Does anyone know what trucks the British used in WWII?

Speck · Post by **Speck** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:17 pm

I'm wondering what type of 2 1/2 ton and 5 ton trucks the British used during WWII. I found a few things on the International K-8 5 ton truck, but only that it was used by US and European allies.

Anyone have any information on British trucks?

Bill_Wolf · Post by **Bill_Wolf** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:36 pm

In North American built trucks the Brits used alot of Canadian built Ford and Chevy CMP's.

One of the members of our club has some of these. Here is his site.

http://www.canadianmilitarypattern.com/index.html

Bill

Speck · Post by **Speck** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:23 am

thanks, that is very helpful!

Degsy · Post by **Degsy** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 2:57 pm

Brit trucks 3 ton 4X2 made by Commer, Austin ,Bedford Albion, Dennis, Dodge (Kew), Leyland and Thornycroft, the commonest were AustinK3 and Bedford OY.
3 TON 4X4 made by Albion, Austin,Bedford, Ford, Karrier,Thorneycroft and the RAF used Crossley. The Bedford QL was the most numerous.
3 ton 6x4 Austin, AEC, Albion, Crossley, Dodge(Kew), Ford, Guy, Karrier,Leylandand Thornycroft. Austin and Ford were the most numerous.
5 and 6 ton 4x2 Commer, Dennis, ERF, Foden,Ford, Leyland and Maudsley.
All this info comes from Bart Vanderveen's book, The Observer's Fighting
Vehicles Directory WW11.

Hope this info is some help to you.

dr deuce · Post by **dr deuce** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:27 pm

The Brits were also given a lot of US trucks like CCKW after we got into Europe due to the engine problem with some British trucks after the switch from 70, 80, 110 octane fuels to just 80 and 110 (110 for planes). Apparently the British engines would not take the added heat and numerous valve (I believe) failures occured. The switch was made just after D-Day as I recall.

This is mentioned in:

The Road to Victory: The Untold Story of World War II's Red Ball Express
by David P. Colley

Which I have been reading. BTW, this is an interesting book with little known facts related to the use of the CCKWs. For example, they/we were making 1.3 million (yes million) new Jerry cans per month mostly because people were not reusing them. We were actually paying the French civilians to retreive them for us...!

Speck · Post by **Speck** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 5:58 pm

awesome that is alot of help. I was having a hard time finding useful stuff on google. Thanks to the first link I realized that British called their duece and halfs, 3 ton trucks.