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Concept
Christie suspension
Summary
The Christie suspension is a suspension system developed by American engineer J. Walter Christie for his tank designs. It allowed considerably longer movement than conventional leaf spring systems then in common use, which allowed his tanks to have considerably greater cross-country speed. The system was first introduced on his M1928 design, and used on all of his designs until his death in 1944.
Christie advocated the use of lightweight tanks with long range and high speed, designed to penetrate enemy lines and attack their infrastructure and logistics capabilities.
A major problem with tanks in World War I was tracked suspension failure. Christie's first tank design of 1919 could be driven on its wheels to get to the starting point and then the tracks fitted before it went into action. The US Tank Corps ordered a single tank from Christie's company based on this design. The tank, known as the M1919, was delivered in early 1921 and tested until Christie proposed modifying it. The modifications added coil suspension to the front wheels and removed the turret - the armament being moved to the nose of the vehicle. The tank - now known as M1921 - was tested in 1922 and 1923 but considered lacking in maneuverability and internal space and so put into the Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1924.
His earlier designs in the 1920s were hampered by poor cross-country performance due to limited suspension capability. The major problem he faced was the limited vertical space for springs to move in: for a 25 cm movement it might need 50 or 75 cm of vertical space for the spring and strut, and his small designs did not offer such space.
In the late 1920s he devised a better solution. The solution was the addition of a bellcrank, which changed the direction of motion from vertical to horizontal. The road wheels were individually mounted on a pipe that could move vertically only, at the top of which the bell crank rotated the direction of motion to the rear. Springs were mounted on the end of the crank, and could be as long as needed, lying along the inside of the hull.
Official source
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