santa claus comes early...

How about if you leave the tyres on the front - does that count? :)

On or around Wed, 17 Dec 2003 23:42:26 -0000, "David French" enlightened us thusly:

mind, it's a much easier conversion. a centaur would need a fiddle-brake system at the least to be able to drive it - I don't know off-hand if they had a double clutch system as well as full tracked things have.

Your 3 point turn would start to become challenging. The turning circle must be measured in hundreds of yards.

But I guess the braking distance is good - I've heard (but don't know for a fact) that tracked vehicles can stop virtually dead. There was a (probably apocryphal) story about some German army officers in a Golf, following a tank platoon/squadron/herd/whatever the collective noun is, on public roads, in Germany. The story goes that on the sliproad to the Autobahn, the tank driver they were following slammed on the brakes, and they piled straight into the back of him and were killed outright. I presume this is to some extent dependent on the track type, and the terrain, as I wouldn't have thought steel-on-smooth-tarmac offers a lot of grip.

David

In article , David French writes

I think the answer is some sort of shield to stop any dislodged masonry from falling into the back and damaging anything one was carrying...

Dunno, but I doubt the front wheels would contribute much :)

Regards,

Simonm.

I had some sequential stills of a car overtaking a Chieftain tank in Germany, the tank was turning right and the car pulled out to pass by on it's offside. It got a bit of a beating as the tank pivotted on it's tracks and the rear performed a pincer movement on the car. Made a right old mess. I think this was used in an ad campaign to warn of the dangers.

The dangers of not driving your tank properly? Good old Public Service adverts!

Twas Thu, 18 Dec 2003 10:50:28 -0000 when "David French" put finger to keyboard producing:

A tank can indeed stop almost dead on a road, though they tend to ride-up on their noses, if a car following were not to brake in time it may find itself under the tank as it comes back down.

-- Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.) ___________________________________________________________ "To know the character of a man, give him anonymity" - Mr.Nice.