Nicholas Straussler

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Nicholas Peter Sorrel Straussler
Straussler Miklós
Straussler during the 1950s
Born(1891-05-07)7 May 1891
Died3 June 1966(1966-06-03) (aged 75)
Nationality Hungarian
 British
Engineering career
DisciplineAutomotive engineering
ProjectsArmoured cars, DD tank
Significant advanceFlotation devices

Nicholas Peter Sorrel Straussler (in

British citizen during the interwar period.[2][page needed
] His work was mainly to do with amphibious, off-road and military vehicles.

Biography

Short Stirling bomber being loaded with 250 lb bombs, carried on Alvis Straussler bomb trolleys.

Between 1928 and 1933, Straussler ran Folding Boats and Structures Ltd and patented a number of flotation devices, including collapsible ones.[3][4][5] In February 1933, he became a British citizen.[6]

Throughout the 1930s, he worked with

Vickers-Armstrong and Hungarian companies on a variety of projects. His first armoured car, the AC1, was only partially built by H Manfred Weiss RT of Budapest in 1933. His work for Alvis involved designing armoured cars such as the Alvis Straussler AC2 and the Alvis Straussler AC3. The prototypes were built by his own company Straussler Mechanisation Ltd, and the production vehicles by a new joint company, Alvis-Straussler.[7] that was formed in July, 1936.[8]

An AC2 was shown to the British Air Ministry in 1935 and it was tested in the Middle East. In 1937 Straussler linked with Alvis to form the Alvis-Straussler company.[9] His LAC armoured car (and a field artillery tractor version of it) was shown to the British Army and tested in 1938. The LAC had two engines - one driving the nearside wheels and the other the offside ones. However the cooling system was inadequate for hot countries and the War Office rejected it. Straussler also designed a vehicle with an articulated chassis which was supplied to the RAF for use as tractors. In 1938 Alvis-Straussler was supplanted by Alvis Mechanisation Ltd and Straussler ended his connection with Alvis.

A Hungarian 39M Csaba armoured car – this vehicle was designed by Nicholas Straussler

He later improved the AC2 design and it was built in Hungary by

German Army.[10] Another vehicle he was involved with that saw Axis use was the Garner-Straussler G.3, a four-wheel drive, off-road truck that was used in small numbers as an artillery tractor by the Germans. This truck had the unusual feature of being driven by two engines that were coupled together.[11]

An

Toldi tank.[12] One of his designs that did see widespread use was the Alvis Straussler Bomb Trolley. Around 10,000 were made for the Royal Air Force to transport bombs, mainly within airfields. Each carried four 250 pound bombs, although large versions were later produced.[13]

Military flotation devices

Vickers-Armstrong, included designing accessories for tanks. The engineering solutions he produced tended to be innovative, though sometimes at the expense of practicability.[2] He used his flotation device experience to develop collapsible floats for Vickers-Armstrong that could be used to construct a pontoon bridge or could be mounted on either side of a light tank to make it amphibious. Trials conducted by the British War Office showed that such a tank, propelled by an outboard motor, 'swam' reasonably well.[2]

The system was unsatisfactory, mainly because of the unwieldy bulk of floats that were big enough to float a tank (each was roughly the size of the tank itself). In practice, there would be severe difficulties in transporting by truck enough floats, even collapsed ones, to move a large unit of tanks across a body of water. Also, such floats made a tank too wide to launch itself into the sea from an off-shore landing craft, making their use in amphibious landings impractical.[14] Instead, Straussler devised an alternative, the flotation screen. This was a folding canvas screen, supported by horizontal metal hoops and vertical rubber tubes filled with compressed air. The screen covered the top half of the tank and provided buoyancy in the water. When collapsed, it would not interfere with the tank's mobility or combat effectiveness.

Straussler was allocated a

Tetrarch tank for experimentation and it was fitted with a screen together with a marine propeller that took its drive from the tank's engine. The two forms of propulsion - propeller and tracks - gave rise to the term Duplex Drive
("DD") for such tanks.

The first trial of the DD Tetrarch took place in June 1941 in Brent Reservoir (also known as Hendon Reservoir) in North London[2] in front of General Alan Brooke (Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces at the time), who was an early enthusiast for the idea.[1] Coincidentally, this was also where trials of a floating version of the British Mark IX tank had taken place in November 1918. Satisfactory sea trials of the Tetrarch took place near Hayling Island and the go-ahead was given to develop a production DD tank based on the Valentine tank. This version never saw combat and was mainly used to train crews who subsequently served in the DD versions of the M4 Sherman, one of a number of modified, special purpose tanks ("Hobart's Funnies") that saw action during and after the Normandy landings.

He continued to work on adapting the DD system to other British vehicles, including the

Centurion and even the "Ronson" Carrier, a flame-thrower equipped version of the Universal Carrier[15][page needed] although none of these went into production. Post-war tanks were generally too heavy to be made amphibious with a flotation screen,[14] but lighter military vehicles such as early versions of the American M2 Bradley and the British FV432
continued to successfully use the system into the 1980s.

Another of his wartime projects was the Straussler Conversion. This was an experimental modification of the

FH-70
.

Post-war work

Straussler worked on a variety of automotive projects after the war. Although many were connected in some way with amphibious vehicles, they included the Lypsoid Tyre — a very low-pressure, off-road, run-flat tyre that saw some use with military and

absolute discharge (i.e. found guilty, but no punishment was imposed); his company was fined £500 and he and his company shared the costs of the prosecution.[18]

He continued working into his old age — the last of his 30 patents was filed in 1964.[19] He died on 3 June 1966[20] in London.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c "Obituaries". The Times. 6 June 1966. p. 12.
  2. ^ .
  3. ^ US 1567555, Nicholas Straussler, "Float or raft for swimming purposes and the like" publication date 12/29/1925", published 1925-12-29 
  4. ^ "Collapsible floating structure such as a boat, pontoon, seaplane float, and temporary bridge" publication date 11/29/1927
  5. ^ "Collapsible structure such as pontoons and seaplane floats divisible into boats" publication date 07/16/1929
  6. ^ "No. 33917". The London Gazette. 3 March 1933. p. 1427.
  7. ^ "Alvis-Straussler Armoured Cars in the Netherlands East Indies". 1999. Retrieved 14 January 2008.
  8. ^ "Alvis-Straussler Ltd: New Mechanized Velicle Company". The Times. 14 July 1936.
  9. ^ White, 1971
  10. .
  11. .
  12. .
  13. ^ "Bomb Trolley". Newcastle Upon Tyne Military Vehicle Museum. 2003. Archived from the original on 24 December 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2008.
  14. ^ a b "Developing the DD Tank". The Bovington Tank Museum. 2003. Archived from the original on 6 October 2008. Retrieved 12 January 2008.
  15. .
  16. ^ Henry, Chris; Delft, Brian (2004). British Anti-tank Artillery 1939-45. New Vanguard 98. Osprey Publishing. p. 18. .
  17. ^ "Illegal Export Alleged:Semi-Military Type Lorry". The Times. 16 October 1957. p. 14.
  18. ^ "Alleged Export of Lorry:Absolute Discharge for Inventor". The Times. 29 November 1957. p. 7.
  19. ^ US 3234990  "Straussler Vehicle Wheel" publication date 2/15/1966
  20. ^ "Deaths Column". The Times. 4 June 1966. p. 12.

References

  • Németh, Károly. "Straussler Miklós Tankjai" (PDF). Hadmérnök (in Hungarian) (June 2018).
  • White, B. T. (1971), Armoured Cars - Marmon-Harrington, Alvis-Straussler, Light Reconnaissance, AFV Profile No. 30, Profile Publications

External links