Tank tracks are very heavy and moving them about at speed is costly.
Today’s invention aims to reduce the weight of a tank’s tracks by almost 50%.
At any instant, the tank wheels stand on tracks in contact with the ground as normal.
As a track link rises past the rear idler wheel, it disconnects and is accelerated along a track (blue) from there to the drive sprocket at the front. There, it couples itself, in the manner of a train carriage, to the link which is just about to leave the sprocket.
In this way, there is only ever one track link on the top half of the track.