WW1 Military Motors - 1916 set x 50 cards

[Lancashire Fusilier]

I have an interesting set of 50 Will's Cigarette Cards published in 1916 illustrating " Military Motors ", some of the cards requiring to be " passed by The Press Bureau ", I assume a Govt. Censor.
I shall publish them in groups of 5, and hope members find them of interest.

Card No.1 - British Anti-Aircraft Gun Motor.
LF.

Card No.2 - British Armoured Car with Grapnel.

Card No.3 - British Armoured Tricyle.

Card No.4 - British Caterpillar Tractor.

Card No.5 - British Motor Baths.

[tipperary]

Nice collection LF look forward to the rest. Would not likke to be in the tricycle.john

[spconnolly007]

Great stuff, keep em coming!!Would not like to be in the luke warm bath after fifty other dirty smelly infantrymen either

[tn.drummond]

Great stuff this - any possibility of posting the reverse, assuming they carry information ? That tricycle must have been an utter mare to pedal, surely it was either motorized (looks to small) or else was very short lived !

Many thanks

Suddery

[bruce]

What on earth is that great big barrel sticking out of the back of the armoured car???

Bruce

[GRANVILLE]

Marvelous stuff. Has anyone got an actual photo of the armoured tricycle? Can you begin to imagine what that must have been like to try and pedal ( I assume for tricycle they mean pedal cycle)?! If not, and it was motorised, the same applies; can you begin to imagine the noise and smell inside it - perhaps not so dissimilar to the tanks?

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Many thanks to you all for the interest, there are another 45 cards to come!

With regard to Bruce's question regarding the " Big Barrel ", that according to the information on the back of the card was in fact a " very long gun which throws the grapnel hook as far as possible over the enemy's barbed wire, then the vehicle moves forward pulling down the barbed wire entanglement creating gaps in the wire ". It says several enemy trenches have been captured using this method.

The Armoured Tricycle " was well encased in light bullet-proof armour plates, with adequate protection to all parts, and carrying a serviceable machine gun - placed low to avoid overturning - these " baby " fortresses have proved a great service. They have rendered a good account of themselves, especially in the narrow roads and lanes in front of the enemy -

The machine gun is arranged to give full fire command of the road ".

Based on the information given, it would appear the Armoured Tricycles were actually used in service! I would love someone to have a photograph of either of these vehicles!

Regards,

Leo

[simoneyre]

Thanks for showing these

There are 2 versions of the set one passed by the censor and one without the censor logo

They are a fascinating set if perhaps somewhat fanciful

Simon

Many thanks to you all for the interest, there are another 45 cards to come!

With regard to Bruce's question regarding the " Big Barrel ", that according to the information on the back of the card was in fact a " very long gun which throws the grapnel hook as far as possible over the enemy's barbed wire, then the vehicle moves forward pulling down the barbed wire entanglement creating gaps in the wire ". It says several enemy trenches have been captured using this method.

The Armoured Tricycle " was well encased in light bullet-proof armour plates, with adequate protection to all parts, and carrying a serviceable machine gun - placed low to avoid overturning - these " baby " fortresses have proved a great service. They have rendered a good account of themselves, especially in the narrow roads and lanes in front of the enemy -

The machine gun is arranged to give full fire command of the road ".

Based on the information given, it would appear the Armoured Tricycles were actually used in service! I would love someone to have a photograph of either of these vehicles!

Regards,

Leo

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Will's WW1 Military Motors - Card No.6 - British Motor Cycle Maxim.

" The ammunition boxes are carried beneath the axle of the side car, and are easily accessible to the gunner, who is protected by a bullet-proof shield.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Will's WW1 Military Motors - Card No.7 - British Motor Buses.

" These London Motor Buses are now painted dull grey green to make them less conspicuous - the work of the Army Transport Corps is greatly facilitated by the splendid service of these buses ".

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Will's WW1 Military Motors - Card No.8 - British Motor Cycle.

" These speedy little machines have played a very important part in military operations. For conveying dispatches their services have been in great demand - A number of these machines accompany Motor Transport Waggons for reconnoitering purposes and for reporting the safety and condition of the roads ".

LF.

[bruce]

I am afraid that I am still rather bemused by the armoured car with the grapnel.

Apparaently, the armoured car gets through the enemy wire, charges across NML, and then fires a grapnel on a chain from the giant gun, which is pointing backwards.

How does the car get through the enemy wire? Or is it actually travelling away from the enemy and back towards our trenches?

Wouldn't the huge barrel badly unbalance the machine?

In the illustration, the chain with the grapnel is attached to the back of the car, and not through the barrel.

Or am I just seeing too much into a cigarette card?

Bruce

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Will's WW1 Military Motors - Card No.9 - British Motor Fortress.

" For outpost duty and for scouting purposes, as well as the execution of daring raids, mobilty, speed and reliability are necessary essentials for ensuring the success of these Motor Forts - their engines are almost noiseless, thanks to the invention of the sleeve-valve engine - The car is covered with light, tough steel plates which rifle and machine gun fire cannot penetrate - sometimes two machine guns are carried, with a crew of between four to eight men ".

LF.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Will's WW1 Military Motors - Card No.10 - British Motor Horse Ambulance.

" In France during the early stages of the war, it was quickly realized that exceptional arrangements would have to be made to cope with the great mortality taking place amongst wounded horses. Numbers of these Commer Cars were built at Luton, and sent to France. In these, the wounded horses were quickly moved from the front to the Veterinary Hospitals at the rear ".

LF.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Bruce,

Who knows what the Boffins came up with 100 years ago, however many of those ideas which were thought very bizzare at the time, later proved invaluable, like the Tank!

Here is the text from the card :-

" These cars have done excellent work when the conditions for their use have been favourable. Mounted on the car is a very long gun which throws a grapnel hook over the enemy's barbed wire entanglements. The car is then started towards the rear, breaking down and tearing gaps in the wire defences; through these our soldiers are able to advance.

Several trenches have been captured by the aid of these cars, which pass over the British trenches on plank bridges ".

Seems very plausible ?

LF.

[squirrel]

While some of these vehicles were produced and used, I am wondering if some of these ever made it to the prototype stage and beyond, let alone actually being used in action. It seems that some of them might just be ideas and images to keep up morale on the Home Front...the manufacture of "light, tough steel plates which rifle and machine gun fire cannot penetrate" was never achieved in WW1 IIRC.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Information taken from the backs of cards is interesting, when considered that it was written almost 100 years ago!

I will publish extracts with each card.

Here are parts of the texts from the first cards :-

Anti-Aircraft Gun Motor.

" Many experiments have been made to discover the best means of destroying the enemy's airships, but the rapidity of their flight and the height at which they travel makes such quickly moving targets most difficult to hit.

Range-finding shells and other clever methods will, we hope assist our marksmen - Many of these guns are now manned by naval gunners ".

Caterpillar Tractor.

" These powerful motors are specially constructed for heavy haulage work - The curious formation of the plates which revolve around the wheels, enables the motor to obtain a widely-distributed firm grip - These caterpillars will mount slowly, and with ease, an apparently impossible incline ".

Motor Baths.

" Every possible care is taken of the health and comfort of our brave soldiers. After being relieved from a spell of duty in the trenches, they are frequently given a hot bath and served out with a clean change of underclothing: their own clothing being dried, cleaned and disinfected in the meantime ".

LF.

[Rockdoc]

The AA Gun Motor is an interesting one. It's the 3-in 20-cwt gun that was used by roughly a quarter of AA Sections but was, originally, designed for the Navy and was used by them on ship and on land, using fixed mounts. This gun proved rather heavy and cumbersome with the lorries available in WW1, which had problems negotiating bad ground with the much-lighter 6-cwt AA gun, so they tended to gravitate to where the roads were in the best condition i.e. Base areas and docks. It was a much better AA gun than either the 6-cwt or 9-cwt types but its weight somewhat restricted its usefulness. As a rule of thumb, AA Sections with numbers above 200 used this type of gun.

There's a picture of one of these at Wikipeadia Commons.

The card must have been drawn as a composite and not from a photo of an AA gun-lorry. In use, the sides were lowered to give additional working space as the gun rotated, there would have been four or five people on the platform not one and AA lorries did not have rear mudguards. The platform was normally fitted to timber baulks laid on the chassis so the wheels were underneath but the thick, steel bases of the AA gun high-angle mounts were bolted directly to the chassis members and the platform made the same height. This meant that the top of the rear wheels just came through the floor of the platform and mudguards were bolted to the platform, to be removed when the gun was ready for action.

Keith

[GRANVILLE]

I am afraid that I am still rather bemused by the armoured car with the grapnel.

Apparaently, the armoured car gets through the enemy wire, charges across NML, and then fires a grapnel on a chain from the giant gun, which is pointing backwards.

How does the car get through the enemy wire? Or is it actually travelling away from the enemy and back towards our trenches?

Wouldn't the huge barrel badly unbalance the machine?

In the illustration, the chain with the grapnel is attached to the back of the car, and not through the barrel.

Or am I just seeing too much into a cigarette card?

Bruce

Bruce.

Looking at the image of the armoured car with the grappling hook, the machine gun is trained to the rear and its my guess that (in theory) the vehicle was intended to dash up to the enemy wire rather than go through it, and then as it veered away to return to its own lines, the gun was fired launching the grappling hook at the enemy wire. Again, in theory it will have grabbed a cluster of wire which was then torn out by the vehicle as it sped back to safety. I suppose this was a very early attempt to do what the Bangalore Torpedo went on to do in WW2?

Dave Upton

[bruce]

Bearing in mind the state of the ground in NML, and the somewhat fanciful concept, is this just a pipe dream, or did any suck armoured car ever see action?

Bruce

[GRANVILLE]

Bearing in mind the state of the ground in NML, and the somewhat fanciful concept, is this just a pipe dream, or did any suck armoured car ever see action?

Bruce

My money's on pipe dream but on the other hand..........?

[Lancashire Fusilier]

For us Baby Boomer, or older members, we are very familiar with Cigarette Cards, and can probably all remember playing " Ciggies " in the school playground flicking the Cigarette Cards against the school wall, and whomever's card got closest to the wall, or stood up against the wall, won all the cards that had been flicked, and we carried our stash of ciggie cards around in a rubber band.

For the younger members who may not be familiar with Cigarette Cards, they were given away free in packets of cigarettes by all the different cigarette manufacturers, one random card in each packet. So collecting a whole set of 50 cards, would probably take ages. However, back then 20s - 30s - 40s people were very heavy smokers, some using several packs a day!

Today, Cigarette Cards are very collectible, this early 1916 Wills Military Motors set sells for 40 - 80 pounds depending on the condition.

The cards were usually, as is this set, 1.3/8ths x 2.5/8ths inches, and considering they are almost 100 years old, the quality of the printing, and artwork is excellent.

The backs of the cards were usually very informative, and often had a very similar format.

Attached is a photograph of the cards in their period album, and a copy of the card back.

LF.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Cigarette Cards in album.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Will's WW1 Military Motors - Card No.11 - British Motor Laboratory.

" Every care and precaution that medical science can devise is utilised to mimimise the suffering, and to stop the spread of disease amongst our brave soldiers. Bacteriological laboratories are fitted out for studying any new phase of disease that may develop on the actual field of battle ".

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Will's WW1 Military Motors - Card No.12 - British Motor Raft.

" The Motor Raft, or Flying Bridge is used for conveying motor cars, &c, across a river. The raft, on which the car is securely fixed, is attached to a long bouoyed cable - ".

LF