Steam Wheel Tank

Steam Wheel Tank
Place of origin	United States
Specifications
Weight	17 tons
Length	22 ft 3 in
Width	10 ft 1 in
Height	9 ft 10 in
Crew	6

Armor	.23" to .63"
Main armament	1× 75mm howitzer
Secondary armament	6× .30 caliber machine guns
Engine	2 steam
Operational range	?

World War I tanks

List Category

British	"Female" tank "Male" tank Mks I, II, III Mk IV Mk V Mk VI Mark VII Mk VIII Mk IX Medium Mk A "Whippet" Medium Mk B Medium Mk C Little Willie Flying Elephant Killen-Strait Amoured Tractor Lancelot de Mole's proposal* (1912)

French	Schneider CA1 Saint-Chamond Renault FT Breton-Prétot machine Boirault machine Frot-Laffly landship Souain prototype Levavasseur* (1903)

German	A7V K-Wagen LK I LK II Oberschlesien

Austro-Hungarian	Günther Burstyn's Motorgeschütz* (1911)

Italian	Fiat 2000

American	Six Ton Tank M1917 Ford 3-Ton M1918 Holt Gas-Electric Skeleton tank Steam tank Steam Wheel Tank Three-wheeled steam tank

Russian	Tsar Tank Vezdekhod Mendeleev Tank* Rybinsk tank*

Italics — experimental prototypes; * concept only History WWI Interwar WWII Cold War Tank

The Steam Wheel Tank was the official US Army name for the vehicle also known as the three-wheeled steam tank. It was an early U.S. produced tank built by the Holt Manufacturing Company (now Caterpillar Inc.) sometime between late 1916 and early 1917. It was the third tank to be designed in the U.S. and was completed in 1918.

Design

The Steam Wheel Tank was designed on the basis of the early "Big Wheel" Landship concepts put forward by Sir William John Kelly from Great Britain in 1915 and also resembles the German Treffas Wagen of 1917.

Construction

It had two large eight feet diameter wheels with three feet wide treads, located at the front on each side of the substructure. These wheels were made out of several sheets of pressed steel and were not specially manufactured, being of the type used on Holt agricultural machinery of the period. At the rear was a four foot diameter roller wheel to be used for steering. A small skid plate or tail was attached to this roller to assist in trench-crossing. Both front wheels were driven by individual power units which consisted of a Doble 2 cylinder 75 hp steam engine and Doble kerosene fired boiler.

Armaments

The vehicle's main armament was a 2.95" (75 mm) mountain howitzer mounted low in the front. A .30 caliber Browning machine gun was carried in a ball mount on each hull side. Its riveted armour plating was between six and fifteen millimetres thick.

Prototype

One prototype was completed in February 1918 and was evaluated between March and May 1918 at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Some reports of the evaluation state the tank became stuck after fifty feet, thus ending its evaluation.

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