Model T (Mar. 15, 2016)

Since last November (thereabouts) I've been learning how to use Poser to make units from Vuldacon. Consider this my first student project, with Vuldacon acting as Sensei/EMT*. Wax on, wax off!

Announcing: The 1919 Ford Model T Touring Car



The Ford Model T was the car that changed the world, making automobile transportation affordable and available to the common man. Known as the "Tin Lizzie", the Model T was the first car made on a production line, rather than crafted by hand. Noisy, often belching black smoke, and with a top speed approaching 45 miles per hour, the Model T, produced from 1908 to 1927, was very popular with some, and very un-popular with others, like Irving Berlin, who made the song "Keep Away From the Fellow Who Owns an Automobile" a hit in 1912.

Here's the GIF preview:

My thanks, of course, go to Vuldacon who taught me how to do this, then nursed me through the making of it and finally provided *Emergency Model Technician services as needed, particularly for palettes and sounds.

There are two versions of this unit, a small and a large. This is because we discovered that most of the pre-1908 vehicles used in the game are sized larger to match horsemen, while most later-era vehicles are sized smaller to match tanks and whatnot. This is easier to see in a side-to-side comparison image:



So Pick your favorite download:

Model T (Larger) - Download Here

Model T 1919 (Smaller) - Download Here

Try them in your game, and let us know what you think! Enjoy.

Balthasar 3/15/2016

Balthasar...Great Job! ...Excellent Unit!!

Outstanding Work and congratulations on your 1st Unit

I am looking foreword to you making more units and Leaderheads

Great work mate! Congrats on the first unit

This is quite a debut!

Balthasar said:

My thanks, of course, go to Vuldacon who taught me how to do this, then nursed me through the making of it and finally provided *Emergency Model Technician services as needed,

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So what you're saying is that The Camaro builder helped you make the first Ford ...

Excelent this car model


Wotan49

This looks lovely!

And I prefer the smaller one.

Balthasar, this is an outstanding unit! Thank you very much for doing it.

The question is how to integrate this excellent unit into a standard Civ 3 epic game. A settler unit? A special supplyshipment or has anybody a better idea?
Your big image of the 1919 Ford Model T Touring Car in the opening post of this thread can be a good base for the missing proper wondersplash of the GW "Ford Factory" in RARR and the next version of CCM.

BTW, there is a still actual unit request from me about a steamroller.

So what you're saying is that The Camaro builder helped you make the first Ford ...

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Blue Monkey... "Cars" Help "Cars"

Excellent first unit! Congrats Balthasar!

Civinator said:

A settler unit?

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Yes, excellent as a settler, once Motor Trans is researched!!!

Civinator said:

The question is how to integrate this excellent unit into a standard Civ 3 epic game. A settler unit? A special supply shipment, or has anybody a better idea?

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All excellent ideas. As the US military learned in WWI, the Model T made an excellent scout car, being fast, easier to fix (than other makes at the time), rugged, and relatively light. The British found success using Model T's as light patrol cars in North Africa and the Middle East because they drove better in deserts than armored cars.


They were also used as military staff cars, although the top brass of that time insisted that their reputations required that they ride around in limos worth ten times or more than Model T's
.

In the end, in war or peace, Model T's were most prized for their durability, low price, all-terrain capability, and easy maintenance, much as the US army jeep would be a generation later. Hope that helps.

SOURCE: American Military Vehicles of World War I: An Illustrated History of Armored Cars, Staff Cars, Motorcycles, Ambulances, Trucks, Tractors and Tanks
By Albert Mroz

Civinator said:

(there is a) missing proper wondersplash of the GW "Ford Factory" in RARR and the next version of CCM.

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So I made one for you:


Download HERE

Civinator said:

There is a still actual unit request from me about a steamroller.

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Unfortunately, I don't have the skills yet to do such a unit. I hope someone else does though!

Balthasar said:

In the end, in war or peace, Model T's were most prized for their durability, low price, all-terrain capability, and easy maintenance, ...

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Even before the US entered the Great War, there were volunteer ambulance services using Model-Ts.

Balthasar said:

​

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Constantly amazes me how "steampunk" the "real" world actually is. At least of the Epic Fail variety.

Balthasar, thank you very much for your help. Based on your excellent art, I have done a wondersplash that I now can refine with your great work!

About military use of the Ford Model T: Wyrmshadow made two military units based on that automobile (one for US and one for Poland), but they don´t look so lovely as your wonderful Model T.

Ford Model-T Armored Cars:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=3880
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=5553

Takeo said:

Yes, excellent as a settler, once Motor Trans is researched!!!

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Ops, my Model T just has lost its front wheels. We have to settle at this place!

magnificent 1st unit.

Fantastic debut, Balthasar. The texture and animation are crisp and detailed. Your tutelage under the Master has clearly paid off! It's a nice touch to include multiple sizes for modders as well.

Blue Monkey, ...

Thanks everyone for all the kind words so far. I really appreciate it.

AnthonyBoscia said:

It's a nice touch to include multiple sizes for modders as well.

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I might have thought twice about making it if I'd have realized earlier that there is a size difference between pre- and post-horseless land transports in the game. Baked-in I guess when Fireaxis decided to make Cavalry and chariots at one scale and tanks at another. Even though this doesn't seem to be a rule that was ever written down anywhere, our unit makers have all followed it by default except for (amazingly, these were the only examples I could find) Kinboat's Police Car and Patrol boat, for instance*. Luckily, there won't be many units that fall right on the line the way the T does. I suppose I could imagine a horse and buggy resized for modern urban use.

AnthonyBoscia said:

Blue Monkey, ...

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I second and third that. Meant to say something sooner.

* edit: those units turn out to be Navy Dawg's, not Kinboat's. My bad.

Lovely first unit, Balthasar.

With respect to Civinator's steam roller, the British used a steam train in India in the 1870s by linking a steam road engine/locomotive to a two-wheeled double-deck bus chassis. It ran quite well. That would be interesting to see as well. I will check to see if I have any copyright-free images of it.

awesome unit old buddy. great work! and i think pershing's forces chased pancho villa into mexico in model t's

El Justo said:

awesome unit old buddy. great work! and i think pershing's forces chased pancho villa into mexico in model t's

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Interesting story: Pancho Villa, who was in the midst of what might be called 'a Mexican stand-off' with his former co-rebel, who was at this point President of Mexico, blew the hell out of an American military camp in New Mexico during a supply run in early 1916. The American President, Woodrow Wilson, wanted to retaliate, and the Mexican Government agreed, but feared an American incursion, so wouldn't let the Americans use the rail lines. In order to supply his troops, who had to go as far as 500 miles into Mexico in pursuit, Pershing amassed an armada of trucks and touring cars. Model T's were not actually the Army's first choice, but they were so cheap that they got included in the mix. Militarily, the real stars of the show in that conflict were the three Dodge Model 30's that young 1st Lt. George Patton used in a raid on a ranch belonging to one of Villa's senior lieutenants, Julio Cárdenas. In a short but exciting gunfight, Patton won one of the few outright victories of that campaign, and demonstrated the first use of motorized cavalry in battle.


Dodge 1915 Model 30 Touring car

The takeaway is that Poncho Villa was never captured, but the Generals were sold on the idea of a motorized military. As one writer put it, the American military went from talking about using motor vehicles to using motorized vehicles overnight. The Punitive Expeditions, by the way, also saw the very first use of aircraft in combat operations (as scout planes). I've heard of Model T's lined up along the border (by the National Guard) to cover Pershing's Army's return back into America, but I couldn't find any archival evidence to support it. Another thing Pershing and his Generals learned from the conflict was the value of standardized parts, as quartermasters discovered when they tried to fix all of the different types of cars and trucks in Pershing's fleet. They finally decided to 'pool' all of the parts they could find together into centers for vehicle repair - hence, the term 'motor pool', which is still used in the military to this day.

When America entered WWI just months later, the first thing the Generals did was put in orders for large numbers of motor vehicles. Ford got a late start, owing to Henry Ford's objections to the war in the first place, but he nevertheless allowed orders to be placed by the government for Model T's, although he sold them 'as is' to the military, and they had to be modified later for military use. Their large frame made them easily adaptable into ambulances and light trucks, and a large number of T's were used that way (see post #12). Ford didn't even make heavy trucks until 1917, when they began to produce the Model TT chassis.

As I mentioned before, the British led the way to putting the Model T's to their best military use in North Africa, where the wheels of larger automobiles and armored cars just stuck in the sand. At first the Brits found the Model T's to be useful scout vehicles, and later discovered that they were wicked useful attack vehicles when mounted with Lewis or Vickers guns, and made celebrated use of them in 1917 to rescue captured British seamen 120 miles behind enemy lines.

The original "Rat Patrol".

And a final historical pic: Poncho Villa escaping Pershing in - you guessed it - a Model T.