Editing Continuous track (section)

==== Overlapping road wheels ====
Many World War II German military vehicles, initially (starting in the late 1930s) including all vehicles originally designed to be half-tracks and all later tank designs (after the [[Panzer IV]]), had slack-track systems, usually driven by a front-located drive sprocket, the track returning along the tops of a design of overlapping and sometimes interleaved large diameter road wheels, as on the suspension systems of the [[Tiger I]] and [[Panther tank|Panther]] tanks, generically known by the term ''Schachtellaufwerk'' (interleaved or overlapping running gear) in German, for both half-track and fully tracked vehicles. There were suspensions with single or sometimes doubled wheels per axle, alternately supporting the inner and outer side of the track, and interleaved suspensions with two or three road wheels per axle, distributing the load over the track.<ref>Peter Chamberlain and Hilary Doyle, ''Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War II'', 1999</ref>

The choice of overlapping/interleaved road wheels allowed the use of slightly more transverse-orientation [[torsion bar]] suspension members, allowing any German tracked military vehicle with such a setup to have a noticeably smoother ride over challenging terrain, leading to reduced wear, ensuring greater traction and more accurate fire. However, on the Russian front, mud and snow would become lodged between the overlapping wheels, freeze, and immobilize the vehicle. As a tracked vehicle moves, the load of each wheel moves over the track, pushing down and forward that part of the earth or snow underneath it, similarly to a wheeled vehicle but to a lesser extent because the tread helps distribute the load. On some surfaces, this can consume enough energy to slow the vehicle down significantly. Overlapped and interleaved wheels improve performance (including fuel consumption) by loading the track more evenly. It also must have extended the life of the tracks and possibly of the wheels.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}} The wheels also better protect the vehicle from enemy fire, and mobility is improved when some wheels are missing.

This relatively complicated approach has not been used since World War II ended. This may be related more to maintenance than to original cost. The torsion bars and bearings may stay dry and clean, but the wheels and tread work in mud, sand, rocks, snow, and other surfaces. In addition, the outer wheels (up to nine of them, some double) had to be removed to access the inner ones. In WWII, vehicles typically had to be maintained for a few months before being destroyed or captured{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}}, but in peacetime, vehicles must train several crews over a period of decades.