Earliest Possible Design & Deployment of the Tank?

hey, all. one thing i decided on a long time ago for my ASB ATL (which may extend to some of my other TL projects as well) is that WW1 as we know it does not occur (though a regional war in southeast Europe takes its place). however, this in turn brings up one complication: no WW1 as we know it, no tanks as we know it

therefore, i want to start up a discussion about how tanks could potentially arrive on the battlefield before the date of the outbreak of WW1 IOTL. according to what i've looked up so far, the earliest date at which something resembling what we would recognize as an OTL tank was in 1903 by a French captain (hence why i put this in post-1900). since France would largely be uninvolved in the replacement war, does anyone have any ideas as to where these earlier tanks would first be fielded and move on to being developed/reverse-engineered by other countries? alternatively, another country could potentially develop them (i'd like to figure out which one would be the most likely) or steal the designs for such a weapon beforehand

also, another thing that comes to mind here could be that tanks aren't called tanks ITTL (in much the same way that tanks are called barrels in TL-191). as an official term, i'll probably default to armored-fighting-vehicle, but unless these tanks are built in secret and thus need an unassuming "code name" as IOTL, they might not get their name shortened and simplified
 
IMHO, you'd need to speed up the development of the internal combustion engine in order to make any headway into successful tank design. Engine power is probably the greatest hurdle for early tanks. Basically, they were developed almost as soon (if not even earlier) as was technologically viable.
 
Tanks were made to break the deadlock of trench warfare, so without trench warfare, tanks (as opposed to say armoured cars) have little place in war, or will in most militaries' minds, so I doubt we'll be seeing anything approaching heavy tanks, though light (Renault FT-17) and medium ("Whippet") tanks might still come in as a replacement for cavalry.
 
Tanks are doable even with more modern and powerful steam engines, but I think they'd be far too inefficient. At best, you'd get something like slow steam armoured cars or wheeled tanks. A combustion engine is better performace-wise.

However, Da Vinci's wooden, iron plate armoured tank has been proven to work pretty well. It has been estimated that simple early modern AFVs like that would not be too powerful and would be in no way fast, but would be good for causing mayhem and disruption among infantry and cavalry (since the crew would be shielded pretty well and firing grapeshot from small on-board cannons could help break up heavy infantry ranks (pikemen, etc.).
 
But would be so slow and unwieldy that field-guns would have no trouble dealing with them:
"Lieutenant, bring the cannons down off left flank"
"Are you sure sir, it will take us half-an-hour or so to drag them over here"
"Lieutenant, at the speed those cones are moving you can afford to take your time, but we will need the cannons here by this evening"
 
From the moment breech loading rifled weapons and aerodynamic bullets were invented, penetration to weight evolved faster than power to weight propulsion. Field guns were not really needed. With 1860 to 1920s tech it was easier to build an armour piecing small caliber weapon than to turn something that didn't float and was armoured against it mobile. It's a lot easier, and cheaper, to design a 1890 antitank rifle than a 1890 tank. Compact reliable internal combustion engines made the race fair until the invention of the guided missile/shaped charge combo.
 

JRScott

Banned
The earliest 'tank' design was by Leonardo de Vinci in the late 15th/early 16th century. However he made the design with a flaw that if anyone stole the design and built according to it it wouldn't work, you modify one gear though and it works fine. (Leonardo actually did this with a number of his inventions).

So the earliest possible deployment of a tank would be the mid 16th century probably assuming Leonardo shared this design flaw with someone before his death in the early 16th century or one of his students picked up on it.

If you want to discount that, and there is no WWI. Hmm that makes it more difficult. Given its purpose it probably would have had development at a slower pace, arriving perhaps a decade later in its WWI form.
 
Leonardo's

If we count da Vinci's sketch as a "tank" why not count the Assirians protected battering rams as "stugs"?
 

Cook

Banned
...tanks might still come in as a replacement for cavalry.
In that you have hit upon a key obstacle - opposition for such a machine from within the Cavalry Corps. There was strong opposition to the tank in Britain and France well into the late 1930s, and that was after the tank had been demonstrated and obsolescence of mounted troops had become clear to all but the most bloody-minded; imagine how much stronger that opposition would have been to a tank proposal without the deadlock of the western front.
 
In that you have hit upon a key obstacle - opposition for such a machine from within the Cavalry Corps. There was strong opposition to the tank in Britain and France well into the late 1930s, and that was after the tank had been demonstrated and obsolescence of mounted troops had become clear to all but the most bloody-minded; imagine how much stronger that opposition would have been to a tank proposal without the deadlock of the western front.

Early tanks were strictly infantry support weapons. They only became an alternative to cavalry with the Whipet of 1918. The initial motorised alternative to cavalry was the armoured car. The need for something like the tank should have been debated after the costly assaults of the American Civil War and the Franco Prussian War and with ingenuity a "motorised machine gun destroyer" could have been conceived at the time of the Russian Japonese war. Before that we could conceive armoured tramways for counter insurrection work in the cities, as an analogue to armoured trains.
 
Daimler/Skoda road trains

The first of the Daimler (for Skoda guns) road trains, articulated all wheel drive gasoline/electric artillery movers, was completed in 1904. This type of drive train could be used for a "motorised MG destroyer" it could be articulated. Like the current Hagglunds BsV10, with the fighting compartment in the front car and the generator in the rear one. Both cars could be big wheel 6x6. They would be armoured against MG fire, mount a low velocity gun and MG. A good 6x6 set up would probably work better than the early tracks, except of course for trench crossing. Since Ferdinand Porsche worked on the original, we could have him come up with the idea. A few would be ordered after the 1905 war.
 
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With a bit of foresight, the need could have been recognized as early as 1862. The practical application would have to wait, I agree, until IC became readily available, which is around 1875-80 (the first 4-cycle engine). Crossing rough ground needed a solution, but the "footed wheel" had been conceived by then (IIRC); IIRC, there were also already proposals/ideas for continuous tracks. It should IMO have been possible to have a *tank before the *First Sino-Japanese War (1895), & certainly in time for the *Russo-Japanese War.

Their low speed, poor cross-country performance, & vulnerability to AT rifles likely means tactics for use are very different than OTL. The added years to work out the wrong things to do means, at the very least, the British Army will have a combined armor-infantry doctrine by *WW1.
 
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1880's? Would the use of an oil powered steam engine work? You wouldn't have to take the bulk and weight of coal. Not tracked but wheeled and thick wood (3") coverd with iron/steel? Maybe a two pound gun or Maxim machine guns or even hand cranked ones?
 
No, you need tracks, wheels don't have the ground contact area to manage anything softer than dryish mud.
 
It's not clear that you do absolutely need tracks - several armies today use wheeled vehicles in combat, although the jury is still out on whether the trade is worth it. In any case, wheels can handle quite bad ground - just look at all the places wheeled artillery has been deployed in. Granted it takes more effort to get them there, but armies are usually willing to put up with that it seems.

Traction engines had both wheels and steam power, and they coped okay with most conditions they encountered (mainly because of their low gearing). They're not particularly fast, but they could handle heavy loads fairly well.
Given those characteristics I'd expect them to be used as infantry support at first, probably platforms for heavy weapons which normally couldn't keep up with the troops. The other obvious application is as artillery tractors or engineering vehicles, although they might be more expensive than their utility justifies in those roles.
 
Traction engines mostly only had to deal with level ground, and weren't brilliant at dealing with mud, and nor were they particularly manoeuvrable. Trying to adapt a traction engine, you end up with a vehicle that's slow, and limited mostly to fields, so it would probably be better to use them as prime movers.
 
Daimler

Here's a picture of a Daimler road train. My proposal is to put the generator on the back car, use a 6x6 or 8x8 set up for both cars, and retain the Gasoline/Electric set up with an engine for each wheel giveing all wheel drive. With wider wheels it would be pratical off road, provided it didn«t have to cross trenches or soft ground. skoda_24cm_bw2.jpg

skoda_24cm_bw2.jpg
 
alternative

An option would be to use just one car, with the generator at the back, and the fighting compartment at the front. This would be more practical, but put more weight on each wheel.
 

Sior

Banned
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010/01/05/lombard-the-great-steam-powered-horse-emancipator/

Lombard_01_resized.jpg

Lombard_03_resized.jpg


the Lombard was a purpose-built vehicle designed by Alvin Orlando Lombard at the behest of E.J. Lawrence, then the president of a lumber company in Maine, who envisioned a machine that could take the place of his numerous draft horses engaged in pulling felled trees out of the woods. Lombard a year later applied for the first of his many patents (674,737) that would eventually prove to be what some consider the first practical tracked crawler. He didn’t wait for the patent to be assigned to him, however – his first “Logging Engine,” as he called it (“Mary Anne,” as it was nicknamed), started up on Thanksgiving Day 1900. Mary Anne looked rather like a steam locomotive, except for the skis at the front and the cog-wheeled tracks on either side at the rear. Though the steam engine was worth just 50 horsepower at 300-400 RPM and motored the Logging Engine at 3-4 MPH, Mary Anne could pull 125 tons of logs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/2877846436/
 
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