Screw Vehicle Technology

Recently British adventurers Steven Brooks and Graham Stratford built a specialized vehicle which could cross the Bering Straights from Alaska to Russia, and could traverse water, ice, snow, and the tangled masses of ice ridges that can occur in that area.  It could also climb out of the water onto the ice shelf.  Their adventure is showcased at the team's Ice Challenger site.  The vehicle was a Bombardier snow grooming vehicle, driven by tracks, to which was added a screw propulsion system.

I had thought the Russians had pioneered screw propulsion vehicles, and wrote a blog post with pictures of their vehicles.  Recently I found out that the original screw propulsion vehicle was designed in 1944, during WWII, by Johannes Raedel, a member of the German Army and veteran of the Eastern Front with Russia. (Note: Raedel was originally spelled R'a'del, with an umlaut).  He had observed that in the deep snows of Russia, tanks would dig out the snow under the tracks, and the tank would become high centered on snow pressed under the belly of the tank. 

According to Siegfried Raedel, son of Johannes..."The idea evolved while looking at a meat mincer, also employing a screw type of compression. He convinced army headquarters in Berlin to allow him to make a prototype of this machine.  At that time, Austria was annexed to Germany already and he was dispatched to the Austrian Alpine vehicle test centre at St. Johann in Tyrol.  Using whatever materials were available he built this prototype during the period of 10th Feb 1944 to 28th April 1944.  It was tested extensively and the first page of this report is attached, together with a few pictures of the original.  It was very slow, but it would pull 1 ton!  It also had good climbing capabilities. It would penetrate about 30cm into the snow, no more."

The photos below are of Johannes testing the vehicle in Tyrol.  The woman and children were at a lodge at the top of a mountain, which the vehicle had climbed during testing. 

Siegfried pointed out that "something in the order of 7 tons of patent papers were taken out of Germany after the war. What amazes me though is the fact that both the US and Russia seem to have had access to these papers - and this during the cold war period!"

The page below is the first page of Johannes' report on the vehicle. 

Comments

[Web]

It’s great that more people are focusing on making better environmental choices. Plus technology is making it more economical now, and that’s what people really notice. Wind energy, solar power, hybrids and zap EV’s, our choices are good. There are now electric cars being sold everyday, you just plug it into a regular power outlet. When people test drive them they say it’s far more fun to drive an EV.

[James Kahn]

snowscew propulsion predates WWII by 20 years. Consider Armstead snow-motor company.

[Siegfried Raedel]

Hello James Kahn,
Yes, I'm surprised to see that a Mr. Burch came up with this idea in the 20's, filed a patent and actually built a working example.
This is a good example of men solving problems by intuition. I enjoyed looking at the film showing the obvious advantages and some of the handling problems. These match up to what my dad told me about his vehicle.

My father was intuitive, solving many everyday problems by relying on his (extensive)experience.

Well, another thought comes up as to why the
Lend Lease Act preparing (enabling) Stalin for WWII did not include such a machine ( or other more suitable gear ) to operate in the known devastating winter conditions of Siberia.
What was supplied were very conventional tanks. Very many of them. Just a side thought!

Siegfried Raedel
son of Johannes Raedel

[Pinnacle Flashlights]

Wow! This technology can definitely be expanded upon today. Would love to take a ride in that thing...

[mark]

I resently saw a US patent for a snow vehicle using a screw dive system from Aug. 20, 1907.

[shazia]

it is really helpful thanks so much.. nice post!

[eric]

snow snow snow, look at the impact tracked and wheeled vejcles have on the enviorment. I live in Ga. and grew up in Fla. Swmap marshy and spongy logging, low impact on the land wont dig in and destroy, old ideas are found becomes "new" ideas instead of just ideas.What type of improvements keep it simple like the ford 2n, 9n, and 8n tractors, the original was built to be added to a farm tractor for winter use and removed in the summer. according to Armastead, built on a 1925-26 fordson tractor.