Half-track

A half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with regular wheels on the front for steering, and caterpillar tracks on the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. The purpose of this combination is to produce a vehicle with the cross-country capabilities of a tank and the handling of a wheeled vehicle.

In 1911 the French engineer Adolphe Kégresse converted a number of cars from the personal car park of the Czar of Russia as half-tracks. From 1916 onward there was a Russian project by the Putilov factory to produce military half-tracks along the same lines using trucks and French track parts.

There were many experimentations of civilian half-tracks in the 1920s and 1930s. During that period the Citroen company sponsored several scientific expeditions crossing great deserts in North Africa and Central Asia, using their autochenilles.

With the challenging snow and ice landscape of Canada in mind Joseph-Armand Bombardier developed 7 and 12 passenger half-track autoneiges in the 1930s, starting what would become eventually the Bombardier industrial conglomerate. The Bombardier half-tracks had tracks for propulsion in the back and skis for steering in the front. The skis could be replaced by wheels in the summer, but this was not very common.

Half-tracks were used extensively in World War II by all sides, especially the Germans and Americans, but fell out of favor soon after, replaced with fully-tracked or fully-wheeled vehicles. Half-tracks were used primarily as armored personnel carriers, but also saw duty as mortar carriers, self-propelled anti-aircraft gunss, self-propelled anti-tank gunss, artillery haulers, armored fighting vehicles and many other tasks.