Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Boose
The Australian 2-Pounder carrier was a very interesting vehicle. Thanks for this info, Charlie. I always enjoy my visits to the AMMS Brisbane site and took the liberty of reading your article on building the KV-2.
The mortar carriers in ROC service are tantalizing. We have at the Military History Institute the papers of Rothwell Brown, a man with a fascinating military career that included command of the U.S.-Chinese Provisional Tank Group in Burma in 1944 (he also spent time in Mongolia in the mid 1930s while assigned to the 15th Infantry in China, commanded the Army tank Training Detachment in India 1941, was involved with the Chinese Armor School after the war, commanded an infantry regiment in Korea in 1948 when Orlando Ward commanded the 6th Division there, and more). I can't imagine that he has anything in his papers about those elusive carriers, but one never knows.
I'm off to bed with visions of carriers dancing in my head.
Don
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It would be amazing if you can find something about the mortar carriers. Both Paul Handel and Lee Reynolds (Aussie historians) have searched in China and found nothing. The PLA museum in Beijing and ROC museum in Taiwan knew nothing about them. I would have thought they were used in China since they were a light tracked vehicle which could fire a 3 inch mortar off the rear deck - the British mortar carrier required the crew to unpack and set up the mortar. The concept was much like the M113 mortar carrier.
I've attached an image of a vehicle at Corowa 2009 which is a replica of the mortar carrier (there are no surviving mortar carriers in Australia). However, it isn't the correct hull and the mortar was mounted on a rotating plate rather than on the deck plate.
Thanks for the compliment about the AMMS Brisbane site - I built and maintain it.
Regards,
Charlie