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During WWI the battlefield tank made its first appearance, and J. Walter Christie was quick to realize its potential as a modern weapon of war. However, although he would proceed to develop a whole range of high speed tanks, his personality would continually conflict with what the military deemed adequate for their needs.
He was a self-made mechanical engineer and almost stood alone in the USA for putting forward unique AFV design ideas. His work was exemplory at times, and slip-shod at others, but the thrust of his design ideas was always to produce a faster tank that could pierce enemy lines and soar over their trenches.
He was born in River Edge, New Jersey in 1865, and as a young man began work in the Delamater Iron Works and took classes at Cooper Union in New York City. Eventually he became a consulting engineer for several steamship lines, and after the Spanish-American War he managed to patent a better turret track for naval guns. At this time he was also promoting his own designs for a front-wheel-drive car, which he raced at various speedways in the USA, and even competed in the Vanderbilt Cup and the Grand Prix in France.
By 1912 he was manufacturing a line of wheeled fire engine tractors, but this soon died away from lack of sales. In 1916 he tried his luck at developing a prototype 4-wheeled gun carriage for the military ordnance branch. This would be the beginning of continuous running battles between Christie and the military. The Army Ordnance Depart had by now set up strict guidelines for their weaponry, and Christie was not one for revising his designs to suit their requirements. The USA would evaluate and test his vehicles from 1916 to 1942, but he was close to impossible to reason with and eventually his design ideas would end up nuturing Russia and England, and not the USA.
The M1928 High-Speed Tank Chassis
Although Christie had submitted numerous designs to the Ordnance Department, none had proven worthy. Therefore, after a 5 year development program at a cost of some $382,000 he eventually scored high with his M1928 design, referred to by Christie as the new "Model 1940" because he considered it to be ten years ahead of its time.
It still retained the convertible wheel-track aspect of his earlier designs, but featured a unique and outstanding new "helicoil" suspension system with large weight-bearing road wheels. Each road wheel had its own spring loaded assembly, and although it stole space from the interior of the tank, it functioned magnificantly for high-speed cross-country mobility. His M1928 was first demonstrated at Fort Meyer in October 1928 and greatly impressed the Chief of Staff there, Gen. Charles P. Summerall, who went out of his way to recommend that the Infantry Tank Board test the vehicle officially.
However, these tests by the Board proved less than satisfactory, and the running battle between his theories and the Infantry Tank Board's requirements continued. By 1929 the Board terminated testing and the M1928 was passed over to the Cavalry for evaluation. Since the Cavalry thinking of that period was directed towards armored cars, the Christie vehicle got caught in the transition. Eventually the Ordnance Department suggested they purchase an M1928 and test it in the armored car role. At that time both Lt. Col. George S. Patton and Maj. C.C. Benson were members of a board of Cavalry officers appointed to evaluate the Christie chassis. Both Patton and Benson supported adoption of the Christie vehicle for use by the Cavalry.
To make a long story short, the Secretary of War eventually revoked the purchase of the M1928 chassis when Christie's asking price was considered too high. It was about this time that Christie began looking elsewhere, and Poland and Russia had both shown interest in his advanced chassis & suspension systems. What was to follow was a long and complex series of exchanges between Christie and foreign governments that never really did meet with U.S. State and Ordnance Department's approval, and led to great frustration on all sides.
The Russians went on to develop their BT series of "fast tanks", based on Christie's designs, and this eventually culminated in their T34 projects, which stunned the German advances in 1941. Christie died in 1944, and although he managed to see his ideas take effect in both British and Russian armor, he was a broken man.
