Photo via New Zealand government archives New Zealand needed as many war machines as it could get, and Semple did the best he could from his available materials until Allied reinforcements and equipment could arrive and halt the Japanese advance. It more resembled the Mad Max-looking war wagons tearing across the modern battlefields of Iraq and Syria than a proper tank.īut that’s not an entirely fair description, as Andrew Hills pointed out in a recent and excellent article for the Tank Encyclopedia. Semple’s resulting machine, popularly known as the Bob Semple Tank, remains obscure to this day and is remembered mainly as an example of war-time folly. Because of a lack of need before World War II, the Army had no tanks-and the only armored vehicles at all in its possession were four Universal “Bren Gun” Carriers. That would change nearly three decades later during World War II with the onset of rapid Japanese conquests in the South Pacific.Īs New Zealand faced the possibility of a Japanese landing, industrialist and conscription minister Robert “Bob” Semple rushed a tank into development for the New Zealand Army. New Zealand wasn’t at risk of a direct attack during World War I.

Bob semple tank meme battle of kursk