Autoportante Ford.

ImportantSimone5 · November 1, 2024, 8:08pm

[Would you like to see this in-game?]

Yes
Maybe
No

0 voters

Autoportante Ford.

History.

Portées are motorized complexes that originated in the 1920s but were not widely used until World War II. The idea was to mount a medium-caliber cannon on top of the truck bed and be able to use it either on top of the vehicle or after quickly unloading it from the truck (in a similar but different manner to gun trucks).
In the 1940s, during the North African campaign, British troops came up with the idea of mounting some of their ubiquitous Ordnance QF 2-pounder guns (a piece now on the road to “seniority”) as a weapon to be mounted on a portée. Although intended only for transport and little envisioned for combat to be loaded on the truck, crews tended to engage enemy troops with the guns still on their vehicles for greater mobility, resulting in casualties; this often led to crews using the vehicle in reverse during engagements to take advantage of the gun’s shield to protect the men.
Returning to the vehicle itself, it happened at times during the war that crews on all sides found themselves forced to abandon vehicles following a confrontation for a variety of reasons. The abandonment and subsequent reuse of a British portée on a Ford CMP F15cwt hull armed with the QF-2 pounder in North Africa is documented photographically and videoludically. Italian troops found the vehicle abandoned and slightly dented (perhaps as a result of an accident) in the desert and were able to refit it and reuse it probably in a flying artillery unit. The ultimate fate of the vehicle is unknown, but it was probably destroyed in combat or abandoned during the Italian retreat after the Second Battle of El-Alamein.

Armament and propulsion.

The vehicle is armed with a 40-mm Ordnance QF 2-pounder cannon mounted on a 360-degree rotating mount. Unfortunately, the ammunition supply is not known precisely, but it should be around 30 rounds stowed in boxes placed between the cab and the armament. The gun was equipped with a light shielding nearly 8 mm thick.
As an engine, the truck was powered by a 95-hp eight-cylinder Ford Flathead 239 engine, which could propel the vehicle up to a speed of 75 km/h.

Specifications.

Spoiler

Crew: 4-5
Weight: 4 tons
Height: 2.95 m (with canopy)
Width: 2.13 m
Length: 5.18 m (excluding gun)
Engine: 95 hp eight-cylinder Ford Flathead 239
Maximum speed: 75 km/h
Armament: 1x Ordnance QF 2-pounder
Armor: 0-8 mm

Pictures and drawnings.

Spoiler