Experimental Motorized Force

The Experimental Motorized Forces were United States Army units formed to use post-World War I military transportation tactics.

The first of these units was assembled on July 1, 1928, at Fort Meade (at the time known as "Fort Leonard Wood") near Baltimore, Maryland, and deployed on July 17 for United States Department of War officers. It formed a 42 mi (68 km) convoy 8 mi (13 km) long with 240 vehicles and 1,100 men to Upper Marlboro, Maryland.^[1] Subsequent convoys from the Fort included one 6 mi (9.7 km)^[2] long that camped on the Gettysburg Battlefield on July 31;^[3] one with 300 men and 96 vehicles to Tobyhanna Artillery Range via Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on August 14, and another to Gettysburg on October 11.^[4]

The Experimental Motorized Force to Tobyhanna included a gasoline-electric bus, 1,050 men, and 45 officers^[5] with "the first armored troop (cavalry); one rifle company of infantry; one machine gun company of infantry; one battery of field artillery and detachments of engineers, ordnance, and signal troops. They will be in light armored cars, trucks, passenger cars, cross-country cars, and light tank trucks. On its way north the armored car units will engage in a tactical reconnaissance, splitting into four sections and reconnoitering to the front and flanks of the column along different routes."^[6]

The majority of the Experimental Motorized Force vehicles were obsolete,^[7] and the convoys were conducted nearly a decade after the Transcontinental Motor Convoys of the Air Service and the Motor Transport Corps such as the 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy.

References

1. "Motorized Army Force to Parade on Tuesday". Joplin Globe. Joplin, Missouri. July 14, 1928.
2. "Mechanized Army is at Gettysburg". Baltimore, Maryland: The Baltimore Sun. Aug 1, 1928. Archived from the original on November 8, 2012.
3. "Motorized Army Arrives Here on Training March". Gettysburg Times. July 31, 1928. Retrieved 2011-08-25. We are trying to make 1918 equipment stand up in 1928
4. "Annual Report to Quartermaster General". War Department National Military Park Gettysburg, Pa. September 18, 1929.
5. "Army Division passes over Berks Roads" Reading Eagle
6. "Motorized Forces of Army to Try Long Trip". Bradford Era. Bradford, Pennsylvania. August 14, 1928. Col. Oliver S. Eskridge, commanding the force, plans to give the motorized units a thorough try-out on the trip to test the convoy for speed, stamina, and control over distance. It is expected to maintain an average speed of 15 miles an hour. The trip northward will be made in two days with a stop-over Tuesday night at the Pottstown, Pa., racetrack. An endeavor will be made to make the return trip of 205 miles in one day. The force will move in two sections so as not to interfere with normal traffic on the highways.
7. "Defense Fund Declared Low" (pdf). Salt Lake Tribune; Newspaper Archive. September 16, 1928. Retrieved 2011-08-25. Column 3 page 3