From: chance wolf (chance_wolf@shaw.ca)
Date: Mon Nov 15 2004 - 17:17:58 PST
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack" <milveh@sbcglobal.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 4:25 PM
Subject: [MV] improved performance for mutts
> When it comes to improvising and/or upgrading the holy
> bejeezus out of factory stock vehicles, Americans are
> hands down the worlds best at such sacrilege. Case in
> point gun trucks in Iraq.
Hm. Brits did okay in the modification racket too, what with things like the
LRDG Chevs in WWII, LRDG 'Pink Panther' type Land Rovers, adapted/adopted
stuff like the Armoured Cars based on Rolls Royce passenger chassis and Land
Rover chassis...etc., etc. -- all pretty unconventional stuff. Kangaroo APCs
made from obsolescent tanks might be another example. Back to the U.S. side
of things for the moment, I think the most enterprising Gun Truck I've seen
had to be the one (from Iraq?) which was basically a stripped-down M113 hull
mounted on what looked like an M52 chassis, with the appropriate
modifications done to allow steering, braking and so forth. Pretty cool.
> Now the British on the other hand are quite concerned
> about doing it by the book. Their rigid adherence to
> time tested means and methods have often been their
> salvation while others less disciplined have ventured
> off into a world of complications by failure to follow
> instructions...most of the time anyway!
I can see that in some respects, but then you factor in things like Hobart's
Funnies and you enter into a whole new realm of 'not going by the book' in
terms of creatures like the Crab flail-tank, the 'Bobbin', the Crocodile,
the Ark and the Churchill AVRE. Don't see too much in the way of rigidity
and adherence to mindless convention there. Rigging wartime merchantmen
with a disposable Hawker Hurricane for protection was also a good example of
"thinking outside the box" which, likewise, is also rather a poor fit for
both "rigid" and "time-tested".
> Japanese were outnumbered 2 to 1 and they were
> breaking the all rules of conventional thinking by
> coming down thru the jungles of Malaysia to attack
> Fortress Singapore from the rear, hardly cricket, eh?
Neither was Pearl Harbour. Looks like both countries got caught on the
wrong side of the unthinkable and the unconventional, and were forced to
adapt to new realities accordingly.
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