Wheel belt

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German 21 cm mortar with wheel belts
Close-up of a wheel belt of the same type of gun
" Big Bertha "
French Canon de 155mm GPF , also used by the USA

Wheel belts (not to be confused with wheel tires ) were mainly used towards the end of the 19th century until after the First World War to improve the mobility of heavy guns and other military vehicles on poorly stable ground.

Structure and functionality

At the end of the 19th century, artillery pieces were usually still equipped with narrow spoked wheels , mostly made of wood. Due to the increasing weight of the guns due to ever larger calibers , the specific ground pressure also increased more and more. Especially on soft ground, the guns tended to sink in during transport; some special bedding had to be made for shooting .

The use of wheel belts helped . This involved a number of (mostly wooden) plates that were attached tangentially around the circumference of the wheel. Due to the force of gravity, the individual plates folded down, so that the gun per wheel always stood on the ground with at least the area of ​​an entire plate. This drastically reduced the specific ground pressure (the wheel belt can therefore be seen as the forerunner of the crawler belt ). The guns could drive on significantly softer ground than without a wheel belt, and in some cases the construction of special beds for shooting could be dispensed with. The wheel belts could usually be dismantled for transport on paved roads.

One of the best-known guns that used wheel belts was, for example, the so-called M device , better known under the name of Dicke Bertha .

With the increased emergence of elastic and pneumatic tires as well as powered track chains after the First World War, the wheel belts came out of use.

literature

  • Hans Linnenkohl: From a single shot to a fire roller . The race between tactics and technology in the First World War. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-7637-5966-2 .
  • Franz Kosar: The heavy artillery in the world. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-613-02204-4 .

Web links