New York National Guard Mack B-1 1916 Armored Car

[Don Boose]

Is there a paper model of the New York National Guard Mack B-1 1916 Armored Car?

In the U.S. Army War College cafeteria, there is a World War I-era poster advertising the New York National Guard (Image 1, below). The poster includes an image of an early armored car (Image 2). The general shape, nose air scoop, and the four horizontal radiator louvres (not to mention the inscription "B-1" on the hull) all indicate to me that it is New York National Guard armored car B-1 [Image 3].

In 1915, New York National Guard Captain Henry G. Montgomery proposed a standard armored car body that could be fitted to various commercial truck chassis. Wealthy New York financiers including Elbert Gary and Henry Frick donated money to a public subscription to construct three trial vehicles (they may have been interested in using these vehicles to suppress violent labor actions). None of the sources available to me say who built the armored bodies, but three were constructed and one each was installed on a Mack, Locomobile, and White truck chassis. The three resulting armored cars were designated B-1 (Mack), B-2 (Locomobile), and B-3 (White). [Zaloga, Early US Armor, p. 11.]

B-1 was fabricated of .20-inch steel plate and constructed on a 144-inch wheelbase Mack AB frame (Image 4). It weighed 9,050 pounds and had a 221 cubic inch displacement, 45-horsepower four-cylinder engine with a worm drive, and dual rear wheels. All the wheels were solid rubber. It mounted two Colt M1895 .30 caliber machine guns with curved steel shields and a Gray-Davis searchlight [Gosling; Mroz, p. 76] The Locomobile and White machines were similar, although only B-1 mounted machine guns [Gosling].

The other images below show various views of Armored Car B-1.

The New York National Guard incorporated the three machines, plus a fourth vehicle with a rotating turret on a Thomas Truck chassis and a Jeffrey support vehicle, along with four officers and 78 Soldiers into the 1st New York Armored Motor Battery, which was to consist of as many as 40 armored cars and 60 motorcycles with machine guns in sidecars [Gosling; Zaloga, p. 13]. The unit was to serve with the New York National Guard division in the Pershing Mexican Expedition, but Gosling questions whether the three armored cars were ever deployed to the border. Hunnicutt says that although the New York National Guard armored cars "deployed to the Mexican border in 1916, they never saw combat" [p. 15]. Mroz says that the machines "were shipped to Columbus, New Mexico, although they did not see action" [p. 76]. Zaloga says that "armored cars were mainly used on patrols on the Texas side of the border, and there is no evidence that any of the National Guard armored cars fired their guns in anger" [Early US Armor, p. 14].

The New York National Guard continued to use the three vehicles for training and parades into the 1920s (Gosling).

I would be glad if anyone can add any additional information or, better yet, tell us if there is a paper model of B-1.

Don

Sources:

John Adams-Graf, "They rolled for General Pershing: White and Van Dorn contributions to armored car development, 1915-1918," Military Trader Vehicles, 13 May 2020, available at: They rolled for General Pershing - Military Trader/Vehicles [But see Steve Zaloga's correction at ]White-Built Armored Cars for US Army article - Landships WW1 Forum

Jose Luis Castillo Collection, Armored Cars in the WWI BlogSpot, available at Armored Cars in the WWI: Mack Armored Car of the National Guard of New York, 1916

Tom Gosling, "Armoured Cars of New York," Key Military (originally published in Classic Military Vehicle), 16 January 2020, available at: Armoured Cars of New York

R.P. Hunnicutt, Armored Car: A History of American Wheeled Combat Vehicles, Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 2002.ai

Albert Mroz, American Military Vehicles of World War I, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2009, pp. 79-81.

Steve Zaloga, Early US Armor: Armored Cars 1915-40, New Vanguard 254, Oxford, UK: Osprey Publications, 2018.

[whulsey]

Don, here's another photo from the Antique Automobile Club forum.

1916 Mack AB Armored Vehicle for the New York National Guard - AACA - Library and Research Center - Antique Automobile Club of America - Discussion Forums

The Iconografix book on Mack AB has 2 photos: one without a body on the chassis and a side profile shot.

Would be a neat model.

[Miles Linnabery]

Dear Don:
Nice find hope AVR sees this it would right up his ally
Enjoy,
Miles

[Don Boose]

Thanks for that additional info, Wayne. The AACA image (Image 1 below is the same one taken from the Gosling article) is excellent and raises a mystery. Images of the same (or a nearly identical) vehicle appear in the Mroz and Hunnicutt publications. I provide them [images 2, 3, 4] below – apologies for poor quality; my scanner refuses to scan today, so I had to resort to a hand-held camera.

Here is the mystery: Hunicutt says the images of the vehicle with the cover over the radiator louvres (or an unarmored radiator cover) with the word “MACK” on it are “early views of the Mack armored car. The front armor over the radiator has not yet been installed and a sheet metal cover is fitted in its place” [Hunnicutt, p. 15].

But Mroz, showing an image of what seems to be the same vehicle, says, “Mack continued to develop its armored car based on the AB chassis, shown here with a shutter [solid cover with the word “MACK”] over the radiator” [p. 80]. This means to me that the solid MACK front is of a later vehicle, or a later modification of the B-1.

Note also, that the image you provided has a 1918 New York license plate and Hunnicutt provides two images [Image 5 is one of them] of the B-1 with the four-louvred armored radiator front and says that they are “later photographs of the Mack armored car dated 1 March 1920” [p. 14]. Several of the images in my first post are of B-1 with the four-louvred armored radiator cover and definitely taken in 1918.

Also, the little running lights are in different locations in different images (lower front, high up halfway along the hood, or none at all).

So, does anyone have any documentation that accounts for the two different configurations: which vehicle and when?

Note that I do not have access to primary sources and am working exclusively from the secondary sources on my shelves and the Internet.

Miles – I do hope someone will design a model of this vehicle. It seems like a natural for Alexander Bondar, Andrey (AVR, who has done two Jeffreys and a White to my knowledge – and from whose threads the images have disappeared, alas), or one of the other talented Landships II AFV designers.

Don

[maurice]

Don
I'm currently working on, and will publish, the shapes of the components to
allow others to make and "decorate" the bodywork.
Hopefully, sitting on your desk, will not require too much underbody detail.

Cheers
Maurice

[Don Boose]

Maurice - This is very good news. Underbody detail not required. And my aging and inadequate paper modeling skills cannot deal with too high a level of complexity in any event. Best wishes, Don