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Bedford Armadillo (just!)


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This picture is in Colour in the Britain at War magazine no 18, page 64.

I have just purchased a copy of Britain at war the colour picture in the magazine is obviously from the same staged photo shoot but is a different frame; the Armadillo is now driving into the head of the bespecaled guy on the right who is now looking down pretending to work.

From the colour shot the armadillo appears to be in the SCC2 brown and SCC1a very dark brown scheme but in the MTP 20 pattern. The location is RAF Bottesford.

 

 

TED ps 4 of the airmen are currently on jankers for not wearing their overalls LOL !!

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Yikes.... if that last shot was of the vehicle empty of personal ,how much worse it must have been with several people on board ! Good gosh the way the tires are looking it best have been used only in a static mode !!! would'nt want to see that try and take a corner at any speed !

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Are there any armadillo's left?

 

Bovingdon tank museum has an original concrete body and they are going to fit it onto a vehicle chassis to recreate an Armadillo. Saw it a few years ago, so it might be complete by now. Anyone seen it/know about the project?

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Squatting firmly on the head of the second fitter from the right appears to be an airfield defence Armadillo at RAF Bottesford. The picture appeared in last Thursdays Daily Telegraph in connection with their campaign to secure a memorial to Bomber Command. Crown Copyright.

 

Just being digging some info out for Thread Bedford MWs and realised this is vehicle is a Bedford OXA truck armoured anti tank with a steel body. MK1,2 +3 armadillos were double skinned timber bodies with pebbles between the skins ?

 

Ted

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  • 1 year later...

Apart from the Lorry, 30cwt Armoured Anti-Tank with steel armour as shown in the photos above, the RAF also used a short wheel based armoured Bedford OX, called Armadillo Mk 2, that retained the normal cab but had armoured windows and doors and radiator, with a wooden 'fighting compartment' inside the GS rear body. The 'armoured fighting compartment' was made from two layers of wood with stones, gravel and sand packed between the layers! The were armed with two Hotchkiss MGs or Lewis Guns

 

Two of these were used at RAF Christchurch 1940-41 together with an Armadillo Mk 3 on a Bedford OY chassis that carried a 1.5 pdr Coventry Ordnance Works (COW) gun on the back. I have a shell case from this in my collection.

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:-D It was a family hand-me-down. I suspect my mother would have obtained it during one of her regular junk shop trawls in the 1950's / 60's when these things were more acceptable. You must appreciate that taste have changed somewhat since then.

 

Mrs. NOS has not allowed it in the house ever since I inherited it (she obviously has better taste), but somehow I just cannot bring myself to sling it.

 

Hey Jack, do I get a prize for the tackiest thing ever posted?

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