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War Wagons Of The Old West

MrRING

MrRING

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I've seen a plot point in many an old flick or tv show, positing the creation of an armored wagon of some kind, from just armored to full on tanks.

This image from 1967's The War Wagon gives you a good idea of what I'm taking about - steel covered wagons with slots for machine guns from the inside:
warwagon.png
I've also seen the plot in:
The Three Stooges final feature The Outlaws Are Coming
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. uses a proto tank with working treads for their version of the story idea from the episode "No Man's Land".
The Wild Wild West has two stories featuring tank-esq vehicles.

However, were there ever any such armored wagons of any kind made and used in the Old West? It seems highly improbable...
 
The concept of mounting a fast-firing weapon on a horse-drawn vehicle certainly existed in the late Victorian era:

2009843_original.jpg


Hartford, Connecticut police with 1872 Police Gatling gun, March 1892

It’s not an area l’ve looked into, but it would be difficult to imagine it being worthwhile to make a War Wagon. Condidering the area and thickness of steel plate required to be effective against rifles, its mobility would be extremely limited no matter how many horses you hitched to it.

On a particular note, the “turret” containing the Gatling seems to be a non-starter, as the height of the Gatling’s drum magazine over the weapon (see illustration above) would cause it to interfere with the turret roof.

In short: a Gatling on an open wagon? Certainly. A War Wagon? l’d take a lot of convincing.

maximus otter
 
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MrRING said:
... were there ever any such armored wagons of any kind made and used in the Old West? It seems highly improbable...
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Yes. In the 1870s the Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage Company introduced two iron-armored stagecoaches for very valuable shipments. These were basically ordinary stagecoaches with iron plates covering the main body and a strong safe bolted into the coach's frame.

One was named the Slaughter after the first driver killed on the Deadwood / Cheyenne Trail. The other was named Monitor after the Civil War ironclad.
Both stagecoaches were lined with steel plates 5/16th inches thick. Each door had a porthole for guards to shoot out. The strongbox, with walls three inches thick, was bolted to the floor. The manufacturer guaranteed the strongbox could withstand assaults upon it for 24 hours.

Yet bandits were not dissuaded. At Canyon Springs Station, on September 26, 1878, Charles Carey’s robber gang waited for the Monitor, which had left Deadwood, Dakota Territory, hauling gold and valuables totaling $27,000.

A gun battle ensued, resulting in the passenger dying and men wounded on both sides. The robbers overwhelmed the coach defenders—the driver and three shotgun messengers—broke into the strongbox and took off with the loot.
Click to expand...
SOURCE: https://truewestmagazine.com/article/the-original-war-wagon/

See Also:
Cornelius “Lame Johnny” Donahue & a Tale of Lost Treasure
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/cornelius-donahue/
 
The conestoga type wagons used in the westward land grabs offered a fair bit of protection. I'm sure I read somewhere that slack canvas offered some protection against either bullets or arrows as well, but I can't find it.
I'm sure @maximus otter will know.

https://www.factfrenzy.com/facts-about-the-conestoga-covered-wagon/

Another thought, the wagon may be armoured but the horses probably weren't, anyone taking on a war wagon, stage coach, etc. wouldn't be doing the gentlemanly thing and shooting at the driver they'd take out the horses and bide their time. I think Rich Hall covered that in a programme about Hollywood views of the West.
 
Miscellaneous related comments ...

"War wagons" were previously used in warfare in ancient China and medieval Bohemia. However, these earlier versions mainly used the wagons as portable fortifications that would be parked in a circle as defensive positions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_wagon

There were Old West stagecoaches or wagons called "treasure coaches" used for high-value cargos. It's not clear whether or to what extent they were actually "armored." Most often these treasure coaches were stripped of passenger accommodations, carried extra armed guards, and were accompanied by additional mounted escorts.

More generally ... Armored stagecoaches simply didn't make much sense. They required additional horses (at least one extra team) to handle the weight. All that was required to stop them in their tracks was to shoot or disconnect the horse team. In any case, successfully seizing the sort of heavy cargo the coaches were designed to safely convey left robbers with the same problem as the stage company - i.e., how to transport the heavy loot.
 
This Old West history webpage:

http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/deadwood3.html

... provides a history of the ironclad stages on the Cheyenne / Deadwood line and a capsule summary of the robbery of the Monitor.

The 1880 news clipping I cited above refers to an armored stagecoach on the Cheyenne / Sidney route. According to this history webpage, the armored stage on the Sidney route was a third armored wagon called "Old Ironsides."
 
maximus otter said:
Not bullets, unless the canvas was very thick, and/or the bullets nearly spent.

Arrows? No idea, sorry, though l wouldn’t imagine so.

maximus otter
Click to expand...
I've seen thick draped cloth used as a back-stop on indoor archery ranges, more of a slower-downer, but it does seem to absorb energy quite well - I'd speculate it traps the head long enough to rotate the arrow and then it semi broadsides the cloth, which would take the sting out of it.

I'd imagine for blunts it would work to some extent, but a broadhead or a very pointy bodkin would be right through it...at least I'd not stand on the other side to check. :)
 
maximus otter said:
Not bullets, unless the canvas was very thick, and/or the bullets nearly spent.

Arrows? No idea, sorry, though l wouldn’t imagine so.

maximus otter
Click to expand...
They would slow down an arrow, maximus. Unless loosed very close the arrow will be on a trajectory and wouldn't go clean through. The angle of the shaft and the fletchings would absorb some of the force.
 
Tunn11 said:
Don't know of any examples from the Old West but the Hussites used a "war wagon" in Europe in the 15th Century.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/medieval/circling-15th-century-wagons-hussite-wars.html?firefox=1
I imagine the American Civil War would have turned up any wagons it was the origin of the Ironclad warships Monitor and Merrimac but they didn't have to rely on horses to pull them!
Click to expand...

Medieval: Czech film about their National Hero Jan Žižka, we see perhaps the first instance of the Hussite War Wagons put into use. This 15th Century epic involves many historical characters including (the not so good) King Wenceslas (Karl Roden) and (the good) Lord Boresh (Michael Caine). The main plot here involves attempts to stop Wenceslas from being crowned Holy Roman Emperor, the evil Lord Rosenberg (Til Schweiger) hires mercenaries to kill Boresh but Žižka (Ben Foster) rescues him. Thus begins a convoluted plot of backstabbing, cruelty and Machiavellian conspiracies. Žižka even falls for Rosenberg's fiance, lady Katherine (Sophia Lowe). Some convincing battle scenes and swordplay but perhaps best of all is the portrayal of the beginnings of the Hussite Rebellion. in a coda to the film we are shown the massed ranks of War Wagons feawn up and linked like a wall as cavalry and Knights charge them. Žižka was a radical Hussite and went on to lead their armies. We even see how he got his One Eye moniker. An intriguing tale even if the main plot is largely invented. On Netflix. 7.5.10.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
How far back are we going?

The Romans mounted ballistae and torsion catapults on armoured wagons and the ancient Assyrians used some very tank-like war machines:

View attachment 61956
Click to expand...
Think the above is actually a siege engine. Therefore it is armoured or at least protected and is mobile but would be pushed up to the walls where the ram would knock bits off them and the armour would protect the besiegers from various nasties chucked from the walls. So sort of a war wagon but not the sort of thing that can be used like a chariot.

IIRC the Peleset (Who may or may not be the Philistines) were supposed to use ox carts, but whether they were used in battle or not isn’t known. If they did it would probably be as chariots.

Having said that I don’t think there is a general agreement on how chariots were used in ancient warfare and they have a very long history. 3000 BCE for clumsy looking things with solid wheels in Sumer to the scythed chariots used ineffectually against Alexander to the chariots of the Celtic “British” tribes that faced J Caesar and possibly Claudius.

The Roman armoured wagons are probbaly closer in concept to the war wagon of the film and perhaps a beefed up version of how the Britons and maybe the Homeric Greeks used chariots as a sort of mobile firing platform to goad enemies into breaking formation and attacking.
 
Tunn11 said:
Think the above is actually a siege engine. Therefore it is armoured or at least protected and is mobile but would be pushed up to the walls where the ram would knock bits off them and the armour would protect the besiegers from various nasties chucked from the walls. So sort of a war wagon but not the sort of thing that can be used like a chariot.

IIRC the Peleset (Who may or may not be the Philistines) were supposed to use ox carts, but whether they were used in battle or not isn’t known. If they did it would probably be as chariots.

Having said that I don’t think there is a general agreement on how chariots were used in ancient warfare and they have a very long history. 3000 BCE for clumsy looking things with solid wheels in Sumer to the scythed chariots used ineffectually against Alexander to the chariots of the Celtic “British” tribes that faced J Caesar and possibly Claudius.

The Roman armoured wagons are probbaly closer in concept to the war wagon of the film and perhaps a beefed up version of how the Britons and maybe the Homeric Greeks used chariots as a sort of mobile firing platform to goad enemies into breaking formation and attacking.
Click to expand...

Yes, that Assyrian frieze appears to show a vehicle with overlapping armoured plates on its flanks, a turret of sorts on top, presumably for archers, and a battering ram at the front (you can even see the stones/brickwork tumbling where it struck the tower).
In that respect, any resemblance to 20th or 21st century battlefield tanks is merely superficial.
The same could be said though of armoured stagecoaches in the wild west.
Given the usual description of a tank in Wikipedia and elsewhere of a self-propelled, tracked vehicle, intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat, then nothing before the British prototype "Little Willy" in 1915 can really count as a tank.
If we're using the looser description of "war wagons" though, as per the modified title, then vast numbers of machines throughout history fall within that category.
I quite like Leonardo Da Vinci's design for such a device:

tank2.png
tank.png
 
Perhaps war elephants provide a better equivalent of a tank in early warfare, although clearly not war wagons.

Their purpose seems to have been to disrupt formed infantry or deter cavalry through morale or simply impact. Some it seems were armoured and had limited firepower from archers or javelinmen in the howdah.
 
The earliest genuine vehicle with caterpillar tracks appears to be John Heathcote's steam plough, first developed around 1830 and finally patented as a viable working vehicle in 1835:

plough.png


Imagine, Heathcote was working on this tank-like method of propulsion just 15 years or so after the battle of Waterloo and well before the Crimean and US Civil Wars. If only he'd stuck some armour cladding and a gun on it, the tank may have made an appearance well before WW1.
 
Tunn11 said:
The conestoga type wagons used in the westward land grabs offered a fair bit of protection. I'm sure I read somewhere that slack canvas offered some protection against either bullets or arrows as well, but I can't find it.
I'm sure @maximus otter will know.

https://www.factfrenzy.com/facts-about-the-conestoga-covered-wagon/

Another thought, the wagon may be armoured but the horses probably weren't, anyone taking on a war wagon, stage coach, etc. wouldn't be doing the gentlemanly thing and shooting at the driver they'd take out the horses and bide their time. I think Rich Hall covered that in a programme about Hollywood views of the West.
Click to expand...
Very late to the thread but arrows are stopped by loose fabric. The Samurai had a cloak called a Horo that billowed/inflated behind them and stopped them being shot in the back.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
The earliest genuine vehicle with caterpillar tracks appears to be John Heathcote's steam plough, first developed around 1830 and finally patented as a viable working vehicle in 1835:

View attachment 62006

Imagine, Heathcote was working on this tank-like method of propulsion just 15 years or so after the battle of Waterloo and well before the Crimean and US Civil Wars. If only he'd stuck some armour cladding and a gun on it, the tank may have made an appearance well before WW1.
Click to expand...
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Steamed the six hundred.
“Forward, the Infernal Engine Brigade!
Drive for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Steamed the six hundred…………then they achieved their objectives and went back in time for tea and crumpets.
 
Sadly, for every three western pioneers or American Civil War soldiers who died from gun shot or battle, five more people died from disease.

Malnutrition, small pox, dysentery, and particularly tuberculosis were big problems.
 
In the Johnson County War of 1892, farmers built a hand powered armoured vehicle called "The Ark of Safety" to attack the death squad that had been hired to wipe them out.
go devil.jpg


It worked too. They were about to drop dynamite right into the death squads lap when the army came & saved them.
(The movie HEAVENS GATE has a spectacular re-creation of this.)
 
Sillyhuron said:
In the Johnson County War of 1892, farmers built a hand powered armoured vehicle called "The Ark of Safety" to attack the death squad that had been hired to wipe them out.
View attachment 67643

It worked too. They were about to drop dynamite right into the death squads lap when the army came & saved them.
(The movie HEAVENS GATE has a spectacular re-creation of this.)
Click to expand...

l’m sure that it would be a damn sight better than nothing, but bullets can pass through surprising amounts of material. WW1 accounts state that a .303 rifle bullet at close range would drive through 38” of oak. Admittedly that’s a ball (Full Metal Jacket) bullet travelling at about twice the velocity of cowboy-era ammunition, but this practical study shows that a .38 lead revolver bullet at only 707 fps will penetrate 6 x 1” pine planks. Projectiles from Victorian rifles would be flying at around twice that speed.

Bottom line? You try it; l’ll watch…


maximus otter
 
Thing is, in any armoured vehicle design you have the 'unholy Trinity'.
Speed-Armour-Firepower.
A TANK (which is a defenition of itself) needs to balance these three factors.
Provide the engine, and fuel (weight) and apply it to a 'frame'. Armour it. It adds weight and fuel consumption. So balance it out.
Then, add firepower. This adds weight (of gun and ammunition). Which affects the fuel consumption etc. etc.
So ...
In development, you can't just take a bloody JCB earth-mover ("Well it has tracks and an engine, slap some armour plate on it") and say "It's a tank!"
Yup. It's been done - The Bob Semple Tank was done. But there was a reason it was invented and many reasons it was dropped.
 
MrRING said:
I've seen a plot point in many an old flick or tv show, positing the creation of an armored wagon of some kind, from just armored to full on tanks.

This image from 1967's The War Wagon gives you a good idea of what I'm taking about - steel covered wagons with slots for machine guns from the inside:
View attachment 57698
I've also seen the plot in:
The Three Stooges final feature The Outlaws Are Coming
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. uses a proto tank with working treads for their version of the story idea from the episode "No Man's Land".
The Wild Wild West has two stories featuring tank-esq vehicles.

However, were there ever any such armored wagons of any kind made and used in the Old West? It seems highly improbable...
Click to expand...
I don't think a gatling gun would fit in that, it is the only machine gun that existed in the old west.
 
Well, the Gardner gun was around - but not common. Or the Bailey?
They existed, but were they easy to aquire?
 
maximus otter said:
l’m sure that it would be a damn sight better than nothing, but bullets can pass through surprising amounts of material. WW1 accounts state that a .303 rifle bullet at close range would drive through 38” of oak. Admittedly that’s a ball (Full Metal Jacket) bullet travelling at about twice the velocity of cowboy-era ammunition, but this practical study shows that a .38 lead revolver bullet at only 707 fps will penetrate 6 x 1” pine planks. Projectiles from Victorian rifles would be flying at around twice that speed.

Bottom line? You try it; l’ll watch…


maximus otter
Click to expand...
I saw a programme years ago investigating the idea that a brown bess musket could fire a tallow candle through a barn door. IIRC they tried using sheets of fairly thick plywood with quite large gaps between. It went through a surprising number and that was a candle not a musket ball.
 
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