledge, and the movement had in fact formed itself into the nucleus of what it was then supposed would be required; namely, an organisation providing for military service a large number of 5-ton steam tractors, and a limited number of cars and motor cycles for staff and scouting duty.

For some time, efforts to procure for army service some really reliable internal combustion tractors running on paraffin were continued. In February, 1909, trials were held at Aldershot, in connection with which a considerable premium and valuable prospective orders were offered as an inducement to manufacturers to turn their attention to this class of machine. The entrants, however, only numbered three. One of these was a substantial four-cylinder Thornycroft paraffin tractor, which performed well throughout and was ultimately successful in obtaining an award, though it does not appear that the type has since been adopted in any quantity. A very singular machine which did wonderful work for its power was a Broom and Wade single-cylinder paraffin tractor of about 20 h.p. The work of hauling a heavy military trailer with a load of about 6 tons was, on occasions, too much for this machine under the sometimes very arduous conditions under which the trials were carried out. The third entry hardly came within the scope of what the War Department wished to encourage. It was a Stewart-Crosbie steam tractor with a two-cylinder compound double-acting engine giving 40 b.h.p. at 600 r.p.m. It was able to meet the stipulations as to capacity for carrying fuel and water supplies, since the boiler was of the vertical central-fired water-tube type working at 200 lbs. pressure, and supplying to the engine superheated steam which had been passed through coiled tubes in the furnace.

During the greater part of the trials the roads round Aldershot were covered with a thick coating of snow, which constituted a serious difficulty for iron-tyred tractors when using public thoroughfares in time of peace. In emergency, it would of course have been possible to fit spikes, or grips of some kind, to the wheels to prevent skidding and slipping, but this could only be done at the risk of great injury to the roads which did not appear justifiable under the circumstances. All three tractors were provided with means for employing their engine power through the medium of a wire rope, and this had to be utilised in some cases to get the loads up some of the very steep gradients encountered. The trials terminated in an extraordinarily difficult test across the Long Valley. Here much loose sand was negotiated successfully, and afterwards the engines were required to get their loads across a deep swamp. The Thornycroft was the most successful, but even the little Broom & Wade machine managed to carry out the work by means of a system of pulleys applied to its wire rope gear. It was curious to watch this little engine dragging its big load in a trailer which had sunk almost to the wheel tops in mud and water. Occasionally, turf and mud had to be dug away from the front of the trailer, and when it was in motion the wheels were actually rotating slowly in the wrong direction under the influence of the pressure of a continuous supply of weed-bound mud surging over their tops.

These trials, if not satisfactory in attaining their main object, at least helped to demonstrate that practically nothing is impossible to a soundly constructed motor vehicle, if properly equipped for rough work. Intermittently, experiments have been made at Aldershot with various machines of more or less peculiar construction. Among these may be remembered the Pedrail tractor, the wheels of which carry a number of articulated feet which, as the machine progresses, plant themselves one after another squarely upon the ground. The necessary mechanism was, however, too complex to render anything of the sort suitable for extensive military use, and the same trouble probably applies to the Caterpillar type of tractor, in which the wheels are surrounded by a track in the form of a sort of endless chain, which lays itself as the machine moves upon the ground, and distributes the weight over a large area. Passing over rough country, a tractor of this sort rolls like a ship at sea, but is very seldom in any real difficulty, even when traversing ditches or fairly low hedges. Steering has to be effected by allowing the wheels on one side to over-run those upon the other, with the result that the engine turns with a sort of skidding motion.

An interesting test of the value of the motor car in war was carried out by the Automobile Association on March 17th, 1909. The Association made an offer to Lord Haldane, then Secretary of State for War, to transport a battalion by motor vehicles to any coast town that the War Office might consider a possible scene of invasion. The point ultimately selected was Hastings. For the purpose of the scheme it was assumed that a sudden concentration of troops at Hastings had become necessary, and that a battalion of the Guards was about to entrain in London, when information was received that a portion of the railway line had been destroyed by spies or agents working on behalf of the enemy. Under such circumstances, the battalion could only be sent by road. On the date named, a battalion of infantry at full war strength, over 1,000 officers and men, with machine guns, ammunition, medical stores, tools, food, water, baggage, blankets, and other impedimenta amounting to some 30 tons, was distributed among 286 touring cars and about 50 motor lorries.

The cars were lent and driven by members of the Automobile Association, and several manufacturers of heavy motor vehicles provided the necessary number of lorries for carrying the guns and stores.

The battalion was a composite one, consisting of officers and men of the Grenadier and Scots Guards from Chelsea Barracks, Wellington Barracks, and the Tower. The programme, which entailed picking up the men at their respective barracks, joining up the three columns at the Crystal Palace at 10 a.m. and arriving at Hastings soon after 1 p.m. was carried through successfully, and within half an hour of arrival the battalion with its full equipment was marched along the sea-front.

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