- Yes
- No
caid’s suggestion #21
I would like to suggest an obscure Israeli SPAA. the Ford F60 with 20mm Scottie.
Sadly there is not any picture with a better angle to be found. the CMP Ford F60 was a Canadian-made truck during WW2. for the needs of the Allied forces, Canada created a line of production called Canadian Military Pattern which features two dozen models of Chevrolet, Ford, and Dodge trucks built in line for the utility needs of the Allied, but mostly for the UK. Canada built thousands of those trucks which were used during WW2 for cargo transportation, passenger carriers, and sometimes as SPAA. those trucks were common during WW2 and offered good reliability and availability but not so good performance. those trucks mainly featured the fact they were easy to produce. after WW2 those trucks ended up about everywhere, sometimes used by the newly modernized armies of many countries, sometimes converted for civilian use because, in the end, it’s just trucks. Israel had a couple hundred of those. which in 1947 those truck was armored by Israel with their Sandwich composite armour. this armor is composite by definition but wasn’t anything fancy. it was usually built in 3 layers. first a layer of 5mm of regular steel. then about 38mm of wood, and at the end another 3mm of steel. the concept was the first layer would turn the bullet into the mushroom head, then the wood would absorb the bullet energy, then the last layer would not even be hit. the effectiveness equivalent would be around 12 mm of RhA. the front was always made of 15mm of solid steel. that truck wasn’t initially used by the Israeli forces. but first used by the Hebrew police force in Palestine. As the tension between the Arabs and Hebrews rose in Palestine, the police forces needed to get armored cars. Usually, those cars were unarmed and converted by triangular removable panels on the roof. this allowed the police to move around the town without fearing a grenade to fall inside the truck. The panel could be removed to allow a rifleman to fire from the truck, the truck also features a dozen shooting ports. that sandwich truck was built out of everything the Hebrews could put their hand on. almost any truck could be turned into a sandwich truck and that modification was more improvised than anything. The Hebrew mechanics were skilled, but they mostly made do with whatever they could have. they just cut the steel, made it into the shape of the vehicles, and installed it on them. they cut a couple of windows and doors and that’s it. this makes it rather hard sometimes to tell which vehicle was under the makeshift armor, but in this case, it appears with a high chance of accuracy that it was a CMP Ford F60 which was one of the most common sandwich armored cars.
in 1948, the War of Independence broke up, and the police force more or less joined the Hebrew militia. with them their material fallow. the early IDF was using those trucks as APCs with rather high casualties. those makeshift trucks didn’t offer enough protection, some rifles could penetrate his armour and that is without talking about the HMG. but the IDF had little better until the massive arrival of the M3 half-track. here we can see the sandwich truck rearmed with the 20mm Cannon-Mitragliera da 20/77 scotti-isotta. It wasn’t uncommon to see armored cars to be open top and armed with machine guns during 1948. they were often used as APC but also often supported the infantry and protected the convoy. but it was a lot less common to see a 20mm. in 1948, the IDF had a large number of M3 half-track and those were making the bulk of their armored forces, but due to the armament being only 12.7mm, the IDF issued a policy that every field unit should have at least 20mm in one of their APC to engage armored targets. the photo was taken on parade in 1949, and the serial number shows a rather low number which indicates the Armoured car was probably used during the whole War of Independence. other than this photo, we have no info about the history of this truck, it’s only an assumption.
here another F60 turned into APC.
Firepower
the only armament is the 20mm Cannone-Mitragliera da 20/77 scotti-isotta. this Italian auto-cannon was commonly used by Italy from the middle of WW2 as a successor to the 20mm Breda 1935. this auto-cannon has a rather good penetration and fire rate making it capable of fighting against armored targets and aircraft. it appears the IDF had converted the field mount to a pintle mount. that allows the gunner to move around the gun at will and fire on 360°. the rotation is done by the strength of the arms which should give a speed of around 30-35°/sec which is enough to follow low-rank aircraft. the elevation is probably unchanged from the field mount which is -10°/+85°. the angle of the picture is a bit bad but the gun seems high enough to get the total depression. the gun is fed by a blade magazine of 12 rounds. that allows a decent sustained fire and a quick reload. it is unknown how many rounds were carried, but the truck had a lot of space and it could easily carry 600 rounds (50 magazines) which should be enough for the player to fight the whole battle.
Mobility
The weight of this truck is unknown. at least with the sandwich armour. and I do not think we could get much info about it, only to check the weight of the surviving truck in the museum. but those armour were makeshift armor that was rarely completely identical. The truck weighed 7.5 tonnes without armour. it has a capacity of 3 tonnes of cargo. according to my guess, the armour would weigh around 1.5 tonnes which gives us a round number of 9 tonnes. this is only a guess, but I like this number. the engine offers 95 hp which gives us a power/weight of 10.55 hp/ton. that is not great, the truck will be pretty bad off-road but it is still alright for the game. the vehicle is after all a SPAA or would be a SPAA in-game. on the road, it would reach 70 km/h after a long acceleration but will hardly go above 25 km/h off the road. the truck has 4 forward speeds and 1 reverse.
Protection
the standard sandwich truck had a protection that followed a template. normally the armor is made of 3 layers. 1st a layer of 5mm of steel, then a layer of 38mm of wood, and finally a layer of 3mm of steel. this could change a bit as the layer of wood could be a bit thicker and thinner, the same could also apply to the steel, but that is the average sandwich armor we could find. this makes the tank have a rather basic composite armor whose effectiveness should be equivalent to 12mm of RhA. the front is always 15mm thick of solid steel, or at least they try to always be like that. there is no indication this truck was different. with this armor, this truck would be pretty decently protected for a SPAA. the truck is open-top and the gunner is sticking out making it easily killed by LMG fire. the truck was used as APC which is why we see a lot of people inside the truck but in-game, I think a crew of 3 is reasonable. a driver will sit at the front, a commander next to him, acting as a loader, and a gunner will be standing behind the gun. adding more crew would mostly create limitations for the gunner.
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