1942 Goliath/Beetle tank tracked mines - GIF, video, and photos

[Jon]

Goliath tracked mines, also known as beetle tanks, doodlebugs, or midget demolition tanks.

A couple of versions of these made by the Germans in WWII. Many were captured, and they were copied by various militaries, but with little success - they were high cost, low speed, too heavy, insufficiently armored, and they had vulnerable control cables. These days they are primarily interesting exhibits at tank museums. In retrospect, these are reasonable candidates for precursors to drone warfare.

US soldier rides a captured tank. They were usually unmanned, and controlled remotely.



1:23 video:

US Navy, 2nd Beach Battalion, Utah Beach. June 11th, 1944:


Pile of captured beetles:


More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_tracked_mine


Previously:

WWII Churchill tank converted into mine clearer
International Harvester automatic towed mine planter
steam-powered tanks
Panzer tank hull being quenched
tank silencer
Tankenstein rat rod
Big Wind firefighting jet tank
WWII Churchill tank converted into mine clearer
Tank bridge - GIF

[mklotz]

The Soviets used anti-tank dogs...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog

Germans either loved their dogs too much or appreciated the difficulty in teaching a dog to read the markings on military vehicles so they went with the far more predictable RC tracked mine.

Our experience with animal-borne weaponry...

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

vividly demonstrated the importance of this animal illiteracy factor.

[Frank S]

The Soviets used anti-tank dogs...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog

Germans either loved their dogs too much or appreciated the difficulty in teaching a dog to read the markings on military vehicles so they went with the far more predictable RC tracked mine.

Our experience with animal-borne weaponry...

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

vividly demonstrated the importance of this animal illiteracy factor.

Animal suicide bombers not all that different than the Islamic extremist suicide bombers or the small children used by the Vietcong those delivering the bombs were not capable of thinking for themselves to be able to object to dying of the results
Man's inhumanity against man or beast knows no bounds