Landship

A landship is a large vehicle that travels on land, as opposed to on water, air, or in space. Because of their large size, their use on land is seen as impractical due to terrain obstacles, and soft ground that cannot support such large weight. Such problems are non-existent on water and in space. However, vehicles similar to the concept of landships have appeared in various forms in the real world, and more commonly in works of fiction.

Compare with trams and trains, which are large segmented land vehicles (or groups of vehicles) that use rail tracks, road trains, which are large land vehicles that use roadways, articulated buses (another road vehicle type), amphibious vehicles, which can drive on land and on water, and hovercraft, which travel above the surface of both masses on an air cushion.

History

In the First World War, the British proposed building "landships" - large (1000 tons or more) vehicles capable of crossing the trench systems of the Western Front, and the Landships Committee was formed to investigate these ideas for equipping the Naval Brigades. The impracticality of building such large vehicles and the needs of the British Army for more numerous smaller vehicles led to the much smaller first tanks. However, until after the Second World War, the British would continue to think of tanks in naval terms; e.g., the Cruiser tank operating like the ships of the same name. Quickly proving impractical were the battleship-equivalent heavy tanks, such as the multi-turreted Vickers A1E1 Independent and its assorted offspring. The Russian Tsar Tank, a super-heavy tricycle gun platform, was scrapped after a prototype proved difficult to maneuver and the vehicle was deemed vulnerable to ground fire.

Landship (Barbados)

The Barbados Landship is a cultural movement and organisation, known for its entertaining parades, performances and dances. Members are said to mimic the British Navy, dressed in naval uniforms and marching and performing to the music of the Tuk Band. However, it is a lot more than entertainment. The organisation was started in the island of Barbados after Emancipation, by the earliest plantation workers of African Descent to help them develop socially and economically. The Barbados Landship Association is the umbrella body and is essentially a Friendly Society. Each community had a Landship. It is based on a cooperative system, operating within communities and providing common services to them. The Landship, as it is locally known, has been an oral tradition handed down from members to members from the time of its establishment in 1863. It is held among the ranks of Barbados' cultural symbols such as the "Mudda Sally" and the "Shaggy Bear", but in much more esteem as a "cultural icon unique to Barbados". It is thought that the Landship existed long before it became officially established and that the ways of the Landship were practised within the plantation communities of African slaves long before emancipation. This would account for the interpretation of Landship manoeuvres as re-enactments of the Middle Passage, an experience that would have been embedded into the minds of the first shipments of enslaved Africans to Barbados. During the latter part of slavery, slaves were bred and the plantations had very little need for imported slaves.