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MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR
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HOW THE WAR BEGAN
By W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D., and J. M. KENNEDY
THE FLEETS AT WAR
By ARCHIBALD HURD
THE CAMPAIGN OF SEDAN
By GEORGE HOOPER
THE CAMPAIGN ROUND LIEGE
By J. M. KENNEDY
IN THE FIRING LINE
Battle Stories told by British Soldiers at the Front.
By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK
GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD
By STEPHEN CRANE
Author of “The Red Badge of Courage.”
BRITISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT
The glorious story of their Battle Honours.
THE RED CROSS IN WAR
By M. F. BILLINGTON
FORTY YEARS AFTER
The Story of the Franco-German War. By H. C. BAILEY.
With an Introduction by W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D.
A SCRAP OF PAPER
The Inner History of German Diplomacy.
By E. J. DILLON
HOW THE NATIONS WAGED WAR
A companion volume to “How the War Began,” telling how the world faced
Armageddon and how the British Army answered the call to arms.
By J. M. KENNEDY
AIR-CRAFT IN WAR
By ERIC STUART BRUCE
HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM
By EDMUND DANE
FAMOUS FIGHTS OF INDIAN NATIVE REGIMENTS
By REGINALD HODDER
THE RETREAT TO PARIS
By ROGER INGPEN
THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE
By MARR MURRAY
THE SUBMARINE IN WAR
By C. W. DOMVILLE-FIFE
MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR
By HORACE WYATT
THE SLAV NATIONS
MOTOR TRANSPORTS
IN WAR
BY
HORACE WYATT
ADVISOR ON HEAVY MOTORS TO “THE AUTOCAR”;
CONSULTING EDITOR OF “MOTOR TRACTION”;
HON. SEC. OF THE IMPERIAL MOTOR TRANSPORT COUNCIL, ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXIV
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 7
CHAPTER
I. THE SCOPE OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE 11
II. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MILITARY MOTOR 26
III. TRIALS AND MANOEUVRES 41
IV. EXPERIENCES OF MOTORS IN ACTIVE SERVICE 59
V. MOTOR AMBULANCE WORK 77
VI. THE TRANSPORT OF AMMUNITION AND ARTILLERY 94
VII. ARMOURED CARS AND OTHER MILITARY MOTORS 102
VIII. THE PROVISION OF MILITARY MOTOR TRANSPORT 117
IX. A COMPARISON OF NATIONAL CONDITIONS 132
X. BRITISH SUBSIDY TYPE MOTORS 148
XI. TRANSPORT MOTORS OF CONTINENTAL ARMIES 166
XII. EMERGENCY MEASURES ON THE OUTBREAK OF WAR 182
INTRODUCTION
BY THE EDITOR OF “THE AUTOCAR”
We have been told, and rightly, many times within the last few weeks
that the present war is unique, not merely on account of the vastness
of the contending armies, but also on account of the power of the
weapons employed. In fact, the war has very properly been described
as an engineer’s war, and such, indeed, it is, as the engineer is
wholly responsible for the tremendous development in every warlike
instrument which has taken place since 1870. He is responsible, too,
not merely for the development, but for the invention of wholly new
methods of offence and defence. But his influence does not end here,
and it is not merely in the firing line that one sees the influence
of the engineer: even as this war is the first occasion on which
modern weapons, explosives and projectiles have been tested on the
grand scale, so, too, is it even more emphatically the first occasion
on which motor transport has been thoroughly tested at all. While the
recent Balkan war provided a practical test of many of the weapons
used in the great war to-day, motor transport played only a very small
part in it; and it is very extraordinary that an innovation of this
kind should be truly tested for the first time upon such a stupendous
scale. It is the motor car, the motor van and the motor lorry which
have rendered the rapid movements of the present war possible; it is
not yet realised to the full how great have been the services of motor
transport in the supply of ammunition and food to the troops, and in
the rapid conveyance of the wounded to the hospitals. No one is better
qualified than Mr. Horace Wyatt to deal with this new and important
branch of modern warfare. In his capacity formerly as Editor and now as
Consulting Editor of _Motor Traction_ he has studied the question from
its inception: from its small beginnings in British army manoeuvres
many years ago right up to the present time he has followed the subject
with the closest attention. Not only so: he has personally investigated
the work performed by motor transport in the _grandes manoeuvres_ on
the Continent. I have had the good fortune to work closely with him for
many years, and it puts me in a position to say that his knowledge of
the subject is unique both in detail and in general, so that readers
of the present volume may rest assured that facts and facts alone are
dealt with in its pages.
H. W. STANER,
Editor of _The Autocar_.
Coventry,
_October, 1914_.
MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR
CHAPTER I
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.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF MOTORS IN THE SERVICE OF THE FLYING CORPS AT
A RECENT REVIEW IN FRANCE.]
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.
The essential differences between a tractor and a lorry should here be
noted. The tractor is designed merely to haul a load, while the lorry
is primarily intended to carry its load. In the first case, the engine
and the load-carrying vehicle are two separate units coupled together;
in the second, they form one unit. The latter is the more convenient
arrangement so far as manoeuvring in enclosed spaces is concerned,
since a good deal of skill is needed to back a tractor train with
accuracy. Also, the steam lorry uses its load to increase the adhesive
power of its driving wheels. On the other hand, the steam tractor can
itself be doing useful work, while some of its load-carrying vehicles
or trailers are being loaded or unloaded. By providing two sets of
trailers, it can be kept usefully employed and need not waste time at
its terminal points. Moreover, if it is required to work under very
difficult conditions, it is a great advantage to be able to unhitch the
engine from the trailer. If, for example, the bed of a river has to be
crossed and the wheels sink into loose sand, the tractor is unhitched
and run through without its load until it reaches solid ground. When it
is brought to a standstill, its engine is employed through the medium
of wire rope gear to drag the loaded trailer slowly but very surely
out of its difficulty. Thus, for cross-country work, the tractor has
much to recommend it, and it is not surprising that the success of the
five-ton steamer has led to systematic endeavours to perfect internal
combustion tractors possessing all the same advantages, and also
self-contained for long journeys as regards fuel and water supplies.
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.