The most widely produced armored vehicles in history
were the British Bren Carriers, the Universal Carriers.
Built in about 110,000 vehicles, into numerous variations.
This is also one of the vehicles that the Dominions could build
without too much difficulty, Australia being one of them.
They were also manufactured in New Zealand.
They varied slightly from the original British specification to meet,
local manufacturing capability and also to use locally available parts.
For example, the LP carriers, the local patterns,
had Ford side valve V8s, cranking out 85 horsepower.
A variant that the Australians came up with was the Carrier 2 pounder attack
or attack carrier, or LP2A 2 Pounder.
They had a number of designations.
This was basically a heavily modified Bren Carrier equipped to fire a two pounder,
the classic British 40mm Anti-Tank Gun.
To do this, what they had to first of all,
was move the engine to the front left of the vehicle.
The Driver stays on the front right and on the back they created a mount for the 2 ponder,
and found room for a 120 or so rounds of 40mm Ammunition.
Further to the rear we also see that there was a water tank.
So, in addition to fuel you had water, so, Australia being a somewhat arid nation,
it’s not a bad thing to have. I should add that the driver’s position is somewhat unusual.
He is basically sitting on the hull floor.
He doesn’t have a seat in the normal sense of the word.
There’s a small little cushion and then there’s the hull floor underneath him.
The Gunner had his own seat attached to the gun,
and the other three crewmen would ride in the transported position,
forward of the gun, and aft of the engine and the driver.
So when the gun goes into action, there are three fold forward seats here,
one is already down, the crew will get off,
fold down the seat, and they, rather neatly, disappear into the body of the vehicle,
clearing the gun to maneuver.
The gun is fairly simple; it’s mounted behind the gun shield,
give basic protection from frontal fire and nothing from the flanks of course.
And in fact the entire vehicle is barely going to survive even rifle fire,
but at least the components will remain more or less intact.
So unlike the two pounder you find on say, a tank,
which is shoulder mounted usually, this one is purely geared.
So elevation as well as traverse.
Now, kind of a neat feature for rapid slew is that if you partially depress this pedal here,
you’ve now disconnected the hand gearing from the system,
So you can now quickly slew around,
assuming your gun is clear of obstructions, to engage new targets.
Let go of the pedal, and you’re now in a purely geared mode for fine tuning.
Very Clever.
In common for universal carriers,
and very rare for tracked vehicles, is the steering system.
So first thing you do as the driver is you get in,
you squeeze yourself into the vehicle,
and your gear shift is on the upper left shoulder.
You actually reach behind you to change gear.
In front of you is your steering wheel.
To steer, most tanks will simply change the speed
at which the tank tracks will turn.
If the outside track turns faster than the inside track,
the tank will turn towards the inside.
With the Carrier however, and with the Tetrarch,
the Alecto, and the Harry Hopkins,
they use a track deforming system; track warping.
So as you turn the steering wheel on this vehicle,
the bogey will actually move to either the left or to the right
and cause the track to curve.
This will allow you shallow changes of direction without slowing down,
no need for applying the brakes, no loss of power,
and it’s actually very easy to control.
Now, if you did turn the steering wheel hard over however,
this would actually lock one of the tracks entirely,
and you would pirouette more or less in place.
This would turn you actually, very quickly.
Especially if you were going fast when you started.
There was a stowage compartment behind the driver for a Bren gun should you need it,
in addition to whatever rifles or submachine guns that the crew would have carried.
Although the engine has moved to the front, there is a fair amount of room around it.
They still have the drive train at the rear.
So there is a prop shaft that goes all the way underneath the gun,
and goes through a simple differential that goes in the rear axle.
A very notable feature of the Bren carriers was the very narrow pitch tracks.
There are about a hundred and sixty links per side,
making it very, very flexible although also a hell of a maintenance bear.
All Australian Carriers were the LP2A variant.
The original local variants were notoriously unreliable,
and after a couple of tweaks and replacement parts, they got a working,
serviceable version together and that was the 2A.
About 200 of these vehicles were made at the Metropolitan Gas works in Melbourne.
It turned out that they never saw service.
They were designed primarily for emergencies, for home defense,
when they were afraid that the Japanese were going come over the water.
And against Japanese tanks, this would have been an excellent system.
The 2 Pounder was more than capable of dealing
with anything that the Japanese had at the time.
However, when it came time for service elsewhere in the world,
especially North Africa, the end result was the 2 Pounder was just not up to the task.
The British were being supplied by the Americans,
and that trickled down to the other Commonwealth Forces.
The 2 Pounder was considered obsolescent at best, now,
against later generations of German Tanks, so there was no place anymore for the LP2.
The vehicle was simply kept as a training vehicle from that point on.
This is a vehicle the Australians can be proud of.
For what it was designed to do, i.e.; Carry the 2 pounder anti-tank gun, this was very good.
It was mobile, it was light, it was efficient, it was locally producible.
Carriers are always especially popular with collectors because they are small, transportable.
And the LP2 particularly so because not only is it small,
transportable and an armored vehicle, it’s also got an anti-tank gun at the back.
What more could you ask for?
This particular one found its way (eventually) to California, and is soon to find it’s self a new owner.