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bsmart

I am currently reading a History of 7th Armoured Division and it keeps mentioning Lorries and Trucks. There seems to be some difference between the two in the authors mind but I'm a little confused.

So to those of you who drive on the wrong side of the road Mr. Green

Is there a difference? Or rather was there a difference in the WWII era?

JimWeb

I think the difference is that a Lorry is driven by a single axle and a truck is all-wheel-drive. Its a distinction that is no longer used..

Joe_D

That's my take on it,

And to go one further, I believe the term "lorries" were used for basically civilian models adopted for military service where as the term "Trucks" was used for military specific vehicles.

Jim_Coles · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 56

(Not a Brit, so take this as not definitive.)

A "lorry" is a medium or heavy truck and a "truck" is a light truck. I'm not sure exactly where the division is, but probably somewhere around the 1-ton mark. For example, a pickup-sized vehicle would be called a truck rather than a lorry.

MarkHolloway

Wikipedia says:

In the United States and Canada "truck" is usually reserved for commercial vehicles larger than normal cars, and for pickups and other vehicles having an open load bed.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, lorry is used instead of truck, but only used for the medium and heavy types; i.e. a van, pickup or an off-road four-wheel drive vehicle such as a Jeep may rarely be called a truck in the United States, but would never be regarded as a lorry in the UK or Ireland.

bsmart

to continue the confusion. A wargaming ruleset that I am currently learning which is based in New Zealand mentions certain British Army units (Motor Companies i.e motorized infantry) as being 'truck or lorry borne'.

I'll get more specific. The standard cargo carrier in the British Army (analogous to the American 2.5 ton 'Deuce and a half') is the 3 ton. Is it a lorry or a truck?

JG300-Ascout

"Lorries" had anemic engines that turned up in Austin-Healys, but painted silver. "Trucks" had Chevy or Dodge engines that might well turn up blue or orange in a Bel-Air or who-knows-what-color in a Power Wagon. Laughing

Maple_Leaf_Eh · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 517

Just to throw a little more confusion into the question, I've routinely heard Canadian troops call their LAV III ("lav three") armoured cars as "cars".

In the recce squadron, we only only only used the term "call sign" to refer to our Jeeps. By the same logic, Lynxes were also called "call signs".

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