SOME ADVANTAGES OF RUBBER-TRACK VEHICLES
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A CORRESPONDENT of our assoP1 ciated journal " The Motor " calls for a revival of the rubber-track vehicle for war service, and there would certainly •appear to be many points in favour of this. Citroen expeditions
*through the wildest and least-known parts of South America, Africa and, in particular, Central Asia, are in recent memory, and during all these journeys the Citroen-Kegresse machine demonstrated up to the hilt its qualities of endurance.
Rubber tracks will stand up to the most terrific pounding, and astonishingly high average speeds can be maintained with them over rough, stony ground. Such speeds are often almost beyond human endurance for the crews of steel-track machines on bard ground.
It seems as if the rubber-track drive adapted to light vehicles of the blitzbuggy type might be of immense value in rushing forward supplies to an armoured division which has advanced " into the blue" and is in desperate need of food, fuel and ammunition.
The rubber drive is, for several reasons, far better suited to rapid movements of this kind than a segmental steel one, an important factor being the lightness of the bands, as compared with those of the steel type, when carried as spares.
Wheeled transport must keep to the roads or at least fairly good surfaces,
and that cannot follow closely enough a tank attack. In consequence, steeltrack supply vehicles accompany tank divisions, so that indispensable material may not be lacking at a critical moment and a tank battle be lost through lack of immediate support. It is just this kind of work to which the small rubber-track machine would appear to be specially adaptable.
In the Central Asia expedition organized jointly a few years .before the war by the Citroen Co. and the American Geographical Society, rubbertrack cars behaved magnificently during a long period of arduous, work in the Gobi Desert and the unexplored Ordos region.