1942 Federal Crane Truck

They had an even bigger one the Knuckney tank transporter.

Interesting story. When the Army had Freuhauf build a bigger trailer for bigger tanks the Diamond T and Federal tractors were not up to the job. They asked for a bigger capacity prime mover and Knuckey Engineering designed their machine shown above. This was the pick of designs from several manufacturers.

Exactly the same as when Bantam invented the Jeep the government took the contract away from them and split it between Ford and Willys because Bantam was too small, poor old Knuckey was ripped off and Paccar (Kenworth etc) were given the contract with their basic design.

The Paccar machine was produced both armoured and non-armoured and thousands were built. They were called the Dragon Wagon.



The unarmoured version

I have read about the Dragon Wagon before
All I seem to recall was it had a huge petrol motor and was chain drive
I also seem to recall it was over 10 feet

Either way it sounds like a impressive machine for its time

Paul

Here are Dragon Wagons up close. It is amazing how many collectors in Europe have restored.


And a walk-around


Here is the soft cab version


Here is an Army movie on loading a tank on a Dragon Wagon.

Here is a Federal in New Guinea. I like the home made splash guards on the jeep.

Here are a few more photos





This is a range of Federal trucks built during WW2. They

This is my first post here, thanks for adding me. Brocky sent me this link and mentioned that my Federal and its inertia starter were being discussed, so I thought I should chime in.

The inertia starters were standard equipment on the 7-1/2 ton 6x6's built for the Army Air Force during WW2 from 1941 to 1945. These trucks were built by Biederman, Reo, and Federal to the same specification. All of these trucks used the same 855 ci Hercules HXD engine and 6x6 drivetrain. Biederman built F1 tractors, P1 crane carriers , and only 12 C2 wreckers. Federal built F1 tractors and nearly all the C2 wreckers. Reo built F1 tractors, and Cardox crash trucks, but no C2 wreckers. The first 4 C2 wreckers were built by Corbitt in 1940, but they would not build any more, instead concentrating on the standard 6 ton 6x6 they designed.

The inertia starter on my 1943 Federal 606 7-1/2 ton truck, a former C2 wrecker, is labeled as an “Aviation Engine Starter, Air Corps Type B-9”. It was manufactured by Eclipse Aviation, a division of Bendix Aviation Corporation. According to a page I was sent from a military manual, the government supplied the inertia starter, and the truck manufacturer supplied the parts required to assemble the starter to the truck.

I brought my Federal to a truck show in Florida last month and I was very surprised at the positive reaction the truck received. Most people had never seen one of the 7-1/2 tonners, and they were fascinated with the inertia starter. Attached is a picture of my two Federal C2's. The orange truck is mostly complete but has a bad engine.

Trevor, I don't recall the C2 on ebay in 2011 or 2012 that you mentioned, although I could have missed it. As for the manuals we discussed last year, I have had copies of both promised to me but have not received anything yet.

There is a lot of interesting discussion in this thread but I have seen a few things that are not quite accurate, so maybe I can set the record straight.

The truck pictured as the Knuckey tank transporter prototype is actually the 1942 Dart T13. It is completely shaft drive and Knuckey had nothing to do with it's design or manufacture. After trials the Dart T13 was not accepted by the army. However, Knuckey did build the prototype M26, the armored cab 6x6 tank transporter with a chain drive rear bogie. The Army accepted the Knuckey prototype. but Knuckey did not have the production capacity the build the M26 in the numbers the Army needed. Pacific Car and Foundry (PACCAR) was chosen the produce the armored M26 and the later soft skin M26A1. The armored M26 built by PACCAR was virtually identical to the Knuckey prototype.

The photo line up labeled "10 ton, 7-1/2 ton. and 2-1/2 ton" and identified as Federals is actually a page from the 1945 Reo Annual Report. The entire page is attached. It is easy to make this mistake as the 7-1/2 ton Reo and Federal F1 tractors are nearly identical, with just the front fenders and hood trim setting them apart. Reo's model number for the F1 tractor was the 29XS, while the Federal F1 was a model 605. In this line up the 6x6 truck to the right of the 7-1/2 ton is the Reo US6, a virtual clone of the Studebaker US6. Reo built over 22,000 of these trucks under contract to Studebaker. The truck on the left labeled 10 ton is the massive Reo 50V, built for the U.S. Navy and known as the 10 ton Naval Aircraft Salvage Truck. The data plate on these trucks shows them as being rated at 12 tons, not 10. They used the same Gar Wood US6 T26 wrecker equipment as the 7-1/2 ton Federal C2. Only 200 Reo 50V's were built. Only 3 are known to survive, and one of these is currently being restored in the U.S.

Jeff

Thanks for that.

I was a bit puzzled by the US6 as I could find plenty of reference to REO building them (in fact I remember as kid in a reserve unit we had "Studebakers" but several had REO on the horn button.)

As the photo was marked as Federal products I went with that - always someone out there smarter than I am. I suppose without the Studebaker we never would have known?

The Knuckey photo was likewise marked. They had the story right about the Knuckey prototype and allocation to PACCAR for production but you now identify the truck in the photo as a Dart - thanks.

Here are Knuckeys









Lang

Lang, that is some nice Knuckey info. Photos of Knuckey's are hard to come by. I meant to add in my previous post that even though Knuckey was passed over for production on the M26, they did still provide the dual chain drive rear bogie for every M26 and M26A1 built by PACCAR, which numbered well over 1300 trucks. Knuckey continued to sell their chain drive bogie for many years after the war, even as late as the early 1960's for some Kenworth logging trucks. Attached is a photo of a Knuckey Western highway truck from about 1940.

I'm afraid the internet has led you astray again, as the first photo you posted is a Biederman P1 crane carrier chassis and not a Knuckey. This was one of the standard 7-1/2 tonners build by Biederman. The half cab was unique to the P1 and actually is mounted aside the engine. Attached are a couple P1 images.