Podeus 80HP Artillery Tractor Type Motorpflug II

Posted by Serendipitian@reddit | WeirdWheels | View on Reddit | 5 comments

Given how paramount logistics are in any war, I have been intrigued by how the famous ultra-heavy artillery pieces of WWI were actually moved to the frontline - especially the German "42cm kurze Marinekanone 14 L/12 in Räderlafette" (better known as the "Big Bertha"), since the "Räderlafette" part (meaning "chassis with wheels") suggests that they were conveyed by road.

It appears that heavy-duty tractors were made by the firm Podeus for this specific task. According to an article in issue 1014 of Tankograd World War One, this model was designated as the "Motorpflug II" and was moved by a watercooled 4-cylinder engine developing 80hp.

Image sourced from "Les tracteurs et camions lourds allemands chargés d’emmener les obusiers et canons lourds sur le front" (site in French)

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Burntarchitect@reddit

I was thinking that's a big ol' fella, but it's really not too dissimilar in scale to contemporary traction engines. It's interesting that they used combustion engines, given the availability of traction engines with similar or higher outputs (and possibly more torque) but I imagine there were logistical benefits from only having to carry fuel, rather than coal and water.

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Serendipitian@reddit (OP)

Indeed. Before researching these specific tractors I had only encountered fragments of information referring to steam tractors - which seemed to make sense given the power output of even early engines - but it appears that this technology was already somewhat antiquated by the 1910s and during the war most operational units were requisitioned rather than purpose-built.

And your argument about fuel streamlining resource management also makes a lot of sense, in particular when these tractors were used in conjunction with smaller vehicles - be they trucks or cars. Although this advantage may be incidental as I suspect the main reason for that technical choice may have been the fact that internal combustion engines were simply mass-produced and that it was easier for factories to produce a small number of larger models rather than adapting their machinery to assemble steam engines in parallel. However that is mere speculation on my part.

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He-who-knows-some@reddit

Steam has allllllllways been antiquated…. You gotta shovel 20tonns of black rocks, then you gotta pore in 20billion gallons of water, start a fire, and BOOM you didn’t turn a valve right and the boiler exploded….. also you and everyone in a 20’ radius got flash fried by steam and had to get shot to death because it’s 1890 and if you made it to a DR you had a 2% chance of survival because they didn’t know skin was important yet.

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Burntarchitect@reddit

That's an interesting point about the majority being requisitioned rather than purpose built - it would be interesting to know the exact reason why. Ploughing engines were still being built and widely used, and Fowler, for instance, produced their last engine as late as 1935.

Here's a lovely thread showing them still making themselves useful during the war: https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/311656-steam-traction-engines-used-by-the-british-during-ww1/

It would be interesting to know how widespread combustion engine manufacture was at that time - I suspect war itself might have created a significant uptick in demand. I think you might have steam engines and combustion engines the wrong way round there - it might be more a case of steam engine manufacturers re-tooling to make engines, but I'm also speculating!

It would also be interesting to know what fuel that Podeus used - I know agricultural tractors up until I think the early 50's used both Petrol and Kerosene: petrol for starting and stopping and Kerosene for cheaper running. After that, diesel tractors started to take precedence.