These trials, if not satisfactory in attaining their main object, at least helped to demonstrate that practically nothing is impossible to a soundly constructed motor vehicle, if properly equipped for rough work. Intermittently, experiments have been made at Aldershot with various machines of more or less peculiar construction. Among these may be remembered the Pedrail tractor, the wheels of which carry a number of articulated feet which, as the machine progresses, plant themselves one after another squarely upon the ground. The necessary mechanism was, however, too complex to render anything of the sort suitable for extensive military use, and the same trouble probably applies to the Caterpillar type of tractor, in which the wheels are surrounded by a track in the form of a sort of endless chain, which lays itself as the machine moves upon the ground, and distributes the weight over a large area. Passing over rough country, a tractor of this sort rolls like a ship at sea, but is very seldom in any real difficulty, even when traversing ditches or fairly low hedges. Steering has to be effected by allowing the wheels on one side to over-run those upon the other, with the result that the engine turns with a sort of skidding motion.
An interesting test of the value of the motor car in war was carried out by the Automobile Association on March 17th, 1909. The Association made an offer to Lord Haldane, then Secretary of State for War, to transport a battalion by motor vehicles to any coast town that the War Office might consider a possible scene of invasion. The point ultimately selected was Hastings. For the purpose of the scheme it was assumed that a sudden concentration of troops at Hastings had become necessary, and that a battalion of the Guards was about to entrain in London, when information was received that a portion of the railway line had been destroyed by spies or agents working on behalf of the enemy. Under such circumstances, the battalion could only be sent by road. On the date named, a battalion of infantry at full war strength, over 1,000 officers and men, with machine guns, ammunition, medical stores, tools, food, water, baggage, blankets, and other impedimenta amounting to some 30 tons, was distributed among 286 touring cars and about 50 motor lorries.