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US Military Testing of Snow-Trac

teledawg

Member
I ran across this very interesting 50 plus page test report of the Ride Characteristics of Lightweight Tracked Vehicles done by the US Army Tank Command in 1967.

Here is a link to abstract: http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA397855

and the full .PDF file: http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA397855

It compares several tracked vehicles of the time and was actually a validation test to see how accurate an analog computer model could predict how smooth the subject vehicle would ride. Turns out that the Snow-Trac exerted less watts on the passengers then any of the other test vehicles at any speed. There is also good information on each vehicle's properties including the CG. The Snow-Trac had one of the lowest CGs.

(For some reason a Kristi was not part of the test. :yum: :yum: :yum:)

Also, here is the text of a PM I got from Lyndon regarding the US Military testing of Snow-Tracs. :applause: These may have been one of the Snow-Tracs in the test:

Lyndon said:
According to one of the Snow Trac dealers, and later verified by location of one of the actual test machines, the first 3 or 4 machines produced were shipped to alaska for testing by the US Military. I located one of them which belonged to a hunter in North Pole, just outside of Fairbanks. It was unusual in that it had Brass sheet metal work on the cab, instead of aluminum. It was the serial number 3 unit. Later, another dealer IN alaska said he had been sending parts to a cannery(fish processing facility) that had the serial number 2 unit. It was still being used to drag fish nets up a ramp, was in sad shape with wish hooks in the track and you can imagine how it smelled! Bob Persons, the owner of the AKTIV company may have also made some reference to this story. In any event I don't believe that they purchased very many machines. They did purchase some however. this was verified by an electrical engineer that I worked with. 3 New machines were shipped to one of the remote missle sites in Alaska. they were stored on some sort of loft area in one of the buildings at the missle site. No one could ever figgure how to get them down so they were never run. Years later when they De-comissioned this missle site they some how got the 3 machines down from the shelf they were perched on BUT only 2 made it back to 'Town'. there was a rumor that the 3rd machine convieniently fell off the truck at the truckers buddys house. This story I was unable to verify. If there were records of the testing they could be at one of the 3 following places: Eielson AFB, in North Pole, Ft. Wainright, in Fairbanks, or at the Cold Weather Training unit at Black Canyon just south of Delta Junction. Since I personally located the Serial Number One Thiocol in a junkyard in North Pole, and the Serial number 3 ST4 within 5 miles it is quite realistic to think that Testing was preformed there. also the carcus of the Overland Train, or Snow Train was located within 2 miles and there is loads of documentation to prove it was tested there. I suspect that at least half a dozen of the remote NIKE Sites each had one, as did 2 dozen small FAA sites across alaska.
 

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Snowtrac Nome

member formerly known as dds
GOLD Site Supporter
my st-4 has USAF stickers under the hood indicating who brought it here and i know of about 6around here one i m working on for another guy that also say usaf under the hood and there is one I'm working on aquiring that belonged to the navy it was left in a whear house when it was turned over shows 147 hours on the hour meter and never moved since last parked also the coast guard had 6 of them at a loran site at port clarance and buldozed them under when they recieved new tuckers the milatary put quiet afew out in the bush and might have kept bad records of accountability wich accounts for all the abandoned snow tracs in this reagon
 
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