Howdy fellas,

Whilst ref-surfing for info for something entirely different, I stumbled across this rather unique, field-built version of a mine roller truck.

Apparently the Aussies needed a mine clearing vehicle, and looking around at what they had available....none was found.
Soooooooo, being the 'adjust & adapt' buggers that the Aussies are, they proceeded to 'create' one.

The mine 'rollers' are old 55 gal. petrol drums that have had short lengths of steel pipe punched through them, and then filled with concrete. They are then suspended from steel rigging attached to the side of the truck.
The sand bags are both for added weight, and to protect the riders since the vehicles are backed across the minefield to clear it.

Bloody Aussies!





Tread.

Here's another showing them being built....

Great stuff - who'll be the first to show us a model of that one. Looks like an F30 or F60 base (I'd guess on the F60 3-tonner) so a conversion on the Tamiya FGT and a fair bit of scratchbuilding would do the trick.

Thanks for that Tread. Very interesting.

hmmmm someone been borrowing my pics and ideas again LOL :-) :-)

Yes I have known of these for a while. In fact these are Australian War Memorial photos that have been cropped and they do appear in my archives along with some others.

I did think of doing one of these for the Mud, Sweat & Gears campaign. But too much else on at the moment. One day I will though.

Note the extended steering column and wheel so that the truck could be steered from the rear deck. These mine rollers were also attached to booms off the front.

cheers
Cliff

PS> the truck is an early CMP 11 cab Chevrolet. either a C30 or C60S, but more likely the C30. The workshop truck is a CMP 12 cab C60L

I bow to your better knowledge - I was going by the angles on the bonnet - just looked more 'Ford'

Dave on those ones they looked the same except the ford had louvre vents in the squares either side of the grill (Tamiya Quad kit) while the Chev had round vents.

the main differences between the 11 and 12 cab is the 11 had a one piece grill and non lifting bonnet with the radiator cap accessable from outside.. The 12 had a bar across thuse making it a 2 piece grill the top half of which was in the bonnet with no radiator fill point showing. (tamiya Quad kit)

there ends todays lesson :-) :-) :-)

cheers
Cliff

I stand corrected the second photo down could be an F30 Ford.