Rolls-Royce Armoured Car

Rolls Royce Armoured Car

Rolls Royce 1920 Mk1 Armoured Car at The Tank Museum, Bovington
Type Armoured car
Place of origin  United Kingdom
Service history
Wars World War I, Irish Civil War, World War II
Production history
Manufacturer Rolls-Royce
Number built 120 During World War I
Variants Rolls-Royce 1920 Pattern, Rolls-Royce 1924 Pattern, Fordson Armored Car, Rolls Royce Indian Pattern[1]
Specifications
Weight 4.7 tonnes[1]
Length 4.93 m (194 in)[1]
Width 1.93 m (76 in)[1]
Height 2.54 m (100 in)[1]
Crew 3[1]
Armor 12 mm (0.47 in)
Main
armament
 .303 Vickers machine gun[1]
Secondary
armament
 none
Engine 6-cylinder petrol, water-cooled [1]
80 hp (60 kW)[1]
Power/weight 19 hp/tonne
Suspension 4x2 wheel (double rear wheels), leaf spring[1]
Operational
range
 240 km or 150 miles[1]
Speed 72 km/h (45 mph)[1]

The Rolls-Royce armoured car was a British armoured car developed in 1914 and used in World War I and in the early part of World War II.

Production history

The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) raised the first British armoured car squadron during the First World War.[2] In September 1914 all available Rolls Royce Silver Ghost chassis were requisitioned to form the basis for the new armoured car. The following month a special committee of the Admiralty Air Department, among whom was Flight Commander T.G. Hetherington, designed the superstructure which consisted of armoured bodywork and a single fully rotating turret holding a regular water cooled Vickers machine gun.

The first three vehicles were delivered on 3 December 1914, although by then the mobile period on the Western Front, where the primitive predecessors of the Rolls-Royce cars had served, had already come to an end.[2] Later in the war they served on several fronts of the Middle Eastern theatre.[3] Chassis production was suspended in 1917 to enable Rolls-Royce to concentrate on aero engines.[4]

The vehicle was modernized in 1920 and in 1924, resulting in the Rolls-Royce 1920 Pattern and Rolls-Royce 1924 Pattern. In 1940, 34 vehicles which served in Egypt with the 11th Hussars regiment had the "old" turret replaced with an open-topped unit carrying a Boys anti-tank rifle, .303-inch Bren machine gun and smoke-grenade launchers.

Some vehicles in Egypt and Iraq received new chassis from a Fordson truck and became known as Fordson Armoured Cars. Pictures show them as equipped with what appear to be turrets fitted with a Boys ATR, a machine gun and twin light machine guns for anti-aircraft defence.

Combat history

A 1924 Pattern Rolls-Royce Armoured Car with a "new" open-topped turret in the Bardia area of the Western Desert, 1940.

Six RNAS Rolls-Royce squadrons were formed of 12 vehicles each: one went to France; one to Africa to fight in the German colonies and in April 1915 two went to Gallipoli. From August 1915 onwards these were all disbanded and the materiel handed over to the Army which used them in the Light Armoured Motor Batteries of the Machine Gun Corps. The armoured cars were poorly suited to the muddy trench filled battlefields of the Western Front, but were able to operate in the Near East, so the squadron from France went to Egypt.[3]

Lawrence of Arabia used a squadron in his operations against the Turkish forces.[1] He called the unit of nine armoured Rolls-Royces "more valuable than rubies" in helping win his Revolt in the Desert.[1] This impression would last with him the rest of his life; when asked by a journalist what he thought would be the thing he would most value he said "I should like my own Rolls-Royce car with enough tyres and petrol to last me all my life".[1]

Irish Rolls-Royce Armoured Car Co. Cork 1941
Two of thirteen Rolls-Royce armoured cars used during the Irish Civil War: The Fighting 2nd (ARR3) and The Big Fella (ARR8)

In the Irish Civil War (1922–1923), 13 Rolls-Royce armoured cars were given to the Irish Free State government by the British government to fight the Irish Republican Army.[1][5] They were a major advantage to the Free State in street fighting and in protecting convoys against guerrilla attacks and played a vital role part in the retaking of Cork and Waterford. Incredibly, despite continued maintenance problems and poor reaction to Irish weather, they continued in service until 1944, being withdrawn once new tyres became unobtainable. Twelve of the Irish Army examples were stripped and sold in 1954.[5]

At the outbreak of World War II, 76 vehicles were in service. They were used in operations in the Western Desert, in Iraq, and in Syria.[5] By the end of 1941, they were withdrawn from the frontline service as modern armoured car designs became available. Some Indian Pattern cars saw use in the Indian subcontinent and Burma.

Variants

A single experimental vehicle had the turret removed and replaced by a one-pounder automatic anti-aircraft gun on an open mounting. Some cars had Maxim machine guns instead of the Vickers gun.

Survivors

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Jim Motavalli (April–May 2009). "The Bulletproof Ghost". Military History. Leesburg VA: Weider History Group. 26 (1): 58–63.
  2. 1 2 First World War - Willmott, H.P., Dorling Kindersley, 2003, Page 59
  3. 1 2 Rolls S.C. (1937). Steel Chariots in the Desert. Leonaur Books.
  4. ↑ Pugh, Peter (2001). The Magic of a Name - The Rolls-Royce Story: The First 40 Years. Icon Books. ISBN 1-84046-151-9.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Advani, Sabu (2009). Carpenter, Rhonda; Iwalani, Kahikina, eds. "Rolls-Royce Armored Cars". The International Club for Rolls-Royce & Bentley Owners Desk Diary 2010. Tampa, FL USA: Faircount: 40–45.
  6. ↑ Combat Camera, Issue 8, May 2014, Page 14 & 15
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