The Liberty L-12 is an American water-cooled 45° V-12 aircraft engine displacing 1649cuin and making 400lk=onNaNlk=on designed for a high power-to-weight ratio and ease of mass production. It saw wide use in aero applications, and, once marinized, in marine use both in racing and runabout boats.
A single bank 6-cylinder version, the Liberty L-6, and V-8, the Liberty L-8, were derived from the Liberty L-12. It was succeeded by the Packard 1A-2500.
In May 1917, a month after the United States had declared war on Germany, a federal task force known as the Aircraft Production Board summoned two top engine designers, Jesse G. Vincent (of the Packard Motor Car Company) and Elbert J. Hall (of the Hall-Scott Motor Company), to Washington. They were given the task of designing as rapidly as possible an aircraft engine that would rival if not surpass those of Great Britain, France, and Germany. The Board specified that the engine would have a high power-to-weight ratio and be adaptable to mass production.
The Board brought Vincent and Hall together on 29 May 1917 at the Willard Hotel in Washington, where the two were asked to stay until they produced a set of basic drawings. After just five days, Vincent and Hall left the Willard with a completed design for the new engine,[1] which had adopted, almost unchanged, the single overhead camshaft and rocker arm valvetrain design of the later Mercedes D.IIIa engines of 1917–18.
In July 1917, an eight-cylinder prototype assembled by Packard's Detroit plant arrived in Washington for testing, and in August, the 12-cylinder version was tested and approved.
In the fall of 1917, the War Department placed an order for 22,500 Liberty engines, dividing the contract among the automobile and engine manufacturers Buick, Ford, Cadillac, Lincoln, Marmon, and Packard. Hall-Scott in California was considered too small to receive a production order. Manufacturing by multiple factories was facilitated by its modular design.[2]
Ford was asked to supply cylinders for the new engine and rapidly developed an improved technique for cutting and pressing steel, which resulted in cylinder production rising from 151 per day to over 2,000; the company eventually manufactured all 433,826 cylinders produced, as well as 3,950 complete engines.[3] Lincoln constructed a new plant in record time, devoted entirely to Liberty engine production, and assembled 2,000 engines in 12 months. By the time of the Armistice with Germany, the various companies had produced 13,574 Liberty engines, attaining a production rate of 150 engines per day. Production continued after the war, for a total of 20,478 engines built between July 4, 1917, and 1919.[4]
Although it is widely reported otherwise, a few Liberty engines did see action in France as power for the American version of the British Airco DH.4.[5]
As the United States entered World War I, the Cadillac division of General Motors was asked to produce the new Liberty aircraft engine, but William C. Durant was a pacifist who did not want General Motors or Cadillac facilities to be used for producing war material. This led to Henry Leland leaving Cadillac to form the Lincoln Motor Company to make Liberty engines. He quickly gained a $10,000,000 government contract to build 6,000 engines.[6] Subsequently, the order was increased to 9,000 units, with an option for 8,000 more if the government needed them.[7] (Durant later changed his mind and both Cadillac and Buick produced the engines.[8])
More than 16,000 Liberty engines were produced during the calendar year 1918. To November 11, 1918, more than 14,000 Liberty engines were produced.[9] Lincoln had delivered 6,500 of the 400hp V-12 overhead camshaft engines when production ceased in January 1919.[10]
The Liberty engine was a modular design where four or six cylinders could be used in one or two banks, allowing for inline fours, V-8s, inline sixes, or the V-12.
The design was held together by a two-part cast aluminium crankcase. The two pieces formed the upper and lower halves of the completed assembly and were held together with a series of bolts running around the outside perimeter. As was common for the era, the cylinders were separately formed from forged steel tubes with thin metal jackets surrounding them to provide cooling water flow.
A single overhead camshaft for each cylinder bank operated two valves per cylinder, in an almost identical manner to the inline six-cylinder German Mercedes D.III and BMW III engines. Each camshaft was driven by a vertical driveshaft that was placed at the back of each cylinder bank, again identical to the Mercedes and BMW straight-six powerplants. Delco Electronics provided the ignition system and Zenith the carburetor. Dry weight was 844 lb (383 kg).
Fifty-two examples of a six-cylinder version, the Liberty L-6, which very closely resembled the Mercedes and BMW powerplants in overall appearance, were produced but not procured by the Army. A pair of the 52 engines produced were destroyed by William Christmas testing his so-called "Christmas Bullet" fighter.
The same designation was later applied to the Packard V-1650 Merlin, an engine with nearly identical engine displacement. This was a World War II Packard produced version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin,[11] and is not to be confused with the earlier Liberty-based version.
See main article: Liberty L-6. A 6-cylinder version of the Liberty L-12, nicknamed the "Liberty Six", consisted of a single bank of cylinders, with the resulting engine bearing a strong external resemblance to both the Mercedes D.III and BMW III straight-six German aviation engines of World War I. 825cuin
See main article: Liberty L-8. An 8-cylinder V engine using Liberty cylinders in banks of four at 45°. 1099.6cuin
The Nuffield Liberty ran through multiple versions:[15]
The primary use of the Liberty was in aircraft.
The engine was also used in the RN-1 (Zodiac) blimp.
Based on aircraft use the engine provided a good power-to-weight ratio. This made it ideal for use in land speed attempt vehicles.
It was selected for two land speed record attempts.
Both attempts set new records. Both crashed during further attempts, resulting in the deaths of the drivers and a newsreel cameraman.
As early as 1917 the Liberty showed good potential for use in tanks as well as aircraft. The Anglo-American, or "Liberty", Mark VIII tank was designed in 1917–18. The American version used an adaptation of the Liberty V-12 engine of 300 hp (220 kW), designed to use cast iron cylinders rather than drawn steel ones. One hundred tanks were manufactured at the Rock Island Arsenal in 1919–20, too late for World War I. They were eventually sold to Canada for training in 1940, except for two that have been preserved.
Inter-war, J. Walter Christie combined aircraft engines with new suspension design, producing a rapid and highly mobile tank. Using Christie's concept, Russian forces selected and copied the Liberty in the BT-2 & BT-5 Soviet interwar tank (at least one reconditioned Liberty was installed in a BT-5). Demonstration of this tank was witnessed by the British, and Christie's design characteristics were licensed and incorporated into the British A13 design specification.
As World War II loomed, Nuffield, producing British cruiser tanks, licensed and re-engineered the Liberty for use in the A13 (produced as the Cruiser Mk III) and later cruiser tanks, with an output of 340 hp (410 hp from the Mark IV version). In later British tanks it was replaced by the Rolls-Royce Meteor, an engine based on the Rolls-Royce Merlin aero engine, which offered greater engine power (600 hp).
Nuffield Liberty engines were used in British tanks of immediate pre-war and Second World War:
HD-4 or Hydrodome number 4 was an early research hydrofoil watercraft developed by the scientist Alexander Graham Bell. In 1919, it set a world marine speed record of 70.86mph powered by two 350 hp Liberty L-12s.
Inventor, entrepreneur, and boat racer Gar Wood set a new water speed record of 74.87mph in 1920 in a new twin Liberty V-12 powered boat called Miss America. In the following twelve years, Wood built nine more Packard V-12 driven Miss Americas and broke the record five times, raising it to 124.86mph. He also won five straight powerboat Gold Cup races between 1917 and 1921, and the prestigious Harmsworth Trophy nine times between 1920 and 1933, at the helm of his Miss Americas.
Many gentlemen's runabouts, Gold Cup, and other race-winners were built with Liberty L-12 engines.
A number of Liberty engines survive in restored operational and static display vehicles.Displays of the engine itself include: