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Levavasseur project
Levavasseur project
	The Levavasseur project.
Type	Tank
Place of origin	France
Service history
In service	project only
Production history
Designer	Captain L.R. Levavasseur
Designed	1903
Specifications
Crew	1 commander, 3 crew
Main; armament	1 Canon de 75
Engine	gasoline internal combustion engine; 80 hp

The Levavasseur project was an early project for a tank designed in 1903 by the French Captain Léon René Levavasseur (1860-1942) of the 6th Artillery Battalion,^[2] described as a "self propelled cannon project" (French: Projet de canon autopropulseur). It is considered as the first description, made by a soldier, of what would come to be known as the tank.^[3] Levavasseur was a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique, of the promotion of 1881.^[4] According to Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the World:

A project for a vehicle which had all the characteristics later thought desirable in a tank was put forward to the French War Ministry as early as 1903. Devised by a Captain Levavasseur of the 6th Artillery Battalion, who called it a "canon autopropulseur", the vehicle was envisaged as carrying a 75mm gun mounted in a box-like steel caisson which ran on crawler tracks, or "roues articulées" as Levavasseur called them. Powered by an 80hp petrol engine, the Levavasseur machine would have had a crew of three, storage for ammunition, and a cross-country ability.
— Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the World, by Chris Ellis and Peter Chamberlain.^[5]

Submission

The project was submitted to the French Technical Artillery Committee (Comité Général d'Artillerie), and after two years of study was presented to the Army Minister by the General President of the Committee. The general described the project in letter No.135, dated 1 February 1905:

The objective of the machine is to create an automobile artillery piece, capable of going over the rough terrain only accessible to horse carriages, and offering to the personnel and the engine parts a complete protection from indirect or small arms fire.
— General President of the Technical Artillery Committee to the Army Minister, 1 February 1905.^[6]

Design

The locomotive mechanism is then described as a type of continuous track, supporting an armoured box with a weapon:^[7]

The all-terrain mobility necessary to this machine is achieved by a contraption equivalent to a wheel of very large diameter. This contraption, called an "articulated wheel", consist in a sort of rim composed of wedge-shaped blocks ("voussoirs") connected together by bolts around which they can rotate, and with an elastic connection tending to close up the space between the voussoirs. The faces of the links adjacent to the ground serve as the "sole" of the wheel, and the links opposite form a race ("Chemin de roulement"). These two faces are cylindrical and concentric. Those forming the sole have a radius of four meters. These faces form two continuous surfaces when the blocks are connected.
A box is positioned with rollers on the races of the two identical articulated wheels. The rollers are positioned so as to maintain the natural shape of the articulated wheels.
Besides these rollers, the box supports two sprockets on each side, the teeths of which mesh with the bolts of the links. They are rotated by an 80hp engine.
The box, made of bulletproof steel, hold an artillery piece of 75mm on a special gun carriage. It transports one commander, three servants and ammunitions.
— General President of the Technical Artillery Committee to the Army Minister, 1 February 1905.^[8]

Reception

The Artillery Technical Committee raised three major objections:^[9]

All-terrain machines had not to that day given satisfaction.
Hard objects could enter the mechanism and damage it.
Direction could not be properly controlled.

Overall, it was not felt that there was a demand for such a machine, and horsedrawn artillery was considered adequate.^[10]

Aftermath

Levavasseur reworked his mechanism, improved its resistance to hard objects, and brought forward a new improved project in 1908. He estimated an outlay of 14,000 francs for the construction of a mock-up.^[12]

Eventually, the project was completely rejected. A letter dated 13 August 1908 explained that a tractor on continuous tracks was now available from a British company, Richard Hornsby & Sons.^[13]

It is unclear whether General Estienne, the French "Father of the tank" ever knew about this project. However, Commandant Léonce Ferrus, who wrote the rejection report, participated in the Schneider tank experiments on 10 September 1915,^[14] and in 1916 became involved with the development of the Saint-Chamond tank, which bore what Gougaud describes as "disturbing similarities" to the Levavasseur project,^[15] such as layout, armament (Canon de 75), power plant (80 hp engine) and general silhouette.^[16]

Levavasseur became a lieutenant colonel of artillery, and retired simply expressing his regret that his views had not been taken into consideration earlier, before the advent of World War I.^[17]

Notes

^ Gougaud, p.101
^ Armoured fighting vehicles of the world Duncan Crow 1970, p. 65
^ Gougaud, p. 99
^ Gougaud, p. 100
^ Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the World, by Chris Ellis and Peter Chamberlain p. 65
^ Original French: "On se propose d'établir une pièce de campagne automobile susceptible de parcourir tous les terrains accessibles aux voitures attelées et qui assure au personnel et aux organes de mouvement une protection complète contre le tir fusant et la balle d'Infanterie", in Gougaud, p. 99
^ Gougaud, p. 99
^ Original French: "La mobilité nécessaire à ce projet est obtenue, dans le projet dont il s'agit, par l'emploi d'un dispositif équivalent à des roues de très grand diamètre.
Ce dispositif, appelé "roues articulées", consiste en une sorte de jante composée de voussoirs réunis entre eux par des boulons autour desquels ils peuvent tourner et munis d'une liaison élastique tendant à appliquer l'une contre l'autre les faces voisines de deux voussoirs. Les faces des voussoirs qui reposent sur le sol forment la semelle de la roue, et les faces opposées un chemin de roulement. Ces deux faces sont cylindriques et concentriques. Celles qui forment la semelle ont un rayon de quatre mètres. Elles constituent deux surfaces continues quand les voussoirs sont jointifs.
Une caisse repose par l'intermédiaire de galets sur les chemins de roulement de deux roues articulées identiques. Les galets sont disposés pour laisser aux roues leur forme naturelle.
En dehors de ces galets de roulement, la caisse porte de chaque coté deux galets d'entrainement dont les dents engrènent avec les boulons des voussoirs. Ils sont activés par un moteur à pétrole de 80cv.
La caisse en tôle d'acier à l'épreuve des balles, porte une pièce de 75 sur affût spécial. Elle transporte un chef de piece, trois servants et des munitions" quoted in Gougaud, p. 99
^ Gougaud, pp. 99–100
^ Gougaud, p. 100
^ Gougaud, p.128
^ Gougaud, p. 100
^ Gougaud, p. 100
^ Gougaud, p. 111
^ Gougaud, p. 215
^ Gougaud, p. 128
^ Gougaud, p. 100

References

Alain Gougaud L'Aube de la Gloire, Les Autos-Mitrailleuses et les Chars Français pendant la Grande Guerre, 1987, Musée des Blindés, ISBN 2-904255-02-8
Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the World Volume I, Cannon Books, 1998, ISBN 1-899695-02-8