Name that Vehicle

OK, I'll have a go. From left:

• GMC 6x6 CCKW 2.5 ton truck;
• M5 3 inch anti-tank gun;
• Willys/Ford 'Jeep' Truck, 1/4 ton, 4x4;
• Carrier, Personnel Half-track M3.

H

 

Nay: that's a Diamond T on the left.

Chris

 

Bugger....

 

And a damn noisy ride with those chains on. From a half mile away it would sound like a tank.

 

968 4ton 6x6 cargo I'd say.

Chris

 

That's a Breda 56

 

Hello,
I`m not sure if I`m posting this in the right area but can anyone help identify the vehicle on the bridge? Thanks



Kyle

 

Looks to me like a Laffy/Hotchkiss , French ww2 Reconnaissnce car or the Laffy/Hotchkiss Tractor 4x4 Artillery car.
Keith

 

Thanks Keith ,would that possibly be a 1939 Hotchkiss R15R Command & Reconnaissance 4x4.


Kyle

 

I'd say it's a Laffly V 15T.

 

Info from Bart Vanderveen Military Vehicles book

 

I would say this one is hard, but you can never underestimate the knowledge this group has.

Edit: Myself NOT included

 

As we say in the south "Damnit, boy!"

Well done.

I never even heard of HUG trucks until today.

HUG 50-6

 

There is not much to go on but this video capture comes at the end of a four second newsreel clip and is apparently a British/Commonwealth vehicle machine gunning Askaris in Eritrea in 1941. https://www.youtube....h?v=blEmpAgn-6I

 

My first thought was an auxiliary turret too, however, the more and more I look at the clip, the less and less convinced I am that there is an auxiliary turret at all. The machinegun has a wide arc of fire without any discernible movement of the ‘turret’: why would a turret mounted weapon need this? And surely you wouldn’t put the pennant so that it would foul the arc of the turret.

My current train of thought is a pre-war or locally produced, armoured car ...

This is one of the Lanchester prototypes with its hull machinegun in a sponson, and although the production cars seem to have adopted a flush plate, this is similar to the layout that I think we have here.

 

The attached picture has been the subject of discussion on a bulletin board I have access to - I don't know if it has made an appearance on this forum before but I can't work out how to search for prior mentions of it as it defies description. I have attached a sample of the responses to the original posting:

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There is nothing armoured about it at all. The access panel on the side has been formed to have a slight beading on the edge to add rigidity, probably so it won't vibrate and annoy the operator. It is only held on by a pair of small hinges and a 1/4 turn latch

The louvered panel is just thin sheet metal, if it was heavier, then something more robust that a pair of hand tightened bolts and a pair of small hinges would be required to hold it onto the machine.

The nose is formed sheet metal with what looks like shop formed rivets with a fastener spacing that would indicate that it isn't under much stress at all. The same with the panel forward of what consensus says is the operators cockpit, which looks to be reasonable thin material that has been used as a seat and been dented. On closer inspection, the cockpit appears to be off set to the far side of the vehicle, rather than built on the centreline.

The small exhaust pipe down near the bottom suggest that it has a small internal combustion engine in it, so was probably designed to pull something. But with a single 1.5" (best guess) exhaust pipe, I doubt it would tow anything fast, so the shape isn't for streamlining at speed.

The building in the background doesn't look very Japanese either.

Either it is a munitions tug that a unit tricked up because they could, but I doubt it, as the driver would want to be able to see what he was towing and that seat doesn't look very conducive to a glance over his shoulder, or a farm vehicle to tow carriages similar to our cane trains, but to go right into the paddock on temporary tracks. The shape would help part the crop as it went and be less likely to collect rubbish and potentially start fires.

The down side would be that if it were a tow vehicle, then it could only go one way and would be a pain to turn around the whole train to come out again.

So, in summary, I don't know either.

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I'm probably wrong but I think we're making an assumption that it is some type of rail vehicle. It has been placed on the track but was it designed to run on a track? I can't see any running gear at all.

Seeing the exhaust pipe, etc I suspect it was meant to run on the rails but let's not lock our thinking into that just yet.

We have a rectangular access panel, presumably for the engine but what about forward of there? Was that an access port that was welded up? Are there hinges on the left and a locking latch on the right?

Just at the top of the centre panel join line, the small circular objects that looks like the top of a tin cans - is that part of the mystery object? If so, what could they be?

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When I first looked at it, I thought the open hatch at the back was an airbrake, which is exactly how it would work if this thing was scooting down a track at a great rate of knots. Having noticed the cushioned rest, I then thought, as others have, that the bullet shaped shell came from something already shaped as such, e.g drop tank, and was used as the covering for some sort of small railmotor. It would appear that an operator sits at the back, with the hatch open, whilst the hatch when closed would provide reasonable protection from rain to the operating well.

The key question is, was the hatch open or closed when being operated? If open, then we are talking a slow speed vehicle, albeit with a very sporty exterior, but given as there isn't even a wind screen, it would have to be traveling at a low speed (equivalent to a fast run at max effort??). If operated with the hatch closed, then all the indicators are that this vehicle was intended to achieve a very high speed. Given that the operator would be buttoned up inside, with no viewport, I don't know what training value would be achieved, apart from the sensation of travelling blind at speed.

This vehicle appears to run on narrow guage track, which I would not expect to be able to take a high speed "bullet train", or at least keep it on the rails for long. As the recent post indicates, the narrow guage lines were essentially temporary track, so would have kinks and undulations that would not be significant at slow speeds with hand hauled carts or a small petrol tractor, but would definately not be able to cope with a high speed vehicle unless very well graded, tamped and also with very gentle (i.e large radius) curves, preferably straight track all the way!!!

Overall, I don't think it is a rail tractor with a Gucci exterior, small rail motors would have been pretty robust sorts of kit, think agricultural tractor on rails, so rain should not have been an issue, at least not to go to such extraordinary lengths to cover the running gear when a tarp could do the job just as well.

Also, the idea that it is being used to haul arty shells around is questionable, I would have thought that they'd have stuck with the basic rail tractor form and also kept a coupler at both ends. There is no way to connect carts to the pointy end of this vehicle, which would imply either a reverse loop or turntable at the other end of the line, the latter being the most likely.

The rail-borne suicide mission is highly questionable to my mind. For start I would expect it to be the same guage as the mainline track for such a mission, which is where you would expect to see heavy troop/supply trains etc. Also, why bother with a suicide instrument like this when you could place charges on the track, at the optimum location to do max damage, and detonate remotely?

This thing looks to be purposefully designed for speed, but for what reason, I have no idea at this stage!

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This link gives some idea of how the image began circulating on the Internet... Although the mystery kit doesn't necessarily relate to the Japanese reconnaissance decoys making up the rest of the pictures:

http ://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/04/bamboo-bombers-and-stone-tanksjapanese-decoys-used-in-world-war-ii/480186/

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Following on from the previous comment; I agree the perspective may be forced. If it's on a narrow gauge track then it would be smaller than a jeep, but probably still too large for a drop tank casing. And there's rivets around the curved point but the straight joins seem to be stick welded - which means it isn't aluminium.

I presumed the pointy end is the "front" because of the way the louvers are cut and the angle of the exhaust pipe. Also, the open hatch seems to have a backrest cushion on it for an operator.

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I like the idea of a target tow, presuming the metal is thick enough (an aluminium drop tank wouldn't provide any protection). I was thinking of an armoured resupply vehicle in preparation for the expected invasion... but it's not big enough to deliver much. A target tug for training is a better explanation.

I found the same image doing the rounds of various (mostly foreign language) forums. It was amongst a set of pics of Japanese fake decoy equipment - as shown earlier today - but the (machine translated) caption was something like 'even the US ground assessment team couldn't work out what this is for'.

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I have no real idea what this vehicle or device is, just a wild theory. It was sent to me from a mate. It appears to be mounted on a set of steel tracks, and there is a U.S. Army Jeep directly behind it, for scale. It was photographed in Japan, circa 1945, and the photo is located in the U.S. National Archives, Records of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Any guesses or ideas about what this might have been?

(The second image is of a captured locomotive About the right size to hide under that "streamlining".

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