What would be the maximum load carried by the Diamond T Tank Transporter?

The load capacity of the trailer was 45 tons. It could carry pretty much any Allied or German tank, except maybe the Tiger series tanks.

Gino pretty much summed it up.

The tractor was used to pull a heavy trailer with the Tiger II loaded (ex Pieper), that was sent back to the US after being captured during the Bulge fighting.

There is a picture in Squadron's "M19-M20 Tank Transporter Detail in Action" with 2 M20 tractors hitched in tandem pulling a trailer with a British Tortoise.

This one?

Different trailer with a higher load rating ....
/ Robin

The IDF used the Diamond T tractor/Rogers trailer setup for hauling its heavy equipment, including Shot tanks - and those were over 50 tons, even in their basic configuration. Having said that, that was probably beyond the maximal weight this setup was optimized for.

Many thanks!

During the battle Bulge the US army recovered a King Tiger using a Diamond T and Rogers trailer.
As a side note, in UK service it was rated at 40 tons. This is because a UK ton is 2200 pounds, slightly more than a metric ton and a US ton is 2000 pounds.
Regards Jason

Good to know, had no idea about that.

H.P.

It is an Anglo-American conspiracy to keep us foreigners confused regarding weights and capacity of their military equipment.
They also confuse each other by using different sizes of gallons, for instance when measuring fuel.
A US made car will get more miles per gallon in the UK than in the US since the British gallon is larger (1 imperial gallon is approximately 1.2 US gallon ....)
They have the same size of inches, feet and yards though.
/ Robin

Frenchy, I looked all over for that lower picture. All I could find were the ones of the heavy trailer. There was a feature article in the MVPA or the After the Battle series about the recovery. From what I remember they had a lot of tires blow out.

Actually, a UK ton is 2240 lb, rather than 2200. A ton is 20 cwt where 1 hundredweight is 112lb. It does all, sort of, make sense... To a lunatic.

Here's another view :



http://tank-photographs.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/king-tiger-tank-national-armor-and-cavalry-museum-fort-benning-USA.html

H.P.

Where does stones fit into this mess?
It amazes me that a ton is 20 cwt, wouldn't it have been more in line with the other odd numbers to let a ton by 19 or 21 cwt instead?
/ Robin

A stone is fourteen pounds. I don't know why.

Well a stone is 14 pound which means a CWT is 8 stone, so a ton is 160 stone.

Metric does have it's good point's after all

This may help to explain where the measurements came from and why the US measurements are different.

The Weights and Measures Act of 1824 and the Act of 1878 established the British Imperial System on the basis of precise definitions of selected existing units. The 1824 act sanctioned a single imperial gallon to replace the wine, ale, and corn (wheat) gallons then in general use. The new gallon was defined as equal in volume to 10 pounds avoirdupois of distilled water weighed at 62 °F with the barometer at 30 inches, or 277.274 cubic inches (later corrected to 277.421 cubic inches). The two new basic standard units were the imperial standard yard and the troy pound, which was later restricted to weighing drugs, precious metals, and jewels. A 1963 act abolished such archaic measures as the rod and chaldron (a measure of coal equal to 36 bushels) and redefined the standard yard and pound as 0.9144 metres and 0.45359237 kg respectively. The gallon now equals the space occupied by 10 pounds of distilled water of density 0.998859 gram per millilitre weighed in air of density 0.001217 gram per millilitre against weights of density 8.136 grams per millilitre.

While the British were reforming their weights and measures in the 19th century, the Americans were just adopting units based on those discarded by the act of 1824. The standard U.S. gallon is based on the Queen Anne wine gallon of 231 cubic inches and is about 17 percent smaller than the British imperial gallon. The U.S. bushel of 2,150.42 cubic inches, derived from the Winchester bushel abandoned in Britain, is approximately 3 percent smaller than the British imperial bushel. In the British system, units of dry and liquid capacity are the same, while in the United States they differ; the liquid and dry pint in Britain both equal 0.568 cubic decimetre, while the U.S. liquid pint is 0.473 cubic decimetre, and the U.S. dry pint is 0.551 cubic decimetre. British and American units of linear measure and weight are essentially the same. Notable exceptions are the British stone of 14 pounds, which is not used in the United States, and a divergence in definition of the hundredweight (100 pounds in the United States, 112 in Britain) that yields two different tons, the short U.S. ton of 2,000 pounds and the long British ton of 2,240 pounds. In 1959 major English-speaking nations adopted common metric definitions of the inch (2.54 cm), the yard (0.9144 metres), and the pound (0.4536 kg).

Interesting to know that the inch is the lenght it is as it is equal to the length of three barleycorns and stems from the 14th century.

Any other ton expert wanting to weigh in ?

H.P.

The French Revolution eventually led to the metric system so the parts of the world who have got a sensible system for measurements can thank the French revolutionaries for it
The metric clock and the new calendar didn't catch on though ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar

/ Robin

Great, so I can blame the French for the first car I owned! It was assembled in Canada by Dodge. The entire chassis was standard, but the engine and some interior parts were metric. So that's how I came to learn metric.

Great fun can be had by adding a few non-metric screws to the tins where someone working on some mechanic contraption keeps the metric screws removed from the object. Sometimes it is enough to just add a few screws of the same dimensions and watch them search for the screwholes to fit the superfluous screws ...
/ Robin

Added to all of these weighty matters...

Is that, I do believe, the rated load capacity for both American and Commonwealth trucks and trailers is the rough field capacity. The hard pavement capacity being approximately double.

So, a 2.5 ton truck can haul 2.5 tons cross country or 5 tons on pavement only.

Therefore, a Rogers 40 ton trailer could haul 80 tons on capable paved roads.

I had no idea that my simple question would provoke such an extensive debate ... most informative, nonetheless.

I know how it feels to put an assembly back together and find extra screws, so you must be moonlighting at my job!

I have a 1/2 ton Dodge weapons carrier (not running) and it was based on a 1 ton Dodge truck. I was told by a Dodge enthusiest that the Army halved the load rating for safety purposes. I never confirmed that, but it ties in with your post.