Here at Tank and AFV News, we like to dig through old patents to see what sort of odd and unusual ideas people have come up with in regards to tanks and AFV design. Today we present a few of the more unusual patents we have found from the early days of tank and AFV design. These were found by browsing Google patents (any typos in the patent descriptions are due to errors made by the OCR when these patents were digitized.)
1. We’ll start with a patent from 1911 by Anthony Mcf Mcsweeny for a “Skirmish-machine.” This is essentially an armored car and is probably the most sensible of the designs we present in this article. That said, it earns a place on this list by nature of it’s rather unusual name of “skirmish-machine.”
The inventor describes his invention as:
The present invention provides an engine of warfare which is self-propelling and armored so as to amply protect the `vital parts and the complement of men manning the same. The machine besides being self propelling, so as to move from place to place by its own power, is adapted for use as a traction engine for drawing ordnance, wagons,” or vehicles containing supplies or munitions of war.
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