French "Creep Tank"

[David]

The notion of shields, helping to protect the foot soldier against fire, is an ancient one. And like other protective measures, like the helmet and body armour, it was an old concept made new again with the advent of ever more accurate and deadly ranged fire weapons during the late 19th century. During the Russo-Japanese War the Japanese used small infantry shields extensively and with success during the siege operations of that conflict. And all armies used small portable one-man shields, with loop-holes, during WW1.

From the portable infantry shield, there is not such a big conceptual leap in order to reach the next step: the mobile infantry shield on wheels. A number of armies used such, for instance the Russian and the Turkish, and it seems like most other at least tried the concept. But fewer used them in actuality. The main reason being that wheeled steel shields often were very unpractical, their big weight making them difficult to move, often prohibitively so, especially over any kind of broken terrain. (And there was a lot of broken terrain around in WW1.) One Army that actually used mobile Infantry Shields in great numbers was the French.
The French used one-man mobile shields, at least in 1918, mainly to protect individual men sent out on wire­cutting duties (using either wire-cutters or explosives) in no-man's-land. (They evidently also tried for small-scale unit assault actions, but it is doubtful if they were ever used this way.) For this they employed a mass-produced design, a box mounted on an axle with two big metal wheels, with steel sides that protected the man on four sides, including the top, but left the legs free – as was necessary for the “propulsion” of the whole thing. Hence the nickname: creep tank. It had a small platform inside on which the user could lie with only his legs exposed. It had a V-shaped front, in order to better deflect incoming bullets and shrapnel. It was also saw some use by British forces. The mobile shield below can be found in the Army Museum in Brussels and in the excellent Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung of the Bundeswehr, in Koblenz, without doubt one of Germanys best military museums.



A larger type mobile shield was also employed by the French, at least earlier in the war. It was much larger, very much higher and could protect some 2-3 men, that could use loop-holes to engage targets. This could with all probability be used only in very special circumstances, when the ground was level and undisturbed, for instance during street-fighting, or in close proximity to forts. The big loophole also suggests that its main use was to protect Machine Guns, and that the actual mobility was a secondary aspect. The big mobile shield below can be found in the Army Museum in Paris.