Horace Wyatt

“ As to the first of these two stipulations, one would think that there could hardly be two opinions, though in point of fact it has been argued in some quarters that no standardisation of driving control is in any way essential. Such a view one imagines can only be held by those who are personally so fortunate as to have that mechanical knack which allows a man to take charge of any car, however different it may be from those to which he has been previously accustomed, and to drive it with perfect safety and efficiency even at night-time and over unknown and bad roads. ”

“ We may take it, then, that the principle of maintaining in the possession of the War Department in time of peace sufficient motor vehicles to fill the whole of the needs in time of war is unworkable except at enormous cost, since the majority of the vehicles could be put to no useful work and would merely deteriorate and become obsolete and, therefore, comparatively speaking, valueless were they to stand idle. ”

“ Now the motor vehicle is able to show superior economy over horse-drawn traffic mainly where it is able to make use of its capacity for speed and its ability to cover, without tiring, long distances in the course of a day. For house-to-house deliveries the motor is at a disadvantage, since while it is standing waiting before a door it represents a larger idle capital than the horsed cart, and the investment of this larger capital can only be justified if it results in the vehicle performing in a given time a far larger amount of work than would be possible if horses were used. ”

“ In times of peace, the motor ambulance proper is, so far as its chassis is concerned, more akin to an industrial vehicle than to a touring car. The heavier examples, in some cases, run on solid rubber tyres, and in others on twin pneumatics, while the lighter types are fitted with single pneumatics of heavy section. In detail, the chassis is simple and strong, and well adapted to be put under the charge of a driver of only average mechanical ability. The principal points are that the vehicles should be silent in running, not liable to derangement and extremely well sprung. ”

“ The War Department has recognised the impossibility of asking for complete standardisation, and so killing the individuality of different types of vehicle. The tendency of any such process would be to throttle normal competition, and to prevent progress. Consequently, standardisation can only be attempted in certain respects where it appears for one reason or another to be highly desirable. For example, radiators are notably liable to damage, and consequently the connections of the radiator to the machine are standardised to allow of ready replacement of this essential as a whole. ”

“ The establishment of an army in time of peace is very much less than it is in war time, and in time of war an army must be far more self-supporting than it is in time of peace, when considerable quantities of supplies can be brought regularly by civilian contractors to depôts where the troops are stationed, and the military authorities require only to secure the distribution of such supplies in detail. ”

“ If we were to examine the fleet of any large motor omnibus, motor cab, or motor haulage concern, we should almost inevitably find that the vehicles employed were almost all of one make and commonly of one type. ”

“ Without devoting too much space to the consideration of machines which are as yet merely proposals and not actualities, brief mention may be made of a design recently got out by a British engineer, and representing in a sense the last word in armoured cars, since it is in no sense a make-shift, and provides for the complete protection of the driver and every item of the mechanism. The car is, of course, completely enclosed, and from its roof projects an armoured turret containing two machine guns. The driver gets his view of the road only through louvres in front and in the side doors. ”

“ The delivery of supplies, as it were in retail, to the troops must still be carried out by horse transport, since motor lorries are not suitable for continuous use where made roads do not exist. The comparatively slow movement of horsed vehicles even now affects the rate of progress of an army. When huge bodies of men are in motion, the depth from the front to the rear of the army is very considerable, and at the end of the day the supplies have to be brought up from the rear to the front in time to enable the whole force to be fed. ”

“ We find that when moving in large bodies, the utmost speed we can rely upon is about one-and-a-half miles an hour. We have worked out that it takes six bullock carts to move in eighty days what one 2-ton lorry can transport in ten. The bullock carts take up twice [Pg 38] the room on the road for a given load, and in the matter of establishment—a question which you will all realise in the time of war is a very serious one—it takes thirty-five men, drivers, artificers and supervisors to look after what one man could do with a lorry. ”

“ The motor vehicle was used as a luxury, and exploited as a means of bringing into being new forms of sport, for many years before it acquired sufficient reliability or worked with sufficient economy to justify its employment on economic grounds. The industrial motor industry is, in fact, at the present day only about ten years old. In the first instance, one of the principal factors in securing the occasional use of motor vans was the advertisement value of a rather unusual type of vehicle, which naturally attracted considerable attention wherever it went. ”

“ For the rapid transport of light artillery various special machines have been devised, providing either for the carriage of a gun upon the platform of a motor lorry, or for the construction of a gun-carrying vehicle forming one complete unit. In this branch of development the Germans have shown the most initiative, and Krupps have got out several interesting designs. In all of these strong motor lorry chassis are used. A usual system is to fit, by hinging to the back of the chassis, strong ramps up which the gun may be hauled, either by the power of the motor engine or by other means. ”

“ The inflexible nature of a tramway system has been the principal factor in securing the popularity of a free road vehicle, and at the present moment the motor omnibus is able to compete directly with great success against the electric tram car. So it came about that passenger transport was very rapidly converted to mechanical power. If London is taken as an example, we find that at the present moment over 95 per cent. of passenger transport is carried on by mechanical vehicles, while certainly not more than 15 per cent. ”

“ It is impossible to say to what a great extent the development of motor transport is the result of the anomaly under which the road passenger traffic of London is not controlled by the local governing authorities, who possess in other cities licensing powers reserved in London to the Chief Commissioner of Police. ”

“ The advantage of the new system is based on the speed capacity of the motor vehicle, a supplementary point being an enormous reduction in the length of a column carrying a given quantity of supplies. It is, however, the higher speed of the motor which has the greatest effect, since it enables many columns to be replaced by one. In the words of Colonel Paul: “One echelon of mechanical transport can do the work of five echelons of horse transport, and one column will suffice to connect the horse transport immediately behind the troops with the railway.” ”

“ The French Government have specialised for many years past in machines of this and somewhat lighter load-carrying capacity, and more recently they have made serious and fairly successful efforts to encourage [Pg 167] the employment of powerful vehicles in which the engine power is arranged to drive all four wheels, and which can be used either as lorries or as tractors, or as a combination of the two. The genius of the French motor engineer, in the opinion of the writer, expresses itself better in the high-speed touring car than in the industrial vehicle. ”

“ So far as the ordinary petrol van or lorry is concerned, various types have been developed to meet a variety of commercial needs. A certain number of light vans are run on pneumatic tyres, but the solid tyre is preferred wherever economy is more important than speed. It of course [Pg 24] goes without saying that, if a chassis is to run on solid tyres, it must be of substantial construction, and so designed that its mechanism will not be injured by the fact that the solid tyre is not so capable as the pneumatic of absorbing small vibrations. ”

“ If wheelbase is not sufficient to allow of the fitting of a four-stretcher body without these grave disadvantages, the only thing to do is to put up with the smaller accommodation of a two-stretcher body. The usual arrangement in this case is to extend the body right forward towards the dash on the left of the driver, and so to push the stretchers a couple of feet further forward, the space inside the body behind the driver serving for the carriage of luggage, for an attendant, or for one or two wounded men who are not very seriously injured. ”

“ On the other hand, the steam tractor can itself be doing useful work, while some of its load-carrying vehicles or trailers are being loaded or unloaded. By providing two sets of trailers, it can be kept usefully employed and need not waste time at its terminal points. Moreover, if it is required to work under very difficult conditions, it is a great advantage to be able to unhitch the engine from the trailer. If, for example, the bed of a river has to be crossed and the wheels sink into loose sand, the tractor is unhitched and run through without its load until it reaches solid ground. ”

“ Electrical machinery is also in a sense self-regulating, and consequently a well-designed petrol-electric transmission is tantamount to the provision of an infinitely variable change speed gear. One of the strongest arguments against the petrol-electric method is that, when the machine is running fairly light and fast, the electrical machinery involves certain unnecessary power losses. Consequently, systems have been devised in which mechanical and electrical drive are combined, the latter only operating the vehicle [Pg 23] under conditions equivalent to an increase of load on the engine. ”

“ In fact, the war has very properly been described as an engineer’s war, and such, indeed, it is, as the engineer is wholly responsible for the tremendous development in every warlike instrument which has taken place since 1870. He is responsible, too, not merely for the development, but for the invention of wholly new methods of offence and defence. ”

“ To form the complete vehicle, what is wanted at such times is not necessarily a luxuriously-equipped conveyance, but is rather a quite light and simple body sensibly constructed to bear its load, and capable of standing any amount of jolting without either its component parts shaking loose among themselves, or the body as a whole becoming insecure in its connections with the chassis. ”

“ Road motors can assist materially in massing men rapidly at any desired point, and mechanical power is absolutely essential for the transport of guns of enormous calibre, the employment of which in the field is only in this way rendered possible. ”

“ On the other hand, larger wheels are better for the roads, and consequently it is within the bounds of possibility that trading concerns will presently be compelled by law to put up with their disadvantages. From the point of view of motor users in the Colonies, high ground clearance and large wheels are very valuable and even essential features. Consequently, the subsidy scheme works in well with many Colonial requirements, and manufacturers whose machines are accepted by the War Department probably depend for success of the type to no little extent upon the likelihood of orders from abroad. ”

“ Italy can only find very small use for heavy motor vehicles in commercial service, and consequently it would be futile as yet for the Government to depend upon anything in the nature of a subsidy scheme. During the Tripoli campaign, a considerable number of rather lightly built lorries were obtained by direct purchase and proved very serviceable. Probably they are not of a type which would be by any means ideal in a European war, though they were doubtless the right thing for work over loose sandy tracks where heavier machines might well have become inoperative. ”

“ The big traction engine is a very British product, and it is interesting, if not quite satisfactory, to note that the huge siege guns of the German army are stated to be hauled by engines of British origin. For lighter guns, the steam tractor, or small traction engine, can be employed, but very many efforts have been made to dispense with its service in favour of an internal combustion [Pg 96] tractor, less dependent on constant renewal of fuel and water supplies. ”

“ Taking this statement in conjunction with the well-known German theory that safety only lies in offensive warfare, we realise immediately the incalculable importance of the introduction of any new system which will give to large bodies of men the powers of more free and more rapid movement. ”

“ The resulting vehicle need not be purely a tractor. In fact, we often find heavy lorries employed not only [Pg 21] to carry a substantial load, but to haul an additional lighter load in a trailer. As a rule, these trailers have iron-tyred wheels, but for service in which economy of engine power is more important than economy of money, rubber tyres are usually fitted, since they have the effect of reducing the power absorbed in hauling the trailer by about 25 per cent. ”

“ From what has gone before, it will be seen that circumstances have all worked together to cause the development of motor transport of Great Britain to be far more rapid than in other countries. Added to this is the undoubted fact that the genius of the British engineer is best expressed in something substantial and durable. The heavy industrial motor is more typical of [Pg 145] British tendencies than is the light fast car. ”