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John Walter Christie (May 6, 1865 – January 11, 1944) was an American engineer and inventor.〔 He is best known for developing the Christie suspension system used in a number of World War II-era tank designs, most notably the Soviet BT and T-34〔http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2013/01/the-soviet-command-economy-by-richard-sale.html, p. 5〕 series, and the British Covenanter and Crusader Cruiser tanks, as well as the Comet heavy cruiser tank.〔 ==Early life and career== Christie was born in the Campbell-Christie House in New Milford, New Jersey on May 6, 1865. He started working at the age of sixteen at the Delamater Iron Works while taking classes at the Cooper Union in New York City. He eventually became a consulting engineer for a number of steamship lines and in his spare time did some work on early submarine designs. Following the Spanish-American War he developed and patented an improved turret track for Naval artillery. At the same time he was working on designs for a front-wheel-drive car, which he promoted and demonstrated by racing at various speedways in the United States, including the Readville Race Track and the 1905 Vanderbilt Cup race.〔 His car was knocked out of the race by a collision with Vincenzo Lancia who was at the time leading the race in a Fiat.〔 Lancia was enraged, but presumably noticed the Christie car's vertical-pillar coil-based independent front suspension: the then unusual configuration subsequently turned up on the Lancia Lambda.〔 He was the first American to compete in the 1907 French Grand Prix: the V4 engine of 19,891 cc that powered his vehicle was the largest ever used in a Grand Prix race, but the car retired after four laps with "engine trouble". On September 9 of that same year, Christie was seriously injured in a crash when his car struck loose debris during a lap at Brunots Island Race Track in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In a twelve-car endurance race earlier that day, scheduled to run 50 miles, the Haynes car of driver Rex Reinertson had lost its right front tire with disastrous results, catapulting into the air and landing on its roof.〔 Reinertson was crushed beneath the car, suffering injuries (including a skull fracture) that ultimately proved fatal, and his mechanic Clarence Bastion was ejected from the vehicle and thrown 50 feet through the air, breaking both of his arms and both of his legs.〔 After ten more laps, the race was stopped so that the injured men could receive medical treatment, and the unlucky Reinertson's car was cleared off the track.〔 Next up was Christie, driving the car he had used at the Grand Prix only a few months before.〔 He was attempting to break the track's lap record of 58 seconds, and due to receive a $500 prize if he was successful.〔 Christie completed the second half of his warmup lap in only 24 seconds, so he was well on pace for a new record, but at the 1/8 mile marker of his real lap his right front wheel struck part of Reinertson's car that remained on the track.〔 Christie was thrown from the car, traveling twenty feet in the air and fifty feet across the ground, before coming to earth.〔 Mark Baldwin, a former Major League Baseball player who became a doctor following his retirement from professional sports, happened to be in the stands as a spectator, and he ran to Christie and administered first aid until Christie could be placed in an ambulance and taken to the hospital, a task that was complicated by the large number of spectators who had climbed down from the grandstands and moved onto the track.〔 Christie had been knocked unconscious by the impact.〔 He also sustained a broken left wrist, a cut on his right eye from the broken glass of his goggles, and a significant injury to his back.〔 Doctors who treated Christie expressed concern that he might be crippled as a result of his injuries, or lose the sight in his damaged eye, and news of his accident was kept from his wife, who was herself seriously ill at their home in River Edge, New Jersey.〔 Christie remained in the St. John's Hospital until September 19, at which point he was discharged and returned to New York.〔"(Walter Christie Coming Home )", The New York Times, September 20, 1907, page 10.〕 Walter Christie built the 1909 front wheel drive Christie Racer driven by Barney Oldfield, Master Driver of the World and America's Legendary Speed King, the first to lap the Indianapolis Speedway over 100 MPH. on May 28, 1916, speed: 102.623 MPH, time: 1.27.70. Christie now switched his energies away from automobile racing to developing his fwd New York taxicab design.〔 With benefit of hindsight, the taxi design's importance came in large part from the fact that it incorporated a transversely mounted engine/transmission assembly, applying a basic architecture that would be greeted as revolutionary when applied by Alec Issigonis in the BMC Mini fifty years later. However, in 1909 the idea of a 'conventional lay-out' was less firmly rooted than it would have become by 1959, and for Cristie the vehicle's more striking novelty lay the fact that the entire "forecarriage", incorporating all the key mechanical components, could be detached and replaced in "less than one hour", so that the vehicle could stay on the road while the engine maintenance took place.〔 The car's radical lay-out was to necessitate the manufacture of many complex components in-house, and problems encountered subsequently by other manufacturers producing or finding a dependable universal joint make it hard to believe that the Christie vehicle was particularly dependable.〔 Given the heavy steering resulting from the fwd lay-out and a published unit price in 1909 of $2,600, it is understandable that the denizens of the New York cab trade did not flock to buy the Christie taxi.〔 In 1912 Christie began manufacturing a line of wheeled fire engine tractors which also utilized a front-wheel-drive system, and subsequently sold scores of them to fire departments around the country, most notably the New York City Fire Department. The tractors allowed the departments to keep their steam-powered pumps while ending the use of horses to pull them to the scene of the fire. In 1916, with the First World War raging in Europe, he developed a prototype four-wheeled gun carriage for the US Army Ordnance Board. But the Ordnance board had set out strict guidelines for weapons, and Christie refused to revise his designs to suit their requirements. Christie's own personal stubbornness and his habit of offending those in the US Army and Ordnance bureaucracy would have ramifications for the rest of his career. Christie's first major supporter, and success, however came not from the US Army, but the United States Marine Corps Major General Eli K. Cole who was an advocate of developing the Marine Corps amphibious capability. Christie had built an amphibious light tank a decade before Donald Roebling's ''Alligator'', and this was to be displayed during the Winter Maneuvers of 1924 at Culebra, Puerto Rico. In overall command of the exercise was Admiral Robert E. Coontz, USN. Along with trying out the "Beetle Boat," a copy of the armoured lighters used by the British during the Gallipoli landings in 1915 that served as a landing craft, would be Christie's amphibious tank first recommended by Brigadier General Smedley Butler.〔Daugherty, Leo J. III, Pioneers of Amphibious Warfare, 1898–1945, McFarland & Company, Inc.,, Jefferson NC., 2009, p.116〕 The tank was transported to the exercise area aboard the USS Wyoming (BB-32), and designated as the Marine Corps Tank (GC-2). It was then hoisted on board a waiting submarine prior to its launch toward the shore, then "As the "mother ship" submerged, the Christie tank proceeded to shore. Unable to maneuver through the heavy surf, the vehicle returned to the Wyoming without landing. The next day, when the surf had subsided, the Christie amphibian once again left its mooring aboard the submarine and made a perfect landing. Despite the fact that the vehicle came ashore after the exercise had been officially declared over, Cole stated that the tank possessed the capability of being developed into an extremely valuable weapon, especially in connection with landing operations." 〔Daugherty, Leo J. III, Pioneers of Amphibious Warfare, 1898–1945, McFarland & Company, Inc.,, Jefferson NC., 2009, p.117〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「J. Walter Christie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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