Saturday, February 13, 2016

WW2 built vehicle was designed to take a lot of punishment, and 75 years in the Libyan desert hasn't affected it much



the above is not the same vehicle as the one below, but demonstrates what they once looked like






The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) was a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army during the Second World War. The LRDG was formed specifically to carry out deep penetration, covert reconnaissance patrols and intelligence missions.

During the Desert Campaign between December 1940 and April 1943, the vehicles of the LRDG operated constantly behind the Axis lines, missing a total of only 15 days during the entire period.

After the long distance raids of the early phase of the the LRDG, the Chevrolet WA trucks were soon worn out and had to be replaced.

 The Ford truck had the same loading capacity as the Chevrolets, but were 4×4 drive and much heavier in weight – what was the reason for fuel consumption which was about the double than it was for the Chevrolets. By March 1942, the Fords were replaced by 200 purpose built Canadian Chevrolet 1533×2 trucks

All photographs were taken in 2010 by Kuno Gross. In 2008 historians Brendan O’Carroll (New Zealand), Kuno Goss (Switzerland) and Roberto Chiavetto (Italy) travelled to Libya

http://www.desert-vehicles.org/index.php?article_id=204

if this sorta sounds familiar, it's possibly because I just posted about this unit in December http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/12/long-range-desert-group-trucks-1942.html 

2 comments:

  1. I wonder how much abandoned WW2 equipment is still in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts, or has everything been removed for scrap?

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    Replies
    1. There must be some, no one would have wasted time trying to find and remove much... and some must be under sand dunes

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