By using more than two wheels per side, the vehicle’s weight was much more evenly spread. To get around this, Burstyn came up with the concept of what we, today, call tracks. The car would instantly get bogged down and stuck in any other environment. The four slim wheels that the car rested on would have to stay on paved roads.

He immediately decided that was precisely the sort of thing he was looking for. How Did an Armored Car Turn into a Tank? Austro-Daimler Panzerautomobil, via Tank EncyclopediaĪt the Vienna Auto Show, Burstyn saw an armored car in the Daimler booth. To learn more, he visited the Vienna Auto Show in 1905. Instead, he turned to a different and recently emerging power source the internal combustion engine. The torpedo boats Burstyn was interested in were powered by massive steam engines, far too big and bulky to be effective on land. Realizing that men approaching enemy positions with protection levels this high would be much less likely to sustain serious injuries or be killed, he took the idea and ran with it. Over time, he took an interest in navy warships, wholly enclosed in steel armor. Upon seeing the tremendous damage they could inflict, he set his sights on developing protection from these weapons. In 1903, an Austrian named Gunther Adolf Burstyn joined his nation’s army as an engineer to continue the development of cannons. Who Invented Tanks? Burstyn Motorgeschütz (model), via Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna

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