S.A.S. jeeps

[tar]

Hmmm. In CM, on the rare occasions I've had one, I never had a problem with MG jeeps running out of ammunition. I always seem to run out of jeep first.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

And the ginormous GASOLINE TANK behind the passenger? Is that armoured too? Reckon that armour plate is only good from one aspect, eh....

That was to encourage the troops to always be attacking and never to show their tails. "Who dares, wins" and all that.

Michael

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Reckon that armour plate is only good from one aspect, eh....

If the vehicle is for scouting, the main drill is probably to slam it into reverse after a frontal contact, while firing the twin Vickers K's. So the positioning of the armor makes sense.

They need to be more aware than the baddies and dominate the situation. Speed is their armor, and more armor on the vehicle would just slow them down.

[simovitch]

I think Im going to submit my snowdrop scenario to The Proving Grounds this weekend to see what people think.

All you get is Jeep MG's my freinds.

I suppose with a little fire control the british player may be able to conserve some of their ammo through the end of the scenario. We shall see.

[simovitch]

"HSG Operation Snowdrop" has been uploaded to The Proving grounds for your playesting pleasure.

September 14th, 1942. The SAS raid on Benghasi gets off to a bad start when they run into an Italian roadblock.

any comments are welcome.

[Soddball]

I've got a photo of a jeep from the War and Peace show which has a pair of single bren guns, a dual bren and what I assume is a .30 cal. No sign of armour, though.

[PLM]

Some of the things the SAS did couldnt be simulated in this game I dont think. Driving through airfields blowing up planes. The jeeps in-game are knocked out very easily as well and cant really take any fire.

[Gyrene]

I think I used to know the answer to this, but why did they cut the grills of the Jeeps leaving only the middle 2 beams?

Recognition, or some other practical purpose?

Gyrene

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Gyrene:

I think I used to know the answer to this, but why did they cut the grills of the Jeeps leaving only the middle 2 beams?

Recognition, or some other practical purpose?

Gyrene

More airflow to the rad is the explanation I remember, but that seems kind of silly in retrospect...they did have that water condensor hooked up to the rad on the bumper....

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Soddball:

I've got a photo of a jeep from the War and Peace show which has a pair of single bren guns, a dual bren and what I assume is a .30 cal. No sign of armour, though.

But did the Brens have tripods? That's the true test of authenticity.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Gyrene:

I think I used to know the answer to this, but why did they cut the grills of the Jeeps leaving only the middle 2 beams?

Recognition, or some other practical purpose?

Gyrene

More airflow to the rad is the explanation I remember, but that seems kind of silly in retrospect...they did have that water condensor hooked up to the rad on the bumper.... </font>

[MikeyD]

"Reckon that armour plate is only good from one aspect, eh...."

That's the Brits for you. i recall reading the only armor in a Lancaster bomber was a circular steel plate directly behind the pilot's head.

The later-war jeep photo reminds me of an earlier sniper thread. A mention of trouble German snipers had with those Russian Maxims with gun shields. Apparently even a little bit of armor is better than no armor at all (There are probably some recently rotated-out hummer drivers on the board who'd agree with that!).

[simovitch]

A water condensing unit was fitted to the front to reduce loss from the radiator which would otherwise have had to be topped up from the limited drinking water supplies.

found this here

[JonS]

From that link:

The jeeps were stripped of all non-essential parts including the windscreen, most of the radiator grille bars and even sometimes the front bumper to increase the effective load carrying capacity of the vehicle.

Fairly prosaic and unexciting reason. To be honest, until this thread I had always just thought it was random damage or wear-and-tear, and pretty ignored it. That's why I hadn't noticed that in all the photos only the same two grill bars remain

[Michael Emrys]

I had noticed the missing grill bars and assumed that it was a deliberate policy. I guess I more or less assumed that it was to allow freer air movement through the radiators though. My reasoning was that it got hot in the desert (obviously) and that they might have had to do a lot of low-gear driving going up sand dunes and the like. I suppose they might have been removed to save weight as the article states, but since they were made of the same pressed sheet metal as the rest of the body work, it's not obvious that much weight would have been saved. But what's the most curious is the two that were allowed to remain. What could have been the purpose of that? Structural stiffening of the front bodywork?

Michael

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

I had noticed the missing grill bars and assumed that it was a deliberate policy. I guess I more or less assumed that it was to allow freer air movement through the radiators though. My reasoning was that it got hot in the desert (obviously) and that they might have had to do a lot of low-gear driving going up sand dunes and the like. I suppose they might have been removed to save weight as the article states, but since they were made of the same pressed sheet metal as the rest of the body work, it's not obvious that much weight would have been saved. But what's the most curious is the two that were allowed to remain. What could have been the purpose of that? Structural stiffening of the front bodywork?

Michael

I think you are right on all accounts. I own a 1949 Willy's - the grill is very similar - and can attest to how much weight would be saved - practically zero.

[Michael Emrys]

The odd thing is that I notice that the jeeps they were using in Europe are also cut away in the identical fashion. One might suppose that overheating would not pose as much of a problem there.

:confused:

Michael

[SgtMuhammed]

I think you are right on all accounts. I own a 1949 Willy's - the grill is very similar - and can attest to how much weight would be saved - practically zero.

Remember though, we ARE talking about an organization that will have you download a pair of socks to save weight while telling you to hump three 81mm rounds.