Re: Looking for mini site.

At 2:10 PM -0400 8/1/02, Flak Magnet wrote:
>Nellie?

If you guys would stop playing with your 1:300 scale figures for a 
few days, maybe you'd get to know some of the more obscure armor 
developments. ;-P

Nellie was a digging machine that the British designed early in WWII. 
It had a pair of engines and was shaped not unlike a MkIV tank 
(trapezoidal). The big thing about the 130ton beast was that it was 
designed to travel along a trench that it dug at 1/2 mph and provide 
a means for tanks and infantry to breach a line of trenches. There 
were two types, an officer 'version' (wide enough for tanks to follow 
along behind) and an 'enlisted' model that had a narrower track that 
allowed for infantry to walk along behind. The depth of the trench 
was about 5 feet with more to either side due to placement of of the 
digging spoil.

The whole thing was quite large (77' long 6'6" wide and 8' high) and 
had a good front third of it devoted to the cutting heads and earth 
moving gear. The overall look is something like a MkIV tank (a bit 
enlarged though) minus the sponsons and the cutting head from a 
snowplow train section added to the front.

Paxman Diesels made the engine and they have an excerpt on the thing 
in their history section...
http://www.nelmes.fsnet.co.uk/paxman/paxbrit.htm

Likely beyond the basic protypes it would have needed more work. They 
were initally made for the defense of the UK, then mid way through 
the war the project was shelved. Then when it looked like the 
Siegfried line was going to be a big mess the project was re-started. 
Then of course the SL was breached through conventional means.
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Ryan Gill			  rmgill@mindspring.com
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