Minerva Armored Car

Minerva Armored Car
Minerva armored car, model 1914 near Antwerp
Type	Armoured car
Place of origin	Belgium
Specifications
Weight	4 t
Length	4.90 m
Width	1.75 m
Height	2.00 m
Crew	3-6
Armor	up to 4 mm
Main armament	1 x Hotchkiss Model 1909 machine-gun
Engine	4-cyl Gas. Minerva 8L 40bhp at 2500 rpm
Suspension	4x2 wheel
Operational range	150 km (90 mi)
Speed	40 km/h (25 mph)

The Minerva Armored Car (French: Automitrailleuse Minerva) was a military armored car expediently developed from Minerva civilian automobiles by Belgium at the start of the First World War.

Background

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first military armored vehicles were manufactured by adding armor and weapons to existing vehicles. The first armoured car was the Simms' Motor War Car, designed by F.R. Simms and built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim in Britain.^[1]

Another early armoured car of the period was the French Charron, Girardot et Voigt 1902, presented at the Salon de l'Automobile et du cycle in Brussels, on 8 March 1902.^[2] The vehicle was equipped with a Hotchkiss machine gun, and with 7 mm armour for the gunner.^[3][4][5] Although it too was only a prototype and never used in warfare.^[3]

History

The Minerva's use in combat in August 1914 made Belgium one of the first nations to employ armoured cars in the World War I,^[6] though Italy had previously been the first to use armoured cars in a theatre of conflict, in the 1911–1912 Italo-Turkish War.^[7] Also the armored Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade was formed on August 24, 1914 and close to being assembled by that September.^[8]

During the war those that could afford to rode to battle on their own horses, much like this in 1914, Lieutenant Charles Henkart arranged for two of his civilian Minerva Motor Works tourers to be armoured at the Cockerill Works in Hoboken.^[9] The initial armoured cars were adhoc but soon Minerva had created a standard design. American papers were reporting the use of the armoured car by September 1914.^[10] The crew was partially exposed to gun fire with the open top. This would prove fatal to Lieutenant Henkart when on September 6, 1914 he was killed by gun fire after the armoured car he was in was caught in a German ambush.^[11][12] Before the Minerva factory was captured during the German invasion and occupation of Belgium about thirty Minerva armored cars were built. In 1916 the design of the original armored car was completely revised. The open top was now fully enclosed and the machine gun under an armored cupola. The Belgian Army used the cars as motorized cavalry units with three-cars platoons. The armoured car units were mostly used for reconnaissance, infantry fire support and missions behind enemy lines.^[13] After the Western Front became bogged down in trench warfare some of the cars were sent to the Eastern Front with the Belgian Expeditionary Corps in Russia.^[13]

The Germans were able capture three of the cars and modified them for use during the invasion of Romania with at least one being used during the 1919 troubles. They even saw use in the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s.^[13]

Bibliography

Notes

1. Crow 1970, p. 3
2. Gougaud 1987, p. 11
3. Bartholomew 1988, p. 4
4. Gougaud 1987, pp. 11-12
5. Arnaud 2014, p. 268
6. Tucker 2005, p. 205
7. Tucker 2004, p. 5
8. Pulsifer 2001, p. 46
9. Bartholomew 1988, p. 11
10. The Evening Herald 1914
11. Tucker 2013, p. 65
12. Bartholomew 1988, p. 12
13. Bocquelet 2014

References

• Arnaud, Françoise (22 August 2014). 1914 La première et la seule, la Belgique fait usage d'autos blindées (in French). 1. Société des Ecrivains. ISBN 978-2-342-02701-3.
• Bartholomew, E. (1988). Early Armoured Cars (1988 ed.). Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85263-908-5. - Total pages: 32
• Bocquelet, David (2014). "Tanks Encyclopedia – Minerva". tanks-encyclopedia.com. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
• Crow, Duncan (1970). Armoured fighting vehicles of the world (1970 ed.). Profile Publications. - Total pages: 176
• Douglas-Scott-Montagu, Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu (1995). Daimler Century: The Full History of Britain's Oldest Car Maker (1995 ed.). Patrick Stephens. ISBN 978-1-85260-494-3. - Total pages: 304
• Gougaud, Alain (1987). L'aube de la gloire: les autos mitrailleuses et les chars français pendant la Grande Guerre, histoire technique et militaire, arme blindée, cavalerie, chars, Musée des blindés (in French) (1987 ed.). Société OCEBUR. ISBN 9782904255021. - Total pages: 248
• Macksey, Kenneth & Contributor P. H. Hordern (1980). The Guinness Book of Tank Facts and Feats: A Record of Armoured Fighting Vehicle Achievement, Volume 7 (1980 ed.). Guinness Superlatives. ISBN 978-0-85112-204-5. horizontal tab character in |first= at position 22 (help) - Total pages: 256
• Pulsifer, Cameron (2001). "Canada's First Armoured Unit: Raymond Brutinel and the Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigades of the First World War". Canadian Military History. vol. 10 (no. 1, Article 5.): 44–57. ISSN 1195-8472. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
• The Evening Herald (September 22, 1914). "Belgians Sighting Machine Guns on an Automobile". The Evening Herald. Klamath Falls, Oregon. ISSN 2158-4834. OCLC 41172977. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
• Tucker, Spencer C. & Roberts, Priscilla Mary (2005). World War I: A Student Encyclopedia (2005 ed.). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-879-8. - Total pages: 2454
• Tucker, Spencer C. (2004). Tanks: An Illustrated History of Their Impact (2004 ed.). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-995-9. - Total pages: 379
• Tucker, Spencer C. & Editors Laura Matysek Wood, Justin D. Murphy (1999). The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia (1999 ed.). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-8153-3351-7. - Total pages: 783
• Tucker, Spencer C. Holder of the John Biggs Chair in Military History (2013). The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia (2013 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-50694-0. - Total pages: 816

External links

• Minerva at Tanks-Encyclopedia.com
• Minerva Armored Motor Car