Davidson-Duryea gun carriage: Difference between revisions

Davidson-Duryea gun carriage
Davidson-Duryea gun carriage
Type	Armored Vehicle
Place of origin	United States
Production history
Designer	Charles Duryea
Manufacturer	Duryea Motor Wagon Company
Produced	1899
Specifications
Crew	driver + 3
Main; armament	M1895 Colt-Browning
Suspension	3x2 and 4x2 wheel

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Latest revision as of 17:41, 21 November 2024

The Davidson-Duryea gun carriage was originally a 3 wheel armed vehicle built by the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in the 1899. The gun carriage was ordered by Royal Page Davidson of the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy in Highland Park, Illinois. One Northwestern cadet wrote: "With this gun you could sneak upon an enemy and fire 480 shots and get away before they would know what happened." In 1900 the carriage was modified to 4 wheels and eventually into the Davidson Auto Battery armored car.

Sources

American men of mark (1917), A Thousand American Men of Mark Today
Clemens, Al J., The American Military Armored Car, A.J. Clemens, 1969
Delta Upsilon fraternity (1902), The Delta Upsilon Decennial Catalogue [1903]
Hunnicutt, R.P., Armored Car: A History of American Wheeled Combat Vehicle, Presidio Press (2002), ISBN 0-89141-777-X
Marquis-Who's Who (1950), Who was who in America. 1943-1950, New Providence, New Jersey
Marquis-Who's Who (1967), Who was who in America: A Companion Biographical Reference Work to Who's who in America
Quaife, Milo Milton, Wisconsin: Its History and Its People 1634-1924, Volume 4, S.J. Clarke Publishing Company (1924)
Randall, Frank Alfred, Randall and Allied Families, Raveret-Weber printing company (1943)
St. John's Military Academy, A History of Excellence: St. John's Northwestern Military Academy, Delafield, Wis., self-published (2002)
Stern, Philip Van Doren, A Pictorial History of the Automobile, Viking Press (1953)
Tucker, Spencer, World War I: Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2005, ISBN 1-85109-420-2
The Engineering Index By Association of Engineering Societies (U.S.), Engineering Magazine (1901), vol 3 1896/1900, page 53
Marquis-Who's Who (1967), p. 64 Royal Page Davidson designed the first armored car.
The Horseless Age: The Automobile Trade Magazine, published by The Horseless Age Company (1909), page 342
Patent No. 653,224 items 10 - 20.
Scientific American, Jan. 27, 1900; p. 59
The Horseless Age, Vol. 4 No. 25, Sept. 20, 1899
"Armored Car to Return". The Lake Geneva Regional News. Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. March 26, 1987. p. 11 – via Newspapers.com .

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 {{Infobox Weapon
+|         name= Davidson-Duryea gun carriage
-|name= Duryea gun carriage, Patent No. 653,224
+|        image=
-|image= [[Image:Duryea motor vehicle patent 653224 diagram excerpt crop.png|300px|]]
+|      caption=
-[[Image:Peoria newspaper drawing 1899.png]]
-|caption= 1899 Peoria newspaper drawing of Davidson-Duryea gun carriage
 |origin={{USA}}
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-|type=
+|type=Armored Vehicle
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 |is_bladed=
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 }}
+The '''Davidson-Duryea gun carriage''' was originally a 3 wheel armed vehicle built by the [[Duryea Motor Wagon Company]] in the 1899. The gun carriage was ordered by [[Royal Page Davidson]] of the [[Northwestern Military and Naval Academy]] in [[Highland Park, Illinois]]. One Northwestern cadet wrote: "''With this gun you could sneak upon an enemy and fire 480 shots and get away before they would know what happened''." In 1900 the carriage was modified to 4 wheels and eventually into the [[Davidson Auto Battery armored car]].
-[[Image:Davidson Duryea gun carriage 1899.jpg|thumb| 300px|Three wheeled "gun carriage" military vehicle, 1898 ]]
-[[Image:Northwestern cadets with 4 wheeled gun carriage 1899.png|thumb|300px|Four wheeled "gun carriage" military vehicle, 1899]]
-[[File:Davidson-Duryea 4-wheeled military car.jpg|thumb|300px|Four wheeled "gun carriage" military vehicle, with .30 caliber Colt Model 1895 "Potato Digger" machine gun, 1899]]
-The '''Davidson-Duryea gun carriage''' was a 3 and 4 wheeled armed armored vehicle manufactured in 1898 and 1899 for military use.
-== Development history ==
-[[Royal Page Davidson]] of the [[Northwestern Military and Naval Academy|Northwestern Military Academy]] in [[Highland Park, Illinois]], was doing some experimenting about this time with automobile chassis, modifying them and adding machine guns with armored sheilding for protection of the driver.<ref name="Davidson2"> {{cite web|url= http://alumni.sjnma.org/page/page.cfm?categoryid=6&pageid=14|title= Alumni - Important Facts, Northwestern|accessdate= 2008-12-4}}</ref> Davidson was the leading pioneer of armored military vehicles in the United States.<ref name="Davidson2a"> {{cite web|url= http://www.landships.freeservers.com/Davidson-Cadillac_trigsby.htm|title= American Armoured Cars of WW1 - Part One: Davidson-Cadillacs|accessdate= 2008-12-4}}</ref>
-Davidson designed the military gun carriage vehicle<ref> The Engineering Index By Association of Engineering Societies (U.S.), Engineering Magazine (1901), vol 3 1896/1900, page 53 </ref> and ordered it to be built from the Peoria Rubber Company using patents of [[Charles Duryea]], a well known automobile manufacturer of the time.<ref> Marquis-Who's Who (1967), p. 64 ''Royal Page Davidson designed the first armored car.'' </ref> Charles Duryea, with his automobile manufacturing company, put it into a automobile style patent which he filed for on May 16th, 1898. It was finally approved as Patent No. 653,224 on July 10, 1900. The military gun carriage gasoline driven vehicle was built on a Duryea Automobile Company standard production automobile chassis that was converted for military purposes.<ref> Clemens, p. 6 </ref> The first ones cost $1,500.<ref name ="St. John's47"> St. John's, p. 47 </ref>
-Previously in 1896 or 1897 Davidson made an attempt at a three wheeled gasoline vehicle for military purposes. His experimentation on this vehicle was at the [[Northwestern Military and Naval Academy|Northwestern Military Academy]] in [[Highland Park, Illinois]]. He made a demonstration of his vehicle to the Army, however it soon broke down when it left Chicago to go to New York. The Army interpreteded this as too severe a task for such a vehicle and that the technology at the time was not up to such a task. The Army from then on leaned away from gasoline driven vehicles.<ref> ''The Horseless Age: The Automobile Trade Magazine'', published by The Horseless Age Company (1909), page 342 </ref>
-In the gun carriage patent Duryea says the lighter form motor vehicle is a tricycle capable of seating two people. He further says the object of the invention was ''to provide a cheap, simple, and effective steering, a compact and durable speed-varying mechanism, a more ready control, an improved brake, a light air-jacketed engine, a cheap and simple balance-gear, and such other minor objects as may appear in the specification.''<ref> Patent No.  653,224 items 10 - 20. </ref>
-Davidson arranged for a Colt .30 caliber automatic machine gun to be mounted on the vehicle intended for military use. The vehicle was the first of a series of military vehicles constructed by Royal Page Davidson for the use by the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy. The first vehicles had three wheels (tricycle) and only a gun sheild for protection for the driver while the later vehicles Davidson designed were fully protected by armor.<ref> Hunnicutt, p. 4 </ref>
-Since it was originally of a tricycle configuation the three pneumatic wheels came with wooden spokes and were 36 inches in diameter. The one wheel in the front was used for steering. Later the partially armored vehicle was made with 4 single spoked wheels and a driving wheel was installed. The wheels did not come with mudguards. The vehicle had the capacity of four people to ride on top of the rear engine compartment, one driver and three passengers. The front seat driver and passenger faced forward, while the other two passengers were back-to-back on the rear seat and facing the opposite direction.
-With the addition of the machine gun mounted on the vehicle one Northwestern cadet wrote, ''With this gun you could sneak upon an enemy and fire 480 shots and get away before they would know what happened.''<ref name ="St. John's47"/> Davidson made this military armed vehicle in 1899 at the Northwestern Military Academy campus in Highland Park, Illinois. A drawing of the semi-protected military armored vehicle appeared in an 1899 Peoria newspaper. In the "Minor Section" section of the magazine ''The Horseless Age'' they said: ''The Peoria Rubber & Manufacturing Company of Peoria is pushing the motor gun carriage which they are making for Major Davidson in the hope that the Major may reach New York with it in time for the Dewey celebration.''<ref> The Horseless Age, Vol. 4 No. 25, Sept. 20, 1899 </ref> The newspapers of the day reported that the United States was first to use motorized guns.<ref name ="St. John's47"/>
-In 1900 the gun carriage vehicle was modified into a sturdier four-wheeler which eventually became the [[Davidson Automobile Battery armored car]], a lightly armored military vehicle. Davidson, inventor of the first military vehicle in the United States,<ref> Kane, p. 41 ''The first armored car was designed by Colonel Royal Page Davidson in May 1898. A Colt automatic machine gun was mounted on the car, which was intended for military use. The automobile was manufactured by the Duryea Automobile Company of Peoria, Illinois, and was used by the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy of Lake Geneva, Wis.''</ref> received little credit from the [[United States Army|Army]] for his efforts of being the first to build armored cars in the United States.<ref> Tucker, p. 129 ''U.S. Army Major Royal P. Davidson, who received little support for his endeavors, built the first armored cars in the United States at the turn of the century.''</ref>
-== Footnotes ==
-{{reflist}}
 == Sources ==
-{{refbegin}}
 * American men of mark (1917), ''A Thousand American Men of Mark Today''
 * Clemens, Al J., ''The American Military Armored Car'',  A.J. Clemens, 1969
 * Delta Upsilon fraternity (1902), ''The Delta Upsilon Decennial Catalogue [1903]''
-* Hunnicutt, R.P., ''Armored Car: A History of American Wheeled Combat Vehicle'', Presido Press (2002), ISBN 0-8914177-7-X
+* Hunnicutt, R.P., ''Armored Car: A History of American Wheeled Combat Vehicle'', Presidio Press (2002), {{ISBN|0-89141-777-X}}
-* Kane, Joseph Nathan, ''Famous First Facts - A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries and Inventions in the United States'', The H. W. Wilson Company (1950)
 * Marquis-Who's Who (1950), ''Who was who in America. 1943-1950'', New Providence, New Jersey
 * Marquis-Who's Who (1967), ''Who was who in America: A Companion Biographical Reference Work to Who's who in America''
 * Quaife, Milo Milton, ''Wisconsin: Its History and Its People 1634-1924'', Volume 4, S.J. Clarke Publishing Company (1924)
 * Randall, Frank Alfred, ''Randall and Allied Families'', Raveret-Weber printing company (1943)
 * St. John's Military Academy, ''A History of Excellence: St. John's Northwestern Military Academy'', Delafield, Wis., self-published (2002)
 * Stern, Philip Van Doren, ''A Pictorial History of the Automobile'', Viking Press (1953)
-* Tucker, Spencer, ''World War I: Encyclopedia'', ABC-CLIO, 2005, ISBN 1-8510942-0-2
+* Tucker, Spencer, ''World War I: Encyclopedia'', ABC-CLIO, 2005, {{ISBN|1-85109-420-2}}
+* The Engineering Index By Association of Engineering Societies (U.S.), Engineering Magazine (1901), vol 3 1896/1900, page 53
-{{refend}}
+* Marquis-Who's Who (1967), p. 64 Royal Page Davidson designed the first armored car.
+* The Horseless Age: The Automobile Trade Magazine, published by The Horseless Age Company (1909), page 342
-== External links ==
+* Patent No. 653,224 items 10 - 20.
+* Scientific American, Jan. 27, 1900; p. 59
-* [http://www.warwheels.net/USAacChronologyHAUGH.html Armored car Chronology]
+* The Horseless Age, Vol. 4 No. 25, Sept. 20, 1899
+* {{Cite news |url= https://www.newspapers.com/clip/77637457/ |title= Armored Car to Return |newspaper= The Lake Geneva Regional News|location= Lake Geneva, Wisconsin|page=11 |date=March 26, 1987 |via=[[Newspapers.com]] {{open access}} }}
-* [http://www.google.com/patents?id=-LxQAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=Duryea+July+10,+1900&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA1,M1 Charles Duryea gun carriage patent]
-* [http://www.warwheels.net/DavidsonAutoBatteryINDEX.html Davidson Auto Battery Armored Car with image]
-* [http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/archive/monster/index.htm Duryea automobiles with Davidson-Duryea gun carriages]
 [[Category:Duryea]]
@@ Line 124: / Line 92: @@
 [[Category:Armored fighting vehicles of the United States]]
 [[Category:Armoured cars]]
+[[Category:Armoured fighting vehicles of World War I]]