10 Comments

  1. Great picture, but it doesn’t stand a chance against the infamous Danish Nimbus antitank motorcycle with its 200mm cannon.

  2. What a great idea for a military application. Sit on and elevated and exposed flat deck track. Just need a big fluro orange sign saying please shoot me on it to complete the package?

    • Think of the Huey door gunners. The whole idea is to make the other guy keep his head down so he can’t take advantage of your exposure.

  3. Technically (no pun intended), this kind of mount (for travel only) is called a portée. Brits used them extensively in the Western Desert (presumably because they didn’t have SPs or towed AT/AA guns). The smaller guns could be fired from the truck bed, but generally weren’t; portée rigs went as big as 25 pounders (the UK equivalent of our most-used 75mm artillery pieces) and you wouldn’t want to impart the recoil from that (even hydraulically managed recoul) to a Bedford QL. A 2 pdr (37mm AT gun, maybe. 6 pdf (57) probably not. 25 pounder, no way in hell.

    Here’s an exemplar of a survivor. http://www.shoplandcollection.com/heavies/65-austin-k5-gun-portee While they talk about firing from the truck bed there are reasons this is tactically unsound.

    1. you have to pick fore or aft before you load up the gun. You can’t change its orientation once it’s in place.

    2. this 6 pdr is an AT gun. If the tank is in range, so are you. (PZ III: 50mm high velocity, this era PZ IV, 75mm low velocity guns). And the tanks have armor on — you don’t. Advantage Rommel.’

  4. Duh. I meant “because they didn’t have SPs or Tank Destroyers.” Obviously, they DID have towed AT guns. The portée was lighter and faster to emplace and displace (it dispensed with the ammo limber and separate crew vehicle, everybody rode in the truck and the ammo was there, too.

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  1. Wargame Wednesday: April 9th – castaliahouse.com

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