The grill bars would have been removed by the SAS in the North African
desert mainly for cooling, but also to lighten the load slightly. Not too
many trees to bump into in the desert. They added a radiator overflow tank
to reduce loss of coolant.
As Steve Malikoff pointed out, by the end of the war they had some slanted
metal section in front of the radiator. These were armour. Late in the war
the SAS sometimes mounted a metal shield with the SAS badge painted on it.
Late in the war, the SAS jeeps carried other modifications to jeeps such as
an armoured rear panel, large self-sealing gas tanks, additional weapons
including a couple of Vickers G. O. machine-guns mounted on the front
fenders like a fighter plane and fired by pushing a button and a U.S.
bazooka mounted on a bracket between the driver and co-driver.
I am writing an article on the "SAS Jeeps" for Army Motors and am nearly
ready to send it to Reg Hodgson. There will be another article submitted on
"British Airborne Jeeps", and one (or two) on the "BSA Airborne Bicycle".
Research is done, just editing and polishing now.
Colin Macgregor Stevens
MVPA Member 954 (since 1977)
Editor: "Maple Leaf Up!" newsletter & Webmaster
of Western Command Military Vehicle Historical Society
(Established 1977)
British Columbia, CANADA
Owner of:
1944 Willys MB jeep (ex-Norway)
1942 BSA airborne bicycles (2)
http://bcoy1cpb.pacdat.net
colin@pacdat.net
Club web site: http://www.westerncommand.com
----- Original Message -----
From: <RKiser8375@aol.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 8:10 PM
Subject: [MV] SAS jeep grill modifications
> Why did the SAS removed slats from their jeep
> grills in WWII? I have seen many photos where
> all of the slats were removed except the two
> center ones. Just curious.
>
> Rob Kiser
>
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>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 04 2001 - 08:10:46 PDT