Watching Tour de France has got me in a French mood. I want to like the EBR but those metal wheels are odd. Seems a lot of trouble to have the ability to raise them off the ground when not needed. I'd like it better if it had eight standard wheels with rubber all around. Not a lot of info on the web about them. Engine must have been under the turret. I'd like to learn more if anyone has any good links.
Everything with an oscillating turret is good. Especially low-slung multi-wheel armoured cars. And like all wheel-cum-track things, anything with weird drivetrains pleases my eye. So there.
As we mentioned de Gaulle on the Tour de France thread. I'll mention him on this one too. They used one to take his coffin to his funeral. Model Panhard EBR Funeral | Model Cars | hobbyDB
It is racy looking. And went just as fast in reverse as forward. I tried to resist but sometime the French make it too easy I had seen the DeGaulle funeral before, Owen. Very nice and very fitting.
That's a lot of driveshafts! Looks like a flat 12 in that picture, as suspected. Any info available on that?
Almost like one big circular one? That is odd, isn't it. Not surprisingly odd given how odd the whole thing is, but still odd. That dropping wheels for extra traction thing. There's a few here and there by different nations, but France tried very similar to the EBR with different marks of Somua AMR, A35 etcSeems to be an idea that grabbed them: Some pics, with apologies for quality - grabbed from the late lamented George Forty's book on armoured cars: Gendron AMR Somua - 1934 Gendron AMR Somua 35 And then maybe the heart of postwar EBR's origins - the original 37/38 jobbies, also called EBR. EBR 37 (AA): No idea yet if went beyond concept: And the 1938. Fascinatingly, he says it was moved to N Africa when Germany attacked. then buried... and still lost:
Check out the BRDM. The middle two axles are chain driven. I've seen the Iraqi one at Fort Benning BRDM - Wikipedia
There's one on display at the monument des chars d'assaut. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@49.4...4!1spYL2jAL1YhS3YB1IpYqt7w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Monument des chars d'assaut — Wikipédia http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/en/memorial-des-chars-dassaut
Went to the char d'assaut memorial 2 weeks ago & the EBR & AMX have gone, been replaced with a reproduction Schneider , good idea as it is a WW1 memorial.