The Holt tractor was part of the US government’s bid to motorise their artillery in Europe during World War One, Tim Gosling reports
The US Ordnance Department was forward thinking when considering the movement of artillery, declaring that “motorisation is the prime mover of the future” and that it had “numerous advantages over animal draft”. Having compared tracked vehicles with all other types of mechanical prime mover those with caterpillar tracks were found to have a “definite superiority” and were the “only logical prime mover” to replace horses.
Serious and practical experiments had been undertaken with the caterpillar as early as November 1915 when a commercially built Model 45 farm tractor manufactured by the Holt Manufacturing Company of Stockton California was bought by the Field Artillery Board for testing (the French army had already purchased 352 of these machines). This tractor created great interest and an order for 74 was placed including 42 which were fitted with armour over the engine and radiator (known as the “45 Model E-HVS”). These tractors were used to equip two medium/heavy field artillery batteries one of which remained in the United States while the other was dispatched to …
