Charles Renard (1847–1905) born in Damblain , Vosges , was a French military engineer.
46-517: Arthur Constantin Krebs (16 November 1850 – 22 March 1935) was a French officer and pioneer in automotive engineering. Collaborating with Charles Renard , Krebs piloted the first fully controlled free-flight made in the French Army airship La France , which was designed in 1884. The flight covered 8 km (5.0 mi) in 23 minutes. The flight landed back at its starting point. On its seven flights
92-526: A 23-minute circular flight. This was the first time that a flying machine made a flight which returned to the place of take-off. It was later exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle (1889) . He also proposed a now widely used system of preferred numbers known as Renard numbers that was later named after him and became international standard ISO 3 . It helped the French army to reduce
138-628: A Mondragon designed 75 mm field gun for production for the Mexican Army. It was the proprietary Canon de 75mm TR Saint-Chamond (Modele 1915) , designed to fire the regular French 75 mm ammunition. The French government had already made a commitment in May 1915 to purchase the Saint-Chamond 75mm gun. It is unclear whether the guns for the Saint-Chamond tanks were taken from existing stocks of Saint-Chamond guns or new production. Colonel Rimailho, who had
184-528: A direct financial interest in selling his company's gun, induced the Ministry of War to specify that the new Saint-Chamond tank would also mount the Saint-Chamond made 75mm. In so doing Rimailho had also upstaged the Schneider CA1 tank which could only be fitted with a smaller Schneider-made fortress gun firing a 75 mm reduced charge ammunition. To accommodate a regular length and full size 75 mm field gun,
230-425: A double slope so that satchel charges and grenades would slide off. Concurrently, the original two observation turrets in front and on top were done away with and replaced by a single low profile square turret permitting front and sides vision by the tank's driver/commander. With time, the tracks were also widened in two steps from 324 mm to 412 mm to lower their ground pressure. After Saint-Chamond tank No 210
276-507: A hull longer than on the Schneider tank was essential. The earliest Saint-Chamond prototype, a tracked vehicle longer and heavier than the Schneider tank was first demonstrated to the French military in April 1916. When Colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne , who had taken the initiative to create the French tank arm, learned that an order for 400 additional tanks had been passed on April 8, 1916, he
322-502: A new automobile, fitted with an electromagnetic gearbox and a layout of the front wheels which re-centred them when the steering wheel was left alone. Today this is known as the Castor angle . The Panhard et Levassor company acquired a license to build 500 cars under the name of Clement-Panhard between 1898 and 1902 featuring this innovation. Krebs succeeded Levassor as Panhard et Levassor's general manager from 1897 to 1916. He transformed
368-500: A tail for his own tank's chassis thus providing the same trench crossing ability but for less overall weight and length. While Brillié began to assemble this second prototype which was to become the Schneider CA1 , the arms manufacturer Forges et Aciéries de la Marine et d'Homécourt (aka "FAMH"), based at Saint-Chamond, Loire , was given an order for 400 tanks by the French government, a political move prompted by General Mourret of
414-437: A tank arm]. As a result of Rimailho's manipulations, the new tank had become a rather cumbersome and underpowered vehicle. It lacked a rotating turret, instead using a large overhanging front compartment housing the long 75 mm gun protruding from the nose. It should be pointed out that all French 75mm field guns at the time used the same method of traverse control. The whole gun carriage was moved from side to side pivoted on
460-413: Is a Member of Parliament, that he will request to have the whole matter placed on the next parliamentary agenda. Originally the crew of nine men was protected by 11 mm of steel armour on the sloping front and 17 mm on the sides. Later on, the addition of an extra layer of spaced 8.5 mm armour on the front improved protection. Beginning with the 151st vehicle, the roof was also redesigned with
506-547: Is still widely used today in industry for power transmission as a tyre coupling . The truck was meant for military and civil purposes. In 1911, jointly with the Chatillon Co, Krebs designed the Tracteur Chatillon-Panhard all-terrain truck. The truck had four wheel drive and four wheel steering and many were used during World War I as artillery tractors. Krebs also utilized his former military membership to supply
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#1732869509509552-554: The Gymnote . The submarine was fitted with the first naval periscope and the first naval electric gyrocompass . The latter allowed the Gymnote to force a naval block in 1890. From 1884 to 1897 Arthur Krebs modernized the Ville de Paris fire department; not only its equipment but its organisation as well. His work left a lasting impression in this elite corps. In May 1896 Arthur Krebs patented
598-472: The First World War , with 400 manufactured from April 1917 to July 1918. Although not a tank by a strict definition of a heavily armoured turreted vehicle, it is generally accepted and described as such in accounts of early tank development . It takes its name from the commune of Saint-Chamond where its manufacturers Compagnie des forges et aciéries de la marine et d'Homécourt (FAMH) were based. Born of
644-587: The La France dirigible returned five times to its starting point. Krebs and Renard shared the 1886 Ponti prize of the French Académie des sciences for their contribution to aerostation . Krebs inspired Jules Verne . In Verne's 1886 novel Robur The Conqueror , he writes of "the striking experiments of Captain Krebs and Captain Renard". In 1888 Krebs and Gustave Zédé designed the first modern French submarine,
690-461: The " Char Saint-Chamond ". It included a " Crochat-Colardeau " gasoline-electric transmission, a traction system already used on railcars in service with the French railways. Furthermore, the freedom to design a heavier and larger tracked vehicle gave Saint-Chamond the opportunity to upstage the Schneider company. It did this by installing on its "Char Saint-Chamond" a more powerful, full size 75 mm field gun plus 4 Hotchkiss machine guns instead of
736-454: The Army "Service Automobile". Saint-Chamond intended to build a tank that would be partly similar to the Schneider. Brillié refused to share his patents for free, and Saint-Chamond refused to pay. As a result, the "Forges et Acieries de la Marine et d'Homecourt" company, being unable to replicate certain patented details (notably the tail) of the new Schneider tank, developed its own proprietary design:
782-635: The French Army with engines and vehicles including the 1904 Genty Armored car , the 1916 St Chamond tank , the Chatillon-Panhard 4x4 truck, and others. In 1960, the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) named Krebs Glacier , a glacier flowing west into the head of Charlotte Bay on the west coast of Graham Land in the Antarctic continent, after Krebs. In 1934, several months before Arthur Krebs's death, he
828-602: The French arms manufacturer Schneider sent out its chief designer, Eugène Brillié , to investigate tracked tractors from the American Holt Company , at that time participating in a test programme in England . The original French project was to provide mobility to mechanical wire-cutting machines of the Breton-Pretot type. On his return Brillié, who had earlier been involved in designing armoured cars for Spain , convinced
874-537: The French government's refusal to fund his experiments and the rejection of his candidacy for membership of the French Académie des Sciences he committed suicide in April 1905. The Académie recognized his achievements by the award of the Prix Plumey for 1902 and the posthumous award of the Prix Poncelet for 1907. St Chamond (tank) The Saint-Chamond was the second French tank to enter service during
920-565: The Knight patent ( sleeve valve engine) and was first in France to build that type of engine which Panhard et Levassor would produce during the thirty years leading up to World War II. He made contributions to automotive racing with his powerful cars and motorboats. In 1911 Krebs invented the first elastomeric flexible coupling (cf. John Piotrowski). It is known in French as the Flector joint. This device
966-516: The Panhard et Levassor Company into one of the largest and most profitable automobile manufacturers before World War I. In 1898 Krebs replaced the tiller with an inclined steering wheel for the Panhard et Levassor car he designed for the Paris-Amsterdam race which ran from 7 to 13 July 1898. Fernand Charron won that race on a four-cylinder Panhard et Levassor. At the end of 1898, C S Rolls introduced
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#17328695095091012-686: The Renault FT. The last Saint-Chamond tank remaining in existence, an improved mid-1918 model, alongside other French tanks of World War I (Schneider CA1 and Renault FT), is preserved at the Musée des Blindés at Saumur . It had survived, together with a Schneider CA1 tank of the same vintage, at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds Ordnance Museum in Maryland, US, and was donated by the U.S. to the French government in 1987. Between 2015 and 2017 it
1058-535: The breakage of the caps of connecting rods on forward bogies and of track pins". By that time, the Renault FT tank had taken over the major role in the French tank force and had also been purchased by the American Expeditionary Forces in France. After the war 54 were rebuilt as ammunition carriers; the remainder were largely scrapped. However, at least one Saint-Chamond was retained as a memorial: there
1104-408: The breech operation of the 75 mm gun which he had to perform after pivoting on his seat to the left. A loader (referred to in some sources as the gunner) adjusted the gun's elevation, observing the target through a small hatch in the front of the tank, which left him vulnerable to enemy fire. Traversing the 75 mm gun beyond the limits of traverse of the gun (6° for Mle 1897) required traversing
1150-425: The central pair and are shod with iron, the resulting road-shock being taken by the springs and rubber tyres on the other wheels. Each vehicle is steered by its predecessor through a series of rods and linkages and when a Renard train rounds a corner each vehicle follows precisely in the track of its predecessor. They were powered by a 16.1 litre Daimler engine and the last carriage always cut the corner Depressed by
1196-433: The commercial rivalry existing with the makers of the Schneider CA1 tank, the Saint-Chamond was an underpowered and fundamentally inadequate design. Its principal weakness was its Holt caterpillar tracks . They were much too short in relation to the vehicle's length and weight (23 tons). Later models attempted to rectify some of the tank's original flaws by installing wider and stronger track shoes, thicker frontal armour and
1242-508: The company management to initiate studies on the development of a Tracteur blindé et armé ("armoured and armed tractor"), based on the Baby Holt chassis, two of which were ordered. Experiments on the Holt caterpillar tracks started in May 1915 at the Schneider plant with a 56 kW (75 hp) wheel-steered model and the 34 kW (45 hp) all-caterpillar Baby Holt, showing the superiority of
1288-405: The end of the trail by a worm gear arrangement on the axle of the gun. This meant that the Saint-Chamond engineers had no option but to fit the whole gun into the fighting compartment. Within the forward fighting compartment and on the left was the driver, also the vehicle commander. On the right a machine gunner operated the front Hotchkiss machine gun. This machine gunner was also responsible for
1334-411: The engine. Altogether, the Saint-Chamond had four Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun positions: one in the front, one in the back and one on each side of the tank. Despite weighing 23 tons, the tank could manage a top speed of 12 kilometres per hour (7.5 mph). This speed was seldom achieved in the field as the long nose was prone to digging into the ground. The relatively high maximum speed on flat ground
1380-426: The fighting compartment. Lieutenant Fouché lengthened the tracks to improve trench-crossing ability. In this early form the prototype of the Schneider was called Tracteur A - not for security reasons, but because nobody knew exactly how to call such vehicles; the French word char was not yet applied to tanks. Eugène Brillié, the chief designer at Schneider, rejected this Tracteur A prototype. Instead he had invented
1426-653: The first car in Britain fitted with wheel steering when he imported a 6 hp Panhard et Levassor from France. In 1902 Krebs invented the automatic diaphragm carburettor which gave cars continuous power during acceleration by providing a constant air-fuel ratio at all times; this also led to dramatic improvement in fuel economy. In 1906 Krebs traveled to the United States to plead in the Selden Case , associated with Henry Ford . Krebs introduced many improvements in car design:
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1472-740: The latter. On 16 June, new experiments followed in front of the President of the French Republic , and on 10 September for Commander Ferrus, an officer who had been involved in the study (and ultimate abandonment) of the Levavasseur tank project in 1908. In early 1916, the first prototype of the Schneider tank was assembled in an army workshop. It featured tracks from the American-made Holt caterpillar tractors that were already used in France for towing heavy artillery. Private Pierre Lescure designed
1518-409: The lighter Schneider tanks. Their first action as a fighting vehicle took place at Laffaux Mill on May 5, 1917. Sixteen Saint-Chamond tanks were engaged there, several of them getting stuck in trenches, but only three were destroyed in combat. During the rest of the war, twelve groups in total were formed with Saint-Chamond tanks : Artillerie Spéciale Nos. 31–42. In mid-1918, since combat had left
1564-438: The more effective 75mm Mle 1897 field gun . Altogether 400 Saint-Chamond tanks were built, including 48 unarmed caisson tanks. The Saint-Chamond tanks remained engaged in various actions until October 1918, belatedly becoming more effective since combat had moved out of the trenches and onto open ground. Eventually, the Saint-Chamond tanks were scheduled to be entirely replaced by imported British heavy tanks . In January 1915,
1610-676: The more effective Model 1897 field gun was installed instead of Rimailho's (profitable) 75 mm Saint-Chamond gun. At about the same time barrel-like rollers were added underneath the front and rear of the tank to help crossing trenches. This improved version was later called, unofficially, the Modèle 18 . Production slowed down in March 1918, after at least 377 had been assembled, and ceased completely in July 1918. Initially, forty eight Saint-Chamond tanks were modified as supply and recovery vehicles that could tow
1656-553: The number of different balloon ropes kept on inventory from 425 to 17. Colonel Renard invented the Renard Road Train first developed by Darracq and displayed by them in 1903 later developed in England by Daimler . The leading motor unit having generated the power transmits it by a continuous shaft united between the carriages by a universal joint to the driving wheels of each carriage. These, each carriage being six-wheeled, are
1702-584: The steering wheel (1898), non-reversible steering (1898), engine balance (1898), nickel steel alloys and other special steel alloys (1901), the shock absorber (1906), multi-disc clutch (1907), the electric brake dynamometer for testing high performance engines (1905), the enveloping (globoid) worm gear differential (1915). Also, Krebs contributed significantly to improve the Systeme Panhard (engine in front, rear wheel drive) which became universally adopted before World War II. In 1909, he became interested in
1748-625: The trenches for the open fields, it was used to engage German field gun batteries ( Nahkampfbatterien ) at a distance with its 75 mm cannon. The Saint-Chamond proved at last quite effective in this specialist assault gun role. The Saint-Chamond's final engagement in battle, with initially 16 tanks, took place in early October 1918, in support of the U.S. First Division near Montfaucon . As reported in Ralph Jones et al. (1933) in reference to this last engagement : "The Saint Chamond tanks were handicapped by damage to their tracks, by derailments, by
1794-552: The two machine guns present on the Schneider tank. Saint-Chamond's technical director was Colonel Émile Rimailho, an artillery officer who had become dissatisfied over the insufficient reward he had received for helping design the famous Canon de 75 modele 1897 field gun as well as the Modele 1904 155 mm "Rimailho" howitzer . Following his departure from the French State arsenal system (APX) and joining Saint-Chamond, Rimailho adapted
1840-448: The vehicle experienced major difficulties in crossing trenches and overcoming obstacles. This led to such negative reactions by the crews in training that a special mention was passed on to General Headquarters: Nobody wants to serve on the Saint-Chamond. Second Lieutenant de Gouyon, principal Saint-Chamond driving instructor at Marly, has publicly declared that it has become virtually impossible for him to continue to carry on and, since he
1886-502: The whole tank, and this was performed by the driver. A second fighting compartment at the back held one machine gunner next to the secondary driver's position, where the tank could also be driven backwards by the mechanic in an emergency. Between those two compartments stood in the open the gasoline engine and the electric generator. Narrow passageways on both sides of the engine connected the front and rear compartments. The passageways also held Hotchkiss positions, one on each side in front of
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1932-435: Was at first quite elated. When it later became apparent that they would be of a different type, Estienne was shocked and wrote: I am painfully surprised that an order has been launched of this importance without asking the opinion of the only officer who, at the time, had undertaken a profound study of the technical and military aspects involved and who had brought the supreme commander to the decision to take this path [towards
1978-621: Was made a Commandeur of the Legion of Honour for his work in Aeronautics and for his contributions to the automotive industry. Charles Renard After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 he started work on the design of airships at the French army aeronautical department. Together with Arthur C. Krebs and his brother Paul, in 1884 he constructed La France , which made its maiden flight on 9 August 1884 at Chalais-Meudon , making
2024-429: Was made possible by the "Crochat Colardeau" transmission which coupled a Panhard-Levassor four-cylinder 67 kW (90 hp) sleeve-valve gasoline engine to an electric generator capable of giving an output of 260 amperes under 200 volts. The generator was connected to two separate electric motors, one for each track, thus permitting perfect gradual steering of the tank. Due to its short tracks and over-extended body,
2070-651: Was one at the École des Chars at Versailles from 1919 to 1940 when the Germans presumably scrapped it along with the other tanks on display. There are unsubstantiated stories about Poland using the tank against the Red Army in 1920. If true, these specimens were in all probability not from the Soviet Army as the latter never had been supplied with them and the French Expeditionary Forces to Russia were only equipped with
2116-608: Was restored to running condition and repainted in a World War I camouflage scheme, at a cost of €120,000. It took part in various displays throughout 2017 to mark the centenary of the first use of tanks by the French army. A full-size replica in polystyrene foam , built by students of the Lycée Le Corbusier at Tourcoing , is on display outdoors at the Historial de la Grande Guerre museum in Péronne , France. Background: History of
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