Half-track

From 1916 onward, there was a Russian project by the Putilov Plant to produce military half-tracks (the Austin-Putilov model), along the same lines, using trucks and French track parts.

After the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union, Kégresse returned to his native France, where the system was used on Citroën cars between 1921 and 1937 for off-road and military vehicles.

[1] By 1907, dog and pony show operator H. H. Linn abandoned his gas-and-steam-powered four- and six-wheel-drive creations and had Lombard build a motor home/traction engine run by an underslung four-cylinder Brennan gasoline engine to travel the unimproved roads of the day, with wheels at the front and tracks at the rear: the first payload-carrying half-track.

By 1909 this was replaced by a smaller machine with two wheels at the front and a single track behind, since rural wooden bridges presented problems.

In England, starting in 1905, David Roberts of Richard Hornsby & Sons had attempted to interest British military officials in a tracked vehicle, but failed.

[3] When World War I broke out, with the problem of trench warfare and the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front, the pulling power of crawling-type tractors drew the attention of the military.

The Citroën company sponsored several scientific expeditions crossing deserts in North Africa and Central Asia, using their autochenilles.

In the US, 43,000 halftracks were produced by three primary manufacturers, the largest being the White Motor Company, the original designer, with a total of 15,414 accepted by the War Department.

The first vehicle to enter the city was an M3 named "España Cañí" and driven by Spanish soldiers fighting under the French tricolor.

One parade of 25 August 1944 was down the Champs-Élysées, with Charles de Gaulle leading throngs of Parisians, and French soldiers driving IH half-tracks.

2 (better known as the Kleines Kettenkraftrad HK 101 or Kettenkrad for short – Ketten meaning tracks, and krad being the military abbreviation of the German word Kraftrad, the administrative German term for motorcycle), to pull small artillery guns, for ammunition haulage, general transport and as a ground towing vehicle for the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter.

[6] Many Second World War half-tracks were sold off to civilian users either as surplus stock or later due to obsolescence when the fully tracked armoured personnel carrier was introduced into service.

Most were used in engineering-related tasks involving terrain that would be difficult for even four-wheel drive trucks, such as snow, sand and water-logged soil.

Many were significantly modified for their new roles, including being fitted with winches, small cranes, and generators after the rear cabin sides were removed.