Howie machine gun carrier
The Howie machine gun carrier was a prototype American military reconnaissance and machine-gun carrier of the mid 20th century. 

The Howie (also called the Howie-Wiley and nicknamed the "belly flopper") never entered production. A single prototype was made of this early effort at military motorization, an initiative that later led to the highly successful Jeep.

The vehicle was ordered by Walter Short, then assistant commander of the United States Army Infantry School at Fort Benning in Georgia, and built by Captain Robert G. Howie and Master Sergeant M. Wiley. It was completed in April 1937. Because the two-man crew lay prone, the vehicle was nicknamed the "belly flopper". The crew consisted of a driver and a gunner operating the .30 caliber machine gun.

The vehicle used a rear-engine, front-wheel-drive layout, which has never been used for any production vehicle and is rare even in prototypes. Howie and Wiley used an American Austin car as a basis for the vehicle, and obtained some needed parts from salvage. A tiller was used for steering.

The vehicle presented a low profile—which could be useful in reconnaissance work and combat—but it lacked four-wheel drive, and the low ground-clearance rendered it unsuitable for rough terrain. The Army invited representatives of automobile manufacturerers to examine the Howie in 1940, but the reception was not favorable and the vehicle was not accepted for production. Barney Roos, chief engineer of Willys Overland, examined it and later said "That belly flopper looked like nothing any automobile man had ever seen before, a cross between a kid's scooter and a diving board on wheels". 

The Howie is still in existence, at Fort Benning.
Q495075
Jeep
MISC
Q954591
Walter Short
PER
Q4361925
United States Army Infantry School
ORG
Q1438462
Fort Benning
LOC
Q7301433
rear-engine, front-wheel-drive layout
UNK
Q463449
American Austin
MEDIA
Q1932076
tiller
Concept
Q3705142
Barney Roos
PER
Q1537825
Willys Overland
ORG
Q1438462
Fort Benning
LOC
Q96381319
Howie machine gun carrier
UNK
1937-04-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
April 1937
DATE
1940-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1940
DATE
+20^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
20
NUMBER
+30^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
30
NUMBER
manufacturer
headquarters location