Truck chassis for "Pilsudski's Tank"

[Kazziga]

This is a question for all those interested in early trucks. What could be the truck chassis used for Polish improvised armored car "Pilsudski's Tank"?
It was build in November 1918 in Lviv, so I assume that there were not that many trucks with spoked wheels (10 spokes) availabe in that area.

Any suggestions?

Photos and drawings of this car can be found here:
Samochód pancerny "Tank Pi?sudskiego" - Ogólnopolski miesi?cznik ODKRYWCA
Strona prywatna dr med

Corey Ertz's 1/72 kit is available as free download at ecardmodels.com

[looker]

Since Michal Derela doesn't know then I doubt that anyone does.

[Uyraell]

Kazziga my friend, I have no proven information, but I don't think there are many candidate chassis for the Pilsudski Tank.

Thinking of the truck manufacturers of the era, who produced a chassis of the required dimensions, would leave very few choices.

Mercedes.

Magirus-Deutz (or Magirus predecessor)

Ursus,

MAN,

White,

Krupp.


Of those, I'd be looking mostly at the 1912 to 1917 Magirus and MAN, as both produced chassis/vehicles in the required dimensions, and said vehicles would have been available after 1918.
Another possibility is a White 5 Ton truck, as the 1911 models were used in Eastern Europe well into the early 1930's, and the chassis would have been capable of the required payload.


If I think of any more suggestions for likely Pilsudski Tank chassis I'll post them here Kazziga my friend.

Kind and Respectful Regards Kazziga my friend, Uyraell.

[Kazziga]

Uyraell, that is exactly what I had in mind - an attempt to limit the possibilities and make an educated guess. Thank you very much!

[Uyraell]

Kazziga my friend, you are indeed most welcome!

I admit I'm not expert on the topic, but though the above list was "off the top of my head" as it were, I believe it will be reasonably accurate. The simple fact is there were less than 20 truck manufacturers in that part of Europe at the time, or those with factories near enough to make exporting the vehicles into Poland a practicable proposition. That eliminates most of the truck manufacturers, and leaves more or less the list I gave above.

I do hope the info is useful my friend, and if more comes to mind I'll add it.

The only other thought of a likely vehicle would be a Marienwagen chassis by Bremer, but I'd think the Polish engineers would avoid those like the plague, simply because by that stage in time the Poles were very aware of how unreliable and troublesome those vehicles were, having seen them in use by the Germans so unfortunate as to have to employ them.

Kind and Respectful Regards Kazziga my friend, Uyraell.

[rickstef]

what about the Star and Jelcz trucks, I am not sure when they first were produced.

but those two would be my guess

Rick

[looker]

As another guess wasn't the company that becameTatra producing the NW TL2 and NW TL4 trucks at about the same time.

[Kazziga]

I just realized that this is probably the only photo (actually it's enlarged and modified close-up of the wheel) that can help identify the truck chassis used, all the other ones show the vehicle with side skirts that hide the wheels.
There is not much to see here and I think that the number of spokes is less than ten.

[Kazziga]

Looker, those Tatra trucks aren't a bad idea. It's a shame that there are no photos that show "Pilsudski's Tank" rear wheels.

NW TL-4 ? Wikipedia
http://www.autogallery.org.ru/k/t/tattl2sn.jpg

[Kazziga]

A few days ago I bought a little booklet (119 pages) "Samochody Pancerne Odrodzonej Polski 1918-1920" (Armored Cars of the Reborn Poland 1918-1920) and noticed that there is a list of trucks available at Lviv at the time the "Pilsudski's Tank" was built.

These were:
Büssing (iron rims)
Praga
Saurer
Fiat-Torino
De Dion-Bouton (French)
Hansa

This is not much, but maybe some WWI truck specialists will post some images/drawings of those?