Levavasseur project

Levavasseur project
The Levavasseur project.
Type	Tank
Place of origin	France
Service history
In service	1903–1908 (project only)
Production history
Designer	Captain L.R. Levavasseur
Designed	1903
Specifications
Crew	1 commander, 3 crew
Main armament	1 Canon de 75
Engine	gasoline internal combustion engine 80 hp

The Levavasseur project was an early project for a tank designed in 1903 by the French Captain Léon René Levavasseur (1860-1942) of the 6th Artillery Battalion, described as a "self propelled cannon project" (French: Projet de canon autopropulseur). It is considered as the first description, made by a soldier, of what would come to be known as the tank. Levavasseur was a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique, of the promotion of 1881. According to Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the World:

A project for a vehicle which had all the characteristics later thought desirable in a tank was put forward to the French War Ministry as early as 1903. Devised by a Captain Levavasseur of the 6th Artillery Battalion, who called it a "canon autopropulseur", the vehicle was envisaged as carrying a 75mm gun mounted in a box-like steel caisson which ran on crawler tracks, or "roues articulées" as Levavasseur called them. Powered by an 80hp petrol engine, the Levavasseur machine would have had a crew of three, stowage for ammunition, and a cross-country ability.

The project was submitted to the French Technical Artillery Committee (Comité Général d'Artillerie), and after two years of study was presented to the Army Minister by the General President of the Committee. The general described the project in letter No.135, dated 1 February 1905:

The objective of the machine is to create an automobile artillery piece, capable of going over the rough terrain only accessible to horse carriages, and offering to the personnel and the engine parts a complete protection from indirect or small arms fire.

The locomotive mechanism is then described as a type of continuous track, supporting an armoured box with a weapon:

The all-terrain mobility necessary to this machine is achieved by a contraption equivalent to a wheel of very large diameter. This contraption, called an "articulated wheel", consist in a sort of rim composed of wedge-shaped blocks ("voussoirs") connected together by bolts around which they can rotate, and with an elastic connection tending to close up the space between the voussoirs. The faces of the links adjacent to the ground serve as the "sole" of the wheel, and the links opposite form a race ("Chemin de roulement"). These two faces are cylindrical and concentric. Those forming the sole have a radius of four meters. These faces form two continuous surfaces when the blocks are connected.