HAYNES
ROLLS-ROYCE ARMOURED CAR 1915-1944 DESIGN CONSTRUCTION OPERATION WW1 WW2
OWNERS WORKSHOP MANUAL
HARDBOUND BOOK in ENGLISH by DAVID
FLETCHER, MBE
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Additional Information from
Internet Encyclopedia
The Rolls-Royce Armoured Car was
a British armoured car developed in 1914 and used during the First World War,
Irish Civil War, the inter-war period in Imperial Air Control in Transjordan,
Palestine and Mesopotamia, and in the early stages of the Second World War in
the Middle East and North Africa.
Production history
The Royal Naval Air Service
(RNAS) raised the first British armoured car squadron during the First World
War. 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 mounting a regular
water-cooled .303 in (7.7 mm) Mk I 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. Later in the war they served on several fronts of the
Middle Eastern theatre. Chassis production was suspended in 1917 to enable
Rolls-Royce to concentrate on aero engines.
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 .55 (14 mm) Boys anti-tank rifle, .303 in (7.7 mm) Bren light
machine gun, and smoke-grenade launchers.
Twenty Rolls-Royce armoured cars
in service with No. 2 Armoured Car Company RAF in Egypt and Iraq received new
chassis from a Fordson truck and became known as Fordson Armoured Cars.
Photographs show them as equipped with what appear to be turrets fitted with a
Boys anti-tank rifle, a machine gun and twin light machine guns for
anti-aircraft defence.
In addition to RNAS and Tank
Corps-supplied armoured cars, the RAF had Rolls-Royces built to equip its
armoured car companies. This was done independently of the War Office. They
were designated Car, Armoured, Rolls-Royce Type A. Shaped like the 1914 RNAS
car, they were fitted with the 1920 turret.
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.
Lawrence of Arabia used a
squadron in his operations against the Turkish forces. He called the unit of
nine armoured Rolls-Royces "more valuable than rubies" in helping win
his Revolt in the Desert. 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".
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. 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. 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.
At the outbreak of the Second
World War, 76 vehicles were in service. They were used in operations in the
Western Desert, in Iraq, and in Syria. By the end of 1941, they were withdrawn
from frontline service as modern designs became available. Some Indian Pattern
cars saw use in the Indian subcontinent and Burma.
Variants
1920 Pattern Mk I � thicker
radiator armour and new wheels.
1920 Pattern Mk IA � commander's
cupola.
1924 Pattern Mk I � turret with
commander's cupola.
1921 Indian Pattern � based on
the 1920 Pattern. Had extended hull armour to provide extra space and a domed
turret with four ball mounts for machine guns.
Fordson � based on a 1914
Pattern. Some vehicles in Egypt received new chassis from Fordson trucks.
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.