Wierd French 4x4

[Z]

A co-worker is from Paris, in the 80s he bought a surplus Willys that was landed in Normandy in 44 (I don't have a pic for that vehicle) and he also has a French military 4x4 that I thought might interest some people here. The "training wheels" on the front were meant to help span trenches; small belly wheels (in lieu of a belly skid?); gearing is contained within each wheel hub; a driveshaft runs from the transfer case to each wheel and the driver could engage/disengage each driveshaft as well as select the gear at each hub. My co-worker also mentioned a funky type of suspension, but I didn't really undertand it. The designers wanted to allow the vehicle to be useable even if one wheel was blown off (I'm not sure how useful this would be if a rear wheel was blown off, maybe the funky suspension helped run with one wheel blown off.)

[blackjack12982]

That French thing is BA in it's own way, but the 44 Willy's is way more cool. I've got a 47, but a 44 would be epic!

[Mills05WK]

Very Cool.

[OverkillZJ]

Awesome

[Pearce]

Cool, that got me to looking for more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffly_V15


http://i71.servimg.com/u/f71/12/01/89/41/img_1310.jpg

[ZJ TINS]

A bit of trivia...
The wheels things were tried as well as skids for trench crossing during WWI and WWII. The french Renault tank from WWI had tail stinger and was considered a success, the rest mostly failed. As can be guessed an unpowered wheel is just less clearance. Hence, all modern combat vehicles are all wheel powered 4, 6, or 8 wheels.