Help w/Canadian armoured car

[dhaugh]

Many years ago (1985 in fact) Bart Vanderveen ran a single photo of a WWII era Canadian 8x8 armoured car with a Ram I turret in issue No 14 of "Wheels & Tracks". Unfortunately the caption didn't give much information. Does anyone know the actual designation of the car or where I might find more info? TIA dave

[Neil_Baumgardner]

Got me!

Cant find it at www.warwheels.net/index.html...

Couldnt find it in Crow & Icks' Encyclopedia of Armoured Cars...

Neil

[clausb]

- dhaugh

Many years ago (1985 in fact) Bart Vanderveen ran a single photo of a WWII era Canadian 8x8 armoured car with a Ram I turret in issue No 14 of "Wheels & Tracks". Unfortunately the caption didn't give much information. Does anyone know the actual designation of the car or where I might find more info? TIA dave

I think it is the one discussed by David Fletcher on p. 95 of "The Great Tank Scandal". Built to a British requirement of a big 8-wheel armoured car around 1942/43, it appears to have been a prototype only built by Ford in Canada. Seems to have been an 8x8 with front and rear-wheel steering built to match the German 8-wheelers.

Thanks for posting the picture!

Claus B

[tankmodeler]

Claus is correct as far as if goes, but more info was in Bill Gregg's "Blueprint for Victory" as well as another photo.

It seems that the design for this beast came from a meeting between a senior official at the Canadian Department of Munitions and a British officer he met in a hotel bar in Ottawa. The Brit convinced the official that he was a North Africa vet with tank design experience and that his 8 wheeled AC should be built in Canada and that he should be retained as a design consultant. The official bypassed the official design branch and ordered Ford to build it to the consultant's plans. When tested it was found to have on forward and 4 reverse gears because the chassis was reversed without changinng the output shaft rotation. This and other glaring errors casued an investigation into the Brit officer who turned out to be a nontechnical Lieutenant who had been escorting prisoners to Canada. He was sent packing, the vehicle was scrapped and the whole thing was covered up.

"It was reported that these events caused considerable amusement at the Army Engineering Design Branch."

As a design engineer, I bloody well believe it.

Paul Roberts
President, AMPS

[Roger_Lucy]

It was called the Wolf. It arose from a August 1940 proposal by the Dept. of Munitions and Supply which was concerned that Canada lacked the heavy-engineering capacity required to produce tracked vehicles and that rather than build tanks of the tracked variety they take advantage of of Canada' s automotive industry to build "wheeled tanks" instead. Two designs were comissioned from Ford: a 4x4 with two extra floating wheels which was completed in late 1940 and quickly consigned to oblivion by the Army - which opted instead for the GM Fox I. The other was to be 6x6 (again with two extra floating wheels - DM&S had engaged the services of an exiled French colonel J. Martin-Prevel, who claimed to have experience desinging AFVs) but it grew into a 8x8 with eight-wheel steering, weighing 32,000 lbs and powered by three Ford Mercury engines. The production version was to have a Ram II turret with a 57mm gun.
The British were initally quite interested in it, having a requirement for an 8 wheeled armoured car for “fighting recce� missions in the Middle East. However in February 1942, the British purchasing mission in the USA saw and then fell in love with the even more massive T18 Boarhound, and ordered it instead. As the Canadian Army was not terribly enthused by the Wolf and as it estimated Ford needed another 18 months to get it into production, the project was cancelled in May 1942.

The Wolf and over 50 other WWII Canadian small arms, artillery and AFV projects will covered in "Secret Weapons of the Canadian Army", to be published by Serive Publications later this year ( www.servicepub.com )

[tankmodeler]

Roger,

Wow, where did that info come from and how did Bill Gregg get so close without quite hittingthe mark?

Do you know if there really were design flaws per Bill's book or is it just because the thing went out of fashion, as it were.

Paul

[Roger_Lucy]

Paul,
I don't know where Gregg got his information. What I learnt about the Wolf was scattered through various DND and CMHQ files at the Canadian National Archives. Unfortunately the real mother-load of detail, the project files from the Dept of Munitions and Supply have so far proved elusive. DND took charge of them after the War but where they went thereafter is anyone's guess.
Yes there were design problems, I found a quite detailed September 1941 critique of the vehicle from the British Directorate of Tank Design. In Ottawa, the Master General of Ordnance called the design "nebulous" The steering and suspension of the pilot were deemed unsatisfactory and in need of a complete redesign.
Roger