Goliath (tracked)

See also: Goliath

The Goliath is a small radio-controlled tracked machine used by the Wehrmacht at the time of the Second world war. It had a load of Explosif S from 60 to 100 kg, being able to be actuated remotely, in order to destroy a tank or a strengthened place. Each Goliath was designed to be destroyed with its target. Towards 1940, after having recovered close to the the Seine a miniature prototype of vehicle developed by the French originator Adolphe Kégresse, the office of the ordinance of Wehrmacht required the development by the automobile company Borgward of Bremen of a similar vehicle in order to transport explosives. The result was Sd. Kfz. 302 ( To probe Kraftfahrzeug , “multi-purpose vehicle”) called the Leichte Ladungsträger (“carrying light demolition”) or Goliath . The vehicle was directed remotely via a control unit provided with a handle to brush, which was connected to Goliath by two telephone cables being connected to the back of the vehicle. The first model of Goliath used an electrical motor to be driven but because of its cost and its difficulties of repair, the following model (known under the name of Sd. Kfz. 303) used a Petrol engine simpler and more reliable.

It is in particular known to have been present on the beaches of the Débarquement. Fortunately for the allied troops, those had been badly maintained and were fragile. For example, with Utah Beach, only one of these tanks exploded, the others too being rusted to be able to be used, or their cables too abysses by the Artillerie. Later, at the time of the Insurrection of Warsaw of 1944, they were also employed by their units S. The Poles, with the restricted number of anti-tank weapons at their disposal, often sent volunteers to cut out the control cables of Goliath before it reaches its target.

Although a total of: 7564 Goliaths of the two models were produced, this weapon of single use was not regarded as a success because of its high unit cost price, its very slow speed, of its thin armor which did not protect it from any type of modern anti-tank weapons, and of its vulnerable control cables.

The combat during the rising of Warsaw proved that if Goliath were not covered by a Tir of suppression, its control cables could be easily divided by a simple determined combatant, just equipped with a shovel. Goliath, however, created the base for the projections post-Second World war as regards technologies of distant control (Drone).

A specimen of this “mini-tank” is in exposure to the museum of the unloading of Holy-Marie-of-Mount like to the Museum War and Peace in the Ardennes with Novion Porcien.

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