Half-tracks from Europe

Prior to WWII, the British Military had few half-track vehicles, one type being this Crossley, which was mainly configured for use as a staff car and scout vehicle.

While half-track vehicles are fairly rare these days, and many Historic Military Vehicle enthusiasts in the United States are mainly familiar with the White, Autocar and International Harvester machines, half-tracks were manufactured in many countries and used by their armed forces during World War II. There were hundreds of different types and variants, both armored and soft-skin, with Germany and the Soviet Union predominating in the number of half-track vehicles, while the U.S. Military settled for the three basic types mentioned above, along with some variants. Only the British Military had fewer half-track vehicles of their own design and manufacture, seeming to instead prefer their full-tracked Universal Carrier as well as employing U.S.-supplied half-tracks. To picture and describe most of the half-track vehicles fielded by the nations involved in WWII would take more than an entire issue of this magazine, so we will begin with the common British and French machines. German, Soviet Union, and other nation’s half-tracks will be featured in future issues.

Crosley half-track

A Bedford BT-6 Traclat. In 1943, after German medium half-tracks had been captured in Africa and tested in Britain, it was decided to copy them as towing vehicles for the British heavy field and anti-aircraft guns. The German SdKfz.7 8-ton half-track was chosen as the model, and Vauxhall Motors’ Bedford Truck Division was contracted to copy it as closely as possible. Vauxhall insisted on large orders before starting production, so the Army ordered 7,500 for 1944 and 5,000 for 1945 delivery — though doubts were expressed that these orders could actually be met. Indeed, by June of 1945 only six prototypes had been built. Testing showed that the Traclat was superior to all other vehicles being considered for the towing task, but production was cancelled due to high cost and scarcity of materials.

The Traclat was powered by two Bedford six-cylinder 140-hp engines mounted side-by-side with separate radiators. The engines drove via shafts into a coupling gearbox. The track bogie-wheels were of German pattern but copied from several types — the outer ones from the SdKfz-11 / SdKfz-251 and the inners from a DB-10 12 ton. Vauxhall re-engineered everything to Imperial measurements.

Another British experiment was adapting Canadian Military Pattern (CMP) trucks — built by the Canadian divisions of Ford and Chevrolet — into half-tracks. Interestingly, the track mechanism appears to have been taken from the British Universal Carrier. Although these vehicles may have been successful, like the Bedford Traclat only a few prototypes were built and the machines were never put into production. While it seems likely that other half-track prototypes were built and tested, information is scarce and the British military seems to have been satisfied using mainly their Universal Carrier and U.S.-supplied half-tracks during WWII.

Associated Equipment Company (AEC) was a British vehicle manufacturer from 1912 until 1979 that specialized in heavy vehicles such as buses, motor coaches and trucks. The AEC Matador was designed for the British Military in 1939 as a cargo carrier and artillery tractor.

The Matador was a rugged four-wheel-drive machine with excellent off-road performance. It became one of the most common vehicles in the British arsenal, and several half-track variants were produced.

In 1921 Citroën motors of France introduced a half-track which seemed primarily intended as a gentleman’s SUV, as this advertisement seems to indicate, although the French military was also interested in the machine and used it mostly as a staff car and scout vehicle until war with Germany began to seem inevitable.

Commonly known as the P-17, the basic Citroën half-track did indeed look more like a civilian recreational vehicle rather than a weapon of war.

Despite its rather elegant looks, the Citroën P-17 (aka P-107) proved to be a rugged and reliable machine and was easily adapted and configured for military service. Many Citroën half-tracks (and conventional Citroën trucks) were captured by the German Army and used until the end of the war.