Armoured Ford Model T
by Bryan Perret

The Ford Armoured Car (Admiralty Pattern) might never have been born at all had it not been for a series of accidents. In December 1915 Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson's RNAS armoured car squadron sailed for Russia and, while on passage, ran into one of the worst Arctic gales within living memory. In the ships' holds several of the Lanchester armoured cars, which formed the basis of the squadron's equipment, broke loose from their lashings, and caused such damage to themselves and to other vehicles that the whole consignment had to be returned to the United Kingdom for repair, while the personnel disembarked at Alexandrovsk where they spent the winter waiting for an ice-free passage to Archangel, at that stage the only North Russian port with a rail link to the south.

The squadron had been despatched to Russia as a gesture of Allied solidarity under an agreement by which the Tsar's Government paid all expenses and the British provided the cars and crews. However, a Belgian armoured car unit was already operating in Russia, and its employment had caused such difficulties that the Russians decided that they simply did not want a second foreign squadron. The Admiralty acceded to their request for the recall of the British personnel, but under-estimated the abilities of Locker­Lampson himself, a professional politician and personal friend of Winston Churchill, who as a result of some very high level manoeuvering, managed to have the decision reversed.

The problem for the Russian GHQ was how best to employ their unwanted guests. It was decided to send them to the Caucasus Front, where the Russian Army was engaged not only against the Turks, but rebellious Kurdish tribesmen as well. Conditions were very similar to those prevailing on the North West Frontier of India, and it was felt that the British would settle down quickly in such surroundings.

The squadron performed very well in a series of small actions, although the Caucasus provided some of the world's worst going for armoured cars. The Lanchesters' low sumps were constantly being cracked open, the crews being forced to resort to ingenious mixtures to effect repairs, including jam, chewing gum and sticking plaster, and melted bullets poured into the cracks from above. This was far from satisfactory, and the squadron's United Kingdom base at Newport, Monmouthshire, was asked to provide a light armoured car to complement the Lanchester and Seabrook establishment.

The new vehicle was designed by Petty Officer L. Gutteridge, who chose the basic Ford Model T as his starting point, since it had already demonstrated its sturdy cross country abilities in other theatres of war and was, moreover, simple and robust. Gutteridge calculated that even the simple conversion he planned would double the Model T's weight of 10 cwt, and allowed for this by using stronger suspension springs and tie rods on the back axle. The 5 mm armour plate was attached to an angle iron framework which was in turn bolted to the chassis, and consisted of a housing for the engine and radiator, a tall cab for the driver, and an open-topped superstructure at the rear, the suspension being partially protected by wheel discs. The vehicle was armed with a rear-facing water­cooled Maxim machine gun, the crew of which sat behind the driving cab, protected to some extent by the square 9 mm gun shield. Quick release clamps permitted the gun and its tripod to be removed for ground action. A large 10 gallon petrol tank and a patent Stepney Wheel completed the conversion. A total' of nine armoured Model Ts were built by W. G. Allen & Sons of Tipton, of which six are known to have reached the unit in Russia, where they served as Light Recce Sections.

They did not, however, serve in the Caucasus as originally intended. Following the collapse of the Rumanian Army, Locker- Lamp son's squadron had been shipped across the Black Sea and thrown into action in the Dobruja, where the Russians were desperately trying to plug the gap and hold the advancing Bulgarians in check. During a series of hard-fought rearguard actions, in which the cars fired “over the tail”, the British crews earned the admiration of their Russian counterparts, and received a number of Imperial decorations. Most of the action took place along roads, but conditions were frightful, as the autumn rains had set in, and several of the heavier cars bogged down and were lost. On the other hand, the Model Ts, whose quaint appearance had generated much mirth on their arrival, covered themselves in glory, wallowing along through the mud with­out undue difficulty.

The following spring found the squadron in Galicia. By then, the March Revolution had taken place and the Tsar had gone; but the Provisional Government rashly decided to keep Russia in the war, and mounted a spring offensive. The result was disastrous. Large sectors of the front were simply abandoned, and for ten days Locker-Lampson's men held a 25 mile stretch of the line unaided. Once again, the cars inflicted heavy losses, but by the end of this period of constant action, they had almost all been knocked out.

By now Gutteridge had himself arrived in Russia, and was serving at the squadron's rear base at Kursk. He shortened the body of one of the Model Ts and installed a mounting for a Lewis gun, a small consignment of which had recently been delivered from England, thereby reducing the crew to two. It may have been Locker-Lampson's intention to so modify all his armoured Fords, but events decreed otherwise, and almost all seem to have been lost in the spring fighting. Gutteridge used the armour from a wrecked Ford to protect a Fiat lorry, and this hybrid vehicle saw action in support of the Russian 2nd Cavalry Division.

After the October Revolution it was no longer safe for the RNAS squadron to remain in Russia, and they returned home early in 1918. No examples of the armoured Model T have survived, to the best of my knowledge; if any still exist, they are probably in Russia.

It occurred to me that even I, probably the worst modeller in the world, could make this simple little vehicle using the Airfix 1:32 scale Model T kit as a base. No plans are available, but after carefully studying photographs and the kit itself I decided it could be done. The first task was to cut away both mudguards and the running boards, so that I was left with a bare chassis. Then I cut back the outer chassis member to a point level with the dashboard. The outer edges of the dashboard itself were also cut away, taking the outside edges of the windscreen notches as a guide. Now I was ready to begin assembly.

I calculated that Gutteridge had had to raise the floor level to permit clearance for the rear wheels, so I did likewise, building up two layers of 40 thou plastic card on top of the chassis, and then placing the floor, cut from 20 thou card, on top of this, after I had made a paper template to check the vehicle's basic lines, allowing for the wheel arches. The steering wheel was fitted to the dashboard and the handbrake installed after a hole had been drilled in the floor.

The original seat could not be used since it was much too large to be adapted, and in any event in 1916 armoured car drivers did not have a seat in the accepted sense. They usually sat on a pile of mats with a sling backrest, but the latter was seldom used. However, only a fool suffers discomfort volun­tarily, and in this case I decided that my driver had retained the small rumble seat for his own use, and built up a mounting for it. Only a portion of the radiator shows on the finished model, but I made up the whole bonnet assembly and cemented it to the chassis as a useful guide. I then cut out four discs for the wheels and cemented them in place, followed by the bosses. After these had dried I com­pleted the front and rear axle assemblies and fixed them to the chassis; I decided to leave all the remaining sub-frame details until the very end, as they would obviously not stand too much handling.

Phase Two was the fitting of the hull armour to the chassis, and I began by fixing the small plate which guards the front suspension, leaving a small hole for the starting handle. Then I worked my way steadily towards the back of the vehicle, following the photographs and cutting each plate in turn from 20 thou card. Having completed the hull the next step was to reinforce the angles from within and build boxes over the rear wheel arches.

Phase Three was the driver's cab. None of the photographs I have ever seen show the bottom of the cab, but clearly this did not descend far below the level of the hull armour, or the poor man would be unable to get to his seat and be more or less isolated from the machine gun crew behind. However, Gutteridge's intention had been simply to provide protection for the driver's head and shoulders where they protruded above the level of the hull armour, and the whole superstructure was obviously carried on an angle­iron framework. When building the cab, it should be noted that while the left wall runs front to rear, the right wall is offset. Both walls, the rear plate and the visor all have vision slits which could be closed by internal sliding hatches, which are easy to simulate once the holes have been cut. The roof­mounted Stepney wheel (a clip-on get-you­home device) was made by cutting out the spokes from a spare wheel and attaching four pieces of scrap from the brackets. The frame was cut from strips of 40 thou card, care being taken to ensure that the legs were just high enough for the visor to rest above the dash­board plate.

Finally I added such details as the sump and flywheel housing, steering arms, prop shaft and rear axle tie-rods, all taken from the kit itself, as were the front and rear lights, and of course the exhaust system.

I mentioned earlier that I had cut back the forward end of the outer chassis member. This certainly helped in establishing the line for the engine armour, but it was only when the steering arms were in place that I realised that these were terribly vulnerable and that the space did have a use after all. B. T. White's excellent book Tanks and Other Armoured Fighting Vehicles 1900-1918 clearly shows a short protective armour skirt in this position, and this filled the gap exactly. In the field I suspect that these skirts may have grounded too often for comfort, and the majority seem to have been removed.

The same book also shows the basic Eastern Front colour scheme in which the cars were painted a light brown with a hint of olive. Locker-Lampson's larger cars, the Lanchesters and Seabrooks, carried the Imperial Russian roundel of black, orange and white, but this does not seem to have been painted on the Model Ts. The internal unit designation was carried on the front armour, the only clear example of which that I have seen being I.B. 4, although a distorted photograph in a 60-year-old copy of Lloyd's Magazine shows what might just be 1.B.2. Having finished the model, I was only too aware that it had numerous faults, but the end product bore sufficient resemblance to the original for it to be recognisable. To an experienced modeller the conversion will seem quite easy, with plenty of opportunity for superdetailing in the way of rivets; on the other hand, the job is simple enough to tempt the beginner, who will find very few unexpected snags provided he sticks to the assem­bly order I have outlined.

-Article originally published in Airfix Magazine February 1979